‘Looks like the clouds will be thick at night for a while.’
It was just past noon.
Soares absentmindedly chewed her simple meal in mechanical motions, lost in such thoughts.
The weather was neither clear nor suffocating—somewhere in between.
Before her, the monk assigned to care for her was carefully transferring food to her plate, and behind her, a bald-headed Bishop was droning on, endlessly repeating the contents of Mind Control.
The room was thick with an unpleasant stench.
The monk and Bishop were covering their mouths and noses with cloths imbued with purification Divine Art.
‘The Mind Control is almost finished…’
It had been three days since the daily administration of the liquid drug had stopped.
Instead, the Lawkingdom had begun burning incense blended with various narcotics.
Though not as fast-acting, if inhaled by someone already deeply under Mind Control, it could sustain the effect almost permanently without damaging the brain.
‘Simple, but thorough—such a basic method of Mind Control. Where did the Lawkingdom even get this knowledge? From outside?’
It was a country darker than she had expected.
Perhaps that’s why their doctrine so fervently preached the purification of light and fire.
‘It’s about time to prepare for escape. The problem is…’
The Artifact created by Zion and the other Awakened held powerful strength.
But even with that power, she honestly had no confidence in successfully escaping with over a hundred Saintess candidates—powerless civilians—at her side.
She couldn’t leave them behind, but the journey would likely be a harsh one.
‘If only I had one more pair of hands. Sending Olsora away was a mistake… What am I thinking now?’
Startled by her own thoughts, Soares caught herself.
Anxiety, regret—all those were emotions forbidden to members of the Royal Guard Division.
Such feelings made people weak, easy to sway by outside winds.
Yet, in a way, they were emotions all humans shared.
In other words, they were simply human feelings.
Though Soares wasn’t yet aware of it herself, the woman who had once been a mere cog to strengthen the Empire was slowly regaining her humanity.
‘Don’t think too deeply. If I have the time, I should be refining the escape plan instead.’
That night.
Soares used her Artifact to create a decoy that was indistinguishable at a glance, laid it on her bed, and quietly stepped out of her room.
It was a cautious, yet by now completely familiar movement, repeated over the past several days.
‘Five left to go.’
Ever since sneaking into the Sun Palace Almar Sol and learning of the Saintess candidates’ situation, Soares had been secretly meeting with different candidates each night.
She couldn’t undo the Mind Control brought on by the drugs, but she could overlay her own suggestions atop it.
Normally, they would obey the high-ranking priests’ commands, but at the critical moment, they would follow Soares.
While she was at it, she also checked their condition.
The Mind Control ran deep, but thankfully, none had suffered serious mental damage.
Once they escaped safely and received treatment, they would likely recover from the Mind Control without any lingering side effects.
Perhaps the Awakened could solve it even more easily.
‘Huh? Wait.’ Suddenly, Soares halted.
‘This girl… she’s not completely under Mind Control.’
She looked about twenty years old—one of the older among the kidnapped candidates.
She had the simple look of a country girl, but it was her eyes that posed the real issue.
Normally, their eyes shouldn’t react to any external stimulus without a direct order, but hers faintly tracked Soares’s movements.
Proof that she hadn’t entirely lost her reason.
‘How? Is it congenital drug resistance? No, the drugs they fed us were too potent for ordinary resistance. Unless she deliberately built up immunity over time…’
Suddenly, a sound.
Standing right in front of the woman, watching her response closely, Soares focused on the noise.
The source was the woman herself.
Not her throat, but somewhere deeper.
Not her heart, but deeper still.
It was a strange and mysterious sensation.
Soares’s ears had always been sharper than her sisters’, and after harsh training, they became a formidable weapon she took pride in.
Gathering information from whispers hundreds of meters away was routine for her.
But this sound was nothing like those everyday noises.
She was, at this moment, ‘hearing something that wasn’t a sound’ with her ears.
Just as her companion Yuria had once ‘seen what could not be seen’ with her eyes.
‘Magic power… no, something even more fundamental. A conversion organ innate to the soul… attuned to Divine power…’
It didn’t take long for her to realize the truth.
‘She’s using Divine Art. So subconsciously, even she doesn’t realize it. And she’s hiding it well enough that the other priests can’t detect it.’
Fortunately or not, that power wasn’t strong enough to completely break the Mind Control.
Soares knelt before the woman, took a deep breath, and looked her straight in the eyes to begin her work.
“Iris.”
The woman’s lips trembled and parted.
“D-dry, leaf.”
“Blue. Sulfur.”
“Prolong life.”
“Thirteen times. Four days. Noon.”
“Eclipse, shadow.”
“Voice. Frugal. The flame of the Lord shall cleanse your sins… Name?”
“Qui… Quinas.”
With the right combination of keywords, she seized control, and the questioning began.
There was an extremely small chance she could be a plant set by the Lawkingdom to smoke out infiltrators like Soares.
Unable to lie under these conditions, her true identity would become clear.
‘As I thought, she’s just an ordinary country girl.’
After the short exchange, Soares made her judgment.
A farmer’s daughter from the outskirts of the Lawkingdom, wholly unconnected to Divine Art.
Her ability was purely innate.
Her dormant talent must have awakened by chance here.
‘If I can persuade her, she could be a great help.’
But first, she would need to break the Mind Control.
It would be difficult with the others, but for Quinas, who was already unconsciously using Divine Art, it seemed possible.
‘Who’d have thought listening to Yumin’s White Magic lecture with Zion would help me here.’
Observing Quinas’s inner self through sound, Soares issued careful commands.
She made her aware of her own Divine power, guided the flow as the theory prescribed.
Perhaps because there was no room for arbitrary decisions, the work went smoother than expected.
And at last—
“Ah… ugh, my head… Wh-where is this…?”
Still seated, Quinas clutched her head and let out a pained moan.
As she struggled to look up and glanced around, her eyes locked onto Soares.
But before she could scream, Soares quickly covered her mouth and bound her arms.
“I’m not here to harm you. Calm down and take a deep breath. Are you calm? Then give me a small nod.”
“Well done. The Order of Holy Knights disguised themselves as bandits, raided your village, and brought you to the Saint Capital. Do you remember what’s happened up till now?”
“……!”
Quinas’s shoulders trembled.
Soon, a storm of anger and resentment whirled in her eyes.
It seemed she remembered everything that had happened while under Mind Control.
“I’m someone who ended up in the same situation as you. And I broke free of the priests’ Mind Control just a bit before you did.”
Quinas turned her eyes to Soares.
Gradually, the emotion in her gaze calmed, and reason returned.
Soares, hiding her relief, admired her inwardly.
She was far more sensible than expected—smart, and quick to assess the situation.
“If you make a loud noise now, the priests or the Order of Holy Knights will hear and come running. Then both you and I will be found out as having broken free.”
Quinas slowly nodded.
After a moment, Soares removed her hand from Quinas’s mouth.
She only breathed deeply, trying to calm herself.
“You’re easy to talk to.”
“Y-you are…”
“Soares.”
“Soares, are you… trying to escape?”
After a brief silence, Soares nodded.
Quinas’s face brightened, but only for a moment.
She shook her head gloomily.
“There’s no way the two of us could escape from here…”
“But we can’t just sit here and let them control us like puppets, can we? The Lawkingdom plans to use us as weapons of war. Disposable tools to be used once and thrown away.”
“W-war… Ugh!”
Just as Quinas was about to raise her voice, Soares swiftly covered her mouth again.
Holding still, she focused her hearing.
Luckily, it didn’t seem anyone had heard.
Soares let out a small sigh and slowly withdrew her hand.
“Please, don’t raise your voice.”
“S-sorry. I won’t do it again. But… war? Against whom…?”
As a simple country girl, there was no way she could know about the conflict between the Lawkingdom and the Jewel Tower, or the conspiracies within the Lawkingdom.
How much should she tell her?
Thinking it over, Soares realized it was a pointless worry.
As a victim, Quinas had the right to know the truth.
Above all, it would be easier to have her as an ally if she knew everything.
“That… that can’t be. His Holiness the Lawking would never do such a thing… Soares, are you sure you’re not mistaken…?!”
“I could be wrong, and there could be truths I don’t know. But one fact remains—the Lawkingdom tried to turn us into puppets with their potent drugs.”
Quinas’s face turned pale.
The average citizen of the Lawkingdom was armed with unshakeable faith, practically conditioned into them from before birth.
It would not be easy to abandon that and face reality.
Still, Soares chose to trust the judgment Quinas had shown just moments before.
“Will we really be able to escape safely?”
At last, a determined light shone in Quinas’s eyes.
She had succeeded in casting off the veil of blind faith and facing reality as it was.
“Don’t worry.”
Now it was Soares’s turn to lead the way.
“On the name of the one I serve, I promise to save everyone.”
And two days later.
On a night when clouds so thick they fully veiled the crescent moon—
“KWAANG!”
King Pellhanes II, deep in sleep, jolted awake with a convulsion at the sudden roar.
He struggled upright with an expression of utmost displeasure.
He’d already been suffering from lack of sleep these past weeks, trying to wage a war while rushing the Saintess production plan.
If he caught whoever caused this racket, he would not easily forgive them, no matter how devout their faith.
“Sir Palidione. What is going on?”
“Your Majesty! Are you awake?”
“Of course, with a noise like that, how could I not be? Tell me what happened.”
“I apologize, Your Majesty. We’re still trying to get a handle on the situation. Please wait a moment.”
A hurried reply came from beyond the thick, ornate doors.
Time passed in anxious silence, and before long, a knight cautiously knocked.
“Your Majesty, reporting the situation.”
“Go ahead.”
“Cardinal Dahit’s bedchamber has exploded. Cardinal Dahit is… in critical condition.”
“…An explosion?”
Pellhanes II wondered if he was still dreaming.