"Welcome. My name is Bishop Bruce."
A fat man named Goskor led us to an inn that was a little lower in rank than the one we were staying at, but still one of the more expensive inns in terms of price.
It's one of the rooms, but if it's an inn of this level, if a woman shouts for help, she wouldn't be ignored. Even if it's not a guest staying overnight.
Well, if anything, if something were to happen, it would be the other party who would shout out for help, not us. Francette could respond to surprise attacks with reflexes, and I could use item boxes and medicine creation abilities as long as I have time to respond, so there are no blind spots! ……probably.
"I'm Kaoru. This is my maid. So, do you need anything from me?" (Kaoru)
It had not been made public that Francette and King's brother Roland were accompanying me on my journey.
...Well, if he wanted to say that, it hadn't been announced that I went on a trip.
In any case, I couldn't bring up the name of "Fearsome Fran," who was currently the second most well-known name in Balmore Kingdom after the country name.
Me? My name is widely known as "Angel", and the name "Kaoru" is far less well-known than Francette.
No, I don't have any regrets, do I? It's true!
Anyway, I decided that Francette was just an ordinary maid with a suspicious tube-shaped object, and I only gave my first name. Bishop Bruce and his friends were after me and didn't seem to care about the maid at all, so it's not a problem.
And who is this bishop named Bruce, and what exactly is his purpose?
"My apologies for getting straight to the point. Actually, I'm not from this country. I'm a priest at the royal palace from the Brancott Kingdom."
Eh...
The Kingdom of Brancott, the country of Crown Prince Stalker. Like this country and the Kingdom of Balmore, the temple there competed for power with the royal palace, and there was no one in the position of "priest of the royal palace"...
However, it seemed that the way temples existed in each country had changed drastically since Celes's "Peace Conference Advent Incident", so it wouldn't be strange if the system had changed since then...
I didn't like it when it involved the Crown Prince, but it didn't seem like that's the case.
In fact, they'd often followed us to this point. Apparently even that stalker prince had given up...
So, what is it for?
"Actually, the majority of people say that the second king of our country, Ghislain, is more suitable than Prince Fernand, the archenemy's enemy...
However, there are some foolish people who support the incompetent and disrespectful Prince Fernand, and those who are worried about the future of the country are increasingly trying to exclude Prince Fernand..."
What, it's just a commotion at home...
Well, it might be important to those involved, but to those who were not involved, it didn't matter. No matter who was the king, it didn't make much of a difference to farmers or people from other countries.
...If only he wasn't an incredibly stupid person.
It had nothing to do with me.
However, there was one thing that irritated me.
It seemed like I was being used as one of the reasons for the commotion at home.
It's true that that stalker prince caused me a lot of trouble.
However, from what I'd heard over the past few years, other than me, the prince seemed to be a relatively decent person, and he didn't seem like a bad person to be the next king.
On the other hand, the second prince had bad intelligence and a bad personality, and well, if you said so, he's a person who was suitable for the vassals to use as they see fit...
In other words, I didn't like it when someone used my name to take the throne...
However, because of the party at the royal palace and the things I had been avoiding since then, it seemed like he's decided that I was in favor of the second prince and was trying to take advantage of him...
When I was in the capital of Balmore Kingdom, the second prince's gang persistently approached me, but I turned them all down.
Or rather, in the first place, the girl named "Kaoru" who did something at the party at the royal palace in Brancott Kingdom and "Kaoru", the angel from Balmore Kingdom, were supposed to be Alfa and Milfa as different people. It's not funny that they are being used as if they were the same person.
"Therefore, I would like to request that you express your support for Ghislain-sama…"
A bishop named Bruce got carried away and kept babbling because I was the one keeping quiet. I wondered if they were aware that they were mixing "Alfa" and "Milfa" without permission... If he's going to lie to others, why would he let me, the person himself, hear it?
Do you think my explanation is a lie? Or do you not know the exact story? Umm…….
Well, either way, I had only one answer.
"I have no interest in the things of lowly people."
"What..."
Yeah, I'd always decided not to interfere in discussions about politics, religion, my favorite baseball team, and ramen. Most of the time, it's going to be crap.
"... Hey, you're the devil's servant!!"
Eh?
What, how fast does he change?
No matter how much it was, wasn't the boiling point a little too low?
Even if it were, I was thought to be a messenger of the goddess, right?
Even though the response wasn't as expected, did Jogress suddenly evolve into a "devil's messenger"? Wasn't it a little too early no matter what?
It's unnatural. Too unnatural. It's as if he had thought that way from the beginning and just couldn't help but say it.
...Now that I thought about it, I was there a long time ago. The people who called me the devil's servant...
Yes, they were the priests of Rueda, a now defunct religious nation.
"Are they the remnants of Rueda?"
"W-why did you do that!"
Ah, there was an idiot...
Maybe I was always the one trying to trick or trick people, and I never got caught. In a world where the Goddess actually exists, there are probably not many people who would think of deceiving the clergy.
"Are you trying to do something evil by running away from Rueda and infiltrating the stupid second son of Brancott Kingdom? I won’t punish you…"
"This..."
The priest seemed angry at me as I snorted. Apparently, he had no respect for me from the beginning. Did he just intend to use her, or did he intend to frame her in some way, or did he intend to take advantage of the opportunity and kill him so that he wouldn't have to worry about his future...?
In any case,
"I’m not going to die!!"
Shun!
Oh, I guess he was planning to kill me after all... Well, maybe he felt like it now, but since he had a knife in his pocket, well, I guess that's what it meant.
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
The priest screamed as he looked at his arms, which were missing from the wrists, with his eyes wide open.
From the wrist down, he was lying on the floor, still clutching the knife.
The amateur slowly took out a knife from his pocket, readied it, and lunged at me.
There was no way Francette could watch this without doing anything.
"W-what did you do…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
By the time the people from the inn came flying in, Francette had already sheathed her sword and returned to her original role as "just a maid with a suspicious tube-shaped object".
"They're thieves. It looks like they've been punished by God. 'I threatened the servants of my beloved child, and when I learned that he wouldn't obey, I attacked the priest to silence him.' Please let me know. Hurry!"
"Ha, ha, ha, yes!"
Okay, so they didn't make a fuss or got arrested for being treated like a criminal, if they took the initiative and said this, things would go smoothly. The priest was in pain, fear, despair, and confusion, and was in no condition to explain the situation very well. All I could do was roll around crying until someone came to pick me up.
After that, let's have the police officers in this country show us their skills in interrogating.
Ah, the fat man who led me here was hunched over in the corner of the room, trembling.
Apparently, he had no intention of running away.
...Francette's eyes that were glaring at him seemed scary.
Yes, she was a master of Nagase's glare technique, Fran!
Author's Note
...
Translation Note
I didn't have enough time to edit this chapter, but I might revisit later.