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Chapter 29
There were indeed voices within the temple calling for self-purification. Anyone with a sound mind felt disillusioned with the temple’s current state.
Samuel was no exception.
The temple flourished like never before with the oracle. Thanks to the oracle that had descended before his birth, Samuel was able to join the temple with his parents’ strong support.
However, what he encountered upon entering the temple was far from sacred.
Power struggles ensued within the temple like a pack of jackals drawn to the scent of wealth. The devout and naïve priests faithfully serving the divine were easily swept away by political schemes.
In the end, the newcomers seized control, and the old faithful were branded as heretics and driven out.
High Priest Georges was the ultimate victor of this power struggle. To secure his own safety, he aligned himself with the imperial authority, effectively offering the temple to the royal court.
As a result, the temple became secularized before it could establish true autonomy.
Samuel harbored a deep desire to reform the temple. Though it had fallen into corruption, that did not diminish his devotion to serving the divine.
But he had no justification to act.
Even Aveline Croeta, who had been directly chosen by the divine, flaunted her ties to the crown prince and colluded with secular powers.
Who would listen if one who claimed to follow the divine dared to criticize the one chosen by the divine?
“O Divine One, have You truly forsaken us?”
Samuel traced the sign of the cross with a heavy heart.
Just then, a familiar voice called out to him as he was heading toward the prayer room to atone before the divine.
“Priest Samuel?”
Turning his head instinctively, Samuel’s face brightened with recognition.
“Oh, Lady Clonay!”
Clonay, dressed in an elegant navy gown, greeted him with a graceful smile.
“Good day, Priest. I hope I’m not disturbing you while you’re busy.”
“Not at all. Think nothing of it. What brings you here today?”
“Tomorrow is the Day of the Oracle. I would like to attend the morning prayers. Could you arrange a small chamber for me?”
“Of course. Allow me to guide you.”
“Oh, there’s no need to trouble yourself…”
“Please, think nothing of it.”
Samuel gladly offered his assistance.
Having just been dismissed from guiding Aveline, this unexpected encounter felt like a pleasant coincidence. It washed away his earlier frustration, leaving him feeling renewed.
“This is my first time attending an event at the grand temple. I have high expectations.”
Clonay, walking beside him, spoke with a glimmer of anticipation in her eyes.
Samuel couldn’t help but smile warmly.
Clonay was more refined than any noblewoman he had ever met—and devout as well.
As religious nobility were rare, she quickly became well-known among the priests. It was no wonder Samuel recognized her and held her in such high regard.
‘If only the divine had chosen someone like her as their representative…’
Samuel caught himself in the thought and quickly dismissed it.
To doubt the divine’s choice was an unthinkable blasphemy.
He clenched his hands and silently recited a brief prayer of repentance before speaking to Clonay again with a brightened expression.
“By the way, I see you’re still in the capital. I hadn’t seen you for some time and wondered if you had returned to your homeland.”
“Ah… there were some circumstances.”
Unlike her usual composed and gentle demeanor, Clonay appeared somewhat dejected. Samuel frowned slightly in concern.
‘It wouldn’t be proper to pry into personal matters.’
Hoping to lift the mood, he deliberately chose words of encouragement.
“I’m just glad to see you again. The other priests will surely be happy as well.”
“I am grateful for the warm welcome, as always.”
Clonay responded kindly, her voice as gentle as ever, and Samuel nodded in satisfaction.
Then, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
‘Now that I think about it…’
Clonay Huster.
Samuel repeated her name in his mind and felt a strange sense of familiarity.
Due to the temple’s doctrine that all are equal before the divine, noble names were rarely used within the temple. Thus, he had never given it much thought—but she was a daughter of the Huster Viscount family.
‘The Huster Viscount family… I heard that name recently…’
Even someone as detached from high society as he was had heard of them, meaning it must have been something significant.
Samuel sifted through the worldly news he had previously disregarded, and suddenly, his eyes widened in realization.
‘Could it be? The woman who was humiliated by Aveline Croeta?’
Yes. The one who had been publicly slapped and shamed was indeed a lady of the Huster family.
At the time, he had been too preoccupied with the High Priest’s orders to uncover Aveline’s motives to pay attention to the victim. But now, he realized that Clonay had been the one who had suffered at Aveline’s hands.
Looking back, the timing of Clonay’s absence from the temple also aligned with that incident.
‘How could someone as kind as her be subjected to such disgrace?’
Samuel’s anger toward Aveline reignited. What had Clonay done to deserve such treatment?
He didn’t know the details, but he was certain that Aveline Croeta was at fault. That wicked woman must have found some excuse to torment the innocent Clonay. Samuel had no doubt about it.
‘But… something feels off.’
Aveline Croeta was a woman well accustomed to pretending to be a noble. Even when she acted like a fiend, she maintained a noble demeanor. To Samuel’s eyes, that only made her seem even more vicious.
All the more reason why this was so perplexing.
Aveline had lost her temper and slapped someone in public? That Aveline Croeta?
Even when tormenting an insignificant apprentice priest, she had always maintained her lofty, dignified façade. So why now…?
‘Could it be…?’
A strange light flickered in Samuel’s eyes.
He turned his head slightly and glanced at Clonay, who was following behind him. When their eyes met, she smiled gently.
A peculiar premonition sent a chill down his spine.
Samuel now saw Clonay in a different light—not as a devout and upright daughter of God but as the only woman who could make Aveline Croeta uneasy.
What could that possibly mean?
‘And besides, Clonay’s birthday is definitely…’
As he pieced together the bits of information he knew, an absurd hypothesis formed in his mind.
Shaking his head at the sheer ridiculousness of the idea, Samuel tried to dismiss it. But once the thought had taken root, it clung stubbornly to his mind.
Yes. It was absurd.
‘But there’s no reason not to confirm it, either.’
As that thought solidified, a fleeting look of determination crossed Samuel’s eyes.
“Priest?”
At that moment, Clonay cautiously called out to him, noticing his silence.
Samuel quickly pushed aside the thoughts in his head and flashed a kind smile.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Let’s hurry.”
Suppressing his urge to dash straight to the library, he quickened his pace.
*
Though the High Priest had claimed he was merely heading in the same direction, he ended up following Kazerre all the way and, without hesitation, invited himself into his room under the pretense of having tea together.
The knights, watching this with evident displeasure, were shown to the room assigned to Priest Lino.
The rooms were positioned on either side of Kazerre’s chamber, and they were so extravagantly decorated that Thierry had to rub his eyes multiple times in disbelief.
Ornate furniture, tapestries with intricate patterns, luxurious crystal water pitchers, and wallpaper so lavishly designed it was almost blinding—far beyond what most nobles could even dream of affording.
“Wait, is it really okay for the Grand Temple to be this extravagant?”
Since Thierry had only ever visited the temple on the morning of the Oracle Day while accompanying Kazerre, this was his first time staying in its lodgings.
Predicting Thierry’s near-appalled reaction, Xenon merely shrugged.
“These rooms are for special visitors.”
“Even so…”
“Stop making a fuss.”
Patrick, whose icy demeanor matched the name of their Order—the Snowfield Knights—ran a hand through his ash-gray hair and curtly shut down Thierry’s complaints.
Annoyed, Thierry sneered at him.
“So, I suppose a noble brat born and raised in the capital wouldn’t be fazed by this at all?”
“You should stop blurting out your inferiority complex to others. Isn’t it embarrassing?”
“What did you just say?”
“That’s enough. This is the temple.”
Xenon, already exhausted, intervened in a weary voice before the argument could escalate.
Patrick and Thierry were natural opposites, always eager to tear each other apart at every opportunity. Patrick looked down on Thierry as an unprincipled brute who knew nothing of chivalry, while Thierry mocked Patrick as a sheltered noble with no grasp of the real world.
Only four knights had accompanied them as escorts, given that nothing significant was expected to happen at the temple. Yet, of all people, these two had to be among them.
Thinking about how Vice Commander Lionel had chosen the escort team through a random draw, Xenon felt a sudden urge to commit insubordination.
Perhaps sensing Xenon’s exhaustion, Patrick and Thierry finally let the argument drop. Patrick withdrew his disdainful gaze, and Thierry, though still muttering to himself, refrained from raising his voice.
“This place never fails to feel unfamiliar, no matter how many times I visit. The High Priest included…”
Xenon sighed deeply, offering Thierry a small measure of agreement.
In truth, he wasn’t feeling any better about the situation.
“Considering how lively he seemed, I thought he was a fish in water. His words and actions are like someone speaking to their subordinates.”
“Well, he must be thrilled. His Grace is the only high-ranking noble who acknowledges his authority.”
Patrick responded with a sneer.
The memory of the High Priest puffing up every time Kazerre displayed polite decorum made Thierry feel downright queasy.
In the Mazengarve Empire, the higher the noble’s status, the less devout they tended to be.
Even those who believed in God rarely visited the temple. The temple had only recently gained an air of legitimacy in the past two decades, and high-ranking nobles, who were fully aware of its underlying secular dealings, had little reason to respect it.
As this sentiment spread, even lower-ranking nobles distanced themselves from the temple.
Given that, Kazerre’s attitude stood out as rather unusual.
Come to think of it, it was remarkable that the esteemed Duke’s family of Evuteren had accepted Aveline Croeta in the first place.
Even if the Oracle decreed it, it was astonishing that the Evuteren ducal house, without its backing, would grant the future duchess position to the daughter of a fallen noble family who would have otherwise remained hidden away in the forest.
“It’s funny that he actually believes he’s something special because of it. It’s all because…”
Thierry suddenly trailed off.
But everyone already knew what the rest of the sentence would have been.
‘…because of the late Duchess of Evuteren’s dying wish.’
