Chapter 6 Part 4
Looking at the bird’s green eyes reminded me of someone familiar.
Hyle’s eyes were that same emerald color.
When I opened the window and reached out my hand, the bird quickly hopped onto my palm and shook its leg as if telling me to untie the small note attached to it.
Unfolding the note, Hyle’s neat handwriting contained a brief message.
[A diplomatic delegation for friendship purposes from Latan is coming soon. Let’s meet that day. I’ll send a signal.]
Latan was the country located closest to the Pendium Empire.
Pendium, which had no sea, was most focused on diplomacy with Latan, which had active port cities.
“Looks like Abel sent the letter because of the delegation.”
After seeing Hyle’s letter, I could understand why Abel had contacted me about visiting the duchy.
As the engagement hadn’t been broken off yet, I was still the future Crown Princess.
In other words, I still had the duty as a future member of the Imperial family to welcome the diplomatic delegation together.
And Hyle wanting to meet that day would be to infuse holy power into my heart.
Due to my collapse at the party, we hadn’t been able to meet for a while, so our meeting cycle was slightly off.
Understanding the matter, I was about to fold the letter back when I suddenly discovered a small postscript written at the bottom.
[P.S. I hope you have holy power left to purify.]
This was clearly said knowing that I had been overusing black magic.
“Ugh… I’d rather he just get angry.”
Of course, I understood Hyle’s position.
Someone who says they want to live keeps using black magic that eats away at life force, and if that wasn’t enough, even collapses.
Even if I were Hyle, my actions would be hard to understand.
However, if I could make a small excuse, I was trying my best to exercise restraint.
Certainly lately I had reduced the amount of handling magical beasts compared to before…
Knowing this excuse wouldn’t work at all with Hyle anyway, I could only close the letter with a bitter smile.
* * *
“To think you’d welcome me personally, this is unexpected.”
The next day, in response to Abel’s visit, I quietly went to the reception room to meet him.
Abel met my gaze with surprised eyes, as if he hadn’t expected me to welcome him.
I too was fortunate to know his purpose for coming beforehand; if I hadn’t known, I would have made up a non-existent friend somehow and emptied the duchy.
“I couldn’t dare to stand up the Empire’s star twice.”
Referring to Abel’s wasted trip to the duchy on the day of the party, I continued speaking calmly with a smooth smile.
Today, since there was someone from the Imperial Palace who came as Abel’s aide, I couldn’t speak casually like when we were alone.
“Well, the past is just the past.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
The extremely artificial conversation was laughably ridiculous.
Abel’s usual public smile was directed at me.
After silently sipping tea for a moment, he soon brought up the main point.
“The reason I wanted to meet today is to convey matters I couldn’t tell you yesterday. It’s too important a state matter to contain in a letter.”
As expected, Abel seemed about to speak about the delegation.
It seemed this was the conversation we couldn’t have because I hurriedly avoided him yesterday.
Originally, Abel and I should have been married already and welcomed them as the Crown Prince couple, but things went awry when I brought up breaking the engagement in between.
Our engagement was a fact very well known to Latan, a neighboring country with whom we had friendly relations.
When the engagement news was announced, Latan’s High Priest even visited personally to bless our union.
At the time, I received the blessing thinking it was rather excessive…
“A delegation from Latan will visit in two days with the purpose of harmony with Pendium. As you know, Latan’s High Priest has an unusual belief in and obsession with the blessings he bestows.”
Abel’s words precisely touched on what I had been internally worried about.
While Latan was famous for its port cities, separately, it was also a country where faith in God and the temple was deeply rooted.
Of course, Pendium also had quite deep faith among its people. But compared to Latan, it was a drop in the ocean.
In Latan, ‘God’ was revered to the extent that even the Emperor would offer prayers for days on end, dedicating his life.
So how much more significant would be the position of the Pope, called God’s representative, and the High Priest under him?
Those who received the High Priest of Latan’s blessing had to become happy, and must be happy.
Only then could the High Priest’s dignity and reverence be maintained.
If that didn’t happen, the High Priest would express his anger to the best of his ability.
However, what happened to those who received that anger wasn’t particularly well known.
The fact that it wasn’t known meant that there was no one left who could tell the aftermath.
Though it was clearly suspicious and strange, such actions seemed to be accepted as completely justified by those with strong religious beliefs.
If there was a problem here… it was that this nonsensical rule applied equally to other countries.
So if that proud High Priest were to learn that Abel and I, who received his blessing, were in danger of breaking our engagement…
“Diplomatic problems could arise. Perhaps… he might think we ignored his blessing.”
“Yes, so even if you don’t want to, please cooperate as much as possible as the future Crown Princess on that day. That old man, the High Priest of Latan, is unnecessarily perceptive.”
Since this was unavoidable, I quietly nodded.
While I had almost given up on preventing the original story from being disrupted because of me, it was a completely different matter for the Empire itself to become entangled in diplomatic issues threatening everyone’s safety.
But I was supposed to meet Hyle on the day of the delegation’s visit… I wonder if I can slip away in between?
Somehow the day after tomorrow already felt exhausting enough to make me sigh.
There were several reasons, but if I had to pick one, it was largely because of the Emperor.
Surely the Emperor must have heard rumors about the discord between Abel and me.
Above all, the Emperor was someone with such strong old-fashioned tendencies that he was incomparably more difficult to converse with than dealing with Abel.
I could already vividly imagine him sitting us both by his side and endlessly making complaints big and small.
That day, to meet Hyle safely, I would need to avoid the High Priest and Emperor as much as possible.
Since I had never properly faced them in my previous life, I couldn’t predict even a step ahead.
Even in the original story, stories about them quickly passed by in just a line or two as befitting supporting characters, so there wasn’t much useful information to draw from.
Feeling tension gradually rising, I swallowed my dry saliva and gulped down the slightly cooled tea.
