Your Majesty, Dinner Is Ready. - Chapter 72

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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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Episode 72: Sanctuary of Repose — Resolve
“We shouldn’t leave, should we….”
Valentin tapped his index finger against his lips as he spoke.
The fact that he wasn’t flashing his usual brilliant white teeth made it easy enough to guess what was running through his mind.
“No matter how much respect is due to you, Kar, I have to admit—this is rather bewildering.”
“I understand.”
The clearance conditions have been satisfied and the exit gate has appeared, yet you’re saying we should remain in the Dungeon?
It wasn’t standard procedure.
To use an analogy, it was rather like declaring you’d stay late at the office working overtime despite having no work left to do.
I knew from experience—it was a move so audacious that it had even silenced someone like Chief Choi, a creature of malice.
“You’re aware, aren’t you, that staying in the Dungeon after the gate appears is something only lawless brigands do—murdering and plundering other explorers?”
“I am.”
“Expeditions must leave the Dungeon immediately upon clearing it. That’s the basic rule of exploration set by the Royal Dungeon Management Corps. What you just declared is a violation of exploration law.”
The holy knight’s eyes widened as he stepped closer to me.
“Kar, I’ll need an explanation.”
Despite personally favoring me, he was pressing for justification.
A rigid separation of public duty from personal feeling.
It was the demeanor befitting a vice-commander—a guardian of order who manages socialites and the poor alike.
“Please provide us with a reason you must stay here. If it’s compelling, I’ll accept it.”
At least my efforts at reputation-building were bearing fruit; he was willing to hear me out.
All those conversations I’d carefully cultivated with Valentin and Artein about their warm forbearance and generous spirit had been for moments precisely like this.
Had this stern holy knight regarded me as indistinguishable from any other socialite, I’d likely be bound and restrained by now.
“I understand. Persuasion is rather my specialty.”
I opened my mouth again, accepting Valentin’s keenly piercing gaze with my whole body.
“Ridni told me something. To obtain the Hidden Piece, we mustn’t leave through that gate.”
Always the reliable vanguard of Twisted Truth.
“Does that make sense now?”
“…To be frank, that deity alone carries little credibility. A god with fewer than fifty believers.”
《I ought to pull out every last tooth from this monkey’s mouth!!》
Zing, zing-zing!
The noble one graciously approved, noting that while she found Valentin too crudely featured for her taste, he’d just spoken the truth.
“Admittedly, your god’s authority falls somewhat short of validating my claim.”
“…Kar?”
Lucius, who had been quietly observing the situation, blinked blankly in disbelief at my slip of demeaning my own deity.
The priests of the righteous pantheon—delicate flora raised in a greenhouse—would never understand.
We socialites must offer such sharp counsel to survive long.
Blind praise alone invites the risk of degenerating into pseudo-monsters, so merely whispering honeyed words of affection wouldn’t do.
“I’ll present another basis that merits your acceptance of my claim.”
In fact, this was more reliable evidence than appealing to Wisdom herself.
“I mentioned before, didn’t I? That I joined the expedition run by Odillon, second son of the Brethes Family.”
Multipurpose excuse number two.
Enter Odillon’s strategy.
“You may distrust the Knowledge imparted by the wise one. But I trust you won’t make the foolish mistake of doubting the intelligence network of the Brethes Family—who rose to prominence on information brokerage alone and became Members of the Galaxy.”
“…Are you saying the Red Shadow of the Brethes learned the hidden clearance conditions of this Dungeon?”
“Yes, exactly.”
……
Valentin, who hadn’t budged when I invoked Ridni’s name, was now lost in thought.
Such was the prestige of the Brethes Family.
I couldn’t afford to mention them too often—lest the main branch send their assassin, the Red Shadow, to collect payment—so I’d reserved this trump card for moments requiring absolute persuasion.
“…I’ll set aside questioning the truth and sources of this information for now.”
After long deliberation, the stern holy knight met my gaze.
“So then, what should we do? Must we search for Artein’s arrangement and fulfill the hidden clearance condition?”
“I’m curious myself.”
The saint, who had been attentively listening to our exchange while continuously channeling the Hand of Artein, spoke softly.
“A Hidden Piece? You must mean the ‘Treasure of the Dungeon.’ For seven years, visitors from the future church haven’t found a trace, but it seems you know something, brother.”
“I’m quite well-informed, saint.”
“What do you intend to do? Honestly, I’d prefer you left right now.”
The saint openly demanded our departure, but I pretended not to hear.
I surveyed the ward, which had grown peacefully quiet, then spoke softly, almost in a whisper.
“I wonder—was it the sight of a saint so noble healing the sick who gather from across the entire continent that moved the world? It transformed the Sanctuary of Repose into a Dungeon.”
“…….”
The saint smiled faintly.
“The Dungeon has a concept called the ‘Reset Cycle.’ Do you know what it is?”
“I would imagine it refers to a phenomenon in which all the constituent elements of the Dungeon return to their original state.”
“Precisely.”
The reset cycle of the Dungeon must be verified before any expedition.
If you’re inside the Dungeon when it resets, you fall through a rift in spacetime and drift helplessly.
“Valentin. Do you happen to know the reset cycle of this particular Dungeon?”
Valentin, who had been listening silently, suddenly furrowed his brow.
“It’s estimated to be approximately seven years.”
The Sanctuary of Repose was a Dungeon that had existed for exactly seven years this year.
“Ah…….”
Pendrick’s face darkened—the man who’d read the saint Seraphina’s fairy tales and biographies until the pages came apart as a child.
“…Surely not.”
The holy knight who served the goddess of luminous Wisdom seemed to understand what I was about to say.
Valentin’s complexion turned ashen. He glanced hesitantly at the saint before speaking in a halting voice.
“Surely not… Is this Dungeon a recreation of ‘that incident’?”
Valentin gazed at me with anguish.
With an expression begging me to deny what he feared.
“Yes. The Sanctuary of Repose resets for the final time after a catastrophe that genuinely occurred in the past.”
But I could not give him the answer he wanted.
Even when the truth was regrettable, there were times when you had to face it without turning away.
I swept my gaze across the patients, then met the saint’s eyes and spoke.
“In approximately one week. This temple will be attacked by a horde of monsters and completely destroyed. All the priests, holy knights, lay worshippers—and the patients as well—will be brutally trampled.”
The time remaining until the Sanctuary of Repose’s annihilation.
Seven days ahead.
“…Good heavens.”
Valentin bit his lip hard, while Lucius’s eyes went hollow.
The saint before us is a phantom of the Dungeon.
The patients, priests, and holy knights are merely copies of people who genuinely existed.
Yet if I had despised them for that reason, I could never have become a priest serving Artein, who governs steadfast protection.
“Your Holiness?”
Bartimur, who had remained kneeling with the posture I’d corrected, suddenly opened his mouth—oddly formal, adding an honorific where it didn’t quite fit.
“You said there’s a Secret Art that lets you hear sounds from far away, right? Then you must already know. The monster horde coming.”
“…….”
The saint opened her eyes slowly.
“Over the past seven years, among the members of the Heretical Cult who’ve passed through here, there must have been at least one who whispered about the historical event. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes. I overheard it six years ago. I’ve been counting the days ever since.”
The saintly holy knight sighed, looking up at the ceiling.
The saint calmly stroked the cheek of a young beastfolk patient whose hair had been cursed and replaced with earthworms.
“I understand that I am fated to die without fleeing, standing against the endless tide of monsters that rush in to protect these patients. Or rather, that is what the ‘true Seraphina’ would have done.”
Just as history unfolded, that saint will soon perish.
She will vanish along with the Dungeon’s reset, replaced by a new Saint Seraphina.
A death already determined. A fate that cannot be escaped.
“Surely that is me, then. Am I not worthy of the praise of future generations?”
And yet she shows no fear whatsoever.
A high priest—a saint—has a spirit too steadfast to be shaken by her own death.
But the catastrophe a week hence does not involve Seraphina alone.
Everyone in the Sanctuary of Repose was scheduled to be slaughtered.
And the Dungeon would reset, returning seven years into the past, only for all of them to be torn apart by monsters again when the time came, an endless cycle of death.
“…But my heart aches terribly that I cannot protect all these people to the very end.”
She cares nothing for her own welfare, yet grieves for the suffering of the innocent.
Most of them have no connection to her whatsoever—many aren’t even devotees of Artein—and yet she genuinely suffers at the thought of a future where she cannot shield them from death.
The saint of the Order of Protection.
There was reason in Artein’s choice of her as a proxy.
《That saint is no hypocrite, unlike her goddess. Their positions should be reversed!》
As useless words scattered across my thoughts, Valentin, who’d been staring at the ceiling, stepped forward.
“…Your Holiness, why not escape instead? Once the Dungeon resets, you’ll only have to repeat the same tragedy eternally. So this time, at least, you should taste freedom.”
“…….”
A deception proposal that sounded plausible enough.
To put it bluntly, the patients and believers alike are all false, and no matter how much one saves them, they’re destined to suffer anew.
So Valentin was right—it would be rational to leave the temple and rest during this cycle.
“I refuse.”
But.
As she herself had already said, the Saint was a foolish person.
“In fact, Artein gave me the same oracle. Abandon the temple and flee. Escape and walk toward a brighter future even within the Dungeon. And yet—how could I simply abandon those who have come so far to seek me out?”
Seraphina rose from her seat and surveyed the sickbed, taking in the full ward.
As she gazed upon every patient’s form, the eyes that had seemed somewhat sorrowful at first hardened with resolute determination.
“Rather than abandon my duty, I will gladly cast myself into the endless flow of suffering. Even if my efforts prove meaningless—nothing but futile struggle.”
Valentin, whose hands had been trembling, finally bowed his head.
“I too—my future self after the Dungeon resets, and the one after that, and the one after that—will surely make the same choice. Just as the original me refused to abandon you and protected the patients to the very end.”
It was foolish.
And for that reason, it shone.
“I am destined to suffer through this meaningless hardship and meet a pointless death. Yet will you not return to the future? Just go. I do not wish to see your precious lives crushed for my sake.”
Those of high station truly do not understand the hearts of those beneath them.
What member of the Heretical Cult would simply nod and turn back?
I looked at the expression of the Moon Expedition Party member and the Heretical Cult member in turn, then spoke.
“Saint. It appears no one here wishes to return.”
We would throw ourselves into the jaws of death.
Following this foolish Saint.
“We will help you defend against the assault of the demon hordes.”
The conquest of the Sanctuary of Repose was only now truly beginning.

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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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