Chapter 38
“You clearly said that today’s ceremony was meant to honor the Saintess’s devotion. But now that I hear what has happened, it seems you used it as a testing ground to determine the effectiveness of the Saintess’s power and the holy water.”
At those words, the other nobles began nodding one after another.
“Indeed.”
“Isn’t this treating the Saintess far too blatantly like a tool?”
“At the very least, this is not something that should be done in a public gathering like this.”
Eshit’s gaze gradually turned cold.
He tried to salvage the situation, so he kept talking.
But every word he spoke only became another rope tightening around his own neck.
“The only thing I intended was for the sake of the empire—”
“It sounds as though you mean that it is acceptable to consume the Saintess for the sake of the empire, Your Majesty.”
Another noble cut in this time, his voice openly dripping with sarcasm.
Eshit closed his lips.
He had been caught.
Regardless of how much they needed holy water, many of the nobles gathered here had already been uncomfortable with the emperor’s obsession with Elise.
After all, the stronger the emperor became because of the Saintess, the weaker the nobles’ own power would become.
Moreover, everyone knew of the imperial family’s desire to have the Saintess under their control, but once that desire was revealed so openly, things became different.
Political ambitions only retained their dignity when they were concealed.
An exposed desire was nothing but ugly.
The nobles seemed intent on turning this incident into an opportunity to strengthen their own influence, each adding a remark of their own.
Ian quietly swallowed a sigh.
He was too hasty.
Under normal circumstances, Eshit should have taken a step back at this point.
But whenever his dignity was threatened, Eshit had a habit of trying to cover it up with an even louder voice.
And that habit was showing itself once again.
“Enough!”
He pressed his temples wearily.
“If anyone dares insult my intentions however they please, I will not simply let it slide.”
At his words, tinged with restrained anger, the nobles immediately fell silent.
A heavy silence descended upon the temple.
Then Elise slowly raised her head.
She did not look hurt or enraged.
She simply spoke in a calm voice.
“Your Majesty.”
“…”
“I am not a tool.”
It was only a short sentence.
Yet those words resonated more powerfully with everyone present than any excuse could have.
“I am not a tool, but a person. And holy water is not a resource to be piled up in the empire’s storehouses.”
Elise continued calmly.
“If my power can save someone, I will gladly use it. But if someone gathered people here to test me and watch their reactions…”
She paused briefly.
“Then that is not mercy. It is an insult.”
Silence fell.
In the stillness where no one dared even breathe too loudly, Elise added one final sentence.
“Especially when the people being used for that purpose are children who should be protected.”
That was enough.
The moral high ground had completely shifted to Elise.
Eshit stood there, unable to move even a single step.
The face that had worn the mask of a benevolent ruler only moments ago was now horribly twisted by a mixture of suppressed fury and bewilderment.
The nobles’ gazes had become unmistakable.
They no longer looked at him with respect or fear.
They looked at him with open disgust.
Leonhardt stared at Eshit with a hardened expression before slowly turning his head.
Then he looked at Elise standing upon the altar.
She was dazzlingly calm.
Even after pushing a person all the way to the edge of a cliff, her expression remained utterly composed, without a single tremor in her fingertips.
At that moment, Leonhardt realized something with startling clarity.
Elise was no longer someone who needed to be protected.
If anything, she was the one holding the sharpest blade in this game.
Dalia stepped forward again at precisely the right moment.
“Your Majesty.”
Though she pretended to have tears in her eyes, her voice remained perfectly steady.
“We are grateful that you arranged this gathering for the sake of our children. But when the Saintess herself says that she is a ‘person,’ please do not speak of her blood or suffering any further.”
Dalia lowered her gaze slightly.
“To my eyes… she is still nothing more than one of the children I raised.”
Her words were polite, but in truth, they were a public rebuke.
A number of gasps escaped from among the nobles.
Few people dared speak to the emperor so openly.
And yet, strangely, no one felt that Dalia had been rude.
Because everyone was thinking the same thing.
Eshit had crossed the line.
Only then did Ian speak.
“Let us conclude today’s ceremony here.”
He attempted to smooth things over in a gentle, polished voice, but it was already too late.
What remained in everyone’s minds was not the lingering impression of a sacred ceremony.
It was the ugly image of an emperor who had invoked mercy while calculating how to exploit the Saintess’s power.
Eshit could not bring himself to say anything more.
If he added even one more word, it would no longer be an attempt to salvage the situation.
It would simply become an even greater disgrace.
No.
It was already a disgrace.
Elise slowly descended from the altar.
As she passed by, the nobles’ gazes naturally parted to let her through.
Elise stopped briefly beside Dalia.
Their gazes intertwined faintly.
Dalia moved only her lips and spoke so quietly that no one else could hear.
“You’ve grown so much.”
Elise answered with a smile.
No one noticed that brief exchange.
And even if someone had seen it, they would not have understood its meaning.
Only three people did.
Eshit, Ian, and Leonhardt.
All three instinctively understood.
This entire gathering had been in someone’s palm from beginning to end.
Elise raised her head again.
Straight ahead stood Eshit, his lips still tightly pressed together.
Fortunately, the emperor’s dignity still remained intact.
But his authority had already collapsed.
What surrounded him at this moment was not obedience, but contempt hidden beneath silence.
Elise watched the scene and slowly smiled inwardly.
It was so satisfying that she felt completely refreshed.
The emperor had always been someone who smiled while gripping other people’s weaknesses in his hands.
I suppose he never imagined that he would one day have to watch himself expose his own ugliness with his own mouth.
How amusing.
The man who had hungered for blood while pretending to show mercy had ultimately revealed his most despicable side in front of everyone.
Elise calmly brought her fingertips together.
And silently murmured to herself:
Do you understand now whose grave the altar you prepared became today?
A saintly smile appeared on her lips.
But the coldness hidden beneath that smile was anything but saintly.
It belonged solely to the victor, quietly mocking the emperor to the very end.
