167 090. The Inquisition of the Seventh Imperial Prince -1 Part One

**

It was late at night. I had an audience with the Holy Emperor and he told me all about the Church of Caiolium.

Whenever servants and maids ran into me, they jumped up in surprise before hurriedly bowing their heads. It seemed that all of them were frightened of me.

‘Isn’t that obvious, though?’

The Seventh Imperial Prince tried to force himself on the archbishop’s granddaughter. He then blasphemed against Gaia, and after getting banished, he even made a deal with the devil out of despair.

He used despicable Necromancy to summon evil spirits and even got intimate with the princess of the enemy kingdom, Aslan.

The empire wouldn’t punish you no matter how many Necromancers you’ve killed. That’s how bad the sentiment towards Necromancy was in this nation.

Yet here I was, not some low-ranked Priest, but an actual Prince of the Imperial Family using Necromancy. No wonder the whole empire was turned on its head.

If it weren’t for my status as an Imperial Prince, I’d have become the subject of the Crimson Cross’s ‘inquiry process’ a long time ago.

The milk had spilt already, sure. But the thing was, matters had escalated so much even before the Imperial Family had a chance to do something about them.

I stood on the imperial palace’s balcony and stared outside.

“Wow, there are so many protesters outside today, too!”

In front of the imperial palace were about three hundred or so members of the clergy and a thousand-plus citizens in a gathering. They were all on their knees with their heads bowed, still trying to get their ardent pleas across.

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“We need clarification on the Seventh Imperial Prince!”

The Theocratic Empire was currently mired in an unending chain of crises right now. There was the appearance of a Vampire Count in the northern region, then more Vampires had been found hiding within the imperial court; next up was the lycanthropes, and finally, the war with Aslan.

Naturally, all the chaos would shake up the public sentiment of the empire’s subjects, slowly eroding away their trust in the Imperial Family.

The Church of Caiolium took advantage of the situation and generously spread around their wealth in order to make themselves look good. They performed various charity work such as distributing food to the poor and healing the sick for free.

And that’s when they spread around the false rumours about me, it seemed. It was easy to incite the masses since the Church had been acting all benevolent and the like with the people.

Was it because I stood in a daze while staring into the audience chamber? Charlotte silently approached me from behind and covered my ears with both of her hands.

“Those are merely words of foolish and disloyal retainers, your highness. Please do not mind them.”

I could only smile wryly while feeling her hands’ warmth.

Charlotte, it’s too bad, but those so-called disloyal retainers are more loyal than anyone to the Imperial Family, you know? The Holy Emperor also knows that and that’s why he’s still listening to them like this.

I was pretty sure that the emperor wouldn’t take these punches lying down, though. The preparation for the subjugation was already in full swing at the moment.

The old man was getting enough troops ready to completely upend and root out the entirety of the Church of Caiolium.

In fact, he had even issued the sword king a new decree earlier. The army dispatched to Aslan would be re-deployed again after they took a brief period of rest and finished the maintenance of their equipment.

‘The problem here is that this event will plunge the Theocratic Empire into a major chaos.’

I found Raphael’s granddaughter, Alice, sitting in the library as usual. But she seemed to be out of it, utterly dazed. Her distant gaze was aimlessly staring at her front, while her hands were mechanically flipping through a book’s pages.

She came here to study out of habit, but even I could tell that nothing was registering in her mind at the moment. Which was understandable, considering her grandfather’s fate was unknown at this stage.

She too was stewing in her worries and anxieties of the future.

I pondered what to do for a while before taking a bottle of wine out from the item window.

While holding the bottle, I stood before her. She finally regained her wits with a noticeable flinch and stood right up from the chair.

I lightly shook the bottle around and asked her.

“Hey, it’s been a while. Want to share this with me?”

**

(TL: In 3rd person POV.)

Alice managed to regain her wits while staring at the Seventh Imperial Prince.