“Serina, Carla… Take care of Liscia and the room for me,” I said.
“Understood,” Serina said. “Let’s get to it, Carla.”
“Y-Yes, ma’am!”
Serina and Carla bowed to me and then entered the room. A moment later, from inside…
“S-Serina?! I’m still naked here!” Liscia shouted.
“We need to clean up, so please, get out of bed already. If you don’t, I will have Carla carry you out of this room, bed and all.”
“Hold on, Carla! Don’t lift the bed!”
“…Sorry,” Carla said. “If I defy the head maid, I’ll be humiliated myself later…”
“Eeeek!”
…Well, I heard those voices and a lot of banging.
Okay, Liscia. Live strong, I thought.
“Now, then…” I slapped my own cheeks. It was time for a change of mindset. With my relationship with Liscia having grown deeper, I felt like I needed to be ever more determined.
In order to defend my beloved family, I was going to put one over on the theocracy.
“Well, off to scheme with Hakuya, I guess.”
I skipped off down the corridor.
— Days later.
I had sent a message to Saint Mary who was staying at the Lunarian church in Parnam to inform her that I would be holding another meeting with her. Mary had responded that she would come to the castle at once.
And so, once again, Mary and I faced one another in Parnam Castle’s audience chamber. It was an audience with the same faces, and standing in the same places, as the last one. I hadn’t been able to focus during the previous one because something had felt off about Mary, but now that I knew the trick to it, I could look at her with a clear head.
Seeing her again after a few days, Mary was still beautiful, and still doll-like. I exchanged brief pleasantries with her, then decided to get straight down to business.
“Now then, regarding the matter of making Lunarian Orthodoxy our state religion…”
She waited silently.
“If you can accept two conditions, I don’t mind doing it.”
“Conditions…?” Mary tilted her head to the side questioningly.
I answered her in as light a tone as I could manage. “Oh, it’s nothing too difficult. The first is that you not make me the Holy King of Lunarian Orthodoxy. I don’t want you one-sidedly starting to call me that, either. I want a firm agreement on this point.”
“Why is that? If you became our holy king, you would stand above adherents of Lunarian Orthodoxy in every country, you know?” Mary looked perplexed.
I shook my head with a wry smile. “That’s because I’m not an adherent of Lunarian Orthodoxy myself. Even if someone like me was suddenly named holy king, I’m sure there would be resistance from the believers. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to decline the position.”
“Oh… I see.”
Though Mary acted disappointed, she meekly backed down on the point.
Of course, the reason I’d given her was just a front. I had no desire to be their holy king, or anything like that, and I couldn’t let us regress into a country where the church controlled education, either. My goal here was to prevent the Orthodox Papal State from naming me holy king and making me carry the flag in their conflict with the Empire.
“Now, as for the second condition… I’ll have Prime Minister Hakuya explain this one,” I said.
Hakuya brought a hand to his chest and bowed before taking one step forward. “Allow me to explain. The other condition we are presenting is that we want to invite a bishop from the Orthodox Papal State to come here and manage the believers of Lunarian Orthodoxy within the country.”
“Of course we can do that,” said Mary. “I had intended to come here myself.”
Hakuya replied, “Oh, we could never ask that of you,” and waved his hand. “We have no desire to impose on a saint. We have a specific individual we would like to invite here as our bishop.”
“You have someone you want to invite here? Who might that be?”
“Bishop Souji Lester.”
Mary was silent. The moment she heard the name, her brow furrowed just a little.
I only saw it for that one instant, but it was a look of revulsion. It was the first human reaction I had seen from doll-like Mary.
Mary asked Hakuya with a slightly stiff expression, “Sir Hakuya, are you… aware of what kind of man he is?”
“Yes. I have heard that he is very sharp.”
“No, he is just cunning,” said Mary. “I cannot say… that I would recommend him. He extorts large amounts of money from the believers, drinks heavily, toys with women, and engages in many other such indecent behaviors. Normally, as a man of the cloth, he would have sworn off such desires, but that man is mired in the secular and does as he pleases. His Holiness and the cardinals view his behavior as an issue. I, myself… also find him unlikable.”
It was a firm rejection. He was a man that even this doll-like girl would hate, it seemed. Now I was interested.
“How did a man like that become a bishop?” I asked.
Mary’s lips drew taut. There was a short pause before she opened them again to say, “This is… an embarrassing thing to talk about, but we in the priesthood are supported by the donations of the followers. There were cardinals who defended Bishop Souji because, regardless of his methods, he was able to bring in large donations…”
Ah… I was starting to see how it worked.
Most likely, this Souji was paying bribes to a number of the cardinals. Even if their saint wasn’t, the upper echelons of the church felt very human, and very rotten. That was why even if they wanted to remove him, they couldn’t.
“However,” Mary said to Hakuya, “there are now voices in the church saying that he should be expelled. I believe it is only a matter of time until he is excommunicated. Do you want to invite a man like that here?”
Even as she looked at him with clear opposition in her eyes, Hakuya never broke his quiet smile. “That sounds just perfect to me. If you mean to expel him, we will take custody of him here in our country. His Majesty is quite fond of gathering talented personnel, you see, and he has told me that if there is a bishop like that, he wants to meet him.”
I had no recollection of ever saying such a thing. I didn’t know a thing about this Souji, or even what his name was, after all. However, I had been told in advance that this Souji would be a key player in Hakuya’s plot, so I nodded as if it were true.
Mary looked at Hakuya with apparent displeasure. “If he is to come here as a bishop, that would place him at the head of all believers of Lunarian Orthodoxy in this country. I cannot see how he would be up to the task.”
“If he is insufficient, we can simply have another person come at a later date,” said Hakuya with a chillingly cold look in his eyes. “If he does not live up to our standards, I would not object to disposing of him personally.”
Wow… Hakuya sure had one villainous look on his face. He had a clever-looking face to begin with, so the cold smile fit him well. Honestly, he was pretty scary.
Mary was overwhelmed by his intensity for a moment, and then found herself unable to say any more. “…Very well. If, under any circumstance, he is unable to come, I will take his place.”
Hakuya inclined his head. “Yes, if that happens, please do.”
The two of them looked straight at one another, each trying to suss out the other’s motives. The doll and the villain stared one another down, and not only did sparks seem to fly, a chilling air descended on the whole room.
This air was off-putting for both Liscia and me, and Aisha, who wasn’t used to this sort of atmosphere, looked a little sick. Regardless, that was everything settled.