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Chapter 76
A suspicious flow of holy power running underground.
And yet, the administrator was suggesting she could just leave the building after discovering it.
“Does he really think I’ll go back so obediently?”
Elizia crouched down toward the floor without answering.
Ding!
Administrator: Dear guest, are you seriously not leaving? I’m telling you, you have to leave right now!
∥ “No? The situation outside doesn’t look too good.” ∥
Administrator: It’s fine, really! If you don’t go back quickly, your father will find out, you know?
∥ “I’ll handle it! Don’t worry about me.” ∥
The more he tried to stop her, the more curious she became. Did he know something and was deliberately holding her back?
Ignoring the administrator’s protests, Elizia peered down at the floor, narrowing her eyes to observe the flow of holy power more closely. From outside it had looked faint, but being closer made it clearer. She muttered under her breath.
∥ “…How can I get to the underground from here?” ∥
Sometimes even in Seiros Saga, progress required finding hidden places or secret passages inside buildings.
“It’s usually something obvious if you look hard enough.”
Most of the time, it was about locating a hidden object or symbol and activating it. Elizia began searching every corner of the room.
“Nothing under the carpet.”
She had half-expected a hidden door or teleportation portal to a basement, but there was nothing of the sort.
“Should I check the decorations up front?”
At the front stood an altar for prayers to the goddess Frinis, flanked on both sides by huge angel statues. Elizia walked toward them.
Despite being old and dusty, the statues radiated a solemn, sacred aura. Elizia muttered to one as if speaking to it.
∥ “Mr. Angel, what is the administrator hiding?” ∥
Creak, creak…!
“…!”
It was a casual remark, but the angel statue shifted slightly. Almost as if it was responding to her words.
“What the—why is this so creepy?”
Of course, some mechanisms did react to speech—like doors that opened with a password.
But to respond to a throwaway remark? That was unsettling. Feeling a chill run down her spine, Elizia instinctively stepped back.
“Should I just… leave? …No.”
She hadn’t come this far to turn back. She had plenty of mana and stamina; there was no way she’d lose here. She couldn’t afford to flinch over something like this. Emboldened, she spoke again.
∥ “Ah, so you do know. You know what the administrator is hiding. Then why don’t you just tell me?” ∥
……
Her brazen words were met with silence this time. The statue did not move at all.
“Guess that’s not it.”
With a disappointed look, Elizia walked closer. From this angle, she could see the floor more clearly. The statue’s foot seemed to be pressing down on something.
“Can’t quite see… Wait. Did it move to hide this when I spoke earlier?”
“Hmm.”
Elizia smirked. And then—
Flash!
Creak, groan—?!
∥ “So you were standing on this, huh? Not bad for a statue.” ∥
Lifting the massive angel statue—larger than her own body—as if it weighed nothing, Elizia held it aloft. She could feel it trembling in her grasp, but she paid it no mind and looked down.
Beneath where the statue had stood, a small sigil was inscribed. A peculiar glyph formed entirely from holy power—something ordinary people would never have noticed. Without hesitation, Elizia stepped onto it.
∥ “Hopefully this leads to the basement. Here goes!” ∥
Whoooosh!
At her words, light flared beneath her feet.
Moments later, her figure vanished completely, and the statue returned to its original position as though nothing had happened.
The room fell silent, as if untouched.
Meanwhile, outside, the High Priest suddenly raised his head.
“The presence… it disappeared.”
The suspicious intruder they had been tracking—gone.
“Did they leave the temple entirely?”
The only reason he had sensed them at all was because they were within his domain, the temple. Now that they had vanished, he had no way of pursuing them. The High Priest clenched his fists, his frustration plain.
“What was that just now…?”
The aura had been faint, but unmistakable.
The feeling of the world’s laws being twisted.
Fate itself shifting off course, the natural flow of time and space bending—an unknown force that invited chaos.
He had felt it before. On the day of the prophecy of Frillien’s descent, he had sensed the same unease from none other than Lady Elizia Semperion. That was why he had warned her not to interfere with the Saintess’s coming.
Yet, as if to mock him, Elizia Semperion had appeared at the exact place of the Saintess’s descent. Somehow she had even matched the location and date—though the timing had been altered.
The Saintess had descended at a different hour than foretold. Clearly, Lady Semperion had caused it. But he could never explain this to others. Who would believe that a reckless young lady possessed the power to distort the world itself?
And now, once again, he had sensed that same power. Here, within the holy temple he loved and guarded.
Had it not been for the detection spells he had woven throughout the temple, he might have missed it entirely. But unfortunately for his opponent, they were inside his domain. Even that faint trace, he had recognized and moved toward it.
“…Elizia Semperion?”
His only mistake may have been speaking her name aloud.
For the moment he sensed the aura, the clearest figure in his mind was that of Lady Semperion—the troublemaking villainess always at the center of incidents and fate.
Perhaps it had been rash to speak before confirming. Or perhaps he had struck too close to the truth.
Rustle—
“S-stop right there!”
Though he had barely whispered, the mysterious presence bolted instantly, fleeing at an inhuman speed. Chasing after the invisible figure, the High Priest finally raised the alarm.
“…This time, I’ll catch you.”
Whatever spell cloaked them in transparency, if that intruder truly was Elizia Semperion, then at last he would have the grounds to confront her officially.
To dare intrude upon the temple itself—surely even the powerful Duke Semperion could not defend his daughter from this.
“The Semperion family…”
They had always been difficult. Ordering the Saintess around, refusing to attend her debut banquet under the excuse of their daughter’s illness—ignoring the temple’s authority outright.
But this time, they could not escape.
Breaking into the temple secretly was already sacrilege, and being discovered near the Saintess’s quarters would only compound suspicion. To everyone else, it would look like malicious intent. And since it was Elizia Semperion, the rumors would spread like wildfire: the jealous young lady who fainted over the Saintess, who refused to attend her banquet…
“Your Eminence.”
At that moment, one of the knights who had been searching for the intruder came running, pale-faced.
“It seems they have already escaped…”
“….”
Giving up already? So little patience for one called a knight. The High Priest clicked his tongue inwardly, though outwardly his face remained calm.
“I expected as much. It is dark, and… I did not give you a proper description. Finding them must have been difficult.”
In truth, it wasn’t merely a lack of description. The intruder had been invisible. Though the High Priest had mentioned that, it had shocked the others.
“Invisible? Then it’s a ghost?”
“A wicked being indeed… In the goddess’s name, we must capture it!”
Despite their zeal, they had reached their limit. And even the High Priest could not advise them further—the faint aura was now completely gone.
“To vanish so quickly?”
With so many eyes and ears posted around, they had disappeared without a trace. This was no ordinary opponent. With a sharp gaze, the High Priest scanned the temple gardens.
His eyes finally rested on an old, small chapel.
“….”
Surely not.
He hesitated briefly, then began walking slowly toward the building.
