“No, I don’t think this counts as a small problem anymore.”

Muen’s mouth twitched.

He did not know the detailed personnel structure of the Church, but even he understood how much weight a Grand Archbishop carried.

There were only nine Grand Archbishops in the entire Church. Aside from the few Holy Hall Grand Archbishops stationed in the Holy City, every one of the others was posted at a critical location on the continent, each one effectively a regional power-holder. Take Archbishop Canterbury of Belrand Cathedral, whom Muen knew well. Not only was he deeply respected, he also personally oversaw all Church affairs throughout the Empire.

And now a Grand Archbishop responsible for the Church’s affairs across the entire Kingdom region had suddenly gone out of contact...

If converted into imperial terms, that was basically the same as mysteriously losing the entire Northern Plain for no known reason.

So if something had truly happened to that Grand Archbishop, it would deal an enormous blow to both the Church’s strength and its prestige. In fact, that news alone ought to have been enough to cause serious upheaval within the Church.

“Of course I know it’s not a small problem.”

Liya let out a helpless sigh, her soft, full cheeks puffing up unhappily.

“But what can I do at a time like this? I’ve got a huuuuge pile of things waiting for me afterward, and the clash with the Salvation Society hasn’t even formally begun yet. I can’t exactly start talking like everything’s hopeless already... I’m the Saintess, after all.”

Outside the carriage, magic had begun to activate. A faint glow of circulating mana seeped in through the gap in the curtain, and only then did Muen finally catch sight of that trace of worry and heaviness hidden deep inside Liya.

She still liked naughty things. She still loved to play around. But inside that delicate little body, she had nonetheless begun, inevitably, to shoulder the pressure and responsibility that belonged to the Saintess.

Yes.

She was the Saintess.

Even if everyone else in the Church panicked and wavered because of this, she alone could not.

And by the same logic, as long as she, the Saintess, was still sitting here as calm as ever, then no matter how great the shock was, the clergy below her and those young little nuns would all steady themselves soon enough.

“Sorry...”

Heart aching, Muen took Liya’s soft little hand and rubbed it between his palms, passing a bit of warmth into it.

“I shouldn’t have said that. My Liya is unquestionably a qualified Saintess.”

“Of course I am.”

Liya lifted her swanlike neck proudly.

“After all, I was smart enough to lock down that information the moment it came in. That way it didn’t cause panic or give the enemy more room to build momentum!”

“...”

Lock... it... down?

No wonder the little nuns outside were not panicking at all. So it was not because they saw their Saintess sitting here all calm and leisurely. It was because the news had been sealed from them in the first place?

Give me back my feelings, you lewd Saintess!

“Ah... ow ow ow, why did you suddenly squeeze harder?!”

Liya shook her hand with tears pooling in her eyes.

“All right, all right. I was joking. I wasn’t the one who gave the lockdown order. That’s just standard Church procedure in the first place. This concerns classified intelligence involving a Grand Archbishop. How could ordinary little nuns possibly be allowed to know? The Church has to preserve at least a little mystery!”

“You are currently destroying every last scrap of that Church mystery, Your Holiness!”

Muen sighed. After giving the disgraceful Saintess before him a thorough punishment, he finally let go and steered the conversation back onto the proper road.

“Come to think of it, at the very least, the Church’s Grand Archbishops are all top-tier powerhouses on the level of Crowned Ones. There’s no way one of them could just run into trouble without a sound... Could contact have been cut off for some other reason?”

“That possibility is naturally within the range of our guesses too. But until we uncover the truth, it’s all just empty talk.”

Liya’s lips stuck out high in a pout as she angrily massaged her reddened little hand.

“Our first priority was originally to find out why the Grand Archbishop disappeared in the first place. It’s just that something like this suddenly happened too... so now we had no choice but to split into two groups.”

“So the Salvation Society didn’t create these several hundred thousand ‘monsters’ just to take revenge on the world.”

Muen’s eyes sharpened.

“They also wanted to pin down part of your forces?”

After all, as he had said before, even slaughtering several hundred thousand pigs would take time, let alone the several hundred thousand “undying” monster troops here. For the next few days, Miss Latina and those elite Church forces under her command presumably would not be able to do anything else at all.

“Relax. Even if we’ve been slowed down, it’s only slightly.”

Liya lifted her chest and chin proudly again.

“The Church won’t become stretched thin over something like this. Teacher’s been pinned down, yes, but the Archbishop of Judgment has already set out personally for the Kingdom. And once I finish handling the cleanup here, I’ll head there immediately as well and meet up with the Archbishop of Judgment.”

“The Archbishop of Judgment...”

Muen stroked his chin.

“That title really does inspire confidence.”

Legend had it that every Archbishop of Judgment in the Church’s history—the ones who presided over the Hall of Judgment—had been the strongest fighter among all the Grand Archbishops. That was because the Hall of Judgment’s main duties were the purging of corruption within the Church and the extermination of heretics. Only absolute strength could serve as the foundation for that kind of work.

And Muen himself had personally felt that Archbishop of Judgment’s divine might once before.

That had been at Abyssal Gutongs Castle not long ago, when the Archbishop of Judgment in blood-red holy robes had appeared and fought one of Shenyi’s three incarnations.

At first glance, “fought one of Shenyi’s three incarnations” might not have sounded like such an extraordinary achievement.

But that was Shenyi.

The First Grand Duke of demonkind. A remnant who had survived from a thousand years ago to the present day. A being beyond this era, the sort that belonged in the same impossible category as the old little lady and the Dragon of Death and Doom.

Just being able to fight Shenyi at all was already proof of strength. And more than that, the Archbishop of Judgment had clearly been projected there by some means employed by the Church. From that great a distance, it was difficult to say whether that had even been the full extent of that person’s power.

“So you don’t need to worry about my safety. The Archbishop of Judgment will be with me when the time comes.”

After proudly planting her hands on her hips, Liya blinked. Then a trace of concern surfaced in her watery eyes instead.

“What about you, Muen?”

“Me?”

Muen smiled.

“What a coincidence. It looks like our goals are the same. We’re both headed for the Kingdom capital.”

“Muen’s going to the Kingdom capital too?”

“Mhm. I am.”

Muen did not hold anything back. He directly told Liya everything that had happened after she left the ducal estate earlier, including all those conversations with Gaius.

“That’s the situation. Since someone went to all the trouble of inviting me so politely, I don’t really have a reason not to go.”

“Getting tangled up with some strange villain again...”

Liya grumbled twice.

“That really is your style.”

“I don’t want to either. They’re the ones who keep coming after me. If I had the choice, I’d rather live in peace.”

Muen spread his hands helplessly.

“Wouldn’t it be better to spend every day flirting with beautiful girls? Who wants to fight weird people to the death all the time?”

He did not know whether his yellow-haired villain aura had grown even stronger lately, but what it had started attracting was no longer merely things like Evil Gods. Now even these baffling villains had begun tangling themselves up with him.

Meanwhile, Ariel, who ought to have been the heroine chosen by destiny, had somehow not been swept into a whirlpool of this scale at all. The more he thought about it, the stranger it felt...

[Soon you’ll understand. The world and destiny are on our side...]

For no particular reason, Muen thought again of those words from Gaius, and of that coin Ariel had guessed wrong.

“If our °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° destinations are the same... then should we travel together?”

Liya suddenly brightened up again.

Her concern for Muen did not linger very long. Compared to concern, she believed much more strongly in the power of the man she loved. She believed he would not be struck down by any villain. And even more importantly...

“This time, I can protect you, Muen!”

Thumping her impressively soft chest with determination, Liya said seriously,

“As long as you stay with me, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the Salvation Society or Gaius. I guarantee none of them will be able to hurt you!”

“That... probably isn’t a good idea...”

“What’s not good about it?”

Liya grabbed both of Muen’s hands. As though she had already imagined a wonderfully beautiful future, a dazzling flush had appeared across her little face.

“You’re an Honorary Holy Knight personally appointed by His Holiness the Pope. If you act together with us, no one would have anything to say about it. And then we could even have the chance for a delightful... a delightful little world of just the two of us. Don’t you like that?”

“Of course I like it, but—”

Crack.

Before Muen could finish, the sound of something shattering came from the side.

He glanced over from the corner of his eye, and cold sweat broke out at once. An, who had been silent for so long, had crushed the little tea table in front of her with her bare hand. Killing intent so dense it was almost tangible flowed from her gradually reddening pupils, while threads of steel ran together and slowly wove themselves into sharp blades.

“Just... the two of you? What idiotic nonsense are you talking about? Heh... just as I thought. I should have dealt with you, you little bug, first!”

“Oh?”

Faced with An’s threat, Liya not only failed to retreat, she crossed her arms and lifted her chest, making that mountain-like grandeur all the more imposing.

“What’s wrong? If I hadn’t healed you just now, you wouldn’t even be able to hold your waist straight, you lewd little maid. You have objections?”

“I’ll kill you right now, you obscene Saintess—”

“Enough!”

Muen separated them yet again and gave a pained smile.

“My ladies, could you maybe get along peacefully for just a little while?”

Celicia and Senior Anna could already stand side by side and fight together, yet these two still had to decide a winner every other minute. This... this really was getting ridiculous.

Did the two of them only know how to behave once they were on the bed?

“Sigh...”

Muen held his forehead.

As expected, the love battlefield really was the number one enemy in his life as a macho man. It was the great obstacle standing in the way of his growth and his road to happiness!

“Don’t be like this. And Liya too—even though I know you’re worried about me, I’m sorry, but I can’t go with you for now.”

“Why not?”

Liya’s little cheeks puffed up at once.

“Because while it’s true that I’m an Honorary Holy Knight personally appointed by His Holiness the Pope, my position is something the entire continent already knows.”

Muen raised a hand and pointed at the Campbell crest on his chest.

“I’m a son of House Campbell. I’m the future Duke. I represent the Empire, not the Church. At a time when the political situation is this sensitive, if I travel together with the Church, the whole continent will think the Church has sided with the Empire.”

“What’s wrong with that...”

Liya muttered, “That’s the truth anyway.”

“Of course there’s something wrong with it.”

Muen patted Liya’s head and said gently,

“Because it would damage your reputation as the Saintess. It would make people question your fairness and sacredness. I don’t want to see that happen to you. Understand?”

“Mm...”

“And as for An...”

Muen turned his head.

The moment he refused Liya, An immediately became excited and eager.

Because in her eyes, if Young Master had rejected the little bug, then the journey ahead would naturally be—

“You’ll go with Liya.”

“Wonderful, Young Master. I’ll absolutely make this trip for just the two of us—...Huh?”

An froze, then processed what she had just heard.

“Young Master, what did you say?”

“I said you’re going with Liya.”

Then Muen looked back at Liya.

“By the way, didn’t Miss Lin come with you?”

“Ah... Lin?”

Liya was also wearing a completely blank expression, not yet recovered from Muen’s last sentence. She could only answer on instinct.

“Lin had something else to do, so she didn’t come.”

“That’s perfect.”

Seeing that all the conditions had lined up so neatly, Muen could not help smiling.

“My dear Saintess just so happens to be missing an attendant nun at her side right now, doesn’t she?”