Chapter 453: Great Crisis!

Outside the conference room, Liya took a deep breath; her full chest surged with it as she slowly exhaled the worries in her heart.

She was still a little nervous.

Because this upcoming meeting—though perhaps not earthshaking—was indeed the first major gathering of various forces she would attend as the Saintess, representing the Church.

First times are always rather difficult and painful; Liya had long since learned as much.

Originally, her teacher was supposed to accompany her through this meeting from start to finish, but for some reason, after leaving the words “I’m going on a trip” yesterday, she left the Holy City at once.

It was sudden, but Liya did not stop her.

Because she knew her Saintess teacher had been bound by that position for a full twenty years. It was time to put everything down and pursue what she wanted.

Moreover...

Thinking of those confidential files about the former Saintess that she had viewed by privilege after becoming Saintess, Liya’s eyes dimmed again.

The Saintess teacher was probably...

“No, this isn’t the time to think about that.”

The clock on the wall was about to strike the start of the meeting. Liya shook her little head and hurriedly cleared the clutter from her mind.

She stilled herself and carefully recalled the intelligence she had read before—

—about the attending representatives.

As the first line of humanity’s resistance against Evil Gods, those people had long kept company with madness and distortion. They themselves were extremely strong or vicious figures, and more or less had defects or quirks in their personalities.

For example, General Baror of Agency Zero.

For example, the cold-faced Sid of the Ironcasters under the Stone Cauldron Association.

Meeting together with people like that, Liya could already imagine how oppressive and frightening the atmosphere would be.

But she could not shrink back.

Come on, Liya—imagine that Muen is watching you the whole time!

Firming her resolve once more and quietly cheering herself on, Liya finally, with utmost solemnity, pushed open the conference room doors.

“Everyone, pardon me for keeping you wai—”

As the doors swung open, Liya did not see any heavy, deathly-still meeting in progress.

Before the polite words were even finished, her gaze swept swiftly over the faces of those ruthless figures—people with terrifying reputations—whose expressions at this moment were all exceedingly strange.

And then...

Just as Stand users attract each other, the green tea sprouting in the warm spring light will always attract another swaying little green tea.

Liya’s gaze instantly landed upon that famous painting—“The Great Acting Swordbearer of the Silent Bureau and Her Beloved Pretty Boy.”

Anna was sitting on the Muen she adored, shifting her perky hips; her soul-hooking side glance slid over and met Liya’s gaze.

What... is this?

In an instant, Liya felt a bizarre sensation—as if being cuckolded right to her face.

“Oh my, you’re finally here.”

Seated gracefully upon that human cushion, Anna propped her fragrant cheek in her hand, her expression languid.

“If Your Highness the Saintess came any later, I fear I would have taken a nap like this first. Wouldn’t I, junior~”

“Heh... hehe.”

The human cushion used dead-fish eyes to convey to Liya that he was also very helpless—but that helplessness quickly turned into an expression neither pain nor pleasure as Anna secretly wiggled her beautiful hips a few more times.

“...I apologize. I am late; how discourteous of me.”

Watching this scene, Liya’s small fists inside her sleeves clenched hard enough to creak, yet she still could only show Senior Anna a model gentle smile—though the lines of that smile seemed to deepen quite a bit.

“Y-Your Highness the Saintess, are you alright?”

Lin sidled over and asked in a whisper, worried.

Though she still couldn’t figure out who did it with whom, Her Highness the Saintess certainly could not be feeling well right now.

“I’m fine.”

Liya quickly calmed herself. This wasn’t the first time; even ten times more luscious scenes than this had played out before her eyes just last night. What was this by comparison?

However... she could not pretend not to see a provocation like this.

“Miss Anna... Senior.”

In a formal setting, Liya also used a more formal mode of address.

“Since Mr. Muen has already come to attend the meeting, how about letting him sit properly in his seat? The Church isn’t so poor we can’t spare one extra chair.”

“It’s alright, Your Highness. Junior very much likes it this way.”

Anna covered her mouth with a light laugh.

“Besides, we shouldn’t break the rules.”

“...Rules are made by people. Given how serious this meeting is, the two of you like this... isn’t that inappropriate?” Liya bit her teeth in secret.

“Oh my, Your Highness, I know you are very pure and cannot bear to see such a scene.”

Anna’s smile brimmed over; she bit down on the two words “very pure” with deliberate weight.

“But as for me and my junior, this is true love. True love transcends all things. Isn’t that right, junior?”

“...Right.”

I, who had been staring off with dead-fish eyes, wanted nothing to do with this—but at this moment, my lifeline was in Senior’s hands, so I could only answer helplessly.

“...”

Seeing this, Liya’s little fists clenched even harder.

So infuriating. She couldn’t outtalk her.

And Muen was obviously being coerced by this wicked woman. What to do?

“Ahem.”

Fortunately, during the standoff, the most senior, Dodge, cleared his throat twice and stepped in with a spectator’s smile to smooth things over.

“We all know Her Highness the Saintess is pure and unsullied and dislikes such a sight. But perhaps the most important thing right now is to proceed with the meeting, no?”

“Miss Anna as well—how about taking a step back? It is during the meeting, after all.”

“Quite so...”

“Makes sense...”

“With Her Highness so pure, it wouldn’t do to behave like this before her.”

Stuffed full of sour-smelling dog food, the others chimed in one after another.

“Alright.”

Anna sighed lightly, glancing at Liya with a smile that was and wasn’t a smile.

“For the sake of our so very pure Saintess, I’ll take a step back first. We wouldn’t want to dirty Her Highness’s eyes.”

“...”

Liya kept smiling. But within that smile, if one looked closely, a faint blush slowly rose to her cheeks.

Amid the repeated words “pure” spoken with approval all around, and Anna’s very same “pure” but with a completely opposite meaning, Liya felt a thorough sense of transgression and shyness.

Especially recalling last night’s repeated “Your Highness the Saintess,” and those soft, lilting cries from Her Highness the Saintess—the feeling only grew stronger.

“You’re looking much more spirited too.”

At the same time, Anna snuck a glance at a certain someone watching this scene—who likewise found it very stimulating.

“Hehe...”

...

In the end, I managed to secure a seat and, under the pretext of “supervision,” was arranged beside Liya, on the upper left of the head of the table.

And the meeting proceeded normally.

“I trust everyone learned something about the other attendees before coming, so let’s not waste time with introductions.”

After that brief disturbance subsided, Liya slipped into “Saintess mode”: her manners elegant, her speech composed and flawless. Every movement was shrouded in a faint holy radiance, carrying a touch of majesty—

Sacred and pure.

She signaled to Lin to distribute the documents prepared in advance.

“Please read these materials carefully first.”

The documents went out; for a short while, the only sound in the room was the rustle of turning pages.

After a time, the flipping stilled, replaced by low-whispered murmurs.

Liya swept her gaze around and said:

“Have you noticed anything?”

“These appear to be a summary of recent Evil-God pollution incidents?”

Cold-faced Sid of the Ironcasters under the Stone Cauldron Association raised his metal arm. His expression was indifferent; even during the brief farce earlier, his face hadn’t changed at all.

“What is the precise time span?”

“From last June to the present.”

“Why June?”

“Because that was when our Church’s Star-Observing Temple observed the start of the recent surge in Evil-God activity.”

Liya answered, then turned to Lin.

“Lin.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Lin bowed slightly, then lifted her hand.

A gentle radiance gathered in her palm and finally formed a vast white light-screen at the front of the room.

Image after image, descriptions, and dense data began to appear one by one upon the screen.

“Please look here.”

Opening the file, Lin addressed the crowd:

“These are the Evil-God-related incidents, counted from last June, that resulted in extremely serious consequences. We have already removed all false forgeries, minor-result cases, and worthless episodes of cultists raving. What remains are genuine traces of Evil-God activity.”

“The most representative include... the cemetery undead revival incident, the Lokka Town disappearances, the Andery Road mass frenzy incident, and...”

Here Lin couldn’t help pausing.

“...the Bepol Lake lakeside fishing village incident.”

“Lakeside village?”

General Baror clearly started at those words, then snuck a glance at Anna beside him.

“If I recall, that happened in the Empire of Leopold. It was very unusual...”

“Yes.”

Anna reined in her flirtatious smile, revealing a different, mature charm.

“That incident took place within the Empire, in the environs of the capital, Belrand. Its peculiarity... was that it was a pollution incident with no traces.”

“No traces?”

The crowd’s expressions tightened as they quickly flipped to the page introducing the fishing village incident.

“Yes, no traces. Hundreds disappeared from the entire village, yet aside from a single head, there were no remnants whatsoever. We can only be sure it was the work of an Evil God, but we don’t even know which Evil God.”

“Wait—a head? Why was there one head left?”

“That is one of the doubts as well. That head was clearly deliberately buried by someone. But no Evil God is likely to be so kind as to bury its own scraps.”

Anna laced her fingers beneath her chin and continued:

“This matter ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) was too bizarre. In search of the truth, we did something rare: we sought help from the Holy City and, at great cost, invited that Grand Astrologer.”

“Grand Astrologer?”

Faces shifted again. That illustrious Grand Astrologer had long been semi-reclusive, rarely involving himself in the secular world.

But even the ever-proud Hoggu and Dodge—already standing at the summit of the magical path—had to admit that in the field of astrology, none in the present day could surpass him.

“If he cast the lot, so long as no Evil God specifically exerted effort to conceal it, one would expect some clue to be foreseen.”

“Yes. The Grand Astrologer did indeed obtain one piece of information—one that made no sense.”

With a complicated expression, Anna rubbed her brow, then, under everyone’s gaze, slowly uttered four words:

“Be, ware, yel, low-hair.”

“Pff—”

Before the crowd had even grasped the meaning of those words, I—sitting at the head—sprayed a mouthful of hot tea.

Thankfully, Dodge threw up a spell in time so he didn’t get drenched.

“What’s wrong?”

Liya turned toward me, concerned.

“N-nothing...”

I took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from my forehead, forcing a smile.

“Hot—the tea’s too hot.”

“Honestly, Mr. Muen, please be more careful. Otherwise people will think our Church mistreats our guests.”

Liya quipped impishly, then devoted her full attention to the meeting again.

The others were also mired in the puzzle of those four words, brows furrowed one by one; no one paid my awkwardness any mind.

“Beware yellow-hair? What does that mean?”

General Baror tapped the table with his finger.

“A trait of the perpetrator? But ‘yellow hair’ is far too broad.”

“Indeed.”

Dodge stroked his chin.

“Yellow hair? The Muen Campbell opposite me has a head of blond hair, doesn’t he? Isn’t that yellow hair? But don’t tell me this kid was involved in that sort of incident.”

“...”

I displayed an embarrassed yet polite smile.

“If we’re saying that, then doesn’t Her Highness the Saintess, with her pale-golden hair, also count as yellow hair?”

Hoggu sighed beside him.

“This kind of information is useless—only adds to our vexation. There are too many yellow-hairs in this world; are we to arrest them all?”

“No, it’s not entirely useless.”

Anna said:

“At the very least, from those four words we can know that, in that fishing village incident, a ‘person’ was involved.”

“A person? But what Evil-God incident doesn’t have peo—” Baror rumbled.

“That’s not the same.”

Anna’s lips curled into a secretive smile.

“An incident caused by people polluted by an Evil God and an incident in which pollution by an Evil God is guided or pushed forward by a person—those are two different things entirely.”

“...”

The crowd started and, being experts in this field, immediately grasped the distinction.

Evil Gods exploiting a flaw to extend pollution, versus someone actively drawing that pollution into this world—the difference between the two was like that between heaven and earth.

The potential harm was likewise worlds apart.

In fact, most Evil worshipers were nothing more than pitiful creatures who unwittingly fell into webs woven by Evil Gods.

“So, the key point is not that fishing village incident.”

Once the crowd had absorbed the information, Lin’s voice sank as she continued:

“The key point is... what happened after that. The divine war whose effects have not faded to this day—that God-War!”

“Tss—”

The light screen shifted, reflecting the faces around the table—each changing in turn.

The memory of that God-War was too searing; even now, at its mention, faces changed color.

“Don’t tell me...”

“That’s right. After the God-War, the Grand Astrologer, disregarding the danger to his own life, cast the lots once more.”

This time Liya spoke. She worked to steady her tone and said, heavy and slow:

“The result was the same—‘Beware yellow-hair!’”

“Cough—cough, cough, cough!!”

I spilled tea all over the place again and waved my hands awkwardly.

“S-sorry, it went down the wrong pipe.”

But no one cared about my clumsiness now.

Upon hearing those four words, most of those present were plunged into utter shock.

Two different events; the same result.

That wasn’t all. The people here were all quick thinkers. If one connected it with the recent surge in Evil-God activity that had become everyone’s headache, one reached a startling possibility.

“Could it be...”

From a corner came an old, hoarse voice. Even the staid representative of the Mystic Eye could no longer keep calm.

“That’s right.”

Liya pressed both hands on the table, her little face serious and stern as she answered:

“Behind this string of incidents, there may be a mastermind we do not yet know. And that mastermind’s series of actions might... endanger the safety of the entire world!”

“This is destruction by design—an unspeakable crime against humanity!”

“Everyone, a world-ending great crisis has already descended!”

Muen: “...”