Wasn’t This Supposed To Be a Strategy Game? Chapter 107

‘To think we have to face a man like that…’

A tension on a whole different level from dealing with Kyris tingled sharply at the back of Eden’s throat. But Asmun was far calmer than Eden.

「It was a board already set. It would have been hard to overturn it with our strength alone. Don’t blame yourself.」

For someone who’d had a golden opportunity snatched away right before his eyes, he was unreasonably composed.

His excessive coolness almost made Eden suspect he was still angry about their last argument and was needling her on purpose.

「Your Highness isn’t even vexed? Patrian was the real one! How could he fool us that cleanly? No—how could we be fooled? Hah, we should’ve noticed sooner…」

But Asmun, instead, soothed the incensed Eden with practiced ease.

「It isn’t over yet.」

Asmun hadn’t foreseen things going quite this far either, of course, but he had never let down his guard against Patrian; the man’s stratagems didn’t surprise him.

Since childhood, it had always been Patrian—more cruelly and doggedly than Kyris—who tormented Asmun.

If Kyris had his attendants dump water on Asmun, Patrian lured him in secret and pushed him into the palace lake. If Kyris “accidentally” left a broken saddle in Asmun’s path, Patrian engineered matters so that Asmun would be stranded in a forest crawling with monsters.

At some point Patrian abruptly stopped the bullying and pretended to be meek—but people don’t change so easily.

In a way, this was better. Patrian taking care of Kyris reduced the number of enemies Asmun had to face by one.

So Asmun had to seize this chance and claim the throne. And in so doing, keep Eden by his side.

「I will keep the promise I made to you, Saintess.」

Eden remembered those eyes, glinting with something slow and chilling.

“Hah…”

“What is it, Saintess?”

When Eden sighed, the four junior priests glued to her back hustled to ask.

With a weary look, Eden flicked a glance at them and answered.

“It’s nothing. More importantly, you can stand a little farther back.”

“The High Priest ordered us to attend the Saintess with utmost devotion.”

They repeated—again—the line they’d already repeated several times like machines.

“…”

Eden gave up on conversation and resumed walking. News that she had slipped out had sent the Temple into an uproar.

Serman hadn’t scolded Eden even once, but he had doubled the number of watchers.

So the shadowing had become maddeningly intense wherever she went—but Eden was no longer impatient. She had Hegenti.

「Call me anytime. I’ll come get you.」

Hegenti had given Eden the sweetest promise. He still refused to stay at Asmun’s castle, but he promised not to leave the capital anymore.

She had Asmun—unshakable, firm—and Hegenti, who could, if he wished, punch through even the Temple’s barrier in one go.

Steadying herself again, Eden took a deep breath and halted before Ivatan’s office.

“I’ll go in alone.”

“But Saintess, the High Priest ordered that we not take our eyes off you for even a moment—”

“At this rate you’ll follow me into the restroom too.”

“The Chancellor’s office is not a restroom. We are to accompany you wherever you go.”

Just then the door burst open and Ivatan stepped out, face cold.

“Chancellor.”

Eden called to him with relief, but Ivatan’s gaze was pinned on the priests.

“Everything that happens in here is an imperial secret. Do you judge yourselves qualified to accompany her inside?”

The sheer gall of the remark left the priests speechless. After glancing at one another, they finally retreated a step.

“Then we will wait outside.”

Eden cheered inwardly and slipped inside with a cheeky quickness; Ivatan eyed the priests a moment longer, then shut the door with a thud.

“Thank you. They don’t listen to a word I say.”

Eden smiled sheepishly back at him—but Ivatan didn’t smile at all. Instead, he looked at her in quiet surprise, as if he hadn’t expected this.

“…I didn’t think you would come back here.”

On that quiet line, Eden—who had naturally started for her usual seat—blinked and asked back.

“Pardon?”

“You are a Saintess now.”

And…?

Eden still didn’t understand. Ivatan swallowed and stepped closer.

“It means you no longer need to help with my work.”

Ah.

At last, Eden understood all his ambiguous statements.

The things she’d received in exchange for helping with the monster compendium had been precious to an apprentice priest.

Opportunities to visit the palace; a reward several times an apprentice’s stipend; and, albeit faintly, the honor of serving the realm.

All of that lost its power the moment Eden became Saintess.

Now, Eden could come and go from the palace anytime without Ivatan; she would gain wealth beyond comparison with what he’d paid her. And as for honor…

There was no longer any need for her to help complete this tedious, grueling compendium. So Ivatan had thought she would never again have cause to visit his office.

But Eden’s answer was disarmingly simple.

“I said I’d help you with your mission, Chancellor.”

So simple it was almost deflating.

Just to keep that line?

It hadn’t even really been a promise. As Ivatan lingered by the door, still staring at her, Eden sighed and added,

“To be honest, it’s because I’m grateful.”

“…For what.”

“You believed me.”

Eden said it with a quick smile.

On the day they stormed Kyris’s castle, if not for Ivatan, the very attempt to see the Emperor would have failed.

And he had mustered troops in case of the unexpected—trusting only Eden’s word.

“I know you marshaled the troops ahead of time. Even if it ended up only helping someone else look good…”

As Eden let out a self-mocking sigh, Ivatan’s eyes dipped, darkening.

He, too, harbored doubts about Patrian’s staged “entrance.” And he couldn’t shake the feeling that Eden and the mage finding the mine hadn’t been a coincidence either.

“How do you know the one called Gold?”

“…Who is Gold?”

Eden’s innocent puzzlement only made Ivatan’s gaze grow more suspicious.

“The mage. The one who uncovered the mine’s crimes with you.”

Ah—Eden clamped her mouth shut with a guilty look. So Chediak’s mage-name was Gold.

“Ah, Gold. Right, Gold. We just… met by chance. And ended up working together.”

She hurried to gloss it over, but Ivatan’s eyes didn’t soften easily.

“Truly. As you heard, Gold had started investigating the mine before I ever did.”

Only then did Ivatan finally let the suspicion fade from his gaze.

Right after the affair, Chediak had left the capital without a backward glance. He said there was something he had to do, and that finding the mine had only happened while pursuing that task.

He was a busy man; Eden couldn’t hold him back, nor did she have reason to. She took her leave, reluctantly.

They probably wouldn’t meet again.

With that thought, Eden opened the compendium she had been organizing last time before being interrupted.

She stared at it a moment, then blurted,

“Chancellor, there isn’t a monster that lays rainbow-colored eggs, is there?”

Ivatan stared at Eden, who had asked a question both random and absurd—and then answered.

“…I have not seen one yet.”

“I see…”

Eden puffed a small breath. She wanted to march right up to Hamyun and curse him out about what kind of game design this was, but there was no way to obtain an egg.

‘So it can only be obtained through a quest? And only as a special reward from a hidden quest, at that.’

On a hunch, she’d even tried throwing a whole tray of ordinary eggs, but there was no effect—each one auto-purified on impact, which only irritated her further. [Note: running gag/mechanic—ordinary eggs get “purified” by her Saintess power.]

But an Easter egg was only an Easter egg. Even if she never met Hamyun again, it wouldn’t hinder clearing the game.

“When this compendium is complete, we’ll be able to sweep away every monster on the continent, won’t we?”

The line hardly fit coming from a Saintess; Ivatan gave her a deliberately bemused look.

Eden lifted her head, met his eyes, and smiled.

“I’ll count on you, Chancellor.”

Ivatan stared back, frozen for a beat, then—almost in spite of himself—looked away in haste and snatched up the papers on his desk.

Eden, for her part, didn’t seem to be fishing for an answer; without a hint of pique, she picked up her pen and started working.

Thanks to which, she didn’t notice that his ears were a shade redder than usual.

With the First Prince—closest to the throne by succession—condemned for treason, and the source of evil, the black magi, still unaccounted for, a dark shadow lingered over the Hesmore Empire and refused to lift.

At this rate, the people’s morale would sink, inevitably affecting the Empire. The palace therefore had to try to turn the mood around.

“A banquet—now, of all times?”

Eden asked, a little dumbfounded. It was hard to accept that an imperial banquet could recharge the people’s spirit.

Moreover…

“Do I really need to attend such an event…?”