The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 103

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

Chapter 103
The Emperor of the Empire.
He who stands at the apex of the Arkenous Empire. A man who can move countless nobles and lords with a single word, raise armies, make laws, and decide the very fate of lives—the supreme authority of the realm.
Though he was the first among all the empire’s powers, to me every emperor had been a carrier of hereditary hemorrhoids.
I’d seen three generations of them, and every last one had bashfully confessed the condition and pleaded with me to cure it. So when I looked at this emperor before me now, all I could think was, ‘He’s probably got hemorrhoids too.’
Before meeting the Emperor, I’d summoned the Archbishop separately to confirm the Temple’s current standing in the realm.
“Your Grace holds a station equal to that of the Emperor of the Arkenous Empire. God’s Representative need not bow his head to any secular monarch.”
“You truly mean we’re on equal footing?”
“In both protocol and authority, yes. Just as the Emperor governs the bodies of his subjects, Your Grace guides their souls.”
The meeting took place in a small reception room deep within the Imperial Palace. There were no attendants, no servants, no guards—only the Emperor and myself.
As the door closed, the sounds from outside faded to a whisper, and the afternoon sunlight streaming through the tall windows fell in sharp, unwavering lines across the long table.
The Emperor looked younger than I’d anticipated. His graying hair and the deep lines around his eyes spoke of his years, yet his posture was impeccable and his gaze sharp as a blade.
More than anything, he possessed a practiced ease in confronting others.
He did not brandish his authority openly, yet made it seem perfectly natural that he was the center of the room—a man whose presence commanded the space without demanding it.
“It is my first time meeting you in person, Saint.”
The Emperor studied me first. I smiled and replied in kind.
“This is my first time meeting Your Majesty in person as well.”
“I hear the Holy Sanctuary has been quite turbulent since your return from the Northern Region.”
This was no casual opening pleasantry.
“There would have been cause for concern had all remained quiet. After all, one of the Imperial Palace’s secret knights was masquerading as an attending priest at my side.”
“Perhaps it was merely someone impersonating the Imperial Palace?”
“The evidence attached to the complaint and the suspect’s confession both point directly to the Imperial Palace. Surely you don’t suggest otherwise?”
The Emperor’s eyes dimmed ever so slightly. He had no intention of denying it. Rather, he seemed to be measuring how much to concede and where to draw the line.
“You speak with remarkable directness, Saint.”
“Oblique speech breeds misunderstanding. I believe now is not the time to allow misunderstandings to accumulate between us.”
“Misunderstanding.”
He repeated the word slowly.
“Do you believe this matter reflects the will of the Imperial Palace as a whole?”
“I have not yet reached that conclusion.”
“Not yet?”
The Second Prince used personnel belonging to the Imperial Palace to act, and his orders included my assassination. How the Imperial Palace responds will determine my judgment.”
The Emperor fell silent for a moment. Instead, he raised his teacup and took a sip, then gazed out the window.
“Since you traveled to the Northern Region, you must have met my younger brother. Even after so long apart, the bonds of brotherhood linger—I still find myself missing those days when we played together in the Imperial Palace as boys. I confess I wish to hear of my brother from you.”
Judging solely by the Emperor’s words, one might take them for brothers of exemplary affection.
The Emperor continued to probe me.
Whether there had been any anomalies related to Magical Contamination in the Croen Duchy, what the mood of the Northern Region’s people was like, and whether I thought it necessary to re-establish the Temple’s regional branch there.
On the surface, these were questions of concern for the realm’s stability, but threaded through them was an unmistakable intent to gauge how close the Duke and I had become.
I answered only as much as was necessary.
I spoke of the Northern Region’s food shortage, the Temple’s insufficient relief efforts, and my intention to investigate the circumstances surrounding the past closure of the local branch. On the Duke, I offered no definitive answer.
At that, the Emperor changed the subject.
“Have you met with the one held in the Underground Dungeon of the Holy Sanctuary?”
“Yes, just yesterday.”
“Do you believe his entire confession?”
“I don’t rely on confession alone. I examine evidence and circumstances together. As it happens, the timing coincides precisely with when the Second Prince had begun pressuring me persistently regarding betrothal.”
The Emperor set down his teacup again.
If our exchange thus far had been a probing of each other’s position, it was now clear that the true negotiation was about to begin.
“I have a request for you, Saint.”
“Speak.”
Can you prevent my wayward son, the Second Prince, from being excommunicated?”
It was not an entirely unexpected demand.
Yet when the Emperor spoke it aloud himself, the weight of it changed. Here was the sovereign of an empire asking a Saint not to excommunicate his own son.
I answered at once.
“As long as there exists the crime of plotting the Saint’s murder, it is impossible. How can one who conspired to kill God’s Representative be called a believer in God?”
The Emperor’s eyes narrowed.
“That differs from what the Archbishop told me.”
In that instant, an ominous premonition seized me.
“What did the Archbishop say?”
“That he would be delighted to forgive the sin if an Indulgence were purchased.”
Of course that old priest wouldn’t sit idle. The Emperor continued, studying my expression closely.
“However, since you are the victim in this matter, he said an Indulgence cannot be issued without your permission. Thus the Archbishop’s answer was that I should endeavor to persuade you myself.”
Now I understood why the Emperor had dismissed his attendants and insisted on meeting me alone.
The Archbishop had settled his business with the Imperial Palace first, leaving only the final stage for me to handle. I’d anticipated as much, but this exceeded even that.
“What do you suppose I have offered in exchange for that Indulgence?”
His tone had shifted.
The Emperor, who moments before had maintained the courtesies befitting my title as Saint, had now fully reverted to the speech of a sovereign.
This was not a posture of seeking permission, but of instructing me on the value of the hand he’d laid down.
I did not answer. The Emperor did not wait for one, and spoke at once.
“He said he would grant the Swalren Plains to the Temple as Temple lands.”
In that instant, a map of the Arkenous Empire unfurled in my mind.
The plains of the Swalren region.
Among the empire’s most celebrated granaries, it was a core asset of the Imperial Palace, managed as state property. The soil was fertile and water abundant—production rarely fell sharply even in poor harvests.
The Imperial Palace sent grain harvested there to regions struck by crop failure for relief efforts, and conversely, sold it at exorbitant prices to desperate lords to exercise influence.
He who controlled grain controlled the leash around men’s necks.
The Swalren Plains were no mere money-generating land. They were the means by which the Imperial Palace controlled lords across the realm, and a reserve that allowed the empire to endure when famine came.
He was offering to surrender those precious, golden fields entirely to the Temple to prevent his son’s Excommunication.
So this is how you made your back-room deal? I ground my teeth inwardly.
The Archbishop was a master schemer indeed. No matter what I chose in this moment, he suffered no loss.
What would happen if I refused to grant it?
I could certainly preserve the Temple’s honor and authority.
But I could not escape the reproach that I had abandoned God’s teachings of forgiveness and mercy over mere emotion, and squandered an opportunity to expand the Temple’s finances and relief capabilities.
At the same time, I would become the person who rejected the Emperor’s offer, turning the Imperial Palace itself into an enemy.
The Archbishop would simply brush his hands clean—the Saint had not consented, so there was nothing he could do—and neither the Temple’s authority nor his own standing would suffer. The Emperor’s wrath would be his to bear.
But if I consented instead?
The Archbishop would obtain the empire’s most fertile plains as Temple lands. The Temple would secure vast grain stores, revenue, and influence under the pretext of relief efforts.
I, meanwhile, would lose the most powerful card I held to leverage the Second Prince.
Once freed from Excommunication, the Second Prince might bow his head for now, but he would never forget that his lifeline had once passed through my hands.
And my assassination plan had already failed. Should such a man move freely again, he would pursue me far more carefully and ruthlessly than before.
Moreover, the accusations that I had sacrificed the Temple’s authority for greed over land would fall not on the Archbishop who orchestrated this scheme, but on me, who made the final choice.
Whichever path I chose, the Archbishop profited and I paid the price. That old man had constructed the game so I had no escape.
The Emperor knew this too. That’s why he waited for my answer with such composure.
He was watching to see whether I would abandon the Temple’s interests, or set aside my personal hatred and prevent his son’s Excommunication.
I looked down at my own face reflected in the tea water.
“Have you decided?”
I withdrew my hand from the teacup and met the Emperor’s gaze directly. Then, slowly, I opened my mouth.

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