Having defeated one of the Eight Celestial Demons, Luna is making use of the temporary school closure to visit Zel’s log house.
As she talks about her villainess move and her dinner with King Magnus, there comes a knock at the door.
“Saint-sama.”
“Yes, I know.”
She slips into the closet to avoid being found out as the Saint, and peers at the outside through the crack in the door.
“Zel-sama, I am pleased to meet you for the first time. I am Tselli Randoll, priestess of the Saint Faith. The Pope would like to meet with Silver-sama——”
“——Please see yourself out.”
Zel closes the door at top speed and locks it with great thoroughness.
“P-please wait, Zel-sama! At the very least, if you would just hear us out……!”
“I’m afraid we have nothing to discuss with your organization.”
“Please don’t say such a thing. ——Oh, that’s right! If you open the door right now, we’ll present you with a special membership bonus towel!”
“No thank you.”
After several more exchanges of this kind, Tselli says “I will come again tomorrow” and withdraws with an air of reluctance.
“Phew……is she gone.”
Zel lets out a deep sigh, and at the same moment the closet door creaks open, and the cowlick peeks out.
“That was someone from the Saint Faith, right?”
“Yes. They’ve been knocking on my door every day lately, insisting on seeing Silver.”
“Wow……that sounds like a lot.”
“Today’s woman was comparatively well-behaved, actually. On bad days they plant themselves here for hours, or start wailing and weeping on the other side of the door, or spontaneously begin chanting ‘Saint-sama’……it’s absolutely unhinged.”
Zel shakes his head in utter exasperation, his face bearing the deep color of accumulated fatigue.
“Saint-sama, what is your view of this cult——the Saint Faith?”
“A collection of nuisance fans.”
“Well, that much is certainly accurate.”
He gives a wry smile, then continues with a serious expression.
“However……the Saint Faith appears to be considerably larger and stronger than we have been thinking. Whether to officially acknowledge their existence or repudiate it——we should be making a decision on that before too long.”
“Ugh, ugghhhh……”
The Saint-sama made no effort to hide her grimace.
Not wanting to have anything to do with those unhinged people was her genuine, unvarnished feeling.
“They have nothing to do with us, so can’t we just ignore them?”
“I thought the same thing at first. However, there is a tendency in the public eye to conflate the Holy Kingdom with the Saint Faith. Leticia-dono herself was under the misapprehension that we and the cult were connected.”
“Hmm……”
A certain conversation she had had with Leticia flickers through Luna’s mind.
[Our nation was saved by everyone in the Saint’s party. It isn’t exactly as thanks for that, but as our nation’s state religion, we would like to formally recognize the ‘Saint Faith’——]
[——No, that won’t be necessary. Those unhinged people have absolutely nothing to do with us.]
[I-is that so?]
[Yes. Those nuisance fans are quite the headache for us as well……]
That a mistaken understanding was spreading through the world does seem beyond doubt, given Leticia’s example.
“If we leave those unhinged people to their own devices any further, the Holy Kingdom’s——the Saint-sama’s——reputation will be damaged. The connection between us and the Saint Faith will become accepted as established fact. To avoid that, we need to move quickly.”
“……You’re right.”
Having obtained Luna’s agreement, Zel continues.
“That said, we know almost nothing about the Saint Faith. In this state it is difficult to devise appropriate countermeasures. We should first look into their background and focus on gathering information.”
“How do we gather information?”
“Tracing the money flow would be the conventional approach.”
Zel says this and lays out his thinking.
“Maintaining an organization of that size requires substantial operating funds. Money is the lifeblood of any organization——trace its flow and you will naturally arrive at their vital points.”
“Oh, I see……!”
A note of admiration slips from the mouth of Chief Strategist Luna.
“The Saint Faith is a worthless religious organization. Human trafficking, drug dealing, murder brokering——they must be mixed up in some form of wrongdoing.”
Zel’s assessment of the Saint Faith had hit rock bottom, and he was all but certain they were ‘guilty.’
“We expose their crimes and obtain solid evidence. Then the Holy Kingdom issues an official statement and denounces the Saint Faith in the strongest terms. That would allow us to demonstrate to the international community that we and the cult have no connection.”
“What if the Saint Faith turns out to be a legitimate organization?”
“I believe there is no chance of that even if heaven and earth were turned upside down, but……in that case, we can think again.”
Zel closes this part of the conversation and states his plan going forward.
“I intend to spend the next three days or so looking into the Saint Faith.”
“……Hey, do you want me to help?”
Luna’s eyes are shining as she says this, the cowlick standing at sharp attention.
She seems to have developed a strong interest in information-gathering work, with its distinctly ‘detective-ish’ flavor.
(……This is heading somewhere dangerous——!)
The Saint-sama commands overwhelming power in combat, but——
In this kind of intelligence work, she is of absolutely no use.
Zel, who knows this well from their past adventures together, gently steers things back on course in a mild tone.
“No, I cannot trouble the Saint-sama with such a minor matter.”
“But I’m free right now……”
“Luna-sama is the Holy Kingdom’s ‘weapon of last resort.’ At the right moment, the right timing, the right occasion——that is when I would ask you to put your power to use. So please, in this matter, leave it to me.”
“……Weapon of last resort, huh……. Heheh, if you put it that way, I suppose there’s no helping it.”
Luna smiles, looking just slightly pleased.
The Saint-sama, as easily managed as ever.
“All right, Zel, I’ll leave the Saint Faith investigation to you.”
“Yes, understood. I will begin looking into it at once.”
With that, Zel takes his leave of the log house.
Over the next three days, Luna holes up in the student dormitory as usual.
“Tama, ready? There it goes——go fetch!”
“Woof!”
She throws a toy ball and plays fetch with her, and——
“——Heheh. A barrier of this caliber, I shall see through it in an instant!”
——reads villainess novels and acts out her favorite scenes, and——
“Uhhh……”
“Woooff……”
——rolls around on the bed with Tama doing absolutely nothing——spending days of unproductive idleness that would have been unthinkable in her previous life.
Incidentally……while the Saint-sama enjoyed this brief respite, Ro was devoting herself tirelessly to the work of building the Holy Kingdom, showing efforts entirely befitting a ‘maid of all trades.’
And just like that, three days pass.
“Zel, is it all right if I come over?”
“Yes, of course.”
Even between close companions, courtesy matters.
After properly getting permission via <Transmission>, she uses the <Otherworld Gate> to fly to the Holy Kingdom’s log house.
“Hey.”
“Welcome.”
“Did you find out anything about the Saint Faith?”
Receiving the question from her master, Zel’s face grows troubled.
“About that matter……after pushing the investigation fairly deep, a rather extraordinary fact has come to light.”
“Like they were doing bad things, as expected?”
“No——quite the opposite, actually. The Saint Faith turned out to be a terrifyingly clean organization that embodies both compassion and universal love.”
“……What……?”
Receiving this astonishing report, Luna’s first concern was for her retainer’s head.
“Zel……are you all right? Are you tired? Or did you maybe get subjected to some strange brainwashing……”
With a gentle, saint-like expression, she pats at his face and head.
“No, I am entirely normal.”
He says this and spreads a large quantity of parchment across the desk, delivering his investigation report.
“First, focusing on the money flow as planned——it came to light that they are not engaged in any wrongdoing of any kind, and are completely ‘clean.’ If there are no external funding sources, I thought perhaps they were squeezing their own followers, so I looked into that as well——but as it turns out, donations are explicitly prohibited by their scriptures.”
“Then where do they get their operating funds? You said it takes a lot of money to run a large organization.”
“The Saint Faith operates on the principle of ‘frugality and thrift,’ and appears to sustain itself on only a modest amount of money obtained through rubbish collection and charitable activities. On top of that, it seems all remaining funds are donated to people in need and welfare facilities. When I actually dug through the registry, I was able to confirm orphanages and hospitals they operate in locations all across the country.”
“Wh-wha……”
“Surely I must be missing ‘something.’ Thinking this, I broadened my investigation further and thoroughly looked into the Pope and the priests. With suspicious organizations of this sort, corruption in the upper echelons is the standard pattern. However, it turned out the Pope at the top and the senior priests are living even more simply and frugally than those below them……and so I arrived at the conclusion that the Saint Faith is ‘clean.'”
The investigation report concludes, and silence descends.
“Is that really true……?”
“Yes, without a doubt. Frankly, I myself am not sure what to make of it……”
From the outside they appear an abnormal group, but they are simply spreading their faith in the Saint.
More than that——they were extending a helping hand to people in need.
Setting aside the single point that their ideology is of intensely concentrated fervor, the Saint Faith’s actions are truly deserving of being called ‘righteous.’
This is not an ‘evil religious organization’ but a ‘benevolent charitable organization.’
“Maybe I was looking at them through somewhat colored glasses……”
“Yes. We may have been judging by appearances based solely on that unhinged prayer.”
In that instant, what crosses both their minds is the Saint Faith believers’ fervent prayer.
[[[SAINT-SAMA! SAINT-SAMA! SAINT-SAMA!]]]
Completely indifferent to the cold stares of those around them, gripping their matching crosses, screaming until their throats might split——
That sight was precisely what one would call ‘abnormal,’ in a single word.
“No, that is still unhinged, I maintain.”
“Yes, what is unhinged is unhinged, that does not change.”
Luna and Zel, right at the edge, did not get swept away.
“But this is a problem. If they were doing something wrong, there are various ways we could handle it, but……from what you’re telling me, they seem like a legitimate organization……”
“I am not thrilled about it, honestly, but……would it be worth having a dialogue with the Pope and asking them to correct that abnormal prayer and the overzealous proselytizing?”
“But will they listen to us cooperatively?”
“On that point, there should be no problem. Their faith in the Saint-sama is genuine. If we go to the meeting as Silver and say ‘this is the Saint-sama’s wish,’ they should take our words on board without resistance.”
Receiving the proposal from her trusted retainer, the Saint-sama mulls it over for some time, then nods.
“……All right. Then, Zel, could you make contact with the head of the Saint Faith?”
“Yes, understood.”