Chapter 201: Chapter 201 - When Silence Means Guilt
All the commotion that accompanied Urraca’s arrival in the temple turned into an astounded silence after she said those words.
The Pontifex was the first to recover, a few moments later.
"D-Defeated? How could it be defeated, with the Goddess back?"
In his panic he didn’t even notice that he wasn’t in a place with enough secrecy to speak about the Goddess having disappeared.
Urraca had already learned about it, but hearing it from the lips of the Pontifex himself simply drove home the reality of the fact.
But the one most astonished by the fact is Yumegami Nakata, the hero who had been tasked to join the crusade as soon as she mastered her new abilities
From what the goddess said, she expected the war to be a long one, on which the fate of the world hinged.
To find that it simply ended like that, so soon after her arrival, and in a crushing defeat... She felt like the whole purpose of bringing her here all the way from Earth had been meaningless.
But what the so-called princess said next was even more shocking.
"The goddess wasn’t with us in the battlefield. She sent some proxies on her behalf, but the enemy had a being with godly powers fighting at their side. We didn’t even stand a chance, even after excommunicating them."
"A being with godly powers? Heresy! No other gods exist, only the goddess."
"It was the envoys of Juno who said it. Apparently the so-called Saint of the kingdom of Wesgoth has gained godly status. Among the feats I witnessed, she was constantly healing every single one of their twenty-three thousand soldiers for the several hours in which the battle took place."
There was another silence after Urraca’s words. Though she was still down on one knee and with her hair lowered, she spoke with a clear and loud voice, accustomed to commanding the battlefield.
Nakata flinched at the name thrown by Urraca. Juno was a familiar name for her, something mythology-related, but she couldn’t quite place it anywhere. And she certainly hadn’t heard it in this world before.
She wasn’t the only one aghast by the name drop, as the Pontifex also paled at the mention, suddenly aware of the place where this conversation was happening.
He decided to not address it, for doing so would make it stand out even more. Instead, he switched the subject.
"So you were defeated by twenty-three thousand soldiers? While commanding an army of one hundred thousand, enhanced by the presence of three envoys of the goddess and also her blessing. While the enemies were excommunicated?"
"There was no blessing from the goddess. And we were facing twenty-three practically immortal soldiers, who would regenerate anything in an instant, with a seemingly infinite amount of mana. And the excommunication didn’t work as expected, as they were still as strong as with the Adventuring System."
"So you’re trying to blame the Goddess instead of acknowledging your own shortcomings? Should I excommunicate and execute you right now for heresy?"
It didn’t escape the attention of Nakata the emptiness of his threat. If he really was going to do it, he wouldn’t have posed it as a question. The threat sounded more like a powerless man’s whine than a threat by the leader of the most powerful organization in the world.
She could also see that Urraca knew too much. And too much knowledge about secrets held by men in power is terribly bad for one’s health.
Yet the Pontifex talked like he was actually powerless to follow through with his threat.
I wonder what actual power relation is in play here.
But there was a more nagging and urgent question inside Nakata’s mind.
Actually... I wonder what my role here is, now that that war is lost. I’m a hero of what, after all? What am I defending, and against what?
To be honest, she doesn’t even know what the people from the kingdom of Wesgoth were fighting for. She was never told the reasons for the heresy. The goddess called it a ’demonic cult,’ but from the little she gathered, and from what the princess said, it didn’t sound like one.
While all that was passing in Nakata’s mind, Urraca answered the Pontifex’s question.
"No, I wouldn’t dare blame the goddess for anything. I am acknowledging my shortcomings, but the Church should acknowledge their own as well."
"Choose very carefully your next words, Princess Urraca Ansuriza of Castro. You don’t want to incur my wrath."
There were around two hundred people in the main hall of the temple at this moment, watching the back and forth. Most were priests, but there were a lot of common people inside as well.
At that moment, everyone was just holding their breaths, as if a thunderstorm was clouding the very air of the temple.
And that was exactly the instant in which, for the first time since arriving, Urraca raised her head and looked at the Pontifex.
"Pontifex De Laurens. The goddess has been silent and absent for at least a decade, and yet you concealed it from your people. You sent the crusade promising that we would fight with the advantage of the blessing, when you knew that she wasn’t able to provide such a blessing at that moment. Do you deny it, under oath, inside her very temple?"
Audible gasps filled the air, as this was news for everyone present. Even for the Hero who had received her mission directly from said goddess.
To be fair, the goddess did say that the current state was caused by her ’mistakes,’ but she didn’t specify anything.
De Laurens, Pontifex of the Church, the human closest to the goddess, didn’t answer. He couldn’t admit publicly that Urraca was right, but he didn’t dare to make a false oath in Her temple, right when the goddess had come back.
Instead, he turned on his heels and hurried away, leaving an astonished crowd behind.
Everyone present read his retreating as an admission of guilt.
Things are sure way more complicated than what the goddess made it sound like they were. Well, I should at least try to talk to the commander alongside whom I was supposed to fight in that war.
With that thought in mind, worried about her survivability, Yumegumi walked towards Urraca, who was rising to her feet.
"Hello. Princess Urraca, is it? I’m Yumegumi Nakata, a hero that the goddess summoned to fight alongside you in the war... though it seems that it has ended before I could even do anything."