Chapter 36
In any case, all the nobles gathered here were people who needed holy water.
Even if it was caused by divine power, as long as they could obtain the holy water they needed, they would not care what side effects the divine power had.
Moreover, Eshit had deliberately invited mostly elder nobles who had served the empire for many years.
There was no chance they would reveal what happened here.
This must never leak outside.
It was unthinkable that foreigners might damage the Saintess’s reputation.
At least, not unless he himself was the one doing it.
“They must have been terribly hungry.”
He deliberately muttered in a gentle voice.
Nearby, Ian watched the children carefully.
Anyone who had consumed magical stone powder should already have shown slight dizziness or changes in their pupils.
But these children were different.
Even as they greedily swallowed the food with unfocused eyes, their fingertips remained strangely steady.
Moreover, some of them were naturally compensating for one another’s movements.
As though they were a group that had trained together for a long time.
Unable to shake off the strange sense of incongruity, Ian finally whispered toward Eshit.
“Your Majesty.”
Eshit’s gaze turned toward Ian.
But Ian ultimately swallowed his words.
“…It’s nothing.”
It was an absurd thought.
They were merely children from an ordinary orphanage. Surely, he was simply looking at them through biased eyes.
Yes. Looking again, their pupils were definitely trembling, apparently showing the effects of the magical stone powder.
That was when it happened.
A murmur arose from the entrance of the temple.
“The Saintess is entering!”
With the herald’s booming announcement, Elise entered.
Today, instead of the pure-white robes of a Saintess, she was wearing a light ivory dress subtly embroidered with gold thread.
Rather than looking merely pure and innocent, her appearance was almost chillingly magnificent, and everyone’s eyes were naturally drawn to her.
As she slowly walked inside, she suddenly met someone’s gaze and stopped.
It was Dalia, the head of the orphanage.
The middle-aged woman, with a smile resting around her deeply wrinkled lips, stood with both hands neatly clasped as she looked at Elise.
“It’s been a long time, Elise.”
Her voice was incredibly warm.
And yet, strangely enough, those few words only made the air inside the temple colder.
Elise stared at her for a moment before slowly smiling.
“It certainly has, Headmistress.”
The two women were clearly smiling.
But something far stronger than warmth was mixed into those smiles.
Something like an old conspiracy, or secrets understood without the need for words.
Before long, a thin, chilling smile appeared on both their lips—the kind of smile only people who had seen straight through to each other’s darkest depths could wear.
Watching the two of them, Leonhardt unconsciously clenched his fist.
What is that expression?
It was different from the face Elise wore when she faced Damian, and different from the face she used when mocking him.
It was colder, deeper, and more dangerous.
Ian’s gaze also sharpened.
Only then did Eshit get the feeling that something had gone wrong.
But by then, it was already too late to turn things back.
“It seems the meal is about finished.”
A priest called out loudly as he looked at the dishes, now completely emptied.
“Saintess Elise, please come up to the altar.”
At the priest’s words, Elise passed Dalia and climbed onto the altar.
“Now, Saintess Elise will bestow the Light of Mercy!”
At those words, the children sitting around the dining table glanced toward Dalia.
When she pointed toward the area beneath the altar with her chin, they moved down and sat there in perfect unison.
The entire temple held its breath.
Elise slowly raised her white hand.
A dazzling light began to bloom from her fingertips.
Pure, radiant, and seemingly impossible for anyone to taint, the aura of purification was extraordinarily sacred.
Spreading outward like ripples, the light slowly descended over the hollow-eyed children.
Eshit clenched both fists, unable to hide his tension.
Now.
The children would begin trembling one by one.
They would clutch their throats and collapse, their eyes rolling back as they foamed at the mouth.
And in the end, there was no doubt that all the blame would fall upon Elise.
But the light simply enveloped them in silence.
Contrary to Eshit’s expectations, not a single child convulsed or collapsed.
Not even one screamed or showed any sign of pain.
Instead, they were perfectly fine.
One child slowly raised their head and looked up at Elise, while another merely blinked blankly.
And a few of them even chuckled as they basked in the sacred light.
Their relaxed smiles seemed to say that they were accustomed to disturbances of this magnitude.
The smile disappeared from Eshit’s face.
“Huh.”
Ian narrowed his eyes.
Leonhardt stopped breathing for a moment.
Elise was watching every one of their reactions.
The corners of her lips curved ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly.
There was a perfectly good reason the children showed no reaction.
The orphanage where she had lived was not simply an orphanage.
Of course. I didn’t need to take any precautions at all.
On the surface, it was a charitable home that took in abandoned children.
But the truth was different.
It was a place touched by the shadow of the Arriaton Empire’s most notorious assassin organization, Johnny Walker.
It was a disguised training ground where children destined to eventually enter the organization were selected, tested, and taught how to survive.
Of course, not everyone who had come here today was a fully forged blade.
But there was one thing that was certain.
They were survivors who had already endured countless doses of poison and disruptions that ordinary humans would never have been able to withstand.
Magical stone powder? Did you really think you could hurt these children with such a childish trick?
Elise sneered inwardly.
Eshit. You know nothing. Unfortunately for you.
Eshit probably believed that he had arranged every piece on the board.
He must have been certain that he had seized other people’s secrets, crushed their weaknesses, and had them completely under his control.
But that was precisely the most amusing part.
He had never once bothered to truly find out what kind of place Elise had survived in.
Even before she became the radiant Saintess, Elise had been someone who survived to the very end without dying, even amid filth and darkness.
Elise slowly raised her gaze and met Eshit’s eyes.
For the first time, a distinct crack appeared in his red eyes.
The shock of disbelief, the anxiety of realizing his calculations had gone wrong—and even an ominous premonition he had yet to put into words.
The moment Elise saw that look in his eyes, she barely managed to suppress the laughter that threatened to burst out.
Meanwhile, Dalia quietly lowered her head.
Yet there was unmistakable ridicule at the corners of her lips.
Ian remained silent, while Leonhardt swallowed hard.
The central hall of the temple was still filled with dazzling light, but the atmosphere within it had already been completely overturned.
The emperor had clearly been the one who set the trap.
Yet in the end, he was the one who had stepped into it.
Elise scattered the lingering glow of divine power from her fingertips and thought:
Good.
It was only beginning.
The stage of mercy Eshit had prepared had not been ruined.
The people still did not know.
They did not yet know whose dignity would be stripped away first on this very day.
Elise tilted her head slightly and smiled brightly with the most saintly expression she could muster, pretending that she knew nothing at all.
