Political Marriage With a Friendly Enemy

Chapter 99

***

I alone would not have been strong enough to break the curse. It was only thanks to the few remaining wizards on the human continent who gathered at the Imperial Palace one by one that I was able to get a clue.

This was a time when magic became precious. It was a land of humans where the grace of the Goddess Fahar had faded. Even the families that were known for their magic were no longer producing wizards.

It was hard to live as a wizard on such a continent. Everyone’s attention was focused and those who wanted to use them abounded. That did not mean that the magic power they were born with was not as strong as in previous generations.

Therefore, those who had largely lived in their estates came out into the world at the call of the emperor.

The spread of rumors about my powerful powers was the primary reason that moved them. The curiosity of the wizards was aroused.

The second was due to the fact that I had felt similar symptoms from the previous day, although they were different in degree.

When the wizards arrived at the Imperial Palace, they even said something similar in unison.

“I feel like my strength suddenly increased.”

”Right. It is as if there is more magic power that can be handled than before. In fact, the magic has become more powerful.”

No one had their power amplified as dramatically as I did, but everyone’s magic power became stronger, even if it was faint. Curious about the changes that had occurred in their own bodies, they came to the Imperial Palace in search of their kindred.

There were about a dozen wizards who gathered in this way. They were diverse in age and gender.

Some of them were from famous magical families, or had a master and had properly learned about various techniques. We gathered together and analyzed the records of Romain’s experiments. We were able to decipher the formula.

There was a group of people who blasphemed the goddess Fahar, the goddess of creation, and worshipped an evil god, and this was one of the fraudulent techniques they used. It was used to distort the goddess’ power and to incapacitate priests and temples.

However, Roman used this magic on river water, not on humans, and it worked extremely well.

‘How was that possible?’

None of the other wizards knew how it was done. They said that various materials were used to amplify the curse, but there were wide variations in each curse.

In my mind I tried to clearly revive the scene I had seen from the riverside plants. The image of Roman casting a curse on the river water.

Indeed, he was putting his hand deep into the water when he cast the curse. Then the red color spread and disappeared as if something stained the river water.

‘Did he release something in the river water that amplified the curse?’

He might have held that substance in his hand. Roman would have come up with numerous vicious things that would have transformed the curse.

I tried my best to be Roman and guess his intentions. I had to find out. Roman was already dead, and there was no way he would give his answer if he was alive.

‘What in the world is …….’

The work of spreading the curse on rivers flowing throughout the continent was never easy. And it was done periodically.

If a certain resource went into this work, it was invariably huge in quantity, and there was one corridor through which it could be procured.

Roman and his helpers.

‘The Gullier organization.’

* * *

Oslin, I, and Kwanach were facing each other, looking through the tightly stacked ledgers. It was a breakdown of the books of the Gullier, which had been confiscated beforehand.

Oslin read all the way through, then tilted his head and said.

“There’s a history of constant donating to the temple. The amount is substantial.”

Likewise, I was suspicious of that part and kept looking at it. The connection between the Gullier and the Temple has already been revealed once.

People who died of sclerosis but did not have the family or money for a funeral could be brought to the temple and a joint funeral service was held.

However, as the number of patients increased, it became difficult for the temple to handle all funeral duties. The more outlying areas and less wealthy temples did so.

Roman offered to hold a funeral at the Gullier on the pretext of helping the temple. However, it was a lie so that he could steal the corpses with sclerosis and use them for his experiment.

However, in addition to this, the Gullier sometimes sent large donations to the temple. Furthermore, there wasn’t just one temple sponsored, but it was distributed in various areas in the middle district heating.

“Roman has been trying to suppress the power of the goddess Fahar. Why did he send a large donation to the temples…?”

It was suspicious. As I mumbled anxiously, Kwanach also began to look more closely into the dates when the donations were made.

As he did so, Kwanach said, one of his thick eyebrows raised.

“Hey, this date ……..”

“What’s going on?”

“On this date, 11 months ago, the temple received a large donation…This is the temple here in the capital. …… I remember maybe around this time a senior priest there died of old age. The funeral was pretty big. I was there.”

Oslin nodded when he confirmed the date as well.

“Oh, yes. I remember that I also participated. Then, did they send this sponsorship money for condolence?”

“Maybe so… …..”

I narrowed my brows as I thought long and hard and continued.

“It certainly doesn’t clear things up. I will contact all the other temples and find out more about the part related to sponsorship money.”

While Oslin was communicating with many temples, I looked more into the ledgers of the Gullier. I couldn’t find anything special.

There was a breakdown that had been partially shrunk or covered up, but this level of bookkeeping manipulation was something that occurred in every organization. There was no other singularity that had persisted for several years from the time the sclerosis epidemic began until now.

A few days later, replies arrived from the temples that Oslin had contacted.

Now that the barbarism of Roman, who was the Lord of the Gullier, had been revealed. They seemed to be trying to cooperate as much as possible in the investigation regarding the organization, taking into account it was the Imperial Palace.

When I checked the multiple replies, I was able to find one common denominator.

Regardless of which region, every time a high-ranking priest who could use divine power died, the Gullier donated a large donation to the relevant temple.

After developing such a relationship with the temple, the Gullier introduced the funeral director they knew to the temple.

Amazingly, it was the same funeral director each time. The man who led the funerals for the priests was named Fenech.

He would rush in and take charge of the priest’s funeral when the Gullier called him, regardless of the area. But no one actually knew him. He was like a ghost.

As the various pieces of evidence piled up, a conclusion came to mind: Roman was the funeral director named Fenech.

‘Did Roman transform himself into someone named Fenech and attend the priest’s funeral?’

He could just appear and disappear like that.

If this guess was correct, Roman must have gained something at the priest’s funeral. He must have wanted to get something for his money.

What was he after?

Suddenly I had a creepy feeling.

‘It was originally said to be a fraudulent technique used to incapacitate priests and holy knights. No way. …….’

* * *

Usphere’s speculation proved to be true.

Kwanach asked the temples for cooperation and investigated the funerals led by a funeral director named Fenech.

The coffins of the high priests who were laid for eternal rest were reopened.

All the bodies were partially damaged. Some fingers had been cut off and some ribs were missing.

Fenech, no, Roman, had deliberately participated in the process of retrieving the bodies and had taken parts of the priests’ bodies.

Roman ground the extracted bones of the priests into powder. Using the bone powder as a medium for the curse, he put it in the water. Such a process was repeated periodically.

The river water steadily dissolved the contaminated cursed bone powder. The blessing of the Goddess that was contained in it faded. Such polluted water contributed to the onset of sclerosis.

All were outraged and astonished. Especially the temples.

The priests came to the riverside where the bone powder of their brothers had been sprinkled and prayed daily, hoping that the power of the curse would weaken.

Among the people, the act of going every morning to the Fahar River to pray to the Goddess spread like a fashion. The Empire in spring, flower petals sprinkled by the people were always fluttering on the river water.

And something amazing began to happen.

As if in response to the wishes of many, the river’s waters began to purify at an alarmingly fast rate. There was no separate magic to neutralize the curse.

That was not all. Here and there, evidence was found that the grace of the Goddess had grown stronger.

Until now, the number and power of wizards had been decreasing over a century. The healing power of the priests was also declining.

However, both the wizards and the priests began to gradually increase in their power. It was thanks to the grace of the Goddess once again pouring into the human continent, where the blessings had seemed to have ceased.

The miracle of all this. The beginning of it all had sprouted from Usphere Catatel Radon.

* * *

A quiet night after a busy national affairs. Kwanach was brushing my hair behind me.

I dropped my eyes slightly, leaving my hair to Kwanach, and thought for a moment. In time for the warmer weather, the whole empire was full of excitement and joy.

The rate of purification of the river water was surprisingly fast.mAt this rate, before long, the river seemed unlikely to produce new cases of sclerosis.

Only those patients already suffering from sclerosis would have to be steadily managed by the government. I was less worried about that.

As I watched over this miraculous situation, the dream I had seen the other day kept coming to mind. That dream in which I heard the voice of the Goddess just before my strength suddenly increased.

“I am the one who exists as faith. You cannot dwell in a land where your faith is weakened.”

The Goddess said so. I did not think deeply about those words at the time, but now I understood their meaning.

It meant that God exists in the belief of those who believe.

The steady weakening of the Goddess’ power over the past century may have been due to a decrease in trust.

The Pernen dynasty made dishonest attempts to fool God for several generations. The family line, which had received God’s favor, abandoned God. Moreover, Roman, the last descendant of the royal family, even cursed the water.

However, the Pernen royal bloodline was completely cut off. All the inner workings were revealed, and the people followed the Goddess more strongly than at any other time. The constant footsteps of the people along the Fahar River were proof of this.

‘I think that’s how the power of the Goddess came back to life.….’

When I regressed, the only thought I had was that I had to prevent the war that had led to the destruction of my country. When we resolved the various incidents that were involved in it, we unintentionally achieved greater results.

When was the last time the human continent was filled with such a spirit of blessing and peace?

“What are you thinking?”

Kwanach whispered from behind me, kissing me briefly on the ear. 

“I think I have finished brushing.”

I stopped thinking deeply about the Goddess and the peace of the continent and leaned against Kwanach’s chest.

“It’s nothing.”

I smiled and squirmed away in his embrace. It was only at times like this that the empress became the wife of a man, not the Awakener that the whole continent admired.

***

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