Chapter 21
Ten days later.
Alice was riding in a carriage heading to the temple with Lady Meltain.
For the past ten days, Lady Meltain had gone to the temple without fail every single day.
This was quite convenient for Alice as well, since she also needed to go to the temple.
Though Madam Quillian’s blood pressure seemed to rise with each passing day.
Fortunately, nothing particularly noteworthy had happened over the past ten days.
While Madam Quillian and Lady Meltain engaged in a battle of wills every time their eyes met, Alice had grown accustomed to brushing it off naturally after seeing it daily.
Ah, there was one thing that bothered her.
Her priesthood application form had vanished without a trace.
On that day when Kylus had been severely ill, Alice returned to her room before dawn and noticed the paper was gone.
At first, she panicked, thinking she had left it in Kylus’s room again, but the servant who cleaned in the morning said they hadn’t found anything unusual in the room.
Suspecting the servant might be lying, Alice even peeked into the garbage bag they were carrying, but saw nothing except dust.
So Alice skipped breakfast and scoured the corridors, wondering if she had dropped it while running to Helkin’s office.
But there was no trace of the paper anywhere.
Of course, it wasn’t in Helkin’s office either.
Suspecting Helkin might have taken it, she threatened him, but he tearfully proclaimed his innocence.
There was no hint of deceit on that ugly face of his.
Alice frowned slightly as she recalled his expression.
In any case, unable to find it no matter how hard she looked, Alice had been on edge for nearly two days.
She worried that someone might have picked up the paper and handed it to Madam Quillian.
But several days passed without incident.
If Madam Quillian had found it, she would have confronted Alice immediately, given her personality.
So… it meant the paper hadn’t ended up in Madam Quillian’s hands after all.
While she didn’t know where exactly the paper had evaporated to, it had certainly disappeared without a trace.
Though she was curious about the paper’s whereabouts, as long as Madam Quillian didn’t find out, Alice no longer needed the application form anyway.
She had realized that becoming a priestess through the application was quite risky.
“What are you thinking about so deeply, Madam?”
Alice stopped her train of thought at the clear voice.
Lady Meltain was smiling at her.
“Ah… I was just thinking how unusually warm the weather is today.”
“It’s because spring has fully arrived. On such a nice day, we should be going on an outing. Don’t you think?”
“Indeed. But now… Mother wouldn’t allow it, which is a shame.”
“If the Duke’s health recovers… Madam Quillian wouldn’t be able to treat the Duchess so carelessly.”
Lady Meltain spoke as if she found it regrettable. Her green eyes looked at Alice as if she pitied her.
That gaze was probably not fake.
Recently, Madam Quillian’s nerves had become particularly frayed, and she was openly irritable with Alice without regard for others watching.
While Alice brushed it off as if it were a dog barking, to onlookers she must have seemed like a daughter-in-law being mistreated by her mother-in-law.
Since that position wasn’t bad, Alice put on a sad smile.
“It’s because I’m so lacking… I believe Mother doesn’t dislike me, that’s not why she acts this way.”
She didn’t forget to pretend to believe in Madam Quillian like a fool.
“…I see.”
As if losing interest in Alice’s frustrating response, Lady Meltain turned her head towards the window.
Not long after, the carriage came to a stop.
“We have arrived.”
The coachman announced as he opened the door.
As Alice was getting out holding the coachman’s hand, she looked at him, feeling a strange sense of discomfort.
Had his voice always been this good…?
The coachman’s voice, which she had heard every time they arrived at the temple, sounded a bit different today.
It was a lower, more attractive voice.
For a moment, she wondered if it was someone other than the coachman.
But the coachman’s face was indeed the one she knew.
What’s this… Did I mishear?
“…Is something wrong, Madam?”
Lady Meltain asked as Alice stared blankly at the coachman after getting out of the carriage.
“Ah, well. Um…”
It would be strange to say, “The coachman’s voice is too good.”
Alice trailed off, unable to answer immediately.
“If there’s no problem, shall we go in now? The priest must be waiting.”
Because the Dearrut Duchy had been visiting the temple daily recently, the high priests were paying special attention.
To receive donations, that is.
The coachman slightly bowed his head, as if Alice’s gaze made him uncomfortable.
It would be strange to keep staring any longer.
He must have caught a cold or something.
Since the coachman’s voice wasn’t that important a matter, Alice withdrew her gaze.
“Yes. Let’s go in, Lady Meltain.”
Alice entered the temple together with Lady Meltain.
* * *
After naturally parting ways with Lady Meltain as they headed to their respective prayer rooms, Alice entered her own.
“I see you again today, Lord Helios.”
After greeting the statue of Helios familiarly, she headed for the single-person sofa.
Then she took out a book from the bookshelf.
These days, she had been studying holy power in depth in the prayer room.
While the book was a bit self-indulgent, well, it became somewhat readable as she kept going through it.
“Hmm… If holy power is strong, it really has no limits. You can even attack with it?”
The book stated that if holy power was well-trained, like magic, it could develop beyond simple healing ability into a power that could protect oneself.
I wonder if I could do it too.
She smiled, imagining herself defeating villains with holy power like a scene from a novel.
After reading the book with great interest for a while, she looked up at the clock.
“Hmm, it should be about time…”
Just as she finished speaking, a knock sounded on the prayer room door.
Alice calmly changed her expression and answered.
“Come in.”
The person who opened the door and entered was none other than Violet.
“Duchess, are you going today as well?”
Violet asked Alice.
Alice smiled and answered.
“Of course.”
Alice left the prayer room.
The place Alice headed to, following Violet, was none other than the poorhouse.
In the evening, the temple opened its doors to care for the poor.
They distributed food and treated those who were unwell.
And Alice had started volunteering here three days ago.
In truth, she didn’t start volunteering out of a righteous heart.
The reason she began volunteering was because of one person who oversaw the poorhouse.
Alice looked at the handsome man who was generously using his holy power on the poor.
Golden hair resembling the main deity Helios, and a beautiful face.
The man who looked so perfect in the pure white High Priest robes was none other than High Priest Prion.
And Alice had started volunteering here to meet him.
Though still young at only twenty-eight, Prion was destined to become the Pope in the future.
The Prion described in the book was a strong person who reformed the corrupt temple with powerful holy power and razor-sharp reasoning.
And he was said to resemble the main deity in appearance…
He’s much more handsome than described in the book.
Comparable even to Kylus.
By now, Kylus had completely settled as Alice’s standard of beauty.
In any case, the reason she wanted to meet Prion was because she had heard from Violet that he strongly disliked Madam Quillian, though this wasn’t mentioned in the book.
It’s not just dislike, but more like extreme hatred.
High Priest Prion, who came from a poor background, and Madam Quillian, who had a strong sense of elitism.
The two were said to have clashed heavily once over the issue of the poor.
Madam Quillian, who had come to offer prayers at the temple, happened to bump into a poor person, and true to her broken personality, she killed the poor person on the spot for the crime of insulting nobility…
Prion was greatly angered by this incident, but because it was the death of a poor person, Madam Quillian, being a noble, ultimately faced no consequences.
But High Priest Prion, having come from a poor background himself, could not forgive Madam Quillian for killing a poor person as if squashing a bug.
In any case, the fact that High Priest Prion came to despise Madam Quillian because of this incident became well-known not only in the temple but also in social circles.
And the rumor of discord between the two became quite useful information for Alice.
High Priest Prion would gladly stand against Madam Quillian.
To become a priestess, she needed strong backing to stop Madam Quillian.
This was because having holy power didn’t automatically make one a priest.
Temple law stipulated that even if one had holy power, they could not be forced to become a priest.
So she couldn’t openly submit an application with her name on it to the temple.
There was no way rumors wouldn’t spread if the Duchess of Dearrut submitted a priesthood application.
And if Madam Quillian found out about it, she wouldn’t sit idle.
She would obviously try to prevent Alice from becoming a priestess.
After all, Alice knew Madam Quillian’s big secret.
She would probably kill Alice before she could go to the temple, or use various means to pressure the temple to make Alice withdraw on her own.
With all these scenarios vividly imagined, Alice had no choice but to look for other alternatives.
But hoping for the temple to protect her by revealing her strong holy power… was risky to reveal carelessly, as this was all the cards she had.
There was no guarantee the temple wouldn’t harm her either.
From what she heard from Violet, it was commonplace for high priests to keep each other in check, so she couldn’t feel at ease.
Amidst all this, she learned that Prion despised Madam Quillian.
A person with higher reputation and power than Madam Quillian, and a temperament that would never waver even under pressure from the temple.
Could there be a more perfect person?
Alice desperately needed Prion’s help.
That’s why she had been doing her best at the poorhouse for the past three days.
