Prologue

After seeing Sylvester off to the Archduke Conference, Karstedt headed to the High Bishop’s now-vacant room. Together with Ferdinand, he took all of the criminal evidence from inside before sealing off the room.

Then, they proceeded to discuss Rozemyne and the fake backstory they would use for her in greater detail; it would have been a bit of a stretch to use the one Sylvester had improvised on the spot. The idea was to say that Karstedt would let the archduke adopt his beloved daughter for her own protection since, like her mother, she had been born with an enormous amount of mana. But mana alone wasn’t enough to earn one the prestige of joining the archducal family. They needed one more push.

Ferdinand tapped a finger against his temple, deep in thought. “Perhaps we can use the fruits of her workshop. Rozemyne, pitying the horrific state of the orphanage, gave the orphans food and work. Her dedication and novel business ideas drew the attention of the archduke,” he proposed.

“Weeping over the orphans and then saving them by providing food and work, hm? That’s practically the work of a saint,” Karstedt murmured, leading Ferdinand to nod in satisfaction.

“Ah yes, a saint indeed. That should do just fine. And if we add on some embellished tales of Rozemyne’s feats, it should be easy to justify giving her the position of High Bishop... What? Karstedt, do not give me that look. There is nothing dishonest about this. Rozemyne truly did create her workshop to save the orphans. Her ultimate goal may have been to reach a point where she could read books without a care, but that does not change the noble results brought about by her efforts.”

Karstedt had heard from Ferdinand that Rozemyne had established a workshop in the orphanage, but after meeting the girl himself, it had been hard to think of her as being anyone capable of something that great.

“As you know, she is skilled in granting large-scale blessings, and as long as she does not speak off-script, she should look just like a saint,” Ferdinand continued. “All she needs to do is what she did when healing the earth during the trombe extermination mission.”

As he thought back to the healing, Karstedt recalled that Rozemyne had stunned every knight who was present by showing her overwhelming amount of mana—a display that appeared even more impressive because she had immediately followed up Shikza’s failed attempt. She was certainly too young to be called a saint, but