Wortenia Senki (LN) - Volume 15 - Chapter Pr

Prologue

A few hours had passed since Akitake Sudou vanished into the streets of Pireas. Sitting motionlessly in a room at the Mars Pavilion were two men, illuminated by the flickering light of a candle. One of them was Cardinal Roland. The other was a medium-built man in his early to midthirties.

Compared to the people of this world, his appearance was normal. He wore his faded blond hair up in a ponytail, and he had white skin, a slender face, and slanted blue eyes that resembled a weasel or a fox, but otherwise he looked quite plain.

His looks were unmemorable, but upon closer inspection, it became clear that he wasn’t an ordinary man. For one, his eyes glinted with a sharpness unseen in normal men. Plus, for how slender he was, his body was exceptionally toned. It wasn’t visible through his clothes, so it was hard to discern at a glance, but the thickness of his forearms and the musculature of his neck hinted at the strength underneath. Put simply, his form had a feline ferocity to it.

The man kneeled and looked up at Cardinal Roland, who was sitting calmly on a sofa. Normally, the man’s behavior would have been considered disgraceful—one wasn’t allowed to lift their head and speak to their master without permission—but there was a strong bond between him and Cardinal Roland, strong enough to absolve any such disrespect. This, in and of itself, demonstrated how much the pleasant-looking old man trusted the younger one. Nevertheless, this failure could fracture that trust.

The man’s name was Ricardo, and he was Cardinal Roland’s right-hand man and confidant. He handled all the dirty work the cardinal needed done behind the scenes.

If His Eminence feels this way about him, that man must be...

In the ten-odd years Ricardo had spent in the cardinal’s service, he could only remember a handful of times when he’d seen the cardinal look so severe. Those times had all occurred at the most decisive of moments and had gone on to be major turning points—turning points for both the Church of Meneos as a whole and Cardinal Roland as an individual. Those events had been so far-reaching that they’d affected every single country on the western continent, like a throwing stone creating ripples on the water’s surface.

The Church of Meneos wasn’t a nation, but it did have a major influence on the world. In fact, based on influence alone, the church seemed greater than any one country. The sheer size of it meant its presence was felt throughout the continent, making it a match for the guild, which consolidated the mercenaries and adventurers.

Furthermore, as a religious organization, the Church of Meneos was much closer in nature to a nation than the guild was. The guild was divided into branches, and each branch was fundamentally independent. This meant that cooperation between different guild branches was inadequate and that guildmasters rarely needed to answer to their superiors within the guild. Mercenaries and adventurers mostly felt the guild was a useful organization, but they weren’t loyal to it. If the guild’s existence was jeopardized, they wouldn’t sacrifice themselves to defend it.

The Church of Meneos was the opposite of that. It didn’t have a king or nobles, nor did it have any subjects to speak of, but it was a hierarchical society where the pope was the head and its adherents were innumerable. Should the pope declare a holy war, the church’s followers would throw away their lives and make for the battlefield. Its congregation was scattered across the continent, so its size and influence were larger than any single country.

This meant that the secret feuds raging within the sect’s shadows were that much more intense. No organization could run entirely on good intentions and fair play, not even a religious one, and especially not an organization vast enough to span the entire continent.

If there was a difference between the countries of this world and the Church of Meneos, it was how they decided their next ruler. For example, succession in the Japanese Imperial Family is decided by royal descent, and its bloodline continues uninterrupted even to this day. The British Royal Family is likewise decided by royal descent.

This system is often frowned upon in modern society, but it’s not without its advantages. It offers stability, for one. However, there are serious disadvantages as well. Someone completely unqualified could inherit the role, leading to catastrophic results.

Modern Japan doesn’t have a noble class, so most people don’t encounter this kind of system in their day-to-day lives, but it’s not completely absent either. A textbook example is when a child inherits their parents’ company. Nepotism can have adverse effects on the company’s management, like when that child crushes it against the rocks with their mismanagement. Even if the second generation runs the company successfully, any subsequent descendant could prove to be the black sheep. With each generation, there is risk the founder’s efforts will be forgotten, and a privileged successor takes over. It’s highly likely that an unfit heir will appear at some point down the line.

On the other hand, many people claim that meritocracy isn’t necessarily a flawless alternative. Numerous companies that stuck to meritocratic ideals ended up falling apart. One doesn’t have to look too deeply to find the flaws either. Whose efforts ought to be rewarded? One has to remain impartial when appraising other people, and therein lies meritocracy’s biggest problem.

Some might say that one needs only to examine the objective facts, but that’s easier said than done. People always lean toward subjective judgment. For instance, it’s often said that appearances and romantic feelings shouldn’t factor into such decision-making, but people will always find others they relate to more on a personal level. Likewise, some people will never be able to get along.

When it comes to dealing with a colleague, that’s all well and good, but it becomes an issue when a superior has to appraise their subordinates. People try to remain objective, of course, when evaluating an employee’s performance, but one can’t always keep their personal impressions and emotions out of the process.

The same holds true for those under evaluation, especially if they are being criticized. If one feels that their superior dislikes them, it becomes very easy to doubt the validity of their criticism. The easy way out is to assume that their superior is treating them unfairly. Even if the appraisal is positive, one might still assume that another superior might have given them an even more glowing review.

The truth is that it’s impossible to establish a fair, impartial meritocracy. One could try introducing a third party to handle the appraisals, but not all professions can allow for that kind of observation.

Meritocracy often works against those who perform fairly but averagely in their daily jobs. For example, a police officer’s job is to prevent crimes and arrest felons, but they’re appraised on how many arrests they make. A police officer can spend their days preventing crimes, only for their work to go unacknowledged. They act as deterrents that nip crimes in the bud, but their effectiveness is hard to express in numbers. There are even cases where the fact that nothing happened makes it seem like they’re not doing their job, which quashes their motivation to work.

In the end, both systems have their pros and cons. It boils down to what priorities they wish to stress and what risks they’re willing to take.

The Church of Meneos balanced both familial succession and meritocratic ideals. While archbishops and other high-ranking clergy often nominated successors from their family, many people had risen in the church’s ranks despite their commoner background. Cardinal Roland was a prime example of that.

Unfortunately, the man sitting before Ricardo would never reach the top of the Church of Meneos. The pope did nominate his successor from among the cardinals, but not every cardinal could take the role. Only those with the blood of the first pope could be nominated, and Jacob Roland was of no relation.

Even so, the Church of Meneos wasn’t necessarily bound by the chains of familial succession.

He may never be a pope, but he came from poverty, with no backers to vouch for him, and went from being a simple priest to a grand cardinal. 

Becoming the pope of the Church of Meneos wasn’t unlike becoming a king. In that sense, a priest who guided the adherents’ lives was similar to a lesser noble, and a cardinal—the rank second to the pope—was like a duke. After all, cardinals had the privilege of electing the next pope.

In other words, Ricardo’s master, undeterred by his commoner background, had risen to a high status. It was a success story if there ever was one. Getting this far had required extraordinary effort, and there was no telling the amount of blood, sweat, and tears it took for Cardinal Roland to claw his way up.

Yet Cardinal Roland’s usual demeanor and attitude carried nothing of the darkness from the effort he expended and the sacrifices he made. He always smiled and treated even the simplest adherents with kindness, even when there was nothing to be earned from it.

Most people in the church would describe Cardinal Roland as a jolly, amicable man. But that very same cardinal was currently silent, his brows furrowed as he viewed the report Ricardo had just handed over.

As Ricardo gazed at his master, he thought back to the last time he saw Sudou, just before Sudou slipped away from them.

I didn’t think he would be that elusive.

This was, perhaps, the first real humiliation Ricardo had ever felt. Tracking and following targets was everyday work for him and his men, and never once had they betrayed Cardinal Roland’s expectations like this before. They hadn’t been careless either, nor had they carelessly underestimated Akitake Sudou. If there were reasons for this blunder, it was that Ricardo had spoken with Sudou several times before while serving the cardinal and that Cardinal Roland had issued his order too suddenly.

Very few people could have complied with his request in the first place, and with no time to prepare, even the most skilled person would have trouble avoiding detection. 

In truth, Ricardo failed this time because of one major factor. As the man who operated in the shadows for Cardinal Roland, Ricardo had the responsibility to investigate the topography of the city they’d be staying in.

The location put me at a disadvantage I couldn’t overcome.

Because of that, Sudou had gotten away.

The secret feuds within the Church of Meneos could be intense, and the higher one’s status within the church, the worse they became. Everything was possible, from baseless rumors to outright sabotage to assassination. Even Cardinal Roland, who was known as a model figure of good character, had slipped away from an assassin’s clutches more than once. He’d also secretly ordered Ricardo to take care of the opposition in the past.

Since Ricardo served such a master, knowing the topography of the city they were in was a matter of life and death for him. An enemy assassin could strike, or they could clash with the local authorities, or a natural disaster like a tornado or an earthquake could strike. There was little chance of any of those happening, but they had to be accounted for nonetheless. But for as rare as those occurrences were, they had actually happened during Ricardo’s tenure under Cardinal Roland. Fortunately, Ricardo had slipped away unscathed each time thanks to his quick thinking and preparedness.

So, as a matter of course, Ricardo had familiarized himself with Pireas’s layout. He knew of several escape routes in the Mars Pavilion, where Cardinal Roland and the expedition from Menestia were staying, which would provide a quick getaway from the city, and he’d arranged for people who’d be useful in such an escape to be in their service. But even an experienced spy like Ricardo couldn’t possibly know every road and alleyway of a foreign city.

If this was the holy city, I could mobilize more people to pursue him, but...

Unlike in the holy city of Menestia, the Church of Meneos’s central hub, Ricardo’s options were much more limited in the unfamiliar city of Pireas, Rhoadseria’s capital. After all, even though the Temple Knights’ elites were guarding Cardinal Roland, they weren’t actually under his command. The same could be said of Rodney Mackenna and Menea Norberg, who were usually quite pious and loyal.

If the Church of Meneos could be likened to a company, both Rodney and Menea were Cardinal Roland’s colleagues, but they had different jobs in different departments. Certainly, they were close enough that Cardinal Roland could come to them for help if need be.

Indeed, Cardinal Roland had asked for Rodney specifically to accompany him because of how much he trusted Rodney. But that didn’t make Rodney the cardinal’s subordinate, and the cardinal couldn’t ask him to handle this kind of dirty work. It was the same for the other knights; they obeyed the Church of Meneos, not Cardinal Roland in particular.

The only true subordinates Cardinal Roland had on this journey were a dozen or so men, including Ricardo.

All of them are skilled, very much so, but...

The faces of his colleagues flashed in Ricardo’s mind. They were as adept at self-defense as people native to this world could be, and since all were charged with guarding Cardinal Roland, there was no doubting their reliability. But this task required some familiarity with martial arts, so that had narrowed the list of viable candidates down to Ricardo and the three people who were waiting in one of the other rooms.

This was by no means enough people to do the job properly, but Ricardo and his subordinates were all experienced, and if their job was to follow some amateur merchant, he was confident they could do it. However, Akitake Sudou was no amateur, and that had made all the difference.

Of course, this was just an excuse. More often than not, Ricardo had to work without the time needed to prepare. In fact, it was Ricardo’s job to ensure that his tasks were completed successfully despite the lack of preparation. To do this, Cardinal Roland paid him a very generous wage—much more than a spy would usually receive—and gave him vast authority.

Still, when subordinates were asked to pull off an unreasonable task, they expected their superiors to see to it that their work environment was prepared in order to make their mission a bit easier. However, that was rarely the reality, and in most cases, a superior would simply force the task on their subordinates and ignore the absurdity of their demand. It seemed that not even the Church of Meneos’s supposedly noble clergymen, lofty servants of a god, were above that behavior—so long as they weren’t men like Cardinal Roland.

Even after Ricardo reported his failure, Cardinal Roland hadn’t scolded him. Given the difference in their status, Cardinal Roland could have acted as haughty and domineering as he wished, and no one would have been allowed to fault him for it. Likewise, no matter how absurd the cardinal’s orders might be, Ricardo was obligated to comply. For all intents and purposes, the Cardinal had a life-and-death power over him. Be that as it may, Cardinal Roland never abused that kind of authority. He’d had to overcome similar adversity to reach his high status, and he remembered those hardships all too well. For that reason, Ricardo believed the cardinal was a master worth serving.

That’s exactly why this failure tastes so bitter...

The cardinal wasn’t blaming Ricardo for the outcome, but that didn’t make Ricardo feel any less responsible for it. The human heart worked in mysterious ways, because the fact that he was neither scolded nor punished only made him feel more guilty.

This left Ricardo with just one recourse. Still looking to the floor, Ricardo reached for his own left breast. Feeling the hard object there under his clothes, he steeled his resolve. The item was something he’d carried on his person since the day he swore to become Cardinal Roland’s spymaster.

I’d hoped I would never have to use this.

Espionage was a dangerous field by nature, and failure not only cost one their life, but put their master in jeopardy as well. For that reason, Ricardo always kept this dagger on his person so that he’d have the means to repent for his failures.

As that thought crossed Ricardo’s mind, Cardinal Roland finally spoke, saying, “First, let me apologize for asking you to handle this job so suddenly. It must have been difficult. I’m truly sorry I had to force this on you.”

Ricardo gawked at the cardinal, though he knew how impolite it was. He’d assumed that the cardinal might not scold him, but he hadn’t expected the cardinal to outright apologize. Yet Cardinal Roland carried on, seemingly unaware of Ricardo’s shock.

“There’s no need to try to follow him again either. I know your skill better than anyone. If he could slip away from you despite your best efforts, it just goes to show how exceptionally capable Sudou is. And this isn’t Menestia, so there’s only so much you can do without drawing attention to yourselves.”

Ricardo’s shoulders trembled slightly, but he held his tongue despite the rush of emotion. Cardinal Roland had only said the truth, but Ricardo was in no position to affirm his words.

Perhaps sensing Ricardo’s feelings, Cardinal Roland sighed and gently smiled at him. “That man could have ended up silencing you instead, so I’m glad that, at the very least, you all returned safely.”

“Your Eminence,” Ricardo murmured, his throat tightening. Did the cardinal really care so much for the lives of mere spies?

Deep down, Ricardo knew that these words were, at least on some level, lip service. Spies were essentially disposable, but Cardinal Roland’s tone was full of respect for Ricardo.

Seeing Ricardo so overwhelmed, Cardinal Roland shrugged and smiled playfully, a gesture that very much suited him.

“That said, we can’t very well disregard this. And we can’t return to Menestia until we’re done with the task the pope entrusted me with,” the cardinal explained, the smile vanishing from his lips. “And that’s why, Ricardo, I need you to build an intelligence network in Pireas. I’ll leave the details up to your discretion.”

“If we’re going to build an intelligence network in a land we’re not familiar with, it will cost a great deal of money,” Ricardo replied. “Are you sure you want to go this far?”

The holy city of Menestia was in the continent’s southwest region, while Pireas was on the far side in the northeast. Traveling in a straight line, it would take two to three months to get there by foot, but it could end up being longer if one had to detour due to weather or terrain.

The O’ltormea Empire’s presence in the center of the continent complicated the journey even more, since the empire had a troubled history with the Church of Meneos. It didn’t openly oppose the church, but relations between the two were cold. Likewise, the Kingdom of Helnesgoula to the north was locked in a power struggle with the Holy Qwiltantia Empire, so the church had to abstain from crossing through there too.

Both Helnesgoula and O’ltormea admitted that the church had value, since it was the sole religion in the continent, but they couldn’t afford to let it grow any stronger under their noses. After all, the continent didn’t have the concept of separating religion from the state. Either way, owing to both the geographical distance and these political circumstances, the church hadn’t really spread to the three kingdoms of the east—including Rhoadseria—meaning that it had very limited influence in that area.

So if one had to build an intelligence network in Rhoadseria, there were only two practical options: build it up gradually, bit by bit, or utilize an existing organization. Given the nature of the pope’s mission for Cardinal Roland, they couldn’t pick the former option. All the same, taking over an existing organization in Rhoadseria, where the church’s influence was weak and their military force was limited, would be exceedingly difficult. Besides these two options, the only remaining recourse was to bribe people for information, but the sheer sum required to do so would be a problem.

It’s not impossible, but... 

Gathering intelligence through bribery wasn’t a waste of money, but finding sufficient funds would be tough.

Cardinal Roland calmly nodded. “I understand your concerns, but we need people to gather information, and if it’s necessary, you have my permission to use as much money as you need. Don’t worry, you can leave the fundraising to me,” he appended with a smile.

Ricardo silently hung his head. If his master was willing to go this far to endorse this plan, it wasn’t his place as a mere spy to argue, especially after Cardinal Roland, who was known for his political prowess, had volunteered to help procure the needed funds. Ricardo didn’t know what connections the cardinal would use to get the required money, but he had no doubt the cardinal would succeed.

“Then I’ll begin the preparations right away... Excuse me, Your Eminence.”

Ricardo got to his feet, bowed to the cardinal once again, and turned to leave.

“Ricardo. Losing Sudou was a painful blow, so I won’t tell you to not let it bother you. However, not many people are more trustworthy than you are when it comes to this, and I intend to make use of your abilities going forward. You understand how I feel, yes?”

Sensing the sincerity in Cardinal Roland’s words, Ricardo nodded. “Yes, Your Eminence. I understand.”

After bowing his head once again, Ricardo hurried out of the room.

Cardinal Roland watched him leave, then sighed deeply—a gesture he could make only once he was entirely alone.

“Akitake Sudou, eh?”

The moment he said the name, the cardinal’s expression warped. Up until just a few hours ago, it was the name of a close friend, close enough that he’d responded to a sudden request for a meeting by clearing his schedule and vacating everyone from his chambers.

 But what about now? Now that he’s revealed his fangs to me, everything has changed.

Just mouthing Akitake Sudou’s name felt unpleasant. Their meeting that night had simply been that shocking.

There were a few reasons as to why Jacob Roland, a man without any backing or connections, had been able to claw his way up the church’s ranks to the title of cardinal. He was blessed with the disposition and abilities for it, and luck played a major role too. But had those been the only reasons, he wouldn’t have climbed as far as he did.

The faces of children, their expressions clouded with melancholy, filled Cardinal Roland’s mind.

Dark faces, bereft of hopes and dreams. Eyes as empty as a void...

That was a distant memory of a time when he ran an orphanage under the Church of Meneos.

Back then, I was nothing more than a lowly priest. Why did I seek to throw my lot in with that man? I knew he must’ve had some reason to donate that much money at once.

The story went back twenty years. Having risen to the station of cardinal, Roland now knew the darkness of the Church of Meneos all too well. He was aware that it wasn’t made up solely of the pious and devoted. Still, most of the western continent saw the clergy as virtuous believers who spread the faith of the god Meneos, creator of the light and chief among the many deities, and the church itself did much to keep up that facade. The orphanage was one such endeavor.

Twenty years ago, Roland had been a man of faith who earnestly tried to accept those orphans and raise them to maturity. Sadly, the orphanage was nothing but a front to deceive the public. The church’s higher echelons cared little for the idea of raising poor orphans who’d lost their parents and were left without the means to survive.

This had made running the orphanage incredibly difficult. There was a church built in the area, which meant he didn’t have to worry about putting a roof over their heads, but with regard to food and clothes, he could just barely maintain the minimal standards of living for the children. The church provided a monthly budget, but it wasn’t nearly enough to feed over a hundred children, and he could hardly afford to buy all of them secondhand clothes. Needless to say, the children didn’t have any other clothes to wear. Even Roland, who ran the orphanage, had only a few spare priestly robes in order to keep up appearances, which truly showed how poor they were.

They really did just barely scrape by, always one slipup away from starvation, and what food they did have was by no means nutritious. About once or twice a year, children who grew sick from the cold would die because they couldn’t get medicine that would have helped them.

Even so, the orphans in Roland’s care were better off than most. Some orphanage owners colluded with slave merchants behind the scenes to sell the children off, seeking to lighten their expenses given their own limited budgets.

At the time, Roland greatly resented the Church of Meneos for doing this philanthropic work only for appearances’ sake, without any desire to actually help the children. Perhaps he’d even felt anger and despair. How could clergymen, people of mercy and love, turn a blind eye to the suffering of the weak?

Roland didn’t intend to deny all human desire, but he did think that greed, when taken too far, became unsightly and terrible. The clergymen’s actions didn’t strike him as appropriate for servants of the God of Light. Yet he was one lowly priest among many, so he couldn’t change the way the Church of Meneos worked. Even if he’d tried to convince his colleagues and superiors to change the situation, they’d have just laughed him off. At worst, he could have instead been blamed for criticizing the church’s doctrine.

In the end, being in the right wasn’t enough on its own. But just as that realization had started settling in, a man had appeared before Jacob Roland without any warning—a man called Akitake Sudou. Sudou’s visit had been too sudden, and no sooner had he been shown to the orphanage’s modest guest room than he dropped a small leather sack in front of Roland, saying he wanted to make a donation to the orphanage.

The jingling thud of the sack when it hit the table was that of coins, immediately indicating the large sum inside it. The shock Cardinal Roland received when he opened the bag and saw the donation within was so intense that even twenty years later, Roland could remember it vividly. The sack had contained enough gold coins to cover the food expenses of all the children for a month. If they were to buy ingredients in bulk and economize wisely, it even could’ve been enough to spare all the children from hunger for half a year.

The disparity between the wealthy and the poor in this world was exceedingly large. Some people had to work half a day to earn a loaf of bread that cost a single bronze coin, while others bought heaps of bread with a gold coin.

It seemed obvious that Akitake Sudou was among the wealthy, but even if he was doing this on a whim, the donation was much too generous. It wasn’t the kind of money people donated to a passing acquaintance.

Sudou certainly hadn’t visited the orphanage out of pure pity. As Roland accepted the generous donation and thanked him from the bottom of his heart, Sudou had smiled as if to tell the cardinal to think nothing of it and signaled to a companion standing behind him. The man then threw five more sacks onto the table.

“Jacob Roland, I understand your and your orphanage’s situation. The children here are treated better than most, but they still have to go about in used clothes. They still need to stave off hunger, while the high priests of the church always walk with their stomachs full. Despite being men of faith, the clergy think only of power and how to get more of it.”

Sudou’s tone had been sympathetic, like he’d been reassuring Roland that he knew Roland was thinking the same things deep down. But notwithstanding his soft tone, Sudou’s words were nothing short of scathing criticism for the church.

Since Roland had been bitter about the corruption within the Church of Meneos, everything Sudou said had been a sound argument. But if anyone in Menestia had heard Sudou, he would’ve been shot to death. Sudou had said those dangerous words to not only a man he’d just met, but a member of the church and a pious believer, even if he was just a lowly priest.

As Roland regarded him with utter confusion, Sudou had whispered, “What say you? Will you change this unjust reality with your own hands? Assuming you’re willing to submerge yourself in the muck...”

At first, Roland hadn’t understood what Sudou meant, but as the initial shock wore off, the meaning gradually sank in. Roland knew just how dangerous those words were, and in spite of that, he agreed to Sudou’s offer. No matter what the cost might be, he needed to change the way things were. He’d cast aside today if it guaranteed a better tomorrow.

That choice had cost the lives of many. Some of them were people Jacob Roland believed were the cause of the church’s corruption. He made many friends on one hand, while creating a great many enemies on the other, and walked along a path drenched with the blood of both.

Even now, I don’t believe I made the wrong choice.

In exchange for that large sum of money, Sudou had asked that Roland move up in the ranks of the Church of Meneos—nothing else. Sudou gave him the funds needed to do so as well as knowledge to help him in his endeavors. The intelligence Sudou provided about the relations between the O’ltormea Empire and the Kingdom of Helnesgoula was especially valuable.

But of course, Roland had paid a price for all that help. Sudou had asked Roland for intelligence, which Roland had provided, along with helping him in all manner of ways that made things easier for Sudou. But it was never anything that gave Roland or the Church of Meneos any trouble.

Most of the information Sudou had requested was about the human relations within the church—which factions had power, and who opposed whom. It was difficult for an outsider to acquire these details, but it wasn’t exactly top secret intelligence either. True, the church had ended up changing its supplier of rations and equipment to the Martinez Company, which Sudou had recommended, but that was merely a mutually beneficial agreement, and it certainly hadn’t hurt the church in any way. The equipment they bought from the Martinez Company was of higher quality, yet they bought it for the same price as the last company they’d worked with. While other companies might have sold equipment of similar quality, they did so for twice the price.

On top of that, whenever the church needed to make a sudden request, the Martinez Company prioritized their orders first. A business often sought profit above all else, but they never took advantage of such occasions to raise their prices. The fact that they’d never prioritized greed had made quite the impression.

In all honesty, the dealings with Sudou had been nothing but profitable for the Church of Meneos, so while Jacob Roland didn’t fully trust Sudou, twenty years of successful dealings had assuaged most of his doubts.

And that was careless of me.

What was he to do now?

Akitake Sudou... Do I take his offer or refuse?

Sudou’s proposal wasn’t bad for Cardinal Roland and the church. It was a windfall, actually.

But the problem is, I can’t tell what Sudou’s intentions are at all.

Cardinal Roland’s task was to look into Ryoma Mikoshiba, a new noble in Rhoadseria, and ascertain his background. Normally, one would assume Ryoma Mikoshiba and Akitake Sudou would be enemies. Given what Sudou had proposed to Cardinal Roland earlier, it was obvious that whatever he had in mind wouldn’t be in Ryoma’s favor. But that didn’t mean that Sudou was necessarily on the church’s side either.

No...for all I know, he could be part of the Organization.

Cardinal Roland had harbored that doubt ever since he climbed to his current position and learned of the mysterious group that matched the church in power and scale. Nonetheless, each time that suspicion had surged in his heart, he’d come to the same conclusion. The Organization viewed the Church of Meneos as an enemy, and Sudou’s actions seemed to imply the opposite. If nothing else, the things Sudou said and did had never caused any major damage to the church. What suspicion he gave off seemed inconsequential in the face of those outcomes.

If he’s part of the Organization, what does this mean about the attack on Count Winzer’s estate in Galatia?

It still wasn’t clear what the attacker who raided them that night had been after. Count Winzer had called Cardinal Roland to his estate with the intention of showing him some sort of wooden crate, but the cardinal wasn’t sure what it all meant.

A “gun.” That’s what Count Winzer called it, but we were attacked before he could explain how to use it. He did say it was a fearsome weapon, but...

Either way, the attacker had fled with the weapon, so puzzling over it wouldn’t do Cardinal Roland any good. Many of the things Sudou did and said were suspicious. All that remained was to weigh those against the profit he brought Cardinal Roland and the church and come to a decision.

Cardinal Roland already knew the answer to that.

I can’t overlook the fact that he knows things he has no business knowing. However...

Only a precious few knew about the personal order the pope had given Cardinal Roland. The fact that someone among them had leaked that information to Sudou was intolerable, but at the same time, there wasn’t anything that could be done about it now.

For now, I have to look into Ryoma Mikoshiba.

Cardinal Roland didn’t know if Sudou was part of the Organization or where his objectives lay, but he did know one thing: that man, Ryoma Mikoshiba, was about to cause a storm that would embroil all of Rhoadseria, and it would be no ordinary upheaval. If his guess was correct, the chaos to come would be large enough to jeopardize Rhoadseria’s very survival. These events could become a bomb that would shake up the power balance of the entire western continent.

If I could, I’d rather return to Menestia right now.

Much to Cardinal Roland’s sorrow, he couldn’t do that.

“In that case, I don’t have enough soldiers. I should send a messenger to the holy city.”

Sighing deeply, Cardinal Roland rose from the sofa and settled at his desk by the window. He took out a feather pen and some parchment and began composing his message.