The cult leader is probably just another average human.
That’s what I thought when I saw him from afar once before.
His eyes were full of desire, even more than Yujin’s.
“Well, anyway.”
“This is a private setting, so why not be honest? There’s no need to be all stiff and formal. Right?”
Everyone here already knows what’s going on.
Besides, I’m from the Ashtar family. There’s no reason to deceive each other; we can be open and make deals. It’s not a bad thing.
Isn’t that the usual relationship between the Empire’s nobles and the Church?
“Hm, that’s true.”
“Exactly. So here’s the deal: I’ll become the Saintess in exchange for a vast amount of money and honor, and you get the Saintess, securing the legitimacy of the Empire’s female deity religion. Everyone wins, right?”
It’s a win-win.
If you can’t avoid it, you might as well enjoy it.
So, I intend to enjoy this to the fullest.
“Oh, yes. It seems so.”
“Don’t worry, Priest Raffel. Since I’ve already decided to become the Saintess, wouldn’t you receive a reward from the cult leader?”
I smiled slyly as I spoke to him, watching his uncomfortable expression.
“Alright, let’s wrap this up then.”
“I’ll see you at the appointment ceremony this weekend.”
Yes, this is perfect.
We just need to avoid unnecessary interference with each other.
Of course, it’ll be mostly one-sided interference from our end.
When Priest Raffel, still with a red cheek from the earlier slap, finished the business and left, Claire approached me.
“Miss, I never thought you’d actually accept the position of Saintess.”
‘You were the one who suggested it. Now you’re saying something different?’
‘This time, since it’s my decision, I won’t complain.’
‘Just because I become a Saintess doesn’t mean I can’t become an Archmage.’
‘I’ll be the Magic Saintess in the position of Saintess.’
‘Then, naturally, I’ll focus solely on magic later and become an Archmage and a Great Sage!’
It’s the perfect plan.
And being a Saintess will bring a variety of benefits as well.
“They’ll keep nagging if I refuse, and getting 1 million linos a day for doing nothing sounds like a pretty good deal.”
“And?”
I gave a wicked smile, one that would terrify even a child.
“I can crush the Church, right?”
Claire swallowed hard at my words.
“Are you saying you’re planning to overthrow the Church?”
“I’ll use the position of Saintess, and rob the Church. Two birds with one stone, right?”
Although being a Saintess is an inconvenient title for my goal of becoming an Archmage, it’s not entirely useless either.
It gives me a legitimate standing to deal with Lily.
I can also reform the Church, calming the dissatisfaction of the common people.
“Well, still…”
“You’re wondering how I can do this as the daughter of the Ashtar family?”
“Huh? Oh. Yes.”
“My mother was a remarkable woman who led an assassination guild, wasn’t she? As her daughter, I should at least do this much.”
Claire said nothing in response.
She looked at me for a moment before sighing.
Again with the sighs.
I was about to scold her, but Claire took a few papers from her pocket.
“Miss, I’ve done some investigation on Miss Lily as requested.”
“Really?”
“Yes, please take a look.”
I read through the documents she handed me.
“Hm.”
Lily was born in a small village near the Empire’s western border.
Her mother is said to have been a prostitute in that region.
A long time ago, her father went on an expedition to the west, had an affair with a prostitute in a small village, and she ended up pregnant with Lily.
‘Hm, a prostitute, huh?’
Honestly, if Lily has such a crude personality, I guess it’s understandable, considering she was raised by a prostitute.
But I wonder, wouldn’t a prostitute at least take pride in her body?
That’s probably why even the great head of the Ashtar family took her in his arms.
“Have you ever seen Lily’s mother?”
“I did see her briefly, long before Miss Lily was brought into the Ashtar family, at the Lady’s orders.”
“Oh, that’s interesting. Did Mother perhaps feel jealous of that prostitute?”
“Was she good-looking?”
“If she were truly beautiful, that would be shocking in its own way.”
“She had the typical body of a prostitute. Suitable enough to seduce men, I suppose.”
“Knowing my mother, I’d have thought she would kill her.”
Leading an assassination guild, it wouldn’t be out of character.
Or maybe she did send someone to kill her?
At my words, Claire’s face turned cold, and she carefully spoke.
“Do you really think the Lady would be jealous of a mere prostitute?”
“I see. So she wasn’t even worth killing?”
“Well, if Lily had been a boy, he might have posed a threat to the family head’s position, but she’s just a half-Ashtar with prostitute blood. With Katarina’s sons already firmly established, they probably saw Lily as nothing more than a pawn for political marriage.”
But here’s the issue.
“Are you telling me that from such a body came Lily’s unimpressive figure?”
“Can body traits like this really skip a generation?”
Aside from that, nothing much happened before her involvement with the Ashtar family.
“There doesn’t seem to be any other significant contact.”
“Yes, that seems to be the case.”
But there’s one contradiction in this report.
“No, there is something.”
“Huh?”
In the middle of the document, I found something interesting.
“Look here. It seems like she started gaining popularity among the villagers a few years ago.”
Suddenly, Lily became the village’s darling.
It even says she did a lot of good deeds and just seeing her made people happy.
“Couldn’t it just be that she had a naturally good personality?”
Yeah, there’s always someone who inexplicably draws people in.
Or someone you dislike so much that you can’t stand being near them.
That kind of thing is usually determined by appearance.
But Lily isn’t one of those people.
I shrugged.
“I can sense it. If she suddenly became popular among the villagers, it’s not because of her personality—she’s not the type to win people over easily. And it’s not like her appearance is the kind that would attract people either.”
“Even if we’re talking about simple country folk, I doubt they would have liked a stick-thin, flat-chested girl like Lily if her mother had been at least on par.”
“Then…”
I pointed to a section of the document.
It feels like something is missing, as if a part of the middle has been erased.
“The sudden rise of Lily’s fame in the village—it’s suspicious, isn’t it?”
“I had a gut feeling something happened to Lily during that time.”
“This is when the rumors about Lily being kind started, and her mother reportedly reached out to the Ashtar family to introduce Lily to her real father.”
“Yes.”
“Right. This is where the problem lies.”
“The assassination guild must have investigated everything, so nothing should be missing, right?”
“Of course.”
Katarina’s assassination guild has excellent intelligence, so this should be accurate.
If they’re that confident, there’s only one possible explanation.
“Then there’s no mention of what Lily did, is there?”
“Ah.”
There’s no information about how Lily gained her popularity or what happened to her during that time.
That’s the biggest issue.
“If she secretly encountered a monster, it would have been hidden. If it had been discovered, she would’ve been charged with consorting with monsters, and in a different way, she might have met her father.”
“Then, at this point…”
Yes, at that point, she encountered a succubus.
“She made contact with a succubus.”
It’s obvious.
I’ve got a feeling—this isn’t just a wild guess.
After spending years adventuring with some idiotic hero whose brain was between his legs, I’ve seen this happen all over the kingdom.
There were women who wanted to be beautiful, made contracts with succubus, and either enchanted the village men or gained their favor.
Some just wanted to be a succubus for lustful reasons, made a contract, and slept with countless men until they eventually became succubus.
Both types suddenly gained popularity.
In the end, the reason was always their contact with a succubus.
“But it’s been years. Wouldn’t Miss Lily have turned into a succubus by now?”
Yes, that’s normally what happens.
Even if the contractor resists, the continued use of a succubus’s power corrupts them, turning them into one eventually.
That’s how it usually goes.
“What do you think the conditions are for becoming a succubus?”
“To become a succubus, you need to make a contract and use the power in conjunction with… having sexual relations with men.”
“Exactly. Most people know that.”
“The problem is that Lily can’t do it.”
“She probably doesn’t even intend to.”
“I’m sure she and the succubus made some kind of deal.”
I carefully folded the document and placed it in a drawer.
“With that power, regardless of appearance, Lily would’ve succeeded. Her goal was always to join the Duke’s family and take my place.”
She got engaged to the Crown Prince, seduced noble heirs, turned them into fools, and pressured me.
That was the best scheme that little brain of hers could come up with.
There’s a saying, even a worm can crawl.
Surprisingly, Lily used a desperate succubus trapped within the Empire to her advantage.
“Lily is using the succubus in reverse.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Normally, it isn’t.”
“But with Lily’s stupidity, the succubus’s desperation, the Empire’s wartime situation with the Demon King, and the reactions of the men in the Empire, it all combined to create a situation where the succubus had no choice but to choose someone like Lily.”
“That fool probably didn’t intend for it to happen. But in the end, she did. Either that, or the succubus was stupid too, or there was no other option but to stick with Lily.”
Since Lily is in Atlerina, near the capital, the succubus is probably somewhere in or around the capital.
“If we search carefully, we’ll find her. To the succubus, Lily must be the last resort.”
“The fact that Lily went to Atelina is probably due to her relationship with the succubus gaining the upper hand on Lily’s side.”
“Then it’s certain, the succubus is involved.”
“If we release some people near the capital, we should be able to capture the succubus.”
“It’s certain. She’ll be caught for sure.”
“No way.”
“It’s true. Just scour the shady areas near the outskirts.”
“Given the level of the assassination guild, if there’s a succubus that hasn’t fed on life force for a while, they’ll crush her easily.”
“What about the slums?”
“It’s not the slums. If the succubus were in the slums, those people wouldn’t still be loyally following me.”
“I know people in the slums, and there’s no succubus there.”
“If a succubus had come to the slums, the rumors would have spread by now.”
“A succubus hiding within the Empire for years wouldn’t be that clueless.”
Unless they were extremely desperate and on the brink of death, they wouldn’t recklessly mess with the men of the capital.
“Search carefully.”
“Yes.”
Claire bowed her head and withdrew.
I stared out the window, deep in thought.
Thinking about it, it was a simple matter.
No matter how foolish or ignorant they were, noble heirs wouldn’t blindly follow a girl like Lily or antagonize me without a reason.
Even if noble ladies have their own terrifying world, noble men have their pride.
While living this life, I’ve studied nobles too.
No matter how much of a villain one might be, unless they’ve committed treason against the Empire, they wouldn’t openly oppose someone like me.
That’s the reality of the Empire’s noble society, which is obsessed with noble bloodlines and etiquette, even more so than the nomadic tribes they descended from—those tribes that the Empire’s nobility now dismiss as barbarians.
The fact that they thoughtlessly antagonized and attacked me means they were already entangled in something.
Now, I understand everything.
Even if I had terrible relationships before, the reason why the noble heirs moved so foolishly was because of Lily.
She’s been the mastermind all along.
She’s still planning to continue harassing me.
But Lily, I’m not going to let this go.
I’m not a saint.