Chapter 41
Chapter 41
It was when he grinned.
"……Huh?"
Urso's hand twisted grotesquely at some point.
Thud-!!!
His body flew and crashed into the wall.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
A mangled chair flew through the air and pierced above his head, below his feet, and beside his arms. Like darts.
It happened in an instant, before he could even scream.
'Ooh…….'
I was impressed, and Urso was on the verge of fainting.
In the chapel, which had fallen silent from the shock, Bune's footsteps echoed softly.
He stared at the pale-faced Urso with emotionless eyes.
"Foolish one."
Urso's eyes widened. It seemed he only realized Bune was male after hearing his voice.
"Would you prefer your scrotum crushed, or your testicles bent?"
"Wh, what…… what……."
"Oh, don't worry. If you don't like either, there's also the option of bursting your buttocks, you son of a bitch."
With that, Bune kindly cursed him.
Urso, his face ashen, looked urgently at the door.
"Ou, outside! Isn't anyone outside?! Help me!!"
He shouted, but the outside was silent.
'If someone was coming, they would have come already.'
The presence of the Holy Knights who had been at the door disappeared when Urso entered. They must have dismissed the Holy Knights of the chapel to do dirty deeds. It was poetic justice.
"Wh, wh, who are you? An assassin sent by Dori Farm? Sent by the Roteil Merchant Guild? Or the village chief? Uh, it doesn't matter where you're from. I'll give you three times the commission they offered!"
He must have amassed a lot of money. I don't know how much he plundered from the surroundings.
But Bune was not impressed in the slightest. Holding Urso's neck, he raised his other hand. His nails grew long and became as sharp as blades.
"Stop!"
I quickly jumped out.
Urso's eyes widened as he saw me dimly lit by the moonlight.
"You can't kill him now."
"LeBlaine, there are often people in the world who are not worth living."
"I know. But you can't."
This man was the one who had to re-verify my Divine Power.
If something happened to Urso before the re-verification, they would think it was done by Dubled to monopolize my Divine Power.
'The Papal State might step in.'
Moving rashly would only bring greater disaster.
Bune looked displeased, but soon released his hand holding Urso.
Urso, who had slid down from the wall, fell to the floor with a thud!
"Yo, Child of Destiny?"
Then he glared at Bune as if he would tear him apart.
"Oh, so you're Dubled's escort. Are you an Iri? How dare you harm the Temple Head! I will report you to the Central Temple, no, to the Papal State……!"
"This guy, he's really not grasping the situation."
Urso, who had been screaming shrilly, looked at me with wide eyes at my sharp words.
He seemed to realize that I was not just a child.
"Yo, you, you……!"
And I looked at Bune.
"Beat him up just enough to be able to talk."
Urso stiffened, and Bune's face brightened.
"Dori Farm, Roteil Merchant Guild, Pansirenea Merchant Guild, Village Chief, three Landlords, Baron Panoche."
I counted the names of the people Urso had cheated, one by one, with my fingers.
Then I looked at Urso, who was pale.
"Is that all?"
"Ye, yes! That's right!"
"You know it's no fun to lie, right?"
When I glanced at Bune, Urso flinched and muttered, "To the Moderland Hospital and a few loan sharks too……."
He had made a lot of money.
I looked at Bune again. Then Urso, who had been beaten up by Bune, trembled.
'Bune, even if you didn't summon a demon directly, is a 'contract' possible?'
I asked inwardly, and Bune replied silently.
[If it is something that requires my Special Ability, I can use LeBlaine's power to form the seal of the contract.]
Bune's Special Ability was Necromancy. It was to summon dead souls.
"Can a Priest also make a contract with a demon?"
"All humans can contract with me."
I nodded, but Urso's face was filled with horror.
"A, a demon……?"
"Yeah."
"The Child of Destiny is summoning a demon! Such a terrible thing……!"
"It's not like a Priest who extorted the people by threatening them has any right to say that."
"How can summoning a demon be the same as receiving a little money! I will only be dismissed, but the Child of Destiny will have to undergo a Heretic Trial!"
I smiled and replied.
"It's okay. I didn't make a contract. You will."
"I must be crazy to make a contract with a demon!"
Urso screamed, and Bune grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the floor!
"I can no longer tolerate you raising your voice in front of LeBlaine."
Urso gasped and fell silent.
I squatted down and looked at Urso.
"Don't worry. It's not a contract that you'll lose out on."
"Wh, what can I get if I make a contract?"
"You can get out of here without dying."
Urso gaped as if to say, what kind of contract is that, but I smiled brightly.
"See, it's not a loss for you, right?"
He couldn't say anything and lowered his face, which had turned ashen.
I looked back at Bune.
"Make the contract."
Bune looked a little dissatisfied. But soon he sighed softly.
"If that is LeBlaine's will."
I told him the terms of the contract.
1. Urso cannot tell anyone about what happened in the chapel today and LeBlaine's identity.
2. Urso must hand over all the money he has taken from the people.
3. If all the contracts are kept, LeBlaine will not kill Urso.
"One more thing."
At my words, Urso looked at me with eyes that seemed to say, what else!
I whispered the fourth clause in his ear.
The next day.
I dozed off like a sick chicken even while Leah was dressing me.
"Are you tired?"
Leah asked with a worried face, and I nodded.
"Uh-huh."
"Shall we get you examined by the Temple Head?"
At that question, I quickly shook my head.
'Who knows what Urso will do to me.'
That's also unsettling, but I definitely don't want to receive a perverted sexual harasser's examination.
"It's okay, I'm just sleepy."
"We'll return to Dubled before this evening. I'll take out a cozy new blanket, so you can roll around as much as you want."
"Give me strawberries too."
When I said it earnestly, Leah laughed and kissed me on the cheek.
"I'll put a lot of cream on them."
Exciting!
I cheered inwardly and grabbed Leah's hand.
When we went outside, the Priests of the Central Temple had already arrived.
"We greet the Child of Destiny."
"We greet the Child of Destiny."
When the two Priests greeted, the procession of Central Priests bowed at once.
"Wow……."
The young acolyte looked at me with surprised eyes.
To briefly summarize the Temples of the Wiggentra Empire:
<The Papal State> of the Pope and Cardinals
<The Central Temple> guarded by 21 Priests
And small and medium-sized Temples that stretch like tree trunks throughout the Empire.
Priests were neither commoners nor nobles.
Even if they were born as commoners, they enjoyed rights equivalent to nobles if they became Priests.
The Central Temple, where only the most outstanding of those Priests were selected, was the object of admiration.
They were powerful figures that even the nobles of The Capital could not easily handle.
Everyone must have only heard that I was a fake, so they didn't expect the Priests of the Central Temple to act so respectfully.
'Until my ninth birthday, I was treated like a precious treasure.'
To what extent? It was to the extent that the 21 Priests were summoned to the Papal State and scolded for the reason that I had fallen and scraped my knee.
However, when I failed to improve my Divine Power to the level they wanted even on my ninth birthday, their attitude changed after that.
Completely disappointed, not a single person in the Temple even regarded me as the Child of Destiny.
It was around that time that Duke Valois began to hit me.
We headed to the anteroom for the verification.
Urso was already there.
The Priests of the Central Temple clicked their tongues at the sight of him wrapped in bandages.
"Being careless before such an important day……."
Urso looked at me with a resentful expression at the scolding gaze, but soon averted his eyes when I glared at him.
As soon as I went up on the circular platform in the anteroom, the Priest of the Central Temple said.
"You must know since you have done the 'verification' before. If you sit still and count numbers, it will be over before you reach a hundred, so don't worry."
The Priests said soothingly.
Leah clenched her fists behind me and cheered me on.
Two Priests from the Central Temple and Urso surrounded the platform. Those who knelt on one knee and bowed began to pray.
The bottom of my feet gradually became hot, and I swallowed.
'Bune.'
As I recited the name inwardly, Urso's back, who was bound to me by the contract, flinched.
The faces of the Priests who left the anteroom after the verification were bright. It was clearly different from the first verification, when the Divine Power was hovering at the bottom.
"The Papal State was very worried about LeBlaine's insufficient Divine Power, so isn't it truly fortunate?"
"We must hurry back and report the good news."
The Central Priests held onto Urso and emphasized that his role as the head of the Temple closest to the Territory of Dubled was great.
After the Central Priests returned, the Temple in the Northwest was in a festive mood.
The third Temple in the Northwest, where Urso was, was far from The Capital and close to Dubled, which was at odds with the Temple, so it was almost abandoned by the Central.
But as long as there was a possibility that the Child of Destiny was real, the status of the Northwest Temple would be incomparable to what it was now.
"If the Child of Destiny grows up safely, wouldn't we be able to move to the Central as well?"
"Of course. The first beneficiary would be the Temple Head."
"Urso, wouldn't it be better not to send the Child of Destiny back?"
"Yes, now all the Temples in this area will be eager to entrust the education of LeBlaine to them. We must secure her first-"
But Urso slammed the door shut roughly without answering and went into the room.
The Priests clicked their tongues and shook their heads.
"Anyway, Urso is……."
"Yes, he doesn't seem to know what's important."
"He's only blinded by the gravy train."
"It's lamentable."
Urso, who was listening to the voices of the Priests from inside the door, slammed the desk roughly.
'That I'll be the beneficiary? Nonsense!'
If they knew what he had done in the verification, he would be dragged to a Heretic Trial, let alone being selected for the Central Temple.
'I manipulated the verification!!'
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