Chapter 67: The False Saintess (5)
Inside the silent tent, not even the faintest sound of an ant’s footsteps could be heard.
An old man sat with his eyes closed, immersed in quiet meditation.
The holy emblem of the Goddess’ Church embroidered on his pure white robes left no doubt—he was the Pope.
Even his usual attendant priests had been dismissed. Alone, he focused solely on his breathing, calming his heart and mind.
By the time even the whispering wind slipping through the curtain seams had gone still, the sound of footsteps echoed—someone had appeared from thin air and was now approaching.
Step. Step.
The Pope immediately sensed who it was. There was only one person who could enter this place without resistance from the priests.
“Well, well. I didn’t expect my dear Duke to be this rude.”
“Surely you’re not realizing that just now?”
The man snorted derisively. At the sound, the Pope opened his eyes. Ash-gray hair, silver eyes. A sharp gaze and an eerie presence that made even the Pope momentarily stiffen.
Put plainly, the man had an insufferable face.
“It’s been a while since we’ve met in private, Your Holiness.”
Abel.
One of the only four dukes of the Arie Empire—and an adversary the Pope might as well call a nemesis. Though, in the past, they had once stood side by side as comrades on the battlefield.
Tap.
With a snap of his fingers, Abel summoned two cushions from thin air.
Even during the subjugation campaigns, his spatial magic had been formidable. In the Arie Empire—often dubbed the Empire of Mages—none wielded space magic like Abel did.
The Pope remembered how Abel had once struggled to learn even basic shielding spells. Has that much time really passed since then?
“Please, have a seat.”
Settling himself without hesitation, Abel pointed to the other cushion. The Pope chuckled softly and slowly rose from the floor.
His language might be polite, but Abel’s attitude hadn’t changed a bit.
Back then, he used to call the Pope “old geezer” to his face. If anything, this was an improvement.
Still, it was obvious he hadn’t changed how little he thought of the Pope.
“Indeed. It’s been ages since the two of us met like this. Over a decade, wasn’t it?”
“You were the one who insisted we keep things strictly professional.”
The Pope grumbled, and Abel narrowed his eyes in amusement.
But the Pope met that gaze head-on, unfazed.
“You’re still holding a grudge over that?”
“You’re the one who started acting petty first.”
With a scoff, Abel reached into the air. Without even chanting, a spatial rift opened at his will.
He rummaged around inside and pulled out two wine glasses, tossing one to the Pope.
The Pope barely caught it using divine energy. Seeing that, Abel chuckled.
“You really have gotten old. Can’t even catch a cup properly.”
“I am well over a hundred, you know. This is to be expected.”
More than a full century had passed since his birth. This frailty was natural.
Not that he’d ever intended to live this long—yet the vows of his youth still bound him tightly.
“You mean, your advanced age, not just old age,” Abel quipped.
While the Pope drifted into memories of the past, Abel retrieved a peculiar-looking bottle from the spatial rift.
At the sight of it, the Pope’s eyes lit up.
He recognized it instantly: an oriental medicinal liquor—ginseng wine, the kind notoriously hard to come by.
Long before he became a clergyman, he’d been an avid lover of fine alcohol. Of course he recognized it at a glance.
As the Pope’s gaze locked onto the bottle, Abel smirked.
“Still a drinker, I see.”
“I don’t drink because I can’t find any.”
“Imagine the priests finding out the Pope’s a liquor lover. They’d faint on the spot.”
“Heh. I haven’t had a drink in ages thanks to this cursed old body. They wouldn’t know.”
The Pope gently ran his fingers over the glass before placing it down on the floor.
Watching him, Abel casually tossed the bottle into the air. A white magic circle appeared, catching it midair and tilting it toward the Pope’s cup.
Clear liquid glided from the bottle, shimmering as it poured.
The Pope instinctively swallowed.
“Since when do you care about my health?”
“Since the war ended.”
“That would make it what, ten years now?”
To that, Abel replied with a dry laugh.
“...Has it already been that long?”
Ten years.
The Pope murmured the number under his breath and drifted back into the past—to the first time he’d met Abel.
It had been during the great war sparked when the Kingdom of Priletcha turned both the Holy Nation of Numen and the Arie Empire into its enemies.
A war that had dragged on for over a century.
The Pope had been dispatched to the battlefield in his middle age.
‘That’s where we met.’
For over twenty years, he had wandered the battlefield as a priest—and that’s when he’d met a young Imperial soldier.
A boy driven mad by bloodshed, surviving only by killing.
His body looked like it would collapse with a tap, yet among all the Empire’s child soldiers, only that boy had survived until the end.
And now that very same boy stood before him—not only as one of the Empire’s four Dukes, but also as a grand archmage.
Time truly was a merciless thing.
“Back then, I was full of fire too,” the Pope murmured, savoring the wine’s aroma.
Abel, watching, let out a snort.
“Fire? You were already an old geezer even back then.”
“Now, that’s no way to talk to an elderly man.”
“Consider it the price of getting a sip of my expensive liquor.”
Despite the many years that had passed, Abel’s arrogant nature remained exactly the same.
What used to be an infuriating attitude now felt oddly comforting.
“They say the older you get, the easier it is to feel nostalgic about everything,” the Pope muttered to himself, letting out a quiet sigh as he took another sip from his glass.
Abel said nothing, watching the Pope’s wistful expression. He simply refilled his own cup, letting the clear liquid trickle through the narrow neck of the bottle, filling the glass with a soft glug.
With a swift tilt, he knocked back the entire glass in one go. A warm burn flooded down his throat and spread through his chest.
The Pope clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
“You really don’t know how to appreciate a good drink. Who downs something that fine in one shot?”
“What’s it matter? It’s my drink. I’ll enjoy it however I like.”
“Ugh. This is exactly why I hate having private drinks with you.”
“Fine by me. You’re not getting any more.”
“Actually... the way you drank it doesn’t seem that bad now that I think about it.”
Abel chuckled dryly at the Pope’s sudden reversal. Same as always—an incorrigible old man.
As the Pope raised his glass again, Abel snapped his fingers.
The Pope froze for a brief second. It felt like a wave of immense mana had just swept over his body.
Wuuung…
A faint vibration hummed at his ears as an enormous barrier formed around the tent. Even without deep knowledge of magic, the Pope could feel just how powerful the spell was.
Having seen Abel’s magic too many times on the battlefield, the Pope immediately understood what kind of spell it was.
A soundproof barrier.
A field that prevents any sound from escaping its boundaries.
This was the same magic that earned Abel the nickname ‘Reaper of Silence’ during the war.
The fact that he was deploying it now could only mean one thing—whatever they were about to discuss, it couldn’t be overheard by anyone.
So this wasn’t just a casual drink after all.
The Pope placed his now-empty glass on the floor and looked directly at Abel.
“Your Holiness. Have you lost your stigmata?”
The Stigmata.
A mark bestowed directly by the Goddess—a symbol of divine favor and an irrefutable sign of devotion.
For the Pope or a Saintess, it was the most sacred proof of faith.
To lose it meant that the Goddess herself had withdrawn her blessing.
And that meant not only was his papal authority in jeopardy, but possibly his very life.
“Heh... as expected, I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”
The Pope didn’t deny it.
Instead, he silently rolled up his sleeve and revealed his arm.
Only a faint scar remained where the stigmata used to be.
Abel exhaled sharply at the sight, unable to hide his disappointment.
“So you ignored my warning after all.”
“Did you actually think I’d listen?”
“...Hard to say.”
Abel had warned him in the past, clearly.
But just like in the original timeline, the Pope had still lost his stigmata.
Did he simply disregard the warning? Or was it always inevitable?
Knowing the Pope’s nature, he would never have accepted advice like that.
Letting an innocent girl suffer for the sake of strategy—that was something the stubborn old man could never do.
Now that this had happened, Abel realized he’d have to abandon any plan that involved the Pope’s support.
“Was it really worth losing your stigmata... for the Emperor’s pawn?”
“...Yes. I remember your words from before.”
Something about not carving up your own flesh for the sake of traitors.
The Pope let out a bitter chuckle as Abel’s old warning echoed in his mind.
He thought of Yuruf—the Saintess candidate he had personally selected.
A kind-hearted girl, pure beyond question... and the Emperor’s hidden agent.
The Pope had known that.
Just as he had known how good and innocent she truly was.
As a frail old man with little left to give, all he could do was name her a candidate for Saintess.
The internal power struggles within the Holy Nation prevented him from doing more.
So it was no surprise that he’d incurred the Goddess’s wrath.
Selecting the Emperor’s spy as a Saintess candidate was an act too dangerous to go unpunished.
“Still... not once have I regretted it.”
“You’re still as foolish as ever.”
“And that’s how I’ve managed to survive this long.”
The Pope smiled wryly and took another sip from his cup.
Abel said nothing more, simply reaching forward to refill the Pope’s glass.
Without another word, the two sat in silence.
Outside, the night grew deeper, wrapped in the quiet weight of all that remained unsaid.
– – The End of The Chapter––
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