Chapter 7
“Come to the Imperial Palace at Once”
“Your Holiness, please excuse the interruption.”
The one who entered was one of Erhan’s most trusted subordinates.
The moment he stepped inside, his gaze swept over the shattered fragments scattered across the floor.
Realizing the atmosphere at once, he lowered his eyes and carefully approached Erhan. Under the pope’s vicious aura, he barely even dared to breathe.
“What is it.”
Erhan’s voice was icy.
The subordinate hesitated over whether to speak before finally opening his mouth a beat later.
“The public sentiment within the Holy Kingdom has been worsening lately. Since more and more patients are unable to receive treatment from Your Holiness, complaints are beginning to spread everywhere—”
“Silence.”
Erhan’s face flushed red as though the veins in it might burst.
“I already know that. Those wretches are screeching like mad, aren’t they?”
No one knew it, but all this time he had been deceiving the people of the Holy Kingdom by using Isabel.
And now that she had suddenly vanished without a trace—
With the pitifully weak divine power he currently possessed, it was impossible for him to heal seriously ill patients.
‘No… the truly regrettable thing is something else.’
The ritual circle capable of transferring another person’s divine power directly into himself had been nearing completion.
He had waited for more than a decade for that moment.
Using Isabel’s power, he had intended to make it his own—completely.
“And she runs away at the most important moment?”
The warm, benevolent smile he usually wore to charm the masses was nowhere to be seen.
The subordinate trembled as he bowed deeply.
“Search every corner of the continent if you must.”
“…Shall we issue a public wanted notice?”
“No.”
Erhan rejected the idea immediately.
‘If rumors spread, unnecessary pests may interfere.’
If someone discovered the girl’s true identity and tried to steal her away before he could—
That alone was unacceptable.
“You must find her in secret. And under no circumstances are you to kill her. Drag her before me alive.”
“Understood.”
Beyond the shattered statue of the goddess, Erhan’s shadow stretched long across the floor.
It was not the shadow of one who served a god—
but of someone who desired to become one himself.
Four days had already passed since the day I treated the emperor.
In the meantime, I had quickly adapted to life here, and now I was having tea with Chloe in the temple garden behind the building.
“Still, I can’t believe we’re the same age. I seriously thought you were way younger than me, Lena.”
After becoming acquainted through the matter of the imperial physician—and discovering we were the same age—we had started speaking casually with each other.
As it turned out, she was the eldest daughter of a fallen baron family.
After her parents passed away, she had been raising her younger siblings alone as the head of the household.
Which meant that if she had gone to serve as the emperor’s physician and ended up bedridden like her predecessor Jack, her siblings would have immediately lost their livelihood.
“And then you stepped in saying you’d go in my place.”
Because of that, she seemed to feel tremendously grateful toward me.
And since she was the first friend I had made in this unfamiliar land, I liked her quite a bit as well.
We were chatting so comfortably that we lost track of time when—
“Huff! Saintess Lena!”
A priest came running toward us, breathing heavily.
“Hah… Someone is here looking for you right now, Saintess! They’re waiting in the temple courtyard, so you should hurry!”
His anxious tone made me immediately rise from my seat.
And the moment I arrived at the courtyard—
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Saintess.”
A man dressed in a neat black uniform approached from afar and bowed politely.
He was a messenger dispatched from the imperial palace.
After a brief formal greeting, he carefully produced an item stamped with a golden imperial seal.
“It is a personal letter from His Majesty.”
Naturally, the surroundings immediately erupted into whispers.
I accepted the envelope and gently opened it before quickly reading the contents.
Only a single short sentence was written inside.
—Come to the imperial palace at once.
The force of that one line pierced straight through the paper and into my head.
“…His Majesty says I’m to come to the palace immediately.”
The instant I finished speaking, the courtyard exploded into chaos.
“My goodness! Immediately?!”
“You should probably write your will first in case this is the last day of your life!”
“I know an excellent funeral portrait painter! Let’s hurry and get one commissioned!”
They had instantly begun preparing for my funeral.
“N-Now everyone, please calm down…”
Was I the only one who could still see the messenger standing right beside us?
Afraid their reactions might somehow reach the emperor’s ears, I tried to stop them, but everyone was already trapped in terrifying fantasies.
Among them, Chloe reacted the most dramatically.
Since she had been removed from the position of imperial physician because I stepped in, she grabbed her orange hair and collapsed to the ground.
“That was supposed to be my place! You tried to save me and now this is happening…!”
“What misunderstanding is this? I really did go because I wanted to.”
As I barely managed to calm Chloe down, she suddenly began frantically rummaging through her pocket.
“Take this, at least!”
What she handed me was an absurdly thick pair of round glasses.
“I specially commissioned them from the most famous optical shop in the empire in case I ever became His Majesty’s physician.”
Placing the glasses into my hands, Chloe spoke earnestly.
“Even if your eyesight is perfect, you absolutely have to wear these, okay?”
The glasses were unbelievably thick.
Whatever kind of lenses they used, the glass itself looked cloudy and semi-transparent.
And when I actually tried them on—
“Ugh… dizzy…”
My vision instantly turned blurry and wobbly.
On top of that, nausea rose from my stomach, forcing me to remove them immediately.
“Wow… at this level, I definitely wouldn’t have the mental energy to care who was standing in front of me.”
“Right? I tried them once and thought I was going to pass out.”
Thanking her, I tucked the glasses into the inner pocket of my saintess robes.
‘Even if they called me back for another treatment, it’ll probably happen after the emperor falls asleep again, like last time.’
This much preparation should be enough.
The carriage sent by the imperial family was so luxurious it was almost blinding.
The exterior was adorned with intricate gold engravings, and the inside smelled faintly of herbs.
The crimson velvet seats wrapped softly around my body the moment I sat down.
“Well, a carriage transporting a criminal probably wouldn’t be this extravagant…”
But my thoughts continued spiraling.
There were still several days left before the next treatment session.
So why had they suddenly summoned me?
Could there have been side effects after the treatment?
I didn’t know exactly what illness the emperor suffered from, but it definitely seemed to be some kind of rare disease.
Which also meant there were likely countless unpredictable variables.
‘They’re not going to chop my head off or anything, right?’
After arriving at the imperial palace, I walked forward with more nervousness than ever before.
“Saintess! You’ve arrived.”
But apparently someone had been waiting for me, because a familiar face quickly approached from afar.
“Sir Alec?”
The emperor’s closest aide had personally come outside to greet me.
And his face looked positively radiant.
Seeing that expression reassured me that none of the terrifying scenarios I had imagined earlier were likely to happen.
‘Thank goodness. The treatment must’ve been pretty successful.’
“Saintess, was your journey here comfortable?”
Alec immediately began politely asking me all sorts of questions.
Far too politely, honestly.
“You really don’t have to treat me so formally. You can just call me by my name.”
To be honest, he was likely a noble as well as the emperor’s closest aide.
Meanwhile, aside from being a common saintess, I had no particular background at all.
Alec widened his eyes.
“By your name?”
He thought for a moment before smiling shyly.
“Then… Lady Lena?”
“No! Just Lena is fine.”
But Alec shook his head firmly.
“That won’t do. Someone like Lady Lena deserves even greater respect.”
But that’s basically no different from before!
Still, judging from his expression, there was clearly no convincing him, so I eventually gave up and nodded.
Afterward, we spent quite some time talking about the emperor’s condition and treatment.
Meanwhile, I carefully searched for the right moment to bring up the real issue before finally asking cautiously,
“But why was I suddenly summoned? Last time you said you would try persuading His Majesty. Did you already succeed? Will we be treating him while he sleeps again today like before?”
I looked at him expectantly, but Alec only sighed heavily.
“No… His Majesty is still insisting on treatment only once a week.”
That made no sense.
“Then why…?”
“The truth is, His Majesty…”
His Majesty?
“Lady Lena…”
Me?
“He wishes to meet you personally. He says he has something he wishes to tell you privately while he’s awake.”
What?!
