The Crown I Will Take From You - Chapter 319

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Part 2, Chapter 166

“A trap, you say? Someone framed innocent you?”

Alfred’s voice mixed resentment, anxiety, and fear.

“Catherine, this Empire… I told you. It doesn’t suit you.”

Alfred urgently reached his hand toward the bars.

His handsome face was full of regret.

“I should have said it sooner. Back then, I shouldn’t have left like that. If I had, you wouldn’t have ended up like this—”

Instead of taking the outstretched hand, the Queen Mother irritably pressed her temples.

“If you hadn’t left? I would have followed you and eventually become nothing but a country bumpkin’s wife?”

“…”

“Don’t be mistaken, Alfred. If you’re pitying me because I’m in this state now, then stop it.”

“Catherine!”

“I don’t crumble easily. I’ll eventually get out of here, and my son will become the supreme ruler of this Empire. But if I had been with you, my child wouldn’t have even been given a mere title.”

The Queen Mother snorted.

Though she sometimes missed the man before her, she never regretted leaving him.

Because his dreams and hers drew parallel lines that could never meet.

“Go back. If you don’t really want to kill me, never come again.”

The Queen Mother closed her eyes.

Getting entangled in old emotions once, and falling this far because of those emotions, was enough for this one time.

Even though Perdickas II had coldly cast her out, he was still a more suitable match for her than the man before her.

Both she and the Emperor knew all too well that momentary affection could not compare to lifelong power.

* * *

The Central Temple of the Holy Kingdom Sacra Montis.

The place that had always exuded the dignity of the old religion with its lofty and dignified aura was gradually losing its former majesty these days.

“Saint Medeia is absent from this grand prayer meeting as well.”

“How many times is this now? Even when His Holiness completely revised the historical records related to the Shadeia tribe recently, I thought the Saint’s anger would be appeased…”

“This is all that fool Norman’s fault. Not recognizing the Saint and pulling such senseless tricks. Forgetting a priest’s duty and even pandering to power—it’s a disgrace to the old religion, a disgrace!”

The voices of the priests venting their frustration mixed anger and anxiety.

“We won’t really be abandoned, will we? If the Saint never returns to the old religion…”

“Don’t say such ominous things!”

A High Priest scolded harshly.

“The Saint is simply angry at our conduct. The Goddess’s representative would never abandon our Holy Kingdom…”

However, even he seemed uncertain as his words trailed off.

Just then, High Priest Baoro passed by them.

“Ah, there’s High Priest Baoro…”

“Later.”

A fellow High Priest who caught the faint scent of alcohol on the wind frowned.

“A High Priest in name, yet instead of praying, he’s drunk in broad daylight…!”

“Shh, control yourself. It’s not hard to understand what his state of mind must be right now.”

Baoro was the one who had waited most earnestly for the Saint’s appearance.

When Rachel appeared, he revered her like the first and last blessing sent by the Goddess, pouring out blind devotion.

But when she was revealed to be a ‘fake’ filled with evil black magic…

“The rudeness and crimes he committed against Saint Medeia in the name of that false saint have been exposed to the world, and he might soon be stripped of his High Priest position. He couldn’t endure without alcohol.”

Indeed, after the false Saint Rachel’s downfall, Baoro and his faction rapidly weakened.

The High Priests who had followed him had long since either left for their hometowns or switched to cooperating with the Pope.

Only Baoro remained, cut off like a severed sausage.

“High Priest, you must stop drinking now. The Central Temple gates will close soon.”

In the back section of Sacra Montis City, at a small tavern not far from the Central Temple.

Baoro sat with his elbow propped on the table, helplessly emptying his cup.

“Curfew time is approaching. Besides, this place… High Priest, if you’re caught by the Holy Kingdom guards again this time, it will really be troublesome.”

An Intermediate Priest urged him repeatedly with a troubled expression.

“What, are you also being cautious because you’re afraid you won’t get promoted to Senior Priest if you’re seen unfavorably?”

Baoro sneered and splashed alcohol on the Intermediate Priest’s face.

The Intermediate Priest, already exhausted from trying to please him, was now humiliated by having alcohol thrown at him.

What little sense of duty remained in the priest’s heart turned cold.

“Yes, then I’ll come to escort you again tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving? Ha, yes, did you think I didn’t know you’ve been trying to jump ship for a while now? Go, get lost!”

Left alone in the tavern, Baoro staggered and gulped down more alcohol.

Though he had lived thirty years in abstinence, now he seemed to understand why people in the world relied on alcohol.

“My heart feels like it’s burning with fire. How could the Goddess… abandon me like this?”

It had been quite some time since the false Saint Rachel’s true nature was revealed.

But Baoro still couldn’t accept that fact.

“That this Baoro was mistaken? Am I truly wrong?”

He couldn’t believe it. He truly couldn’t accept it.

That Saint Medeia was the ‘real’ representative chosen by the Goddess.

That dirty heretics had been incorporated into the sacred Central Temple’s history.

“No. That can’t be… I couldn’t have been wrong. Surely that child is…”

Before his eyes, Rachel, who had been as delicate as a flower, and Medeia, who had glared at him fiercely like a mortal enemy when they met last winter, appeared repeatedly.

It was when he painfully hung his head.

Scrape. A chair was dragged as someone quietly sat across from him.

It was a man with his hood pulled deep over his face.

“My, how could a priest of God be suffering so?”

A cup was offered toward Baoro.

The man’s red eyes glinted sharply under the dim lamplight.

A moment later, pitch-black darkness settled over the tavern window.

The interior was empty with only Baoro’s table occupied, and the innkeeper was nowhere to be seen.

“…I truly still cannot accept it.”

On Baoro’s table were far more bottles than before.

“His Holiness, without a second thought and without any intention of investigating further, threw Lady Rachel into the Pitch Black Layer. He even went so far as to accept those dirty heretics as ancestors of the Holy Kingdom.”

He slammed down his cup.

“It’s terribly wrong. Everyone now… cannot see the truth before their eyes. Everyone in the Central Temple…”

“The martyr Barter once cried out truths that only he could see, but no one believed him.”

The man spoke quietly while pouring alcohol into the empty cup.

The man was Jason.

“Perhaps the trial the High Priest is experiencing now is a test by the Goddess to distinguish those who see the truth.”

“Hearing the Duke’s words, my frustrated heart finally feels somewhat relieved.”

Moisture welled up in Baoro’s bloodshot eyes.

His cracked voice burst with both emotion and indignation simultaneously.

“Truly, I cannot have such conversations with anyone in the Central Temple. Just mentioning Saint Medeia’s name makes them look at me like an enemy, damn it…”

Thud. The vibration of his fist hitting the table made the glasses shake.

The alcohol inside splashed.

“That trial… How could His Holiness the Pope not notice it? How did the eyes of the one at the very top of the old religion become so dull?”

“It must mean the current Pope has strayed from God’s will.”

Jason gave Baoro exactly the words he wanted to hear, like scratching an itch.

“Yes, that’s why. That’s why… only I could see it.”

Baoro snorted and muttered to himself.

At that moment, Jason switched the cups under his sleeve.

Perhaps because he was so delighted to meet someone who agreed with him after so long, Baoro didn’t notice at all.

“Yes. That’s why I too hurried all the way to this Central Temple. So carefully.”

In the new cup, faint black smoke was gently swirling.

“My homeland Kazen has also been thrown into complete chaos ever since the Princess of Valdina appeared. I could no longer just stand by and watch, so I thought I needed to find some solution.”

“I knew it would come to this. She was never a Saint. I was right. I was correct!”

Paollo, who had gulped down the wine from the switched cup, slammed his goblet down on the table.

“That demon of Valdina is now trying to plunge this entire continent into flames!”

When he referred to Medeia as a demon, Jason’s eyes became extremely cold.

However, despite his chilled gaze, his smile remained unchanged, and his voice was still gentle.

“The perceptive High Priest immediately grasps the full scope of the situation.”

“I too have heard news about you, Duke. With the Black Demon running rampant backed by the Princess’s power, your circumstances have become even more difficult.”

Paollo rambled on about how those two were bound together not by divine oracle but by an ominous evil connection.

He even added insults that they were both so wicked they were perfect matches for each other.

However, Paollo failed to realize that the words he spouted supposedly for Jason’s sake were piercing his heart like nails.

“More important than those two people’s trivial evil connection is somehow setting right the Central Temple that is currently falling into corruption.”

Jason, barely maintaining his composure, continued speaking.

“High Priest, have you never considered this? That all these shocking events began happening all at once from the very moment the Evil Dragon’s severed head fell upon the Central Temple?”

“Wait, that means…”

Paollo’s eyes flinched.

“…The Evil Dragon’s curse has blinded everyone’s eyes. You suspected as much, didn’t you?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————