It was truly a disaster. The princess pressed her forehead as she surveyed the ruined temple.
“This must be a dream……”
Unfortunately, it was not a dream. The once majestic white temple was completely demolished, buried under mounds of dirt. The outer walls, which had never allowed foreign invaders since the empire’s founding, were shattered into fragments by a massive torrent of water. The high priests and paladins of Josephina, who had lived pompously all their lives, were now subdued and kneeling before just two people. It was all reality.
“What sins did I commit in a past life to deserve seeing this?”
The princess muttered despondently, shaking her head repeatedly. After so many consecutive shocks, she no longer had the energy to be angry. She didn’t even consider how to resolve this situation.
Trying to come up with a solution would only invite the crazed ones to commit more madness.
‘Goddess, please let me be born as an ordinary citizen in my next life, entangled with no mad humans. If that’s not possible, let me be born as a dog. Maybe as a saint’s pet dog, then I wouldn’t need to clean up after these lunatics’ madness.’
As she prayed for such an absurd wish, she moved listlessly forward.
“Princess, please save us!”
A desperate call came from not far away. The princess glanced in that direction.
“Please save us from these demons!”
In front of the garden, the priests and paladins were held captive by spirits. Their once-glossy priestly robes were now covered in dirt.
“Only Your Highness can help us!”
“Please stand on the side of justice!”
“Tsk, they still haven’t come to their senses.”
The princess clicked her tongue and turned her head away. A Royal Knight following her cautiously asked,
“Your Highness, are you really going to leave them like that?”
“Why ask something so obvious? Are you suggesting we help them?”
The princess looked at the Royal Knight with annoyance.
“After seeing that chaos, you still think we should help them?”
“But…”
The Royal Knight trailed off, clearly uncomfortable. He hesitantly spoke up,
“We still aren’t sure who the real saint is. It could still be Josephina.”
Changing beliefs that one has held all their life isn’t easy.
“I keep thinking about what Josephina said in the temple. She mentioned that a dragon was involved in this matter. If that’s true…”
“Shut your mouth.”
The sharp rebuke made the knight flinch and bow his head.
“My apologies.”
“Don’t just say it; get your head straight.”
The princess glared at him. Her eyes, gray like Callisto’s, seemed to burn with intensity.
“Remember what Noel Armos asked of me. Surely, you haven’t forgotten her dreadful request already.”
Help ensure that the empire recognizes Letisha. That had been Noel’s request.
“You saw what she did afterward.”
It was overwhelming power. Even the empire’s greatest knights, recognized as the Royal Knights, could not muster the courage to confront such transcendent strength. Watching the temple turn to ruins, the princess realized what Noel had truly meant.
“Noel Armos’s request to me wasn’t just a request.”
It was a stern warning that if they did not recognize Letisha, she would turn the imperial palace into such ruins.
“Therefore, there’s only one thing we need to do. We must act as Noel Armos has directed! Whether Josephina is real or fake doesn’t matter!”
Most of the empire still believed Josephina to be the true saint. This was even more the case among the nobles, including the emperor. The princess didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if the new wings noticed this state of affairs.
“We must make the Queen Consort revered as a saint throughout the empire, by any means necessary.”
“You seem to know well, sister.”
Startled by the voice from behind, the princess turned around abruptly.
“Calisto! Make some noise when you move!”
“If I had made noise, I wouldn’t have heard those audacious words from that man.”
Calisto’s frosty gaze turned towards the royal knight standing next to the princess.
“It’s unbelievable. That a royal knight would dare to doubt the empire’s only saint. I guess I really should kill him.”
“Calm down, Cal! He’s one of His Majesty’s knights. It’ll be real trouble if you mess with him!”
“It doesn’t matter who he serves under. He’s irrelevant to me.”
“Why do you have to be so reckless? He’s a knight favored by His Majesty!”
“Since you say so, sister, I cannot simply let him be.”
Calisto glared hard at the knight.
“I must punish his crime properly to convey my intentions to His Majesty. Doubting my master is tantamount to challenging me.”
The knight trembled like a leaf in the wind under Calisto’s murderous gaze. The princess, with a sickened face, stepped in front of the knight.
“I understand what you mean. But let’s stop here for today. You’ve done enough. Look at my face and let it go just this once, okay?”
“…Very well. I do want to rip his insolent mouth apart, but I will hold back today.”
The princess quickly turned and lashed out at the royal knight.
“You! What did I tell you! Watch your words! Stop talking nonsense and just get out of here! Disappear at once!”
The princess drove the frightened royal knight away before Calisto could change his mind and pursue him. She quickly changed the subject.
“Cal, what are we going to do about Josephina… Wait, Cal! Is that your blood?”
Calisto’s hand was dripping black blood. The princess gasped in horror upon seeing a long cut across his palm.
“What is this injury? Who did you fight with? Don’t tell me it was with Noel Armos? Is that it?”
“Noel Armos and I are of the same feather. Why would I fight her?”
“That’s because neither of you is sane… No, that’s not it! What about this wound?”
“There was a need to use blood.”
“Blood?”
The princess looked at Calisto in confusion. He was an incredible talent, capable of using magic without any incantations or rituals. That he had to sacrifice his almost magical blood for a spell was no small matter.
“Did you use blood because of Josephina? Tell me more. Wasn’t Josephina captured at the North Gate?”
Calisto closed his mouth tight and ran his clean hand through his hair. On the outside, he might look fine, but inside, he was boiling with anger.
He felt like smashing everything nearby because Josephina had disappeared.
While he was confronting Josephina at the North Gate, a strange force suddenly intervened. A nearly black violet power began to flow out of Josephina’s ring. Calisto sensed the situation and immediately ordered the spirits to fortify the North Gate.
“Prevent Josephina from escaping. Make sure not a single rat slips through the North Gate!”
During this, an unexpected event occurred.
“Aah!”
“Gh, ghack!”
The amethyst energy, which he had assumed would extract Josephina, surged towards the priests and paladins instead. It lunged to pierce their hearts. Normally, Calisto wouldn’t have cared whether they lived or died.
However, he couldn’t make the usual decision this time. The involvement of Leticia meant that allowing nearly a hundred people to be massacred wouldn’t help her in any way.
He hesitated for just a moment. Next to the North Gate, the walls began to crack. New earth spirits summoned had shattered the wall. These weren’t Calisto’s spirits. Josephina watched the spirits with a mad laugh.
“Indeed, I knew he would come to save me! Calisto. Look carefully. This is the true power of a goddess. The only goddess’ power granted to me by fate in this world!”
Josephina’s statement was half right and half wrong. The beings breaking the walls only looked like earth spirits; their energy was completely different. They emitted a nauseating, murky energy, merely resembling the outer appearance.
Surprisingly, this energy was exactly the same as the sacred power that had tormented Calisto all his life. Thus, Calisto intuitively knew:
‘Josephina is an illusion. The real master of this power is the true one!’
This meant that the one hiding in the shadows, manipulating Josephina and twisting the fate of all, had finally revealed themselves.
Calisto was at a crossroads of decision: to confront the ‘shadow’ or not. He was confident he could capture Josephina regardless of what the shadow did, but he knew he might lose track of the shadow if he did. Ultimately, he decided to let Josephina go for now.
“Ha, Calisto. Next time we meet, I’ll show you who your real master is. You’ll need to make a wise decision then.”
Ignoring Josephina’s curses as she disappeared into the purple mist, he made a cut on his palm. His blood contained an immense power incomparable to that of ordinary humans. Sacrificing a portion of his accumulated magical powers, life force, and holy power, he completed a single spell.
“Track Josephina. We must find her!”
He then layered all the concealment spells he knew over the tracking magic. Thanks to that, he could follow Josephina and the ‘shadow’ without being detected by them. Focused intensely enough to sweat profusely, Calisto finally pinpointed the direction Josephina had gone.
“We need to head to the imperial palace, sister.”
“The imperial palace? Josephina went to the imperial palace?”
“It ended near the palace. But it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Why the imperial palace? The reason was too simple.
“There are the barrier stones there.”
The empire was protected by nine barrier stones, each symbolizing the soul of one of the Nine Wings. Josephina was surely after these stones.
“And there’s another thing.”
Calisto’s gaze towards the palace darkened.
“We’ll have to meet Josephina’s eldest son there.”
* * *
Dietrian carefully got up from the narrow bed. Leticia was curled up, sleeping soundly.
He watched her for a while, then covered her bare shoulder with a blanket and got up. He carefully picked up the clothes from the floor without waking Leticia, stacked them neatly on a chair, and then stepped out to the adjoining room.
The office window still brightened by the daylight; the sun was high. He couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief.
“I really was out of my mind.”
His rational mind was slowly returning. Shaking his head, he began picking up the items scattered all over the floor, the things he had swept off the desk in a single motion earlier.
How distracted he must have been not to realize what a mess he’d made. Seeing the disarray, a fresh wave of embarrassment washed over him.
“Sigh.”
The documents containing the national budget were crumpled, and the porcelain pen holder was shattered. Kneeling, he mopped up the ink that stained the floor, pondering the root of this mess. Was it his weak willpower, or was it Leticia?
‘It’s Leticia.’
He decided not to reflect on himself any longer. Leticia always surpassed his expectations, so it couldn’t be helped. From now on, he would give up resisting and live entirely as she wished. With this resolution in mind, he wiped the ink with a wet cloth.
“A child…”
Leticia had said she wanted to be a mother. It wasn’t meant for the immediate future but as a declaration that she had decided to live on.
“A child…”
Rolling the word around in his mouth, Dietrian smiled bitterly.
“Not yet, I guess.”
He deeply desired a child with her. Just imagining a child who resembled her made his heart ache. Yet, he believed now was not the time. Everything was too unstable. Leticia’s curse still lingered.
“…I understand Leticia’s heart now.”
He let out a faint sigh and wiped his face. It’s only natural to want to remove even the smallest variable when it comes to the ones you love. They couldn’t consider having a child while Leticia’s curse remained unresolved. One must always be prepared for the worst case scenario.
Leticia agreed with his decision. Her eyes were filled with longing, but she whispered that they could dream of their future again once the curse was lifted.
“Such a day will come soon.”
Dietrian chuckled softly as he resumed cleaning the ink stains. The longing for a child was soothed by the thrill of truly sharing his feelings with Leticia.
Thus, he was unaware. Unaware that life never goes exactly as planned. Unaware that sometimes, a derailed plan can return as an immense gift.
And he was also unaware that the day to receive that gift was not far off.
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