Chapter 1

It all began with a single word spoken by a single person.

“A twenty-year-old maiden living in a village called Lillet in the northwestern region of the Empire is suitable to become the next Saintess. Bring her here.”

A bead of sweat rolled down the forehead of the woman who continued speaking with her knees on the floor and her head bowed.

“She alone shall truly glorify the name of the God Elkiel.”

The Emperor, who had relied entirely on the Saintess’s oracles for as long as anyone could remember, immediately ordered people to be sent to Lillet.

The bureaucratic nobles argued that there could be any number of twenty-year-old women and that another oracle should be obtained, but…

Fortunately for one person, and unfortunately for another.

There was only one twenty-year-old woman in that tiny village.

Ugh, this is the part I hate the most. Stop staring at me already.

The delicate features of the woman’s face, partially hidden beneath a fine lace veil, twisted into a faint frown.

The nobles, divided into two factions and standing on either side of the throne room, stared at her as though they were judges at a livestock competition.

But there was one person who made her even more nervous than all of them.

“Saintess, deliver the oracle.”

The only person she found it difficult to even look directly in the eye—the Emperor of the Empire.

The moment the Emperor spoke, she politely knelt down and lowered her head deeply before beginning to speak.

“Long live His Imperial Majesty, who enjoys the eternal blessings of the God Elkiel. I, Carnike Anisol, humbly receive the word of God and report it to His Imperial Majesty.”

Her voice was clear and melodious, pleasant to listen to, but Carnike herself had absolutely no interest in what her voice sounded like.

“A blue shadow flourishes in the southeast of the Imperial Palace. The land, having quenched its thirst, shall be abundant, and so shall the prosperity of the Empire.”

Having finished speaking, Carnike closed her eyes and bowed her head even deeper.

“This is today’s oracle, Your Majesty.”

Before the echo of Carnike’s words had even faded, boisterous laughter suddenly thundered through the previously silent throne room.

Carnike let out a small sigh.

Looks like I somehow managed to survive another day.

“Good, good! The God Elkiel is watching over my Haven. Rodek!”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Bestow a reward upon the Saintess.”

“As you command.”

Rodek, the Emperor’s chief secretary, gestured to a servant to bring the Saintess’s gift.

Carnike, who had kept her head bowed, secretly smiled. The fingertips that had gone cold from tension were finally beginning to warm.

If possible, I’d prefer gold bars rather than jewelry. It’s such a pain to sell jewelry at its proper value…

“There is one more thing I wish to ask.”

Carnike’s shoulders flinched despite the excited smile she had been secretly wearing.

What’s with this old man? Why does he have so many questions today?!

She wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible, but she forced herself to maintain the most respectful tone she could and bowed her head once again.

“Please ask anything you wish, Your Majesty.”

“I intend to go hunting tomorrow. What color of tack should I have prepared?”

Carnike blinked twice.

The day before yesterday, he had asked what color stockings he should wear, and today it was the color of his tack.

If she had been hired as the nanny of a five-year-old, such questions might have been cute. But having to indulge someone more than ten times that age in this sort of childishness meant that a mere gold bar was hardly enough. At this rate, she deserved a mansion made entirely of gold.

“The God Elkiel has said that a blue shadow shall flourish, so if His Imperial Majesty prepares tack of the same color, you shall have a fruitful hunt.”

“Really? Hmm, I see. Good!”

The Emperor let out a hearty laugh and rose from his seat. All the bureaucrats and nobles bowed toward him, and Carnike lowered herself even further.

Only after the presence of the Emperor, accompanied by his officials and attendants, had completely disappeared did Carnike’s body, which had remained bent over all this time, tremble slightly.

Thank goodness. I’ll be able to eat dinner tonight with my head still attached.

The Haven Empire was a country where the state religion held tremendous power, and the position of archbishops and priests was comparable to that of even the highest-ranking nobles.

Among them, the Saintess—the person capable of directly communicating with the God Elkiel, or in other words, hearing His oracles—was an indispensable figure in the Empire.

But…

Every time Carnike opened and closed her eyes, her deep violet irises blinked in and out like they were playing hide-and-seek.

To think that every single Saintess before me was a fraud who couldn’t even hear the oracle. My goodness!

Carnike sighed and pressed her lips tightly together.

According to the person who had looked after her from the moment she arrived in the capital until she entered the Imperial Palace, everyone who had served as a Saintess for the past twenty-some years had been a fake.

A true Saintess was supposed to be able to hear the voice of the God Elkiel.

Yet for several decades, not a single Saintess had received a genuine oracle at Chellis, the place where Saintesses received divine revelations.

After the last true Saintess disappeared more than twenty years ago, nobles seeking wealth and power had been busy bringing in suitable-looking women and installing them as Saintesses.

At first, they brought their daughters or relatives in hopes of winning the Emperor’s favor, but since those women kept dying one after another, they eventually started paying poor women to take the position.

The current Emperor of the Haven Empire was a foolish ruler who relied on the Saintess’s oracles for everything.

Worse still, whenever an oracle differed from what he wanted to hear or displeased him, he would have the Saintess beheaded, acting as though there was no such thing as a god.

There was no way to put it nicely.

In the end, that’s why I was dragged all the way to a place like this, too…

The Saintess who had held the position before Carnike had resorted to her own clever scheme to avoid being killed.

She had not even been a Saintess for a year when she announced that the blessing of the God Elkiel was being withdrawn from her and delivered an oracle about the next Saintess.

Of all the cities and villages in this huge Empire, how could she possibly choose Lillet?! A village so tiny that, if you spread out the map of the Empire, it might barely be marked by a single dot!

Lost in thought, Carnike suddenly became indignant again and slammed her hand against the table.

Lillet, where she had been born and raised, was a small, secluded village where hardly anyone was known outside of the capital—even after crossing one or two mountain passes.

Because that Saintess wanted to escape the Imperial Palace as quickly as possible and happened to point to a twenty-year-old maiden from Lillet, Carnike had been forced to leave her hometown and travel all the way to the distant capital.

The person who had looked after Carnike for a while had not ruled out the possibility that she might actually be the true Saintess who had appeared for the first time in more than twenty years, but…

“I couldn’t hear anything.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, my lord. I really am. After kneeling there the whole time, all I could feel was my legs going numb.”

Just as Carnike herself had expected, she had heard no oracle whatsoever.

She could not even hear the sound of an insect crawling.

“But I don’t want to die like this.”

She couldn’t simply wait for her head to be chopped off in a place like this, where there would not even be anyone to collect her corpse.

Just like the Saintesses before her, Carnike decided to fabricate the oracles.

However, she needed to make hers more convincing than theirs.

That way, she could survive as long as possible and buy herself time to find a way to return home.

If she lasted about a year and then named someone else as the next Saintess, just as the previous Saintess had done, the Emperor would not suspect her.

If things went well, she could take the salary and gifts granted to the Saintess back home and use them to help the villagers suffering under the tyranny of their oppressive administrator.

I’ll survive, my lord, whether it’s a genuine oracle or a fabricated one. And I’ll make money and return home. As long as you keep your promise to help me, I’ll find a way somehow.

And so began Carnike’s life as a fake Saintess, fabricating plausible words from a god whose voice she could not hear.

“Saintess.”

Carnike, who had been lost in thought while staring absently at the gifts she had received, turned her head toward the door.

“Ah, Priest Fellis.”

“You have worked hard. Duke Reinach has arrived.”

“Please tell him to come in. Thank you.”

Priest Fellis withdrew with his usual gentle expression, and a tall, middle-aged man entered Carnike’s quarters as though he had been waiting for the invitation.

“Welcome, my lord. Ah, I mean, Your Grace.”

Carnike bowed her head, and Duke Reinach gave a wry smile.

“It seems you still can’t quite get that ‘my lord’ habit out of your mouth.”

Carnike pursed her small lips like a sparrow’s beak and replied,

“I’m just a country bumpkin, after all. Where I came from, whenever someone important came, we had to call them ‘my lord.’”

“Well, I’m not scolding you. You simply mustn’t make that mistake in front of other people… Now, sit down.”