Children of the Holy Emperor - Chapter 464



Only Noblemtl

464. Congratulatory remarks (4)

From the day she witnessed the meeting between the abbot and the suspicious guest, Dasha began to sneak into his office without anyone noticing, in search of evidence to accuse the abbot.

“Dasha, let’s stop now. What are you going to do if we get caught? Anyway, I need you to know one thing about your liver.”

Of course, Ramira’s willingness to follow along and watch the net was also considerable.

The girls crept down the hallway and reached the deserted main building of the monastery.

“But all the doors are locked?”

“Just pick it. Ramira, hand me some skewers over there.”

“Hey… Where did you learn all these skills?”

“It’s not a structure that needs to be learned. The locks in this monastery are all simple.”

If you raid a few pantry stores while clutching your hungry belly, you will eventually become a lockpicking master.

Ramira shook her head.

“Wow, what do you want to be in the future?”

“We shared it well together, so why are you talking nonsense now?”

Squeak.

The locked door opens with a heavy friction sound, and soon a magnificent office, unusual for a monastery, comes into view.

While Ramira was distracted by the beautiful decorations, Dasha quickly walked over to the abbot’s desk and began leafing through the papers.

“But Dasha, what are you looking for there? Can you read?”

“Roughly speaking. Father Ellison reads the scriptures during every Mass.”

“Ugh… … .”

Ramira’s mouth opened wide.

Should we be amazed at the priest’s ability to match his pronunciation with his memory, or should we be amazed at his eyesight that allows him to distinguish dense scriptural letters even from a considerable distance?

Meanwhile, Dasha was diligently looking through the materials, using the faint moonlight as a lamp.

“hmm…….”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t as much to salvage as I had thought. It wasn’t because the abbot was a more honest person than I had thought. It was because, ridiculously, the abbot was so lazy and unplanned that he didn’t even keep separate ledgers.

Even the list of orphans cared for at the monastery, or the records of their arrival and departure, were not properly maintained.

‘… What should I do with this? Other than the poor use of donations, there’s nothing to complain about.’

Of course, how the donations are used is entirely at the discretion of the abbot. The church is unlikely to take issue with this.

‘Is reporting the abbot to the heresy court the only way?’

But it was suicidal. Even if the Inquisitors took Dasha’s testimony seriously, she would likely be tried for heresy as well, under the pretext that her source was questionable.

A week of going in and out of the director’s office without any particular gain.

One day, a bundle of documents caught Dasha’s eye.

‘Ah, this is… … .’

These were the measurements of the monastery fields sent by Lord Dunstan to the abbot.

In Dunstan County, the area of ​​farmland is measured every two years by order of the lord, and upon closer inspection, it is clear that the figure has been decreasing significantly over the past ten years.

‘Okay. If this is it… … !’

Dasha spread out the hem of her clothes that she had torn in advance and quickly began to copy the contents of the ledger.

* * *

Even if we somehow managed to find evidence of corruption, reporting it was another matter.

It was uncertain whether people would believe Dasha’s words, and it would not look good for an orphan under the care of the monastery to directly denounce the abbot who had done him good deeds.

The best way to do this would be to pass the information on to someone trustworthy, sow suspicion, and have him investigate the abbot himself.

After observing the priests for a long time, Dasha was finally able to pick out one person he could trust. He was a man who had recently been transferred here for a rotational shift and who seemed upright and did not particularly flirt with the abbot.

“Father Gustav.”

One day, not long before the feast of St. Bastian, Dasha cautiously approached him, taking advantage of the busy time when the priests were busy preparing for the Great Mass.

“… Okay, kid. What’s going on here?”

Father Gustav looked a little embarrassed, but fortunately waited silently for the skinny Barsha orphan girl to approach.

“Actually, I saw something strange while I was cleaning Director Mathieu’s room.”

“wonderment?”

“Yes, that’s why I wrote this down here to ask the priests.”

“… … .”

He accepted the piece of cloth that Dasha offered with slightly narrowed eyes. Perhaps it was because he immediately saw that the child was pretending to be innocent but hiding her impure intentions.

But his character was commendable simply for not immediately throwing away the charcoal-soaked piece of cloth.

“…Where did this come from?”

After staring at the crooked letters for a while, Father Gustav finally asked in a calm voice.

In fact, no matter how much she racked her brain, there was no plausible excuse for this, so Dasha tried to look as harmless as possible as she answered.

“Well, I happened to see it while cleaning the director’s bookshelf. The Lord’s emblem was printed in large letters, so it caught my eye. But the numbers written there seemed strange… … .”

“… … .”

“Even in your eyes, priest, it keeps getting smaller. Why is that?”

Father Gustav looked at Dasha for a moment, as if he was assessing something. The girl’s long bangs covered her face in a mess, and her emerald eyes shone brightly through them.

“How old are you, kid?”

“Oh, eight… years old?”

“Yes, you must have never had a chance to learn, but you can read letters and numbers. You are a very smart child for your age.”

He seemed complimentary at first, but in Dasha’s experience, it didn’t bode well.

“But you are still too young to meddle in adult affairs. My child, do you know why Lord Dunstan surveys the land so often?”

“…yes?”

“Are you aware that the methods of measuring land and the standards for measuring weights are constantly changing?”

“… … .”

Dasha couldn’t help but be speechless.

The area of ​​the same piece of land changes depending on how it is measured? I never thought that would be possible.

“Yes. So it’s not surprising that these numbers look strange to your eyes.”

Father Gustav folded the rag neatly and handed it back to Dasha.

Of course, it is true that the area of ​​farmland that is decreasing across the board is very suspicious.

However, he could not determine whether the area had been reduced due to the changed measurement method, or whether the abbot had actually taken advantage of this to sell off the church’s property.

“Anyway, it doesn’t seem like it’s something to worry about right now. But I’ll at least give a little word to the higher priest. There’s going to be a major church audit sometime next year anyway, so everything will be revealed clearly then.”

“but……!”

Dasha became anxious when things did not go as planned.

Next year will be too late! Just yesterday, the freckled Peter and the two pretty new girls disappeared. If things continue this way, he can no longer guarantee the safety of himself or the ugly Ramira.

So Dasha-

“Priest, please help me!”

He had no choice but to resort to the most primitive method he had ever denied: grabbing the priest by the collar and hanging on.

“Actually, children from orphanages are disappearing every day! Did you know? Everyone keeps quiet, but the truth is that most of those children are sold to the red-light district!”

“Wait a minute, what are you talking about… … .”

“Of course, the priests at the monastery wouldn’t know much about the orphanage’s situation. There’s no record of the children coming and going, and they probably don’t even have the names of the children who came in!”

Perhaps it was because of the resentment towards her helpless self, but tears began to well up in Dasha’s eyes.

“But the priests who run the orphanage can’t possibly not know, right? Those bad people know the truth, but they pretend not to know, just watching the abbot’s face! Now the only people we can trust are the circulating priests from other places! So please, please help us!”

“… … .”

“This is not an empty promise! I heard it with my own ears. Director Mathieu himself said that children are being sent to the red-light district or underground religious sects… …!”

“sonny.”

From the sudden coldness in Father Gustav’s gaze, Dasha realized that she had crossed the line in her impatience.

“You have just insulted both Father Mathieu and the priests who look after you. They are faithful priests who have sworn to follow the will of the Lord their entire lives.”

“I, I… … !”

“Okay, let’s say what you say is true. Do you have any evidence to prove it?”

“… … !”

It was a harsh reality, but Dasha quickly came to terms with her situation. Accusing the priests without any proper evidence. She would be grateful if Father Gustav did not immediately report the insolent orphan’s misdeeds to the abbot.

“What on earth are you doing, even bringing up the underground religious sect? If you ever dare to say something like that again, you will never be forgiven for being young again. Do you understand?”

“… Yes, I understand. I’m really sorry for bothering you when you’re busy.”

Dasha stared blankly at him for a moment, then gave up and greeted him neatly. Then she quickly ran away from the place. She felt like she would burst into tears if she stayed there even a moment longer.

Father Gustav looked at the girl’s back with tired eyes for a moment, then turned around.

And from then on, he came to regret what happened that day for a long time.

* * *

Several months have passed since then.

Eventually, when the period of service for the rotating priests came to an end, Father Gustav quietly left the monastery. It was inevitable that Dasha would become completely disheartened.

“Cheer up, Dasha. It doesn’t have to be that priest. Let’s find a good one among the new priests.”

Dasha let out a deep sigh at Ramira’s comforting, not comforting, words.

“Will that work? At least he listened to me because he was Father Gustav. Other people hate even talking to orphans like us.”

Dasha had not been idle either. She had been constantly visiting the abbot’s room in search of materials to persuade Father Gustav. She had been looking for and examining every single document, even every scrap of graffiti.

However, Director Mathieu was not the kind of person who would put in the effort to organize dirty data from the beginning.

‘This is a big deal. Should I just wait for the chance and run away…?’

But even if they run away, where can they go? Where else but an orphanage or a red-light district can they get at least a rotten potato to eat?

No matter how much I thought about it, the future that came to my mind was only bleak. That was when Dasha hung her head in despair.

“Dasha.”

Ramira shook Dasha’s shoulder.

“Look over there, that lady is here again.”

I looked up and saw a young woman walking around the orphanage, holding a small bundle. She was a pretty woman with freckles all over her face.

“Who is that?”

“The village gravedigger’s business. He’s been coming to the orphanage at this hour lately.”

While Dasha was busy plotting how to get rid of the abbot, the gravedigger’s wife seemed to have been visiting the orphanage every day.

And he would stare intently at the faces of the boys one by one, and only return home after the sun had set.

“Why on earth?”

“I heard that you had left your son here for some time due to some circumstances. Then, you recently got a job as a gravedigger, and now that you have made a good living, you came to pick up your child… … .”

After saying that, Ramira closed her mouth with a complicated expression.

Dasha could quickly guess why, and it was not for nothing that-

“When I see those freckles, I think of Peter… … .”

“That lady, doesn’t she resemble Peter somehow?”

The two who opened their mouths at the same time closed their mouths like clams. Peter was a child who had disappeared from here several months ago.

Whether she had been sold into the red-light district or handed over to some underground cult, even if she found out her whereabouts now, there was no way for that woman to get Peter back.

“… What should I do? Should I tell that lady the truth?”

“What are you saying? Your son was probably sold into the red-light district? Hey, that’s just too cruel.”

“So you’re just going to sit back and watch them search for you like that?”

“… AC.”

The two of them looked at the woman wandering around with her backs turned to the sunset for a while with complicated expressions.

* * *

That night.

Dasha got up secretly as usual and hid in the abbot’s room.

But as she opened the lock and entered the room without thinking, she was soon startled. A passenger she had never seen before was standing under the window where bright moonlight was pouring in.

“I think it’s too late for a child to be out and about.”

“… … !”

The boy who had been shuffling through papers with his back to the door turned to look at her with a light nudge. The boy’s silent gestures and white face looked like a mirage.

Dasha looked up at him with wide eyes.

‘What the heck? It was definitely locked. How did you get in here? Are you a ghost?’

Perhaps he really was a ghost, for under the moonlight his complexion was too pale to be that of a living person.

The reason Dasha didn’t scream reflexively was probably because the boy had a rather neat and tidy appearance for a demon.

The strangely calm atmosphere surrounding him is also like that.

“Who, who are you?”

As I opened my mouth with a trembling voice, the boy moved his frozen hands and flipped through the papers.

“I received a request. I was asked to properly investigate the corruption of Abbot Mathieu, so I was searching his room first.”

“… A request? Who is it?”

“Well, maybe it’s someone you know well.”

widely.

The boy who had closed the document with a loud noise finally looked straight at Dasha. In the dark room, the boy’s bright gray eyes shone with a strange silver color.

“By the way, you are the internal collaborator that the client was talking about.”

“…yes?”

“The priest who commissioned me told me that if you find a smart girl from Barsha here, she will probably be able to explain the situation to you.”

“… … !”

I’m not a Barça person, that kind of protest didn’t even cross my mind.

Dasha shouted at the boy, unable to hide her surprise and joy.

“Father Gustav! Father Gustav sent you here!”