Vol 4. Chapter 88: Sometimes You Have to Know How to Compromise
“Mnngh—!”
The lightning cage around Vanessa dissolved into a net of electricity spread across her wings. Current raced along the feathers and through every part of her body. The numb, prickling sensation was so intense she could not even force out a complete sentence.
“Oh, dear, young Lady Saintess. You spoke so beautifully just now—so imposing, so righteous, so awe-inspiring—and yet you couldn’t even make it past me.” Leaning on his staff, the cardinal walked over to her. “You may not know this, but among the cardinals, I’m not one of the ones who specializes in combat. The field I’m responsible for is interrogation and judgment, so in all sorts of ways, fighting is actually not my strong suit.”
“There are plenty of cardinals in the Church of the Dawn far more skilled in battle than I am.”
“...”
Vanessa said nothing.
Or rather, she could not say anything at all right now.
Vera, who had been seated by the tea table, also rose and walked over. Ronilei naturally followed behind her, though several times she looked as though she wanted to say something and held herself back.
Once Vera approached, she looked toward the cardinal and the scar-faced knight at her side, something unreadable flickering in her eyes.
“Hm, it seems our Lady Saintess is modest and knows how to listen.” Seeing that Vanessa said nothing, the cardinal nodded.
“My lord cardinal, I think Lady Saintess is probably unable to speak at the moment. You should give her a second.” The scar-faced knight, who had remained silent all this time, finally spoke.
“Oh? Ah, right.” The cardinal finally realized it, flicked his staff, and the electric net spread across Vanessa’s back dissolved with it.
Vanessa’s condition improved slightly. At the very least, her mouth was no longer so numb that she could not speak.
“Interrogation and judgment? So that’s what I’m about to face next?” Vanessa still lay on the ground, her wings—large enough to cover her entire body—still limp and unresponsive.
“Haha. Our little Saintess may be lacking in strength, but she’s brilliantly clever. Congratulations. Correct.” The cardinal chuckled. “Otherwise, the Church would never have sent someone like me, someone specifically in charge of interrogation and judgment, to this place.”
“As for what comes next, little Saintess, have you guessed that too? First, you’ll be interrogated. After that, you’ll be shut inside a prison cart and paraded through the streets, your identity as a false Saintess nailed down beyond dispute. Then, after facing public trial, you’ll face the judgment of the masses as well.”
“...”
At those words, the scar-faced knight’s expression suddenly turned strange. His grip on the halberd tightened.
Even Vera’s expression as she looked at the cardinal changed.
“And what do you think of that, little Saintess?” the cardinal continued with a smile. “Perhaps you aren’t afraid of physical suffering. But what you’re about to endure won’t be just physical pain. It’ll be torment of both mind and body. Locked in a prison cart, not understood by the very people you wanted to protect—no, worse, cursed by them. Cursed while they throw all kinds of rotten fruit at you and hope you suffer. I wonder whether you’ll be able to endure it.”
“What I want to know,” Vanessa asked without much pause, “is whether you can still cling to your lie-filled story even now.”
“A lie? No one will ever know it’s a lie.” The cardinal smiled.
“So you’re finally admitting it? That the ones who spread this monstrous lie were you people?” Vanessa demanded.
“Oh, little Saintess, you still don’t understand. What does it matter whether I admit it or not? You keep getting hung up on these harmless little questions of right and wrong. That’s exactly why you’ve ended up like this.”
“Harmless little questions of right and wrong?” Vanessa repeated, her voice rising. “It’s precisely because the Church is full of people like you that this world has become such a mess.”
“And so what?” the cardinal said lightly. “All I know is that we won, and you lost, little Saintess.”
“Yes, fine—I admit it now. You really are a genuine Dawn Saintess, a genuine descendant of Facilis. But what of it? Can you let anyone else know that? Can you make the people know? Can you make the countless believers under the Church know?”
“No. None of them will know. All you can do is remain imprisoned here forever, still bitter, still unwilling. Perhaps the Pope will make use of you too. Even if it’s the truth—even if you’re the real thing through and through—it still won’t matter.”
“A blade of grass that can be pulled up with ease—anyone can decide whether it lives or dies. But if it were a towering tree, then ten people, a hundred people, still wouldn’t be enough to do anything about it.”
“My lord cardinal, do I need to remind you that the sheer effort you’re putting into telling me all this is getting a little unnecessary?” Vanessa shot him a glance.
“Quite right. Then, little Saintess, do you know what is about to happen next?”
“The Church’s prison cart with no shade, and rancid food that gives you diarrhea. Please bear with that part,” the cardinal said with a genial chuckle.
“My lord cardinal, that’s enough, isn’t it? Please know when to stop.”
At that moment, the scar-faced knight finally could not hold back any longer.
“I shouldn’t need to remind you of the agreement we made when I came to find you.”
“My lord cardinal, please do not forget the promise we made back then.” Vera spoke up coolly as well. “Don’t forget what the terms of our alliance were.”
“Hahahaha.” The cardinal tipped his head back and laughed a few times. “My apologies, everyone. I may have gotten a little too carried away with the role.”
“Perhaps it’s because I’ve finally met a real Saintess and simply couldn’t resist saying a little more.”
“That’s enough. Please stop doing this sort of thing just to frighten her on purpose,” the scar-faced knight said with a frown. “This should have ended a while ago. You even exchanged several rounds with Lady Saintess.”
“My apologies. I couldn’t help myself. A chance to cross hands with the Lady Saintess herself is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Of course I couldn’t let that pass.” The cardinal smiled.
“??”
Still sprawled on the ground, Vanessa stared at the scene before her in utter confusion.
“My apologies, Lady Saintess. We offended you earlier.” The scar-faced knight stepped forward.
“You... who exactly are you?” Vanessa had felt from the beginning that the knight looked strangely familiar. But no matter how she searched her memory, she could not place where she had seen him before.
“My lord cardinal, you still remember our agreement, correct?” Instead of answering Vanessa, the scar-faced knight turned toward the cardinal.
“Yes, of course. We signed a magic contract, after all.” The cardinal stroked his beard with a smile.
“Then what do you think? Are you satisfied with this generation’s Saintess?” the scar-faced knight asked.
“Haha. Sir Marshall, if I were to say I’m not satisfied at a time like this, would you turn on me on the spot?” As he said this, the cardinal also glanced toward Vera, who had quietly moved closer to Vanessa’s position and stepped in front of him.
“We’ve worked together for many years. There’s no need for that.” Marshall neither stated his stance outright nor lowered the halberd in his hand. “Besides, I trust that my lord cardinal will honor his promise.”
“Oh, come now, Marshall. Does that look like trust to you? Setting our work aside, we’ve still been friends for years. You can’t spare me even that little bit of faith?”
“One thing is one thing, and another is another,” Marshall said flatly. “Besides, over all my years serving in the Church, I’ve seen more than a few old friends part ways because their beliefs no longer aligned.”
“All right, all right, I’ll stop teasing you. I signed a magic contract, didn’t I? Do you think I’m going to break it? Even if you don’t trust me, you should at least trust the contract.” The cardinal sounded helpless.
“Then... what’s your answer?” Marshall pressed.
“Isn’t it obvious enough? Marshall, in this world, all you can do is choose a side. There’s no such thing as offending neither side. If you offend neither side, then in truth you’ve offended both. And if I were standing with the Pope, then the moment I saw with my own eyes that she really was the genuine Saintess, I would’ve taken her into custody during that exchange just now.”
“If I’d truly had that intention, I wouldn’t have come with you alone this time. I’d have secretly ordered a squad of Radiant Cross Knights to sneak in first, then had them appear at a moment like this. Wouldn’t that have put me in a completely unbeatable position?” The cardinal spread his hands.
“?? What exactly are you people talking about?” Vanessa demanded from the ground. “Excuse me, but in this very immersive little play you’ve all staged, am I really the only audience member?”
“My apologies, Lady Saintess.” Ronilei stepped forward and helped Vanessa up. “We didn’t explain things clearly to you beforehand.”
“?”
Vanessa did not particularly want to let Ronilei support her, but in her current state she could not move properly at all, so she had no choice.
Ronilei helped her over to a velvet sofa in the second-floor hall and sat her upright on it.
By then, Vanessa could also feel most of the numb tingling in her body fading. She had basically recovered her ability to move, though her body still felt stiff.
Vanessa looked at the people before her and said nothing.
“Then, since you’ve acknowledged it, my lord cardinal—and since, just as I said, she is the genuine Dawn Saintess—shouldn’t you make your position clear?” Marshall asked.
“Of course.”
The cardinal clearly knew what Marshall meant. Smiling, he set his staff aside, stepped forward together with Marshall, and knelt on one knee before Vanessa.
“Toreka, cardinal of the Church of the Dawn, pays his respects to Your Holiness, Lady Saintess.”
“Marshall, captain of a Radiant Cross Knight squad of the Church of the Dawn, pays his respects to Your Holiness, Lady Saintess.”
“We ask only that Your Holiness not cast us aside. We are willing to devote ourselves to your service.”
“Today, beneath the witness of the Goddess, we swear this: from this day forth, we will follow only Your Holiness, Lady Saintess. We will give our lives and every ounce of our strength for you.”
Both men lowered their heads as they made their vow.
“What are you even saying?” Vanessa asked. It was not that she could not piece together what was happening, but the reversal had been too abrupt. Just moments ago they had been fighting like mortal enemies, and now, all of a sudden, this?
And Vera too...?
“My apologies, little sister Vinny. I think... I can explain what happened before.” Vera looked as though she wanted to say more and yet hesitated.
“Explain?” Vanessa fell silent for a while. “Don’t tell me you’re about to say everything before this was just an act. That you were testing me?”
“My apologies. It wasn’t that we doubted your identity,” Marshall said humbly. “We only wished to confirm your resolve and your will as the Saintess.”
“My resolve and my will?”
“Every Dawn Saintess has something she alone insists on.” Cardinal Toreka spoke up. “When they are young, they may all be somewhat rebellious in their own ways—but they are fascinating. In the end, each of them finds, through her own search, a path to the salvation of all living beings. Different roads, same destination.”
“Though the things they uphold and the ideals they pursue may vary in their details, they all share the same core.”
“In you, I saw the same conviction your great-grandmother had. Saintess Sophia’s conviction.” Toreka’s voice carried genuine emotion.
“You met my great-grandmother?” Vanessa looked Toreka up and down. That much at least made sense—he looked like an old man in his fifties, but for a transcendent being, lifespan far exceeded that of ordinary people. And Toreka was clearly one of the elite among them. His strength was overwhelming. He probably was not merely an entry-level master.
If so, his true age was impossible to guess. He looked like an old man, yes—but how long he had actually lived was likely known only to himself and those close to him.
“You still remember Saintess Sophia?” Marshall suddenly gave Toreka a deep look. “After Saintess Sophia died in battle, you changed like you were a completely different man. You flattered the Pope desperately, kept proving your loyalty, and every stunt you pulled to curry favor became more outrageous than the last. You were obsessed with discarding your identity as one of the Radiant Cross Knights. I honestly couldn’t tell whether your temperament had changed beyond recognition, or whether this was just your true face finally showing.”
“What choice did I have? You knew what the situation was like back then. If I wanted to stay in the Church of the Dawn, what else could I do?” Toreka said helplessly. “I needed to remain inside the Church. Only then could I accomplish more things, could I not? Like today. If I’d had no real power left, how could I have helped you?”
“You, on the other hand, simply didn’t do enough. Back then, you were suppressed terribly.”
“You... care too much about appearances. You don’t understand that even in service of truth, sometimes you have to know how to compromise.”
“You were both Radiant Cross Knights from my great-grandmother’s era?” Vanessa pressed.
“That’s right. We both once belonged to the Radiant Cross Knights under your great-grandmother.” Toreka’s expression turned distant with memory. “At the time, the two of us were lucky. We had only just joined the order, and our work was in logistics. Not long after that, the great war broke out. Saintess Sophia led the elite of the Radiant Cross Knights to the battlefield and fought the demon race at the height of its power. In the end, she and the Demon King both fell, taking each other down together. And the Radiant Cross Knights, once known as ‘the spear of the Church’ and ‘the Saintess’s sword and shield,’ were shattered so completely their very formation ceased to exist. Later on, even the newcomers and the logistics personnel were being prepared for deployment.”
“And then the two of us were lucky once again. By the time it was our turn to put on armor and head for the front, the war was already over.” Toreka spoke of the old days in a low voice.