Chapter 487

Even thirty seconds after Matteo’s divine power had cut off, my breath was still coming in short, uneven bursts, making it difficult to think. Still, I caught my breath, enjoying the situation in my own way. When I shoved Matteo Orsini’s shoulder, he helplessly rolled onto his back in the direction I pushed him, then let his head drop against the floor to prove that his body had completely relaxed under the effects of the divine power. I grabbed Matteo by the chin and made him look at me.

“Do you know of Terminus Eukairia?”

Matteo moved his lips with the dazed, unfocused eyes of someone dreaming. No sound came out, but I knew exactly what that reaction meant. I smiled and pressed him.

“You know it? What is it?”

“A…”

“A?”

“Augustine… The City of God….”

“…….”

All I could do was sigh in disbelief.

He’d certainly studied his religion thoroughly. Well, even if he was young, I would have been a little disappointed if a priest didn’t know the writings of the Church Fathers¹ inside and out.

My hypotheses were as follows. First, this person wasn’t the Papal See spy—he had no contact with Terminus Eukairia. Second, Terminus Eukairia used an alias when communicating with the Papal See’s spy. Third, there was a separate Papal See spy, and this person, knowing little of what was actually going on, had merely forwarded the letters he received from the spy to France.

Now that it had turned out this way, I really ought to ask priests who had studied theology since birth what they thought when they heard the name Terminus Eukairia.

“The two words aren’t related to each other. What does ‘Terminus’ mean in The City of God?”

Matteo Orsini opened and closed his mouth with vacant eyes. It took him some time to squeeze out a voice from his increasingly ragged throat.

“The god who heralds the end.”

They really do come up with all sorts of things. I gave up on trying to understand cults. The name of the god who heralded the end was Terminus. And the Eukairia attached to it meant a golden opportunity.

Did they consider the end of the world a golden opportunity? Did they believe they themselves were the gods heralding the end? I couldn’t say for certain, but I was beginning to get a rough picture of what they were planning and what they were after.

“Have you ever passed on a letter that arrived from the Papal See to someone else?”

He curled his fingers around my hand and shook his head as though mumbling in his sleep.

“Then have you ever sent a letter someone else gave you to another place?”

He gave the same response. That brought down all three of my previous hypotheses. What remained was the conclusion that Matteo Orsini was not a Papal See spy. It was unfortunate that I hadn’t caught the culprit yet, but I had a useful key in my hands, so I had no reason to complain. I opened Matteo Orsini’s eyes and said, “Why weren’t you at the church at that hour? Why did you go to the Theater of Marcellus?”

“I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“I went because I was told that would happen.”

Matteo answered with a blank expression, as though he had no idea what he was saying.

“Who told you?”

“Not a who…”

He was sinking deeper into his drowsiness. I grabbed his chin firmly, forcing the sleep out of him, and tilted my head.

“If it wasn’t a ‘who,’ then what was it? Do you have something with you?”

“Th-the family heirloom told me.”

“What is this heirloom, and who else can access it?”

No answer came. I waited a little longer, but when he still showed no sign of speaking, I placed my hand against his forehead and forced divine power into him without a spell. The crackle of mana colliding rang from inside his head.

“Ah, ah! Argh—!”

He jolted in shock and writhed violently. I cast a soundproofing spell and pressed down hard on his forehead. He tried to spring to his feet, but ultimately couldn’t escape the force pinning him down. Gasping for breath, he grabbed my arm. I slowly eased off the divine power. His pupils were still unfocused as he spoke in a rapid, breathless rush.

“It’s shared by the Senate… and it gives different advice to each person. I only stopped by this morning to pray for peace today. So please, stop…”

“You call it a family heirloom, but it’s shared by the Senate? Ridiculous. The Pythia of Delphi?”

“I don’t know what that is… Greek temples…”

Perhaps because his mind was in no state to function, his sentences were all over the place. I grasped the general meaning and shook my head.

“Why would a priest rely on something like that?”

“It isn’t a religious object. It operates on mana, which is the grace of Christ. So perhaps it could be considered religious, but that’s not what—”

“What exactly did the thing tell you?”

“It released mana in a circle. Toward the Theater of Marcellus…”

So I suppose interpreting it is left to whoever’s looking at it. I faithfully recalled what Gabriele had told me and asked without probing too deeply.

“What is the Senate?”

“An alliance… Just an alliance.”

“Of what?”

“An alliance of Roman nobles.”

Judging by how he kept repeating the same thing despite barely being in his right mind, that was probably all he knew. I was dealing with someone who knew very little. I smiled and lowered myself closer to him, limiting my questions to things he could actually answer.

“Where is the Senate located?”

“Forum Romanum… But it might not be.”

“You people really have all sorts of things going on. Can I get in too?”

“No.”

I nodded and moved on to the questions that actually mattered.

“How many Orsini are there in Rome?”

He blinked blankly, as though his mind was trying to process more than it could handle.

That settled it. Even counting the collateral branches, there should be around twenty of them. The other branches probably lived in residences outside Rome. Of the Orsini in Rome, only three held ecclesiastical positions, and the important thing was that one of them was completely uninvolved with France.

“Do you often keep in touch with the other two Orsini cardinals?”

He shook his head. Their positions were different, and with nearly an eighty-year age gap between them, it made sense that they wouldn’t be in frequent contact.

“Good.”

I slowly straightened up again. Then I made sure to etch the next words firmly into his mind.

“Working as your secretary might not be so bad.”

I felt like I was doing something unforgivable to Narke.

I probably was. But he still hadn’t sent me a single signal through my artifact, and even knowing who I had met, he hadn’t come to get me out of this situation. It wasn’t that I was disappointed that Narke hadn’t contacted me. There was just one thing I knew for certain.

It was a signal of sorts. A signal that I could play this out however I wanted.

If I wanted to wrap this situation up without leaving any loose ends, the best option was to keep dealing with Matteo Orsini all the way through, just as I had planned from the beginning. Before erasing his memories, I asked one last question.

“What do you normally think of ‘His Eminence’?”

“…….”

“Tell me exactly what you usually think about ‘His Eminence.’”

“It’s…”

Drifting through a dream, he lifted my hand. He closed his eyes and kissed the back of it, finally giving me the greeting he hadn’t been able to give earlier because of my tacit refusal. He kept at it for quite some time, so I eventually had to pull my hand away myself.

It wasn’t unusual for a high-ranking religious figure like a cardinal to receive this sort of greeting from the faithful. Still, the fact that he had responded to my question by repeating the greeting instead of answering was worth remembering.

I really wanted to take back what I’d said about working as his secretary not being so bad. Not yet, though.

After erasing the memory of the mind manipulation magic I had cast, I inserted a fake memory in its place. I recited the spell for mind manipulation once more and murmured, “Now you’re going to wake up. Your body will feel full of strength. There were a few complications because this person picked a fight with you, but you succeeded in getting what you wanted. You’ve also erased my memory of offering me the secretary position and implanted information that will make me favor the idea of being your secretary. That should be more than enough.”

Up to this point was just setting the stage. From here on, I would lay the groundwork so I could make use of him.

“Let me make one thing clear. Those brief moments when your mind goes hazy aren’t caused by any outside influence. You’re simply becoming too overwhelmed by your own joy to keep a clear head. Given your almost fanatical reverence, you should know that such a reaction is perfectly natural for you and hardly anything to find strange.”

I erased the memory of me beating him from his mind, then lay down beside him as though I were the one who had been beaten. Looking into Matteo Orsini’s clear eyes, I snapped my fingers. His pupils contracted for an instant. His eyes swept across the ceiling before he finally grasped the situation and hurriedly got to his feet, looking flustered.

I simply imitated the way Matteo Orsini had looked when he was falling asleep, doing nothing but draw breath.

After staring down at me for a long while, Matteo Orsini looked puzzled. Then, perhaps remembering the memory I had left intact—the memory of him trying to recruit me as his secretary—he awkwardly pulled up the corners of his mouth and spoke.

“…So, what do you think? I believe it’s quite a good offer.”

This was a question meant to confirm things before releasing the mind manipulation magic. He had used it to make me favor the idea of working as his secretary, so once the magic was lifted, he should offer me the position again.

My cheek was cold against the stone floor. I slowly closed my eyes and said, “…Sounds good.”

“Hahahaha…”

Matteo Orsini still looked puzzled, turning his head this way and that as though he had no idea what had happened, but he was clearly pleased.

“Of course you’re satisfied. You can even attend university in Rome. That’s right. This is it.”

“You must have been very tired. You collapsed while walking.”

What a load of crap.

I congratulated myself for keeping that thought to myself. He dragged me out of the storage room, returned to the church, and used a mind manipulation spell on me to erase my memories. Naturally, his level was lower than mine, so my memories remained intact.

It would be nice if my memories could be erased easily. I knew that pointless thoughts were drifting somewhere beyond my consciousness, but I let them pass.

I was now sitting back in an empty pew in the church. I gave an awkward smile and rubbed the back of my neck.

“Is that so? How embarrassing. Thank you for helping me.”

“It was only natural.”

With the crucifix behind him, he smiled gently. Then he clasped his hands together again and said, “So, there was something I wanted to propose to you, but you lost consciousness before I could mention it. May I?”

“Ah, yes. Go ahead.”

“How would you like to work as my secretary? The person who held the position before you recently quit. If you help me, I can also arrange for you to study theology here in Rome.”

I furrowed my brow and thought about it for a moment before readily nodding.

“Sounds good. I don’t know why, but it sounds like a decent offer.”

Matteo Orsini raised his eyebrows and let out a relieved breath. I pretended to think it over before shaking my head.

“But I’m British. I don’t have a home in Rome. What am I supposed to do?”

“Oh.”

I followed Matteo Orsini to his mansion. It was the very same mansion in Monterotondo where I had sent Elias. Coming back to this exact mansion with Narke’s face, with Elias here too, felt novel.

“Do you normally let your guests have an entire dining room to themselves?”

I was sitting alone at the table in the spacious dining room, which I was sure the entire Orsini family usually gathered in, with a plate set in front of me. Matteo Orsini had served me a meal the moment we arrived at the mansion.

“There’s no reason not to. Since you’ll be working with me as my secretary, I had it prepared as a celebration. You should understand that you’re not in the same position as the servants here. You’re staying here as my guest.”

“I know that, but normally people sit down and eat with their families. You don’t just leave a guest sitting here all alone like this. Even if this is Italy and not Britain, people are pretty much the same everywhere.”

“You don’t speak Italian, so I’m simply being considerate.”

I nodded. I knew that wasn’t the reason, but there was no need to respond to nonsense.

He sat there the entire time, watching me pick at my food. I put down my fork without even finishing half the plate and clasped my hands together.

“I’m going to get indigestion. Do you do this with other people too?”

Of course, I was long past the point where being watched like an animal at the zoo while eating was enough to upset my stomach. There had been a time when I couldn’t understand why people found me so fascinating, or why they wanted to watch me do completely ordinary things. Now, I knew exactly why he was looking at me. I could decipher every word contained in his gaze. I almost wished my judgment here were nothing more than arrogance.

He murmured, “You look alike.”

“No. I don’t look like the person you see.”

I snapped back curtly this time. Since he assumed the only thing I had been subjected to with the mind manipulation magic was the matter of becoming his secretary, I had to maintain the personality I had established from the beginning. My attitude didn’t seem to fluster or trouble him. Instead, he started saying things that made even less sense to me.

“Speak more casually with me.”

“Has that ‘His Eminence’ ever spoken casually with you?”

Matteo Orsini didn’t answer. The sheer curiosity of this bastard made me want to laugh. Just how far was he planning to take this experiment? Even as he did so, Matteo’s gaze remained fixed on me. After letting out a long sigh, I ran a hand through my hair and said offhandedly, “Glad you went to all this trouble to prepare such a nice meal just for a mere secretary’s job.”

“This is a momentous—”

“Ah, it’s fine. I get it. No need to explain…”

With a snap of my fingers, Matteo Orsini’s pupils widened again. I watched the focus disappear from his eyes and asked, “How am I supposed to prove to other people that I’m your secretary?”

“…….”

He couldn’t answer. If it were something he could answer immediately, he would have done so. The fact that he didn’t meant the question itself wasn’t particularly relevant. In other words, if I stopped somewhere with him, I wouldn’t need to prove from the outset that I was his secretary. After all, a secretary traveling on his behalf would naturally be carrying letters or documents that could establish their identity.

Good. That was settled. Time to move on.

There was one clue from Einsiedel’s ‘Saint Mark’ lead that we hadn’t made use of yet. We didn’t have to use every clue we had come up with, but since the Orsini lead alone wasn’t enough to narrow down the suspects, we needed to consider Einsiedel’s additional intention behind ‘Saint Mark.’

But whether or not we considered that intention wasn’t important right now. This Orsini wasn’t particularly strong. Of course, maybe my standards for strength had gotten completely warped, but… If I wandered around the estate and happened to meet an Orsini stronger than Matteo, there was a chance they’d realize I was using an illusion. I needed to prepare for that now.

I slipped a hand into my pocket and gave a small nod.

“Let’s have my salary paid in advance.”

“…Of course…”

What do you mean, ‘of course,’ when you don’t even know what I’m talking about? I waved a hand dismissively. Matteo Orsini obediently fell silent, his eyes vacant. I smiled and said, “You probably have an artifact containing divine power. Something like a watch or a cross necklace, perhaps. Let’s make that my first paycheck.”

Translator Note

1. The Church Fathers were influential early Christian theologians, writers, and bishops who lived roughly between the 1st and 7th centuries and helped shape core Christian doctrine and practice. Saint Augustine of Hippo, the author of The City of God, is one of the most important Church Fathers in Christian history. ↩︎