“Rustle...”

The faint noise was like a ghost’s whisper. Liya instinctively wrapped both arms around herself. It was only a fleeting fragment of sound, yet she felt as though she could already sense the chill hidden inside that exchange—a chill as cold as late autumn in the north.

“What does that mean?”

Liya looked up, confused, toward the Judgment Archbishop.

“Why do I feel like I can’t make sense of it?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like.”

Resting her cheek on one hand, the Judgment Archbishop idly played with the voice stone. The distinct magical signature coming from it made clear that it was no forgery, but a true recording extracted from a complete conversation.

“From our point of view, Saint Blanfazesias Cathedral, which oversees the affairs of the entire Kingdom, was out of contact for a full thirty-four hours. For a regional cathedral with an archbishop in residence to suddenly lose contact is something that has never happened in the entire history of the Church. The whole Church was shaken by it. That’s why I came here in person.

But...”

She tapped the stone lightly with her fingertip, and the recording sounded again. Word by word, Archbishop Ision’s perfectly ordinary response—tinged with faint confusion—struck at the soul through the soft crackle of static.

“Very clearly, from Archbishop Ision’s point of view, they were never out of contact at all. They had even continued their scheduled communications with us as usual... In simple terms, as far as they are concerned, everything during that stretch was completely normal.”

“...That can’t be right. There’s no way any of this counts as completely normal.”

Tilting her head, Liya frowned. Since becoming the Saintess, she had already seen far too many strange things, but what was happening now was still... hard to believe, even for her.

“Did something go wrong on the Church’s side of communications?”

“No. Every contact attempt leaves a corresponding log. We truly did lose contact with the royal capital’s cathedral for thirty-four full hours.”

“Then did something go wrong on the cathedral’s side?”

“If he was able to name the exact point of two hours ago... then the chances of an error on their side are low as well.”

“So neither side made a mistake...”

Liya suddenly puffed up her cheeks and huffed. “Could that Archbishop Ision be a fake or something?!”

The last time she came to the Kingdom, that Archbishop Ision had been cold to her the whole time. He had looked like a bad person from the start!

“...That’s even less possible.”

The Judgment Archbishop pressed a hand to her forehead.

“To establish contact with us, the other party would need the proper communication channel and complete identity verification. I don’t think an impostor could fool our eyes that easily.”

“That’s true...”

Any archbishop-level contact with the Church had to go through a special route, complete with its own unique method of communication and authentication system. Other than Archbishop Ision himself, there was no second person in the world who could contact the Church through that channel.

So if contact had been made...

Then no matter how strange this was, one fact could be confirmed with absolute certainty: the person on the other end really was Archbishop Ision.

“But doesn’t that make this even stranger?”

Liya’s brows drew together as she thought as hard as she could.

In fact, once Saint Blanfazesias Cathedral had completely gone dark, the Church had already prepared for the worst—that the entire cathedral, including Archbishop Ision, had met with disaster.

So just as the Judgment Archbishop had said, it was precisely because the situation was so grave that she, the Church’s sharpest blade, had come here in person.

And yet now, this sudden reversal—and the bizarre undercurrent hidden behind it—had left the Church unwilling to act rashly before the full situation was understood.

Even the question of whether Archbishop Ision himself had been compromised was something that had to be confirmed first.

“Come to think of it, the state of Saint Blanfazesias City is strange too...”

Liya lifted the carriage curtain slightly. The thin mist could not fully conceal the ancient, towering walls, but what drew her eye most was not the weathered sense of history clinging to the stone. It was those massive city gates...

standing wide open.

They were utterly unguarded, as though waiting specifically to welcome guests. Under normal circumstances, that might have felt like a show of respect toward visitors from the Church, but now...

“The Kingdom is at war with the Empire right now, isn’t it...”

Liya tilted her little head. She didn’t think she was stupid or anything. With the clever brain that let her beat Ariel at chess at least three times in the course of one night, she really ought to have been able to understand what the Kingdom was doing.

The Empire’s army seemed to be only twenty miles away, and yet the Kingdom was just leaving its gates open like this?

Even an outsider who knew absolutely nothing about war should understand that for the Empire’s elite cavalry, twenty miles was no more than a single charge.

“What exactly... is the Kingdom doing?”

“That, for the moment, I do not know. There’s too little intelligence to make a reliable judgment.” The Judgment Archbishop had already noticed these irregularities long ago, and the warmth from earlier had vanished from her face. “But... I ask that Your Holiness prepare yourself for the possibility of treating the entire Kingdom as an enemy.”

“The entire Kingdom? You mean the Kingdom has already...” Liya finally understood, and her little mouth rounded into a cute O. “Is something like that really possible?”

“It’s only a suspicion.”

The Judgment Archbishop shook her head and looked into the distance.

“It only seems that... we are not the only ones unsettled by the situation before us.”

Boom.

The ground trembled faintly.

Following the Judgment Archbishop’s gaze, Liya turned her head and saw a cavalry unit approaching from afar.

Their intentions clearly were not to attack the Kingdom’s royal capital. Their numbers were too small, and there was no killing intent about them.

In fact, before the cavalry even arrived, a mage had already flown ahead to make contact with the Church’s force.

“Your Holiness, Your Grace, envoys from the Empire have arrived. They say they wish to hold a formal meeting with us.”

“Her Holiness and I are both aware.”

The Judgment Archbishop waved a hand, dismissing the young nun who had come to report, then turned back to Liya.

“What does Your Holiness thin— hm? Your Holiness?”

She looked mildly startled.

Only a moment ago, the Saintess had been relaxed and close with her. But now, in the span of a single turn of the head, Liya had clearly gone on guard again.

Her back was straight, her little face set tight, her expression severe.

Even when faced with the bizarre events from before, she had not looked this intensely battle-ready.

“Your Holiness, what is—”

“War.”

“?”

“This is war...”

In Liya’s beautiful eyes was reflected the silver-white figure at the head of the approaching cavalry, and the shadow behind that silver-white figure that kept casting glances her way from time to time. She took a deep breath, rose to her feet, and smoothed the wrinkles from her clothing one by one, like a general on the battlefield slowly drawing the sword at her waist that commanded a thousand armies.

“Bring An here. Tell her... the war has begun!”

“???”

The Judgment Archbishop, single for decades and utterly lacking any relevant experience, was completely baffled. She could not understand this at all...

But she still had someone fetch An.

Somehow, she had a feeling this was going to be very interesting.