🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 35
The archive where Estina worked had fixed opening and closing hours, but the Central Temple located inside the royal palace was open twenty-four hours a day and always had staff on duty.
When Estina arrived at the Central Temple, she carefully checked once more whether there were any barriers and whether using divine power would be detected.
Good. Nothing has changed. There’s no barrier against divine power, and it isn’t being detected either. Just like I remember.
Hiding in the bushes near the temple entrance, Estina observed the people going in and out. When she spotted someone wearing the uniform of a temple maid, she used magic to change her clothes to match the maid’s uniform.
She also altered her face to look more ordinary.
All right. As inconspicuous as possible…
With her appearance changed, Estina successfully entered the temple without attracting attention. Thanks to the queen consort’s education, she knew the temple’s layout well, so she headed straight to the archive without getting lost.
Maybe because the timing is awkward, I didn’t run into anyone closely on the way… Good.
As she cautiously searched through the archive, she soon found the records concerning the High Priest.
The materials were sealed, but since she used the same divine power as the priests, she easily released the seal with her divine power.
This is sealed at a level that lower-ranking priests can’t open, but my divine power is stronger than that of most priests. Hehe. All that studying and training at the magic academy really paid off.
Letting out a sigh of relief inwardly, Estina quickly skimmed through the records from around the time of the massacre. Her heart pounded because she never knew when someone might come in.
I see… The Queen calling the High Priest wasn’t such a rare occurrence. Let’s see, around that time… Right, here it is. It says that while he was on night duty, he went to the Queen’s chambers for a private audience. And the next morning, he changed the date of the new priest ordination ceremony. The original scheduled date… was the same day the ducal estate was attacked.
Estina’s eyes gleamed. The event that had originally been scheduled for that day was suddenly changed after he met the Queen. Her gaze immediately moved to the records from the day of the massacre and the day before it.
The evening before… Normally, that week the High Priest was supposed to guard the temple at night. But after the private meeting with the Queen, he changed his schedule and had no duty that day or the next. There wasn’t even another appointment—he just left an entire day empty for no reason. Starting just a few hours before our ducal estate was attacked.
Her suspicion was almost certain now.
The Queen mobilized the High Priest for that day, and probably other priests under him as well. Then the ones I saw using magic that day must have been priests. As for the assassins, either the Queen sent them or the King mobilized them.
It felt as though the events of that day were fitting together in her mind like pieces of a puzzle.
All right… I’ve confirmed what I came here to check. Now I need to leave quickly.
Estina resealed the materials as they were and quietly left the archive.
As she was going down to the first floor, where the temple entrance was, she felt someone watching her and stopped.
When she turned around, she saw a hunched old woman in a temple maid’s clothes standing in the shadow behind a pillar, staring straight at her. Her hair was completely white, but her bright blue eyes were sharp.
She looks extremely old… but judging by her eyes, she doesn’t seem like an ordinary person.
Frightened by the old woman’s gaze, which seemed to know something, Estina turned her body to hurry out of the temple.
At that moment, the old woman spoke. Her voice was small, yet strangely clear in Estina’s ears.
“Lady.”
“…?!”
Estina’s mind went blank. She was so shocked that she couldn’t make a sound and froze in place. As if driving in a nail, the old woman called her again.
“Lady Hertenes.”
When she was first called “Lady,” Estina thought she might have misheard. But now, denying it would be ridiculous.
I changed my appearance… how does she know?
Barely able to breathe, Estina slowly turned back around. The old woman bent her already hunched back even deeper toward her.
“This old woman greets such a precious person. I was the chief priest who served Her Majesty the former Queen… I dare to ask to speak with you, Lady.”
It was something she never expected.
Someone who served my grandmother?
Estina quickly looked around. It didn’t seem like a trap, but her unease did not disappear. Sensing her anxiety, the old woman reassured her.
“It’s all right. It will still take some time for the patrol to come this way.”
After a brief hesitation, Estina decided to trust someone who had served her grandmother—more precisely, her grandfather’s sister. Even in the worst case, she thought she could escape from a small, frail-looking old woman.
When Estina nodded very slightly with an anxious expression, the old woman began to speak.
“You must have come here to learn the truth about… ‘that day.’ I thought this old woman might be able to help you even a little, so I wish to confess my sin and the truth I know to you, Lady…”
Though frightened by the fact that the old woman had seen through both her identity and her purpose, Estina decided to listen in silence.
“On that day eight years ago, the High Priest suddenly gathered several of the highest-ranking priests. I was already considered useless at the time, so I wasn’t summoned, but by chance I overheard their conversation outside the door.”
The old woman hesitated for a moment, took a deep breath, and continued.
“…They said there was an order from Her Majesty the Queen to wipe out the entire Hou family in a single night. They spoke of when and who would go, and how they were to cooperate with the assassins. It was such a shocking story that my heart raced and my legs trembled.”
Estina’s eyes widened.
So this really was what Queen Aklis discussed alone with the King!
The old woman continued.
“But I was old and my divine power was already fading, so I had no strength to stop those gathered high priests. I was also afraid that something would happen to me if I informed others. After all, I was someone who had served the former Queen from the Hou family, whom the current Queen regarded as a thorn in her side…
So I simply retreated and stayed silent. Believing that the sturdy ducal estate would repel the attack… It was nothing but cowardice.”
Deep guilt and anguish were written all over the old woman’s face.
“On the night the attack was supposed to happen, I stayed quietly in my room. But the more I thought about it, the more unbearable it became. It felt as though I was betraying my mistress. So I decided to at least try to save the daughter of the Hou family—the one they most wanted to eliminate.
That night, I gathered every last bit of divine power left in my old body and cast an illusion spell on the Hou family daughter’s room. It was an illusion that made the assassins mistake the pillow in that room for the Hou family daughter. They probably attacked the pillow and believed they had killed the daughter. I wished I could save the whole family, but with the divine power I had left, it was already too much to cast an illusion on even that single room…”
Listening to this, Estina naturally recalled the incomprehensible scenes from that day.
That’s why the intruders stabbed the pillow so much, carried it out, and burned it… Then they must have reported that Roabellin and I were dead.
Before Estina could think any further, the old woman—no, the old priest—continued.
“To be honest, when I cast the illusion, I didn’t know you were in the room as well. But when I felt that far more divine power was being consumed than I expected, I realized there was someone else in the room. Since the illusion was cast on the ‘Hou family daughter,’ I soon understood that you, Lady, were also included in its effect.
I exhausted all my divine power that day, and after that, almost none remained. That is why I am treated as an empty shell here in the temple, doing menial work. I believe I am being punished by Dominador for knowing of that matter in advance and yet failing to act. Still, now that I have seen with my own eyes that you are alive, Lady, I have no more regrets.”
Estina’s chest tightened at the confession of the priest who had saved both her and Roabellin.
In truth, with her strength alone, that old priest could never have stopped the annihilation of the family. Yet she had protected the family of the one she served with all the power she had left.
She lost almost all her divine power protecting the Hou family daughters, and in return she didn’t gain wealth or honor, but lived being treated as an empty shell… someone who had once been the chief priest.
Just as Estina was about to open her mouth to thank her, voices and footsteps came from the distance. The faint sounds quickly drew closer.
“There’s a trace of a power different from what’s normally used in the temple! Find it!”
Had Estina’s power been detected? The old woman whispered hurriedly to her.
“Lady, please follow me. I will guide you to an exit that the high-ranking ones do not know about.”
The place she led Estina to was a door near the kitchen.
“Go out through that door and walk straight ahead. When you open the last door, you will reach a garbage yard that leads outside. I apologize for guiding such a noble person to a place like that.”
The old woman only kept apologizing to Estina to the very end. Estina wanted to thank her, but the old woman quickly pushed her out and shut the door. Then she picked up a bucket of food waste by the kitchen’s back door and headed toward where the people were coming from.
“Oh, oh… oops!!”
Pretending to fall as she approached them, the old woman flung the food waste at them. The foul-smelling scraps splattered across their faces and white priest robes in a riot of colors.
“Ew, what is this?!”
The young trainee priests who had been diligently searching the temple focused their eyes on the old woman. They immediately recognized the useless old priest.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
But instead of apologizing, the old woman glared at them and shouted,
“Watch where you’re going!”
Her insolent words made the young trainee priests instantly furious.
“She should be groveling on the floor, and instead this crazy old hag—!”
“A useless old woman who can’t even earn her keep—has she finally gone mad?!”
Picking up the remaining food waste in her hand, the old woman threw it at one of their faces, striking at their sore spot.
“You people who worship someone with not even a speck of divine power as the master of the temple!”
“What?!”
Enraged to the top of their heads, they began to mercilessly beat the old woman. Rough kicks from young men rained down on the small, powerless old woman.
