The Game Difficulty
Is Crazy
The appearance of Saint Luceria.
Because of that, the participants of the secret meeting, who had been chatting noisily, all stood up at once and bowed their heads.
“I, Randolph of the Hayward family, pay my respects to the Saint, one of the two noble lights of the Papal State.”
As if he had been waiting for this moment, the social butterfly Randolph offered an exaggerated greeting.
“Brother Randolph Hayward. Thank you for taking your seat here.”
Luceria replied with her characteristic gentle and pure smile.
At that, Randolph stared blankly at the Saint as if spellbound.
Not to be outdone, the other nobles one by one mentioned their families and paid their respects to Luceria.
“…Yes. Sister Marirosa Regini. I know it must have been a difficult decision, and I sincerely thank you for making that choice.”
After personally expressing her gratitude to each noble in attendance, Luceria stood at the seat of honor at the round table they surrounded.
“Shall we sit for now?”
At Luceria’s soft tone, the nobles quietly took their seats, and a gentle atmosphere settled around the round table that had been filled with heated air just moments before.
Glen also blended naturally into that atmosphere without doing anything in particular.
At the same time, within that warmth, he paid attention to the faintly wriggling, malicious gazes and presence hidden beneath it.
And then, the event began.
First, in the silence, Luceria calmly began a long speech.
“First, let me introduce myself. I am Luceria, who serves Minise, the god of light and the sun.”
“And once again, I would like to sincerely thank all of you, my brothers and sisters, for attending this gathering.”
“I know how difficult the decision to share my will must have been…”
With her uniquely benevolent, kind, and gentle tone, she slowly continued her story.
Now that the event had started, the dialogue and flow matched the original work exactly.
The corruption of the high-ranking priests sitting in key cathedral positions, and the endless factional struggles.
Even the Pope, who turned a blind eye to it all.
In the end, Luceria said she had heard even the sorrowful groans of the Lord God himself, and after much distress, she made her decision.
“…That is why I decided to gather brothers and sisters who share my will, away from their eyes.”
“To be honest, I have been watching most of you for quite a long time. In that regard, I lacked trust. I am sorry.”
Moved by Luceria’s sincere sorrow and resolve, the participants of the meeting nodded one by one and sympathized with her.
Even those who sought to gain power by standing behind the Saint showed reactions mixed with genuine emotion toward her pure passion.
“……”
Glen silently admired her.
To be honest, he had thought such words were nothing more than hollow rhetoric used to create justification.
But Luceria treated that justification not as a hollow shell, but as the most important thing of all.
And everyone present could feel that there was not a single lie in her words.
“So this is what it feels like in person.”
It was his first time truly seeing someone express a will that came from the heart, not just a plausible excuse.
The content itself was not so amazing that it would shake one’s heart.
Yet, the mere presence of the speaker and the aura flowing from her made his chest tingle—an experience he had never felt before.
“She really is a Saint.”
It felt like the being before him existed on a completely different level from ordinary people.
Of course, not everyone here felt the same.
At the very least, Ducan Oswetry and Claudia Norden were only nodding along on the surface.
“……”
“……”
While everyone focused on the Saint, only those two did not.
Through signals that could only be noticed with careful attention—clearing throats, pulling in their chairs, lightly tapping the table—they continuously exchanged messages.
And finally, the moment Ducan’s hand moved beneath his chair, a sharp gleam flashed in Glen’s ash-gray eyes.
The Oswetry family was not a great prestigious house, but it was a family with some history, holding territory in the central region of the Papal State.
Ducan Oswetry was born as the second son of that family.
Since the heir was his eldest brother, Ducan gave up ambition early and enjoyed the life of an ordinary noble.
Just in case something unexpected happened, he behaved obediently toward the head of the family and his eldest brother, and he lived generously toward the household servants and the people of the territory.
“My life could be called fairly comfortable and without sharp edges.”
However, in the year he turned forty, along with a single secret letter sent to him, the opportunity of a lifetime arrived.
The sender of the letter was the Saint, who held the highest authority in the country alongside Pope Agostino IX.
She said she had been watching him for a long time, and asked him to come secretly to the capital, Istirenne, as there was something important to discuss.
Ducan went straight to Istirenne and met the Saint, and soon realized that she was about to cause an upheaval in the Grand Cathedral.
And if it ended in success, he would gain power and authority incomparable to that of the Count Oswetry.
“But what if it fails?”
Objectively speaking, the Saint was trying to challenge the greatest powers of the Grand Cathedral with only a handful of powerless nobles.
Leaving aside where the will of God lay, judging by visible indicators, the Saint’s chances of victory were close to zero.
Yet the moment he received Luceria’s letter, the fact was that he had already boarded the same ship as the Saint.
“No matter how much of a Saint she is, if I try to back out halfway, she’ll silence me to keep the secret.”
Thinking that, Ducan secretly went to the Grand Cathedral and met Bastian using his family connections.
Archbishop Bastian reacted as if he already knew that the Saint was making her move.
—This works out well, Sir Ducan. I have one request for you.
Bastian’s request was to eliminate the Saint at the meeting place.
To be honest, it was unexpected.
That Archbishop Bastian, known as one of the elders of the Grand Cathedral and praised as more upright than anyone else, had such a side to him.
Ducan did not think long.
From the start, he had only acted as a good noble because he had no opportunity to change his fate.
Now that he had gained a connection with the highest elder of the Grand Cathedral, he had no reason to hesitate.
The Saint must have trusted Ducan.
Her situation was so desperate that she had no choice but to trust him, but more than that, she truly believed in him.
But Ducan was not a good man.
He had only lived as a kind noble because he lacked opportunity—a man who could become a villain at any time, given the chance.
“She should have just stayed quietly on the holy throne as a sacred being. Trying to step forward brought this upon her.”
When opportunity comes, you seize it.
Those who struggle to create opportunities themselves, like the Saint, meet disaster.
“If you must blame someone, blame your own fearless courage.”
The signal was given.
Ducan placed his hand on the hilt of the dagger hidden against his thigh.
To use the foolish Saint as fertilizer for his future.
Thwack—
“So you all should— Huh?!”
He kicked the table.
And together with that, Ducan charged at the Saint with the dagger in hand.
“……!”
—But the Saint has reached the ninth circle of sanctity. How can I defeat her?
—Hmph. That woman is nothing more than a large box full of holy power. She doesn’t even know how to fight. Still, take this.
What Bastian handed him was a suspicious dagger with a pitch-black blade.
It was unclear where he had obtained such an ominous object.
