As soon as the King declared the event open, he handed over control to Commander Savis.
The Commander took a step forward without changing his expression and motioned to the officers. Then, one of the administrative officials stood up and began to explain the outline of the selection committee.
"From now on, over the next two weeks, we will be holding a meeting to select the next First-ranked Saint. There will be twelve saints participating. There will be three rounds of judging, and at the end of each round, there will be a further judging by five people: First-ranked Saint, His Highness the King's younger brother, two Archbishops, and a representative noble. In the end, the results of all the judging will be taken into consideration comprehensively and the Saints will be ranked according to their abilities."
Oh, Commander Savis and Queen Dowager were also on the judging list. In fact, if Queen Dowager were a judge, I think Saint Rose, who was recommended by Queen Dowager, would have an advantage.
That's what I thought, but everyone knew that, so maybe it's First-ranked Saint's privilege.
All the judges were present at the event and were introduced one by one. The five present were Queen Dowager Hyacinthe, Commander Savis, Archbishop of Gazzard, Archbishop of Sutherland, and the representative of the noble family, the Duke of Balfour.
…It's just a coincidence, but I feel a bit of familiarity or connection with all of them, huh?
Commander Savis was the Commander of the Knights, and Queen Dowager Hyacinthe was the Commander's mother. Then, the archbishops—each church has a bishop, and an archbishop was dispatched from region to oversee the bishops—were selected from the archbishops of Gazzard and Sutherland as judges.
According to the administrative officer, the archbishops chosen were from regions that did not overlap with the home regions of the participating saints, but the Gazzard region was where the Blackpeak Mountain, where Zavilia lived, was located, and Sutherland was where I was seen as the reincarnation of the great saint. As I was watching the judges, thinking what an amazing coincidence, Duke Balfour was introduced at the end as the representative of the aristocracy.
Speaking Duke Balfour, it went without saying that he was the famous jester, Ron. Since duke was the highest rank of nobility, it's likely that one of the three great dukes was scheduled to be a judge. This was just my own speculation, but I think that Duke Alcott was unsuitable because his stepdaughter would be participating in the selection committee, and Archbishop of Sutherland was selected as a judge, so Duke Sutherland was also unsuitable as they come from the same region, so by a process of elimination, Duke Balfour was chosen.
Well, I happen to have contact with the judges, so it may seem like the world is small, but if you think about it normally, these are people you wouldn't get to meet very often.
While I was thinking that there must have been no other way to select the judges and that they must have been selected in a balanced manner, the administrative official began to explain the selection process.
"We will now move to another venue where the first round of examination will take place. The first round will involve curing those who are ill. The examination will take place over five days, but the details will be explained at the examination venue."
It seemed we were moving from the royal castle to another location. Following the clerk's instructions, the Saints, including myself, decided to leave the hall, so I stood up from my chair. On the other hand, the knight captains showed no signs of moving, so it seemed they were only attending the opening ceremony.
No matter how much of a veil I was wearing, there would have been a high risk of them finding out who I was if we were in the same room, so I was relieved that we broke up quickly. However, the whole time I was leaving the hall, I felt as if the Captains' gazes were piercing my back, and I started to feel uneasy, wondering if they were suspicious of me.
I had to find a way to cover this up somehow, I racked my brains frantically and came up with a way to skip out of the hall so that I wouldn't be noticed by the way I walked. I thought to myself, "I'm a genius," and immediately put my idea into practice.
The Captains had never seen me skipping before, so even if they were suspicious and were staring at me, this shouldn't give them away. In addition to having come up with a great idea, I was so happy that I was able to skip so well that I felt like bursting out laughing, but I held myself back by biting my lip.
Ah, Captain Desmond is always envious of me and says I have it so easy, but I'm also working hard without anyone knowing.
I thought that I really wanted him to understand that, as I continued skipping.
After walking down a long corridor, I arrived at a spacious separate room. There were five or six tables lined up, with several chairs around each one. I was told to wait in the room until the carriage was ready, so I sat down in one of the chairs provided and took off my veil, taking advantage of the situation.
I see, I was wondering what this veil was for, but it was an item to hide the fact that I would be participating in the selection meeting as a Saint from the knight Captains, huh?
Meanwhile, the saints seemed curious about me because I was wearing a veil, and the moment I revealed my face, they all started staring at me. Well, that's right. Everyone was showing their faces, and with a veiled saint among them, it would be extremely suspicious, I thought, as I met everyone's gazes.
I thought they would realize I was harmless at first glance, but the moment the Saints saw my face, their eyes widened in shock and they clenched their lips, so I blinked wide, wondering what was going on.
Maybe there was something on my face, so I got worried and patted my face, but there was nothing there. If that was the case, I wondered if they were suspicious because they didn't recognize my face, so I smiled.
It was a sign that I was not a suspicious person, but since everyone quickly turned their faces away, it might not have put them at ease—As I was thinking about this, I remembered that Captain Cyril had said, "If you, the red-haired one, were to declare yourself a Saint, it would send a huge shock through the Saints."
Ah, if it's the color of my hair that's making people turn their faces away, then there's nothing I can do about it.
With time, I thought that they would realize I was harmless, so I was leaning back in my chair.
Looking around, the saints were sitting in chairs, each doing whatever they pleased. Saint Rose was sitting in a chair by the window, so I stood up and approached her.
Captain Cyril's wish was for me to surpass Saint Rose just once and upset her. This was because Captain Cyril did not think well of Queen Dowager, and he believed that her disciple Rose was likely to have inherited similar ideas to Queen Dowager, and therefore was not suitable to be Commander Savis's future queen.
However, when I said I wasn't sure whether I should hold Rose back or not, he left the decision up to me, so I wondered if Captain himself was still unsure about what I should do.
Either way, since I made a promise with Captain Cyril, I must find out whether Rose was a saint worthy of becoming the next First-ranked Saint. Not only that, I must also find a saint who was so beautiful that Commander Savis would fall in love with her at first sight, and who was kind to the knights.
Wow, there's a lot to do. For now, I think I'll avoid doing anything reckless in the first round of auditions and see how Rose does. Or rather, I'd like to be on speaking terms with her in order to determine what kind of saint she is.
Thinking that, I smiled and called out to Rose.
"Hello, Saint Rose." (Fia)
Author's Note
Thank you for always reading!
We are pleased to announce that the 9th volume of the comics will be released on October 12th and the 9th volume of the novel will be released on October 18th.
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I think it turned out to be a really fun finished product, so I hope you'll enjoy it(❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)⁾⁾⁾