The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 102

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 102
Norwald’s daughter, Edeline, crouched in the depths of her cell, tears streaming down her face. From the state of her — bruised, broken — it was clear she had already endured the notorious Heretical Interrogation.
The moment I appeared before the prison bars, Edeline scrambled forward to meet me.
“Your Highness, please… please spare my life….”
The sound of iron chains dragging mixed with her sobs.
“How much did you tell them?”
At my question, Edeline drew in a sharp breath. It took a moment for her to grasp the meaning, but soon she nodded frantically.
“Everything, Your Highness. Truly everything I know. Who my father met with, what letters he received, what rituals took place in our home…. I told them everything even the servants knew. I swear it, Your Highness. There is nothing left hidden.”
“Truly everything?”
“Yes, yes. I can swear it. I swear it before God.”
I stepped closer to the bars.
“Come here, closer.”
Edeline looked up at me, her face streaked with tears. At my gesture, she crawled forward on her knees until we were nearly touching.
“Put your ear near the bars.”
Her pupils quivered.
Johan stood at my back, shadowing my every step by half a pace and surveying our surroundings. If I spoke in a normal voice, he would hear every word.
I leaned my face close to the bars beside Edeline’s ear.
Then I whispered, low enough that Johan could not hear.
Edeline’s eyes went wide in an instant.
Her lips trembled as if to ask me to repeat what I’d said, but I raised my index finger to my mouth first. At that, Edeline swallowed her words and breathed only in ragged gasps.
I straightened at once and turned away.
“Your Highness!”
Behind me, she called out urgently. The bars rattled violently in her grip.
“Wait, Your Highness! What you just said…… Your Highness!”
I did not turn back. I felt Johan’s curious gaze boring into the back of my head.
He was desperate to know what I had said, but I continued forward as though I heard nothing.
Next, I made my way to the cell where Prakti, brought under Imperial Palace escort, was being held.
She sat with her back against the wall, both hands bound in iron chains. Her condition was dire.
When I stopped before the bars, Prakti slowly raised her head. At the sight of me, memories of the interrogation’s brutality surfaced, and she flinched.
“Tell me the truth, and I will spare you the flames.”
Her eyes flickered with faint hope.
“Did you infiltrate alone?”
Johan could not contain himself and spoke with earnest fervor.
“Your Highness, such mercy is too generous! This wretch attempted to assassinate the Saint and stole the Temple’s credentials. To grant even the possibility of avoiding the flames…. She deserves to be drawn and quartered in the Square!”
Prakti’s face hardened.
She now understood with visceral clarity just how merciful my condition was — and what would become of her if she refused to cooperate.
She bit her lip for a long moment before finally answering in a low voice.
“I was not alone.”
Johan’s brow twitched.
“There was one more.”
“Inside the Holy Sanctuary?”
Prakti nodded.
“Yes.”
As I had anticipated. With this second confirmation, I proceeded directly to the next cell.
It was where the Priest sat — the one who had taken the Second Prince’s bribe and falsified the Temple Records with a fraudulent name, ignoring all proper procedure.
The moment the Priest saw me, he went rigid. I stopped before the bars and asked.
“Were there two of you?”
The color drained from the Priest’s face.
“I… I do not understand what you mean….”
“I am asking whether there were two people you admitted to the Holy Sanctuary under false credentials. Have you not already heard the confession?”
He fell silent.
His pupils trembled ceaselessly. He was searching for some escape, some excuse, but the fact that I already knew the precise number rendered all his denials useless.
“You reported that there was only one.”
“Your Highness, that was—”
“Do you intend to keep denying what you so desperately tried to hide, when I already know? You sought to minimize your guilt by reporting fewer numbers, but unfortunately, your secret is out.”
The Priest’s legs buckled. He collapsed to the floor, trembling violently, pressing his forehead to the ground. Beside me, Johan’s face had turned crimson with rage.
“How dare you show such contempt for the Religious Order!”
He spoke as though grinding his teeth.
“Not content with selling the Temple Records for a handful of the Imperial Palace’s coins, you let Prakti run rampant in the Holy Sanctuary! Do these people fear God at all? What do they take the Religious Order for, to commit such sacrilege….”
Johan’s fury was genuine.
Regardless of the fact that he served the Archbishop, his loyalty to the Temple and the Saint was beyond question.
If anything, that devotion was so simple and ardent that it made him easy prey for manipulation.
After concluding my investigation and leaving the Underground Dungeon, Johan personally escorted me to my chamber.
“Your Holiness should retire inside and rest. I will report this matter to the Archbishop at once.”
“Yes, well done.”
“This is hardly a matter to let pass.”
With solemn determination, Johan saluted and vanished down the corridor. Even the set of his shoulders betrayed the urgency with which he meant to kick down the Archbishop’s office door. I watched his receding figure for a moment before stepping into my chamber, where I found Arden waiting inside.
Beside him knelt a stranger bound with hands tied behind his back and a gag fastened in his mouth.
Arden smiled at me with easy composure.
“You’ve returned, Your Holiness.”
I glanced between the bound man and Arden.
“And this person is…?”
“One sent by the Second Prince to install an Eavesdropping Magic Device in your chamber.”
Not even an hour had passed.
Barely that long since I’d ordered an investigation into those who procured and moved the lilies, and yet Arden had already identified the perpetrator and brought him bound before me.
It seemed clear he had been captured well before that.
Had Arden been holding him since the first day? Was that how the Second Prince’s tail had been cut off before he could dispose of this loose thread?
I studied Arden carefully, but he merely continued smiling with his usual serenity, as though my suspicions were of no consequence to him.
“What would you have me do, Your Holiness? Shall I inform the Archbishop?”
I shook my head at Arden’s question.
“No. For now, let’s keep this from the Archbishop. We’ve already shown him our findings at the confrontation. Johan will have reported to the Archbishop that there is another Imperial spy planted within the Holy Sanctuary.”
My being disrespected had been taken as disrespect toward the Religious Order itself, which is why Johan had reacted with such personal fury—but Johan remained, first and foremost, the Archbishop’s man.
“Since we have secured this one first, we need only observe how the Archbishop responds once he learns of it.”
“And what do you anticipate he will do?”
“He’ll attempt to negotiate with the Imperial Palace.”
I settled slowly into my chair.
“Having already thrown his support behind the First Prince as the next Emperor and cemented his ties with the Imperial Palace, he won’t lightly abandon the wealth and power those connections bring. He’ll rage at the Second Prince’s presumption in targeting the Saint, but he won’t be so foolish as to sever ties with the entire Imperial family over it.”
The Archbishop had elevated the Temple to a power rivaling the Imperial Palace itself, yet he maintained that power through his very entanglement with the Palace.
The political foundation built on supporting the First Prince, the connections with nobility, the wealth and intelligence flowing from the Imperial Palace—he would not sever all of it for one of the Second Prince’s transgressions.
“So this man becomes the piece that can break the collusion between the Imperial Palace and the Temple.”
Arden regarded me thoughtfully for some time before speaking quietly.
“If I may ask, does the Holy Sanctuary’s Orphanage also teach political maneuvering?”
I covered my mouth and smiled softly.
“My dear Arden, if one is to contend with the abyss, one must become the abyss oneself.”
In my previous life, as the Religious Order grew, I had been swept up in enough political strife. This petty scheming was child’s play to me.
The difference was that then I had fought to protect the Temple I had built with my own hands. Now I faced a Temple rotted from within.
I looked down at the spy kneeling on the floor.
“Lock this one away separately under your watch. He must not come to the attention of the Archbishop’s people.”
“Understood.”
In a single day, I had uncovered enough to know the stakes had grown considerably.
There were two Imperial spies, a Priest within the Temple who had admitted them, and the Archbishop would soon learn of it.
And I had secured the second spy before the Archbishop could.
Now all that remained was to see what choice he would make.
But the morning after the next day, before I could even gauge the Archbishop’s response, an unexpected summons arrived.
A Priest entered my chamber with anxious haste and bowed deeply.
“Your Holiness, a message has come from the Imperial Palace.”
I looked up from the documents I had been reading.
“What is it?”
The Priest answered with careful deliberation.
“His Imperial Majesty requests an audience with you.”

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