Chapter 47: The Exiled Marquise and the Bishop 3
Erika’s response to my question was silence.
She gently placed a hand on her well-shaped chin, looking down in thought.
“I’m surprised.”
“About what?”
“That I hadn’t considered that possibility myself.”
Erika waved her hand for me to follow and started walking.
Confirming I was following, Erika continued speaking.
“But isn’t that perhaps too much of a leap in logic?”
“Is it? From their perspective, you… just as you said, it wouldn’t be strange for them to consider you an enemy of the gods.”
Erika gave a slight shrug at my words.
“Yes, indeed. But even so, there are proper ways to do things. You remember, don’t you? The one who targeted my life became a Majin? That hardly seems like a method the Church would employ, does it?”
Majin, or as the Church calls them, the Ungraced.
The Church’s claim is that creatures who have lost the gods’ divine protection become Majin.
Where Majin come from or what causes them is currently a mystery, so everyone somewhat believes this theory, but…
There’s no proof.
Majin are beings that appear suddenly, spread destruction without purpose, and are then subjugated.
That’s all that’s actually known about them.
For the Church to use such beings… yes, that certainly seems like an uncharacteristic method for them.
But still.
“If there’s a possibility, I don’t intend to dismiss the idea.”
As I said this while looking at Erika’s face, she made a face that seemed slightly exasperated, yet also pleased.
“I understand that you’re genuinely concerned about me, but if you think too hard, those wrinkles between your brows will become permanent.”
Seeing me instinctively touch my brow, Erika laughed.
“Whatever the Church’s, or the Bishop’s, thoughts may be, all we can do for now is wait and see. There’s no need to deepen the wrinkles between your brows, My Lord.”
The Bishop of Hecate, Bival Vivality, was thinking about Shara in his modest room.
He thought of her as a pitiful girl.
The experience of having to switch factions from the Healer Faction to the Monster Subjugation Faction, despite belonging to the former, must have been painful.
Bishop Bival knew this well.
Because he himself had gone through the same experience.
When Bishop Bival was young, he too had aimed to heal people as part of the Healer Faction.
However, like Shara, he too was poor at Healing Magic.
No matter how much he practiced magic, he only ever improved at offensive magic.
When the influential figures in his faction told him to move to the Monster Subjugation Faction, he felt sad and frustrated.
Therefore, Bishop Bival understood Shara’s feelings very well.
Though, admittedly, even while identifying with the Healer Faction, he hadn’t resorted to the oddity of mastering Syllable Magic, which was inexplicably also known as Destruction Magic.
Recalling this, Bishop Bival wondered why that girl had tried to learn something like Syllable Magic. No, really, why would she?
Bishop Bival’s assessment of Shara was that she was “a bit strange,” but it was true that he was concerned for her well-being and future.
That was precisely why he decided to entrust Shara to the adventurers known as the Longdagger Couple.
Their skill in subjugating three Golden Ogres without injury, and their character in donating most of the gold earned from that subjugation to an Orphanage.
There were likely no adventurers more suitable to dispatch Shara with.
Of course, he knew that one half of the pair was that Erika Solntsalri, but Bishop Bival didn’t see it as a problem.
Rather than not seeing it as a problem, he didn’t even believe the accusations against the Erika Solntsalri in question.
After all, she was a member of that Solntsalri House.
There was no way someone from that house would do something detrimental to orphans, even indirectly.
Bishop Bival was aware of his own ignorance regarding worldly politics, but he had still witnessed many strange power struggles within noble society. His conclusion was that this case was likely just another one of those.
If this had involved another noble house, he might have thought it possible that some foolish noble had indeed considered harming the Lady Maiden of Light.
Hearing noisy footsteps approaching down the corridor, Bishop Bival smiled, wondering, “Now, what stories will that girl tell me today?”