Chapter 356: Scammer

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

It took a week after the battle till my body could finish its mega-perverted evolution.

Why did I call it a mega-perverted evolution? Why was it that I felt it was so mega-perverted? The only thing more perverted than me previously riding a young girl while wielding another young girl as my weapon was how I was now wearing a young girl and wielding a young girl as my weapon… Oh wait, I’m now lacking a mount, so should I go look for another young girl…?

“Mister Policeman, that’s the person you’re looking for!”

Cough—cough—I should stop talking about such a ridiculous topic.

The battle in which even the True Gods took place was now over. However, all the True Gods leaving made the situation more chaotic. Many changes became obvious as time passed.

It was obviously a good thing for the living to have won a battle in this “Holy War”…

That’s right, Holy War. After receiving permission from Pope Caloma, the Bardi Empire’s Holy Light Head Priest, who was currently stationed in the Mage Country, unhesitatingly declared this victory to be the result of the Holy Church’s workings. According to their incredibly unbelievable battle report, the campaigning Holy Light army vanguard crossed through the majority of the Bardi Empire to suddenly appear in the far west and attack the undead’s capital city.

Alright then. I knew that there were many points to potentially comment about here. For instance, how the Bardi Empire still had a Head Priest of Holy Light. Or why the Bardi head priest of Holy Light was stationed in the Mage Country. Or why the recently quiet “Holy Light army vanguard” suddenly started playing at dimensional teleportation and suddenly obtained a victory in a place they shouldn’t have been.

Actually, all of this was quite easy to explain. After the Holy Church was exiled from the Bardi Empire, the local priests chose to move their administration to a nearby location. And the most appropriate location was obviously the Mage Country as travel restrictions were quite lax there. Not to mention, the Mage Country was currently at war with the Bardi Empire, so even if the enemy of your enemy wasn’t your friend, there would at least be the potential for friendship.

No matter how much the Bardi Empire tried to suppress it, the Holy Light was still the prevailing human religion. Even an ordinary farmer would utter “Thank the Holy Light” when receiving an abundant harvest, although I have no idea what they were thanking the Holy Light for. Of course, if that ordinary farmer was luckless and had a terrible harvest, he would also curse “That damned Holy Light,” or “This accursed Holy Light,” or even blame the Holy Light for a day of awful weather, although, once again, the Holy Light didn’t do anything wrong at all…

Suddenly, I felt like the Holy Light was quite pitiful. How it got blamed for everything caused me to recall governments from my past world. No matter what country and race, ever since the concept of countries were born, countries and their governments became one of the most complained about systems out there, no matter if they did anything or not, or if they did too much or too little. For any ordinary citizen, cursing the government at least twice a day seemed only natural.

Cough—cough—let’s get back to the main topic. This was actually a good thing for the Holy Church. Shallow believers were still believers capable of providing their power of faith. The fact that “praise” for the Holy Light existed everywhere was the best example of how deep its foundation was. If this had been a more normal country that worshipped the Holy Light as its national religion, the domain lords would probably have to worry about large numbers of Holy Light believers running rampant in their domains when the Pope declared a Holy War against the country’s leader. Not only that, the leader would have to worry about assassination attempts from his own nobles—fervent Holy Light believers.

Orloss was someone truly incredible. He had been working hard to eliminate the Holy Light’s influence from the Bardi Empire ever since taking power. However, he had been in power for less than fifty years, which wasn’t enough time to change out an entire generation of people. He himself wouldn’t believe it if it was said that he had eliminated the Holy Light from his land.

And so, this Bardi Empire “exiled church” caused quite a few problems for the Bardi government.

The mages originally accepted the Bardi Empire Holy Light priests into their country even though they had no interest in the Holy Light mostly because they wanted to give Emperor Orloss a difficult time. But after letting the priests in, the Mage Country entierly ignored them.

Cardinal Stephen should have been one of the highest authorities in the Holy Church as he was the head priest of the Holy Light in a mega-empire. But, unfortunately for him, he was now in exile in the Mage Country, which had ignored his requests for military assistance no matter how many dozens of times he asked. And a piece of news had recently started to spread, one that heralded the end of his political career. If this continued, he would become the cardinal with the shortest term in all of history.

This piece of news was that the Holy Light army had lost. The Holy Church had lost their first major battle since starting this Holy War!

That’s right—they lost. As we kept fighting on the west, the Holy Light army, which had declared Emperor Orloss to be a heretic, suffered heavy losses on the eastern front under the command of General Gordon, ranked #7 on Eich’s Famous Warriors Rankings.

The reason? Actually, Gordon was quite the amazing commander for having been able to preserve more than forty percent of his forces and making a successful retreat. That was because he had met with one Great Immemorial Black Dragon and three Immemorial Dragons that had led over seventy other lower-ranking Dragons to ambush them. Apart from this meaning that the Dragons didn’t actually intend to kill them all, it was also evidence of Gordon’s incredible leadership.

For any outsiders, it would be difficult to understand why the dragons took action. But for me, since I knew what was going on inside, it was quite easy to guess the reason.

Obviously, the dragons, which were anxious about the Titan Giants potentially waking up in their Dragon World, must have made some sort of exchange with Orloss. So they used their special talents at venting their anger and being unreasonable to viciously slap the Holy Church in the face.

Actually, the Holy Church was somewhat deserving of this. The Holy Light army’s final goal was to conquer the Bardi Empire’s capital, which was also where the Dragon World was hidden. So if the Holy Light army had conquered the capital city… fine then, I suppose it could be said that the Holy Church brought this upon themselves. Still, it was obvious that there was no possibility of them knowing about this secret information.

I felt that nothing that happened was a coincidence. Although the Holy Church took action surprisingly swiftly in declaring war and making Orloss into a heretic, Orloss’ actions in response had been rather incomprehensible to others. He didn’t put any military efforts into defending against the Holy Light army’s invasion whatsoever. Instead, he concentrated the Bardi Empire’s military solely on defending Nightrain City, the main western battlefront against the undead. He was under huge pressure from his own nobles for his strategy of allowing the Holy Light army to freely attack the capital. But now, looking at the results, our “venerated” Holy Light and “wise” Pope were fooled by this heretic Emperor who was a mere mortal. Orloss was willing to allow an enemy army to trample over his own land all in order to force the dragons to take action on his behalf.

Originally, the Holy Church could have been able to accept such a degree of loss as everyone understood that there would always be some losses in any war. They could just try again… but it just so happened to be that at the exact same time, there was a major victory on the western front. Not only that, the victory was from the Ayer Faction, which was faintly showing itself to emerge as the Holy Light Faction’s strongest competitor on the side of Order. This naturally gave the Holy Church a tremendous amount of pressure.

Even worse was the direct comparison. There were “Holy Points” and “Holy Warriors” working for the Holy Church, while our side had “Contract Heroes” who worked for “Justice Points.” Both sides met with immensely powerful, nearly undefeatable opponents. On our side, True Gods personally arrived to assist us, so our Contract Heroes profited an immense number of Justice Points, while on the Holy Light side, they lost an incredible number of people without seeing a single powerful existence step up to protect them…

This wasn’t really the fault of the Holy Light Faction’s True Gods. That was just how they always were, for the past millennia. A True God casually descending to intervene in mortal affairs was a major taboo that would break some of the most basic rules. The Ayer Faction was only able to intervene and take direct action after finding out that there were Titan Giant incarnations as the opponent. However, mortals wouldn’t think so much into things. They would only think that the Holy Light viewed humans as disposable tools, while the Ayer Faction showed a more caring attitude about our supporters. All the adventurers who reaped great rewards and were now showing off to others were our best living advertisements.

“In just this week, 10% of our Holy Warriors have resigned. This cannot be allowed to continue. All our local believers, especially the most fervent believers still hiding within the Bardi Empire, will have their faith shaken! And if this news spreads everywhere—about how we lost our first battle—believers all over will lose faith. The first battle has to be a victory! Even if it’s just a fake victory.”

And so, Cardinal Stephen contacted the main branch of the Holy Church through emergency channels after noticing that this would mean the end for himself if things continued. He grit his teeth and came to a decision and spread a combat report about how “The Holy Light protected our brave warriors as we obtained a tremendous victory” throughout the entirety of Eich.

The words used in this combat report were quite general and vague, such as describing how fervent Holy Light believers dealt great losses to the undead army on the western front and how they exiled two powerful Titan Giant incarnations. Technically, they weren’t exactly lying, as plenty of Contract Hero adventurers working for us were Holy Light believers as well, including plenty of Holy Knights and Holy Light priests. It was just that their combat report made no mention of the main characters of this battle, the Ayer Faction and the Contract Heroes.

No powerful faction was an idiot in this world. Every country had their own information sources. But when Pope Caloma kept insisting that this combat report was the truth, many countries that believed in the Holy Light fell silent.

Cardinal Stephen knew full well that he was destined to become infamous in history as a Cardinal who lied through his teeth. He also mentally prepared himself to take the fall. He knew that even though the Pope privately agreed to this idea of his, there would be no public admittance of the Church being at fault. In the end, he would become the scapegoat.

Everyone who knew the truth was deriding the Holy Church. Most powerful individuals looked down upon such an action. But, in this generation, ordinary people were quite slow in being able to obtain information. Commoners had pitifully few sources of information. Government channels typically used letters, which were slow and low in efficiency. So, if some local church’s head priest who was well respected by his believers declared that this battle was won by the Holy Light, most commoners would believe the local priest, viewing him as more trustworthy than the unscrupulous adventurers.

Those who weren’t in the know believed that the Holy Church truly obtained a tremendous victory in the first major battle of the Holy War and that any losses suffered on the eastern front were insignificant. But for those in the know, especially the royalty of every country, this became evidence that the Holy Church was only putting up a brave front when they were actually weak. Many with ambitions now began scheming against the Holy Church.

The war between royal and divine authority was eternally unending. The Holy War was both a challenge and an opportunity. According to my own information channels, some major countries were already forcing their subordinate countries to begin exiling the Holy Church, which was both a challenge to the Holy Church’s authority as well as a test to see the Holy Church’s reaction and how far they could be pushed.

And so, this relatively small-scale battle on the western front became the best opening act of the new Holy War. News about this battle spread around the entire world, becoming both the Holy Church’s propaganda as well as a sharp sword hanging over their heads that might fall at any moment.

After I finished my evolution, I could barely believe that so much had happened in just a week.

But what was waiting for me was a mountainous pile of issues that required my attention.

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