Chapter 255

The archbishop made a troubled face, and after a moment’s hesitation, opened his mouth.

“…Alright. To match our rhythm, that sounds wonderful.”

“I’m glad.”

“If it’s that Nicolaus, he’ll be able to do anything. It’s better than me running around everywhere alone.”

I smiled and replied.

“Good. Then you’ll have to make a plan with me.”

“We’ll have to. Before that.”

He smiled faintly and sat down on the bed again. Then he grabbed my cheek.

“…….”

I froze for a moment in bewilderment, then narrowed my eyes.

A person never changes. I wonder what the hell he’s doing. When I made a disgusted face, he burst out laughing.

“I saved you, so you can accept this much.”

“I would have been saved even without you, but fine. Whatever.”

Although I answered that way, the moment he pressed and pulled my cheek with his fingers, I didn’t feel like accepting it anymore. Is he joking in this atmosphere?

The archbishop smiled, and without blinking once, he scrutinized me. The sight of him tilting his head in that state was eerie.

“You’re not as grateful as I expected….”

Is he talking about the ‘rescue’? It seems my reaction was too lukewarm.

“I said thank you earlier. Why. Did you want a more intense reaction than this?”

I answered indifferently. His fingers now moved to my eyelids.

The archbishop’s blue eyes, visible through the gaps in his fingers, flashed in the light. His eyes were still fixed on me without a single movement.

“Yes.”

“…….”

Of course.

I looked at him and tilted my head.

Perhaps because I didn’t offer any resistance, he was surprised by my reaction and said with a laugh.

“Still, you’re good at keeping your promises. I never thought you’d actually accept it just because you said you would.”

“Didn’t you know? And you’re the one who’s not good at keeping promises.”

“Why do you think that?”

Why do I think that? I want to know if he’s being serious. Judging from what I’ve experienced so far, he is a person who values his own interests and desires more than promises. It’s not that he breaks all his promises, but if the situation changes and the promise becomes disadvantageous to him or he feels he has nothing to gain from it, he is likely to change his attitude with a smiling face at any time. This is the conclusion I have reached so far.

The guy has already broken a promise with the Pleroma world.

Whose idea was it to take Nicolaus to the Pleroma world and play with him? What can you expect from a guy who breaks the rules of a community for his own convenience and acts with the mindset of ‘it’s okay as long as I don’t get caught’?

‘If I thought he was a well-centered guy, I would have taken him down with my friends when I first called him out with the medicine.’

That day on the rooftop of the Wittelsbach mansion when I took the love potion and shouted. I had faced him alone on the conclusion that he would run away as soon as I called my friends, and that’s how I’ve been continuing this situation until now.

As I thought back then, if I had called my friends, he would have run away in an instant because what’s important to him is practical gain, not pride or anything else. In the first place, since he’s a person who can’t be interpreted with our common sense, he wouldn’t take running away as a blow to his pride. Rather, he would probably take it positively, thinking of it as one step back for two steps forward. As you can tell from his actions so far, he’s an extremely narcissistic person, so I have to guess accordingly.

But regardless of his disposition, didn’t he keep his promise now? At least, on the surface.

So for now, it’s my turn to respond to his play.

Just then, I didn’t have to voluntarily do something he would like. He opened the drawer next to the bed and took out a potion bottle. The 10-step emotion manipulation potion was in the drawer.

‘As expected.’

I had definitely thought of this possibility earlier, and it doesn’t deviate from my expectations.

“Drink.”

“Isn’t it enough already? You must not trust my feelings?”

“I want more. Ah, now that I say it, it might look a little suspicious. I’ll drink it too.”

“No? Absolutely not.”

He’s already crazy with emotion, and he’s going to drink more here? The fact that he’s saying this out of consideration for me is just absurd.

I snatched the bottle from his hand and blew Divine Power into it. There was no unusual reaction, so I just drank it down in one gulp.

I can feel the guy in front of me expecting a lot. He was just looking at me with a smile, without doing anything. I felt like just pushing him aside and going to look into the eyes of the servants outside, but then I thought, what sin have those servants committed, and I turned my eyes to the person in front of me.

The boiling emotions and thoughts in his blue eyes were of a kind that I did not have for him. For a moment, my stomach churned.

The discomfort was quickly washed away. Now, the person in front of me was just a young Old Human with clear eyes, smiling softly at me.

“…….”

His pink cheeks were no longer particularly embarrassing. It felt like I could share the emotions in his eyes and the many ideas he wanted.

Of course, rationally, it was absurd, but in any case, this was the effect of the medicine.

Usually, the effect should be stronger than this. But for me, it only shows up to this extent at best, so it can’t be helped.

He clasped my hands, intertwining his fingers with mine, and smiled brightly.

“We can do so many things.”

“Suddenly?”

“You have to express your thoughts when they come to you. We might not have much time together.”

“Doing many things, for example?”

“Like making the empire our sphere of influence.”

“…….”

“I’m kidding.”

If it had been someone else’s words, I would have dismissed it as nonsense, but I just couldn’t do that with this person.

When I answered with a cold look, he waved his hand.

“I said I’m kidding. In the first place, you already have a great influence on the empire. And I will listen to your opinion on any matter.”

“Hey. I never said I’d move with you even after this is over.”

He just smiled and nodded, as if he didn’t care what I said.

He patted my shoulder.

“Rest a little more. Don’t think about moving right away.”

“…….”

“The plan is for later. I told you that a day here is two hours outside. This is the place with the most severe distortion among the existing Pleroma coordinate systems. Other places… for example, the coordinate system where the leadership is, that side flows at the same pace as your world’s time. You know why.”

I know. The moment a coordinate system can’t withstand external pressure and collapses, everything in it will turn to smoke. Since the leadership is the core of this organization, they will be in a position that is not easily attacked, and they have to be particularly careful about distortion.

In any case, it means that other places are not as severely distorted as this.

“Even if you sleep here for 24 hours, only two hours will have passed not only in your world but also in most of the Pleroma world. Since the distortion here is getting bigger, it might even be 1 hour and 30 minutes.”

“Hmm….”

“Even if you stay for a week, it’s only 14 hours outside. I wanted to say that nothing will go wrong if you recover here for a few days. We can make the plan after you’ve recovered your stamina, right?”

“…….”

“Is it because you want to go back? You shouldn’t go back early if you don’t want to become the Imperial government’s scapegoat.”

That’s true.

Although the fact of the terror was not known to the public until I came here, the experts would have surely known its identity, so by now, there must be a flood of problems being raised about that cross terror.

If I return right away, the government, which had succeeded in deceiving people’s eyes until the opening, might try to evade responsibility for the terror without knowing its place.

In this case, from the ‘coincidence’ of me knowing the dispel answer to my easy return without any incident, there is room to frame me as a person in league with Pleroma.

For example, ‘Lukas Askanian plotted the terror to gain a national achievement’. It sounds absurd, but considering that I have the stigma of Pleroma, which is very useful to exploit, the situation changes. It is not very common-sense to think that all politicians are common-sense professionals who prioritize their subjects. What can’t those who even called a choir to hide a terror do? This is not an impossible thing.

Lukas Askanian was actually a real Pleroma, he tried to hide his identity and gain recognition from the imperial family, and at the same time, he tried to gain the side effect of raising fear of Pleroma, confusing the country, and undermining the prestige of the empire, the imperial family and the government spokesperson will say about me and the terror. That the imperial family was just a victim who was deceived.

But if the second son of the Anhalt ruling family and a mage belonging to the imperial family goes missing during the opening and doesn’t show up for several days, the story changes.

In this case too, they can frame it as me and Pleroma plotting the terror together, but it becomes more difficult than the above case.

Because there is a crucial problem.

If it was a staged terror for the sake of public achievement, then why doesn’t Askanian, who was clearly taken by Pleroma, show up again?

They can just frame it as me hiding somewhere, but in this case, there is still time to use Bavaria’s power to make the people aware that I am a victim of this incident.

At least, this is much more advantageous than returning right away.

I nodded for now. There was nothing to argue about in the archbishop’s words for now.

Due to the political external situation, the later I return, the more advantageous it is for me. A week here? I should be rotting away for about a week in outside time.

Of course, I have no intention of staying with this guy for that long.

More than that….

“If you’re going now, why did you tell me to drink this.”

I asked, shaking the empty potion bottle. He just smiled brightly.

Then he stood up.

“We need to make a plan to deal with that bishop quickly. I’ll go outside, check the situation, and bring back some information that might be useful for the plan. You rest and recover in the meantime.”

Instead of answering, I looked at him with a dumbfounded expression.

“It’ll take a while. Make yourself comfortable.”

He gave a light hug as a goodbye and left without any lingering attachment.

If the drug effect had been proper, I would have held him back, but perhaps because my stamina wasn’t good right now, I was just grateful that he left without being a nuisance.

And, it was true that I was lacking stamina.

As soon as he left, I collapsed again and just slept until nightfall.

According to the verification of the status window, the archbishop’s words were correct.

While 8 hours had passed here, outside—that is, in the status window’s time—only 40 minutes had passed.

‘Hmm.’

So, by the coordinate system where the leadership is, that archbishop guy has only been gone for about 40 minutes.

It’s really unlikely that he’ll come back early ‘by my standards’.

I need his information to be able to decide my next move smoothly, but this puts my schedule on hold.

“…….”

I repeatedly closed and opened my eyes, feeling the night breeze coming from the balcony on the left side of the bed.

‘A time with nothing to do.’

No, I can make something to do. Like taking a walk, or studying magic formulas.

To be precise, it’s a time when I don’t have to do anything.

No one expects anything from me, and there’s nothing I have to protect.

If we exclude the guy who expects something, who is now out, then yes.

It’s not very comfortable because this is the archbishop’s mansion and because of the next scheduled event, but the fact that there’s no burden on my shoulders right now felt unfamiliar.

‘How long has it been.’

Now, if I finish everything and go back, I wonder if I’ll be able to feel this way when I’m resting with my friends.

In any case, I’ve recovered well.

Perhaps because I slept enough, Leo’s magic that had surrounded my core had mostly healed my stamina, which had been completely depleted during the match. Then there’s no need to procrastinate and waste any more time. It’s a luxury to rest more when there are things left to solve.

I have to get as much information as possible by talking to the servants or looking around the mansion. No matter what, I can’t say this is allied territory, so the more information, the better.

‘Come to think of it, when does the chapter 6 special reward appear?’

To think it’s still not time to use it, I’m curious how helpful it’s going to be for me.

Ting—!

< Chapter 7. Truly, truly, I say to you…. >

Suggestion 1: Talk to ‘Lu Barre’ (0/?) (59 minutes 59 seconds)

 Route 1 — < Suggestion 2 >

 Route 2 — < Suggestion 2 >

‘What is this.’

To think something like this would appear as soon as I thought of the status window. But it was a suggestion that appeared, not a special reward.

‘Lu Barre’.

What topic am I supposed to talk about?

It’s a little confusing, but it’s a suggestion that won’t have a big impact on the ending even if I don’t do it.

Let’s think about the chapter names that have appeared in Route 2 so far. If I don’t accept the suggestion and end up with a bad result, the chapter will turn to the negative side, but this time, both routes lead to < Suggestion 2 >.

Of course, even so, there must be a reason why it was presented as a suggestion.

Knock—knock—

Someone knocked on the door.

When I simply answered for them to come in, the servant I saw earlier opened the door and said.

“You’re awake. I will prepare a bath for you.”

“Yes.”

He said this and then disappeared somewhere. About 20 minutes later, another servant called me and led me to the bathroom.

I checked if there were any magic formulas in the water, quickly finished my bath, and then finished my meal.

All of this took less than an hour.

‘For sure.’

It doesn’t feel like a place where people live.

In the dining room, I thought, casting a triple purification spell on the grapes that came out for dessert.

From the room I was in to this dining room, there were no signs of use on any of the furniture. Not just the furniture. The cutlery I had just used had no scratches. As if I were the first one to use it.

I don’t know about the servants’ things, but at least the archbishop bastard clearly doesn’t spend much time as the Archbishop of Freiburg. Or he has another place to live.

He only brought the minimum number of servants.

I got tired of casting purification spells, pushed aside the dessert, and shook the bell. A servant who was waiting outside the room approached me. Before he could open his mouth, I said quickly.

“Does the owner of this mansion actually live here?”

“I believe so…? Though he is often away due to his busy work.”

“How many libraries are there in this mansion?”

“I believe there is one in the basement.”

I asked again at his ambiguous expression.

“You believe?”

“We are not allowed to enter the basement, so we do not know for sure. It is a space that the master uses alone.”

The reason I specifically asked about the library was because it was a good place to get information about the owner of the library.

Unless you’re a scholar, it’s rare to open your study, let alone a library, to a strange guest, so it might have sounded a bit rude.

While he was answering, I opened the status window and checked the name.

Kerstin Becker. This person is not ‘Lu Barre’.

I nodded and took a step back for now.

“I see. That’s a shame. I’d like to look around the mansion, could you show me around?”

“Ah, you’d like to look around.”

Even though I hadn’t asked to enter the basement, he made a slightly troubled face, then told me to wait a moment and went outside.

Naturally, it seemed he didn’t have the authority to let an outsider wander around the mansion freely.

A short while later, this time it wasn’t the servant, but the servant I had seen earlier who approached me.

“I heard you said you wanted to look around the mansion. I will guide you.”

I stared at him and then stood up from my seat.

‘Hmm.’

Meeting ‘Lu Barre’ was not that difficult. This person is ‘Lu Barre’.

To meet the person the system pointed out right here.

I hadn’t noticed because I was so flustered, but now that I look at him, he’s speaking a mix of Low German and High German.

And so, we spent about 30 minutes touring the ground floor of the mansion.

‘There aren’t any locked rooms.’

There was nothing special. It was only natural since the owner of this house said he only used the basement.

Since I’ve met the person the system pointed out, I definitely need to get out of here.

“Could you guide me to the library?”

“…….”

He looked at me silently.

Then he gestured with his eyes to follow and turned around.

“You’re guiding me more readily than I thought.”

“It’s fine, since you will be his spouse.”

“…….”

I pondered for a moment what I had just heard.

But because I had heard such a shocking word, I no longer had the confidence to think for myself. I stopped in my tracks and asked seriously.

“Who.”

The servant looked back at me with an expression that said he had seen all sorts of strange people.

Then he pointed to the ring on my hand.

“You, Your Excellency.”

“…….”

I looked down at the ring and nodded. I almost collapsed on the spot because of a sudden headache, but fortunately I didn’t.

I’m the crazy one for asking who. In this era, it’s more strange to see this and not take it as a relationship that’s not even engaged.

Come to think of it, I do remember hearing some nonsense about this mansion becoming my home soon when I first came to the archbishop’s mansion.

Setting aside the fact that it will absolutely never happen even if I die and come back to life, in any case….

‘…So that’s how it’s being perceived.’

It’s not something that just happened today, but it’s so shocking that my head hurts.

But if it’s being perceived that way, it’s not a bad thing in some ways.

Other things aside, in terms of information gathering.

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