Chapter 165: 089. Church of Caiolium -2 (Part One)
The Church of Caiolium’s headquarters was located in the southern region of the Theocratic Empire.
The holy temple constructed amidst the lush forest was meant to educate and train various members of the clergy. It was to serve as a safe haven where one could receive the training regarding one’s faith.
The building was constructed all those years ago so that Gaia could be worshipped in peace but now, in this once-sacred place, a deeply obscene and sacrilegious spectacle was taking place.
“Here, here, here~! Here comes the booze~!”
An aged clergyman in his birthday suit was bouncing around in a drunken stupor. His fellow priests stared at him and guffawed out uncontrollably.
They didn’t hold back with their consumption of various fine liquor and nonchalantly tossed gold coins around. All sorts of obscene and indecent chatter were exchanged among them.
Cardinal Mikael, their leader, was among the group.
Unlike the rest, he was dressed formally and properly in a gorgeous golden robe while holding a wooden crosier.
He took some distance away from the rest of his subordinates currently enjoying the unholy disorder, and studiously read the contents of various documents in his hand.
They were reports detailing the current ongoings within the Theocratic Empire. One part in particular caught his attention.
“…Holy undead?”
Mikael contemplatively rubbed his chin before frowning slightly.
Since he was initially worried about the report being wrong, he had it double, triple checked for authenticity. However, the reports on the sightings of various holy undead continued to pile up before him.
Which could only mean that these holy undead really did exist.
As for the one who summoned them…
‘…The Seventh Imperial Prince, Allen Olfolse.’
None other than the heir to the Imperial Family bloodline had summoned those creatures.
Mikael swallowed back his dry saliva.
What in the world…! Holy undead?! What an ominous, odious so-called holy magic that no Saints or Saintesses in history managed to pull off!
No, it definitely was no holy magic, but just some demonic curse!
Mikael gritted his teeth. Because of these so-called holy undead, he could feel the Imperial Family’s influence growing stronger every single day.
This sort of thing couldn’t be good news for the Church of Caiolium at all.
After all, the Church wished to become fully independent from the empire. And that’s why Mikael sought to manipulate the Third Imperial Prince during the war against Aslan.
The kingdom down south craved fertile, verdant land, and the Third Imperial Prince desired the throne of the Holy Emperor. Meanwhile, the Church of Caiolium wanted independence and political influence.
All the parties involved had something they sought.
The plan was to hand over a portion of the empire’s territory to Aslan during the ceasefire negotiation, had the invasion proved to be successful.
Then, Third Imperial Prince Ruppel would’ve been pushed forward as the protagonist responsible for ending the war through diplomacy. His achievement would’ve been acknowledged, and the Church would have wholeheartedly supported him so that he could become the next Holy Emperor.
Finally, the Third Imperial Prince would have granted the Church its full independence.
Everything seemed to be on track for a successful resolution, when it all suddenly went off the rails in quick order.
The Imperial Family achieved total victory in the war, thereby solidifying its power base and garnering the support of the masses, while Ruppel Olfolse had been charged with treason and was currently under arrest.
On top of that, the Imperial Family made another move; it lured the Darina household and all the nobles affiliated with them to a banquet, and then slaughtered more than half of them on the spot. The remaining ones were currently being tortured, in order to ferret out any other potential traitors still hiding in the Imperial Court. That’s what the reports had said.
In other words, Kelt Olfolse had begun his purge.
‘However, we still have an opportunity.’
The Church of Caiolium had been the backer of Third Imperial Prince Ruppel, and as such, they had no more room to retreat at this stage.
‘We shall oppose the Holy Emperor.’
The Church possessed enough strength to defend against the Holy Emperor. Mikael briefly rolled up his sleeve and looked at his hand. More specifically, he stared at the golden runic letters engraved on the skin of his hand, which seemed to extend all the way to the core of his body.
It was a copy of the ‘Aztal Rune’, miraculous runic letters that Goddess Gaia had supposedly bestowed on a Saint in the ancient times.
This powerful runic ‘tattoo’ had been finally completed after a long and arduous research. The original plan was to use this power to keep the Holy Emperor at bay.
‘Besides, we also have a pretext.’
A pretext the Church could use to suppress the Imperial Family!
And that was…
“The Seventh Imperial Prince has signed a contract with the devil.”
A smile crept up on Mikael’s face.
Being able to summon holy undead? The status of a Saint? Resurrection enabled by the miracle of the goddess?
All of these miracles would’ve been perfect for extolling the greatness of Goddess Gaia. However, they were also nothing more than some delusions as well.
A wry chuckle leaked out from his lips.
Transforming all those miracles into ‘falsehood’ was easier than snatching candy off a baby’s hands
The members of clergy were devout believers. And what they were most hostile against was none other than the undead. It didn’t really matter whether they were summoned through sacred means or not, as the priests wouldn’t be able to get rid of their repulsion of the undead creatures.
Without having experienced it first hand, the priests would no doubt be motivated to ostracise and persecute the Seventh Imperial Prince, with their justification being, ‘he has signed a contract with the devil’.
And once the rumours of the Seventh Imperial Prince being the cause of the unfortunate war against Aslan spreads, it’d become very difficult to turn back the public sentiment in the Imperial Family’s favour.
To top it all off, the Imperial Family was doing their best to hide the truth at the moment. Which meant that the potential for spreading around countless unsettling conspiracy theories were truly limitless.
If the whole matter was orchestrated properly, then it could also become a possible justification to force the current Holy Emperor to abdicate as well.
Mikael felt that his dream was creeping ever closer to becoming reality.
His dream of creating a faith-based organisation that possessed a separate, distinct political influence from the Imperial Family. And that he’d become the one with absolute authority that ruled over such an organisation.
‘I shall be the next pope.’
That was the position Mikael dreamed of becoming.
The Holy Emperor possessed the authority of both an emperor and a pope. But if his plan worked out, then Mikael would acquire the authority of the pope for himself.
It was then that the grand door to the conference venue was flung open.
Mikael frowned deeply and turned his head.
A young Priest stepped inside while panting laboriously, and everyone in the venue shot him a sharp glare. They felt rather unhappy at the fact that their entertainment had been disrupted so rudely like this.
However, the young Priest paid no heed and quickly made his announcement, “Y-your eminences, something major has happened! Archbishop Raphael has come while leading a combat force! He’s saying some rubbish about a conspiracy to overthrow…!”
‘So… he finally came.’
Mikael clenched his fists tightly.
The ‘Aztal Rune’ engraved on his flesh glowed subtly in a golden hue.
Even if it was nothing more than an imitation of a powerful relic only seen in a legend, its destructive power was almost on par with the real deal.
Actually, this was for the better. Since Archbishop Raphael was someone who had faced off against Necromancer King Amon once upon a time, he should prove to be an ideal candidate to test the power of this rune.
**
(TL: In 1st person POV.)
The carriage clunked noisily.
Inside the noisy carriage was me, White, and Third Imperial Prince Ruppel.
The awkward air continued to fester within the heavy silence.
Since I couldn’t stand the boredom anymore, I took over the ‘care’ of the Second Imperial Prince from Oscal once more. Inside this chest made out of special metal called ‘Eltera’ was the Vampire Second Imperial Prince.
I raised the chest and placed my ear to it, but couldn’t hear any sounds nor detect any presence within.
In that case…
I violently shook the chest around.
“S-stop! Stop it! Are you a heartless devil?! What are you doing to your older brother?!”
Older brother? Don’t make me laugh, will ya?
I snickered at the voice coming from inside the chest.
Judging from how okay his voice sounded just now, he must still be alive and kicking inside the chest. As expected of a Vampire.
He had been locked up inside this thing for several days straight, yet he was still all fine and dandy. A regular person might have lost their sh*t by now.
A thought suddenly occurred to me and I blocked the chest’s air hole. Ten seconds passed by, then thirty. Eventually, a minute.
After some more time passed, another round of screaming burst out from the chest.
“I can’t breathe! You heartless devil! How can you call yourself a holy man when you’re like this?! If you want to kill me, just do it already!”
I loudly banged on the chest several times to add to his misery.
Man, it’s so much fun taunting this little bastard. I wonder, would I be criticised for keeping a Vampire as a pet?
I spat out some words of admiration, “Vampires can be so strange, you know? You’re an undead, so why do you even breathe, and why does your heart still beat, too?”
Probably the reason why it was called ‘false life’, I’m assuming.
I put the chest down and used it as my footstool.
White, who had been observing my antics for a while, displayed some hints of discomfort. “Allen, he might have become a Vampire, but he’s still your older brother. How about…”
“You want me to treat him like my brother? From what I heard, Vampires treat their family members no better than livestock. If that’s the case, then I’m gonna do the exact opposite. I see Vampires as nothing more than some game to hunt down, that’s all.”
My curt response prompted White to clamp his mouth shut for a while.
He stared at the metal chest stuck below my feet before saying something else, “Allen. I was wondering…”
“…?”
“Just like how you saved Luan, maybe you could use the resurrection magic on Second Imperial Prince Ruppel, and…”
“Nope, it’s impossible.”
I slammed my foot down on the chest.
Every time I banged on the metal chest, Second Imperial Prince Ruppel cried out in agony, “Stop it! My ears are ringing! Stoooop!”
“This Vampire brother of mine? His body has rotted away too much by now. But even if his flesh was fine, he’s already become an undead. Even if it’s me, I can’t revive someone who’s been turned into an undead, or someone who’s been dead for longer than ten minutes.”
“…”
“Besides, the whole notion of reviving a dead person is quite a bit problematic in terms of faith, anyway.”
If it was reviving someone who could potentially be saved, then sure, why not? But bringing a ‘totally dead’ existence back to life went against Gaia’s will. This was one of the major reasons why the Theocratic Empire hated the Vampires so much.
“But instead of worrying about the dead brother, we should be worrying about the living one first, don’t you agree?”
I said that while glancing at Third Imperial Prince Ruppel sitting next to me. He flinched in surprise, and then alternated his flustered gaze between White and me.
The dude who used to be so full of himself and also talkative to a fault, now looked utterly depressed out of his mind at the moment.
But that was understandable. When we eventually reach the Theocratic Empire, he… probably wouldn’t get to keep his head for long.
Although our relationship wasn’t what you’d call good, he was still a blood relation to this body, and more than that, we had gone through some major stuff together, too.
Obviously, I couldn’t help but feel quite unhappy about this.
“I fear it’ll be next to impossible.” White rubbed his temples hard as if his mind was too chaotic to think right now. “Of course, I shall do everything I can in my power. But this situation, this whole affair… it’s not something that can simply be overlooked.”
That’s right. We were talking about treason, after all.
Not just any type of treason, either; Ruppel was accused of being a traitor who threatened his own nation by manipulating the enemy kingdom, Aslan.
Setting a precedence of letting someone like that live would rouse up a great deal of rebuke and turmoil from the aristocracy as well as the clergy. Just as importantly, it’d go down in history as a humiliating incident that the Imperial Family should have never allowed in the first place.
“The gravity of the situation means that the purging of the entire Third Prince’s family wouldn’t nearly be enough. As things stand, there’s very little we can do.”
I could only sigh deeply at what White had said.
It was then that someone knocked on the window pane of the carriage.
“Your highness, we are about to reach the capital.”
Well, it looked like we’ve finally arrived. That was Charlotte riding horseback alerting me of the current situation. I opened the window pane and took a look outside.
I could see the Theocratic Empire’s capital, Laurensis, in the distance.
That place was now my backyard. Where my home was.
The empire that I missed so much – we had finally come back home.
