Immortal's Ascending Path-43
Episode-43. Royal Wedding
The two moved their seats. Roberta followed Archbishop Vinicio up the stairs twice, and the archbishop led her to a reception room on one side of the hallway.
The room had its windows wide open, so the summer breeze came in with the sunlight. On the table in the middle of the room, a teacup was placed with a book. It seemed he had been resting there until just a moment ago.
"Please sit down."
Vinicio pointed to a chair. As Roberta sat down, he placed an empty teacup in front of her and poured light yellow tea into it. The scent tickled her nose on the wind.
"Before I hear the story, I would like to hear the answer to my first question."
It was a question of whether she had come with Ulrich.
"No. Duke Ditmarsken did not come with me."
"He didn't come?"
"No."
She answered reflexively.
"Hmm, I see. Then did the Priest come alone?"
"I came with Armin, the Duke's adopted son."
The archbishop repeated, Armin?, and narrowed his eyes.
"His adopted son?"
Roberta answered yes and watched his reaction. The archbishop might see through her lie. He seemed to know Ulrich better than she did. It was highly likely that he knew how many adopted children he had and what their names were, but she lied.
It was the answer she had been contemplating since she was questioned in front of the altar. She had said that Ulrich would continue to use a pseudonym, but should she hide it from the archbishop as well?
However, the archbishop was speaking very highly of Ulrich. She decided that she should be careful until she heard the truth about him.
"······."
The archbishop sat across from Roberta and frowned. The expression on his face as he looked down at the teacup was as if he was searching for the name Armin in his memory.
"Yes, yes. I've heard of him."
The answer that came back after a while was unexpected.
"I haven't heard from him in a while, so he's still around."
She tried to suppress her surprised expression. Was Armin not just a pseudonym? Was there really an adopted son with the same name? Even the attendant Fritz didn't know that name? She tried to calm her surprised heart.
"······Yes. Armin came to attend the wedding on behalf of the Duke. And I accompanied him because I had an order from His Holiness."
"Indeed," the archbishop muttered, nodding.
"I understand. It's a pity that he didn't come in person, but there will be another opportunity."
He took a sip of tea.
"Now tell me. What have you learned about him while you were in Ditmarsken?"
She wondered where to start the story.
It was only a year, but her experiences were so bizarre that it was not easy to organize. She told it in chronological order. From the time she was appointed as Head Priest in Ditmarsken, until today. She told of the incidents she had experienced and the names she had heard.
From Ulrich performing the Infant Sacrament on her first day of appointment, to an old man named Rashid bringing in a worm that grew in his son's corpse, to a hybrid of a dragon and a human from the Carbonihar Kingdom visiting, etc., she told it as briefly as possible.
The only thing she didn't tell was the secret history that Ulrich had told her.
She had no aversion to telling stories that were not secret histories. She had been sending letters to Alonso regularly, telling him about the incidents she had experienced. Moreover, the archbishop was a person of higher rank than Alonso, and he seemed to know Ulrich better than she did.
"What do you think he is like?"
The archbishop asked after listening to the story to the end.
"I think he's a strange... person."
"Strange, don't you think anything else?"
She was about to answer again, but she closed her mouth.
"You're just like Alonso. You act like someone who doesn't believe anything other than the truth witnessed by reason, but when the truth is in front of you, you're afraid and run away."
"······."
"Your story points to a certain truth. And there's no way you haven't noticed it by now. Isn't that right?"
Roberta did not answer. Silence fell.
The two people's eyes met, but their movements were different. Her focus was shaking, but his was straight. It was the eyes of someone without any doubt. Eventually, the archbishop got up from his seat, turned his back, and looked out the window.
"I won't ask any more questions. I won't say anything either. Alonso sent you as an ignorant person, and His Holiness also allowed it. More than anything, he didn't reveal it."
He laughed and shook his head.
"Do you have any questions you want to ask?"
She stared up at his back and opened her mouth.
"...I heard that a summons has been issued."
"His Holiness has given a truly terrible order."
"I want to know how the situation is flowing, Your Excellency. I know why the summons was issued, but... I don't know how long this situation will last and what will happen in the future."
"Perhaps the chaos will not end in a short time. His Holiness has excommunicated the Emperor, and the Emperor is preparing to gather troops to strike the Pantheon."
Roberta frowned and made a huh sound.
"Strike the Pantheon? How can he do that?"
The celestial gods cultivated the world, and even now that they have left, their influence remains, but how can he attack the divine right that connects heaven and humans?
There have always been groups with heretical and misguided ideas. But they were never the majority. Even if some secular lords gathered soldiers, the soldiers would run away at the command of the Priest.
She thought it would be the same this time, but it wasn't.
"The divinity of Cormilius is being questioned. Even within the Pantheon, the factions have already split. Unlike Osnover, there are many Priest in other countries who refuse the summons."
"Does Your Excellency also oppose the will of the Pantheon?"
She guessed that was why the archbishop remained here.
"I am neither. I am only worried about those who remain. The Priest summons is an act of taking innocent people hostage. Of course, the Emperor and King Richard, who knew that and made things worse, are not normal either."
He sighed deeply.
"I just couldn't stand to see this. That's why I'm holding brief ordinations to fill the positions of the Priest who have left. They lack ability other than faith, but they can perform the sacraments."
However, adding that, the archbishop lamented that he didn't know how meaningful his actions would be in the midst of the chaos that had just begun.
It was an unprecedented situation since the rise of the Third Empire. No matter who wins, the chaos will continue. Once a crack occurs, it is not easily filled, and it spreads and collapses the whole.
"We humans say that the current era is the Third Age, and it was built by the two families of Cormilius and Yokaster. But the two families are pushing each other off the cliff. Perhaps... the end of our era has truly come."
#
Roberta visited Count Meyer's mansion after lunch.
It was called a mansion, but it was not a very large house. It was a two-story building with a low fence and a decorated yard. She was led by a servant to the backyard.
"Hoo······."
A long breath greeted her.
In the yard, two people were holding swords and facing each other. It was a scene of Fritz receiving sparring guidance from Ulrich. Roberta had rarely seen Ulrich holding a sword, so she silenced her voice and watched.
Fritz's breath was rough. His white top was soaked with sweat and stuck to his body, as if he had moved intensely under the scorching sun.
On the other hand, Ulrich did not shed a single drop of sweat. It was not that he could not feel the heat, but that heat did not exist in the first place.
Come to think of it, it was the same on the Ice Peninsula. He was the one who wore thin cloth clothes and pushed away the waist-high snow with his bare hands to make a path.
"Don't drag out your thoughts."
Ulrich took a step and struck down with his sword.
The surprised boy hurriedly raised his sword to defend. The metallic sound rang out sharply and grazed his ear. The blade stopped right above the boy's head. The two hands holding the sword trembled.
Roberta flinched. Sparring is bound to be violent, but wasn't that a murderous spirit? If Fritz's strength had been a little lacking, it would have been a downward slash that would have split his skull.
"If you are deeply troubled and hesitant, it is better than rushing in without thinking."
"W-wait a minute!"
Her worries were in vain. The attacks continued one after another. The boy barely managed to block and dodge repeatedly. His cheeks, hands, waist, and various parts of his body were blocked or passed through with small gaps.
She glared, worried that a major accident might occur, but as the battle lengthened, the flow changed. The surprised and frightened boy put strength in his eyes, gritted his teeth, and rushed at his master. It was a charge close to desperation.
But at some point, the offense and defense changed, and Ulrich began to block the boy's continuous attacks as a defender.
"Good, like that. Drive your opponent."
Of course, Ulrich was not really being pushed back. Unlike Fritz, it was as if he had seen the future, and when the boy swung his blade, his blade was already blocking it.
Each time, he pointed out in a very calm voice, a faint emotion that she would not know if it were not her. Faster, more erratic. The boy's movements became more intense and his posture was distorted, but to Roberta, it seemed like a more threatening movement than before.
The sparring ended when the boy collapsed powerlessly. His legs trembled and he collapsed on his own. Ulrich said, "Good job," and put his sword in its sheath. Even until that moment, Ulrich did not sweat.
"Did you have the meeting you've been waiting for, Roberta?"
Ulrich sat down on the chair that the servant had brought.
"Yes. The Archbishop was there."
"If it's the Archbishop, it must be Vinicio."
He muttered that he did not follow the summons. Roberta dismissed the servant, and when only the three of them were left in the yard, she reopened her mouth.
"Ulrich, is the name Armin a pseudonym?"
He sat crookedly in the chair and looked up at her.
"Vinicio must have said something."
"Yes. His Excellency said that you had an adopted son with the same name."
"That's true. Armin, that name is the name of the child I took in."
Fritz, who was sitting down and wiping his face with a towel, stopped. The boy looked at the two of them with wide eyes. It was the first time he had heard of it, just like her.
"I have many children. And most of them are not blood-related. I take in children who have lost their parents in the clan, or who have been sold into slavery somewhere, or who have their own circumstances, usually."
She had heard about it occasionally. It was the reason why people believed that Ulrich was using a pseudonym, and even if the pseudonym was called the Duke's adopted son. The fact that he had raised several adopted children was a fact that anyone who was interested in him could not know.
"Each and every one of them is more precious to me than blood. I have never taken it lightly to raise those children. But sometimes those children do not sprout properly and leave. Before I can do anything about it."
"The person named Armin······."
"He was one of them. He left around Fritz's age."
He put his clasped hands on his stomach and looked up at the sky.
"I sometimes use other people's names. All the names I have used so far are not my own. There are names that I started and finished, but I also take over names that others started but did not finish."
He said that Armin was like that.
"I used that child's name because I was so sorry that he left in vain. Just like someone who has a relationship with me asks me to remember them. I also sometimes, really very rarely, borrow a name because I want someone else to remember a certain name."