The Power of the Saint is All Around (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 2.1

Behind the Scenes I

THE NEWS ARRIVED a few days after the ball ­celebrating the end of the monster threat, when the prime minister received a letter from the delegation that had been sent to Zaidera. It was stamped to indicate its urgency, so the servant immediately delivered it to the prime minister.

The prime minister carefully broke the seal and read it over. The contents made him furrow his brow. The second he was done, he stood from his seat and headed to the king’s office.

As the prime minister entered, his demeanor was, at a glance, no different from usual. However, the king had known him for a very long time, so he detected that something was amiss. That something terrible had happened.

This hunch turned into confidence as the prime minister asked everyone else in the room to step outside.

“What’s happened?”

“Read this first.”

The king stopped working to accept the proffered letter. His gaze moved left and right as he read, but for a moment, at a certain point, it stopped. Then he continued. As the king came to the end of the letter, he heaved a deep sigh.

“So, someone in our delegation has fallen ill.”

“Indeed. And their symptoms include headache, high fever, and nausea, until they fell unconscious. They have yet to wake.”

“Is it contagious?”

“It seems only one person has contracted the illness thus far, but the situation could have changed since this letter was sent.”

“So we don’t have any further details. The letter doesn’t even indicate if it’s a local disease.”

“Indeed.”

The king smiled, as if he had solved some manner of puzzle. “Quite sparing in the details, despite the urgency of the missive.”

“This is true. Which brings me to the points of concern.”

The king looked up from the letter. “Which are?” 

Now that the prime minister knew he had the king’s attention, he explained himself. The things he’d noticed weren’t technically concerning, given the context. First, the letter had come from an individual other than the leader of the delegation, who would typically be the one who sent such reports. While this individual was themselves of high standing, they weren’t even the leader’s assistant. However, this wasn’t wholly unusual given the crisis they were dealing with.

Second, the prime minister was troubled by the ship that had brought the letter. The regular reports were typically carried by Salutanian vessels. However, according to the servant who brought this report, it had arrived on a Zaideran merchant ship. This was also technically understandable, when one considered the urgency with which the report was sent.

“What about the seal?”

“It was legitimate. And there are no traces of the letter being opened.”

“But this still concerns you.”

Seals were used to verify the sender and prevent people from peeking at or doctoring the contents of a letter. The crest on the seal was meant to prove beyond a doubt that the letter was legitimately from its sender. The wax seal was intact, so the contents didn’t appear to have been falsified en route.

However, the prime minister couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. It was a hunch, but the king trusted his prime minister and the intuition he’d built over his long tenure. So, the king was willing to consider that the letter might have been forged. If this report was false, then they could simply ignore it. However, the letter’s claims could not be so easily ignored.

“The unconscious patient is the greatest concern,” the king said, his tone troubled.

“Yes,” the prime minister responded with a look of pointed calm.

The letter had named the person who was now unconscious. The king glanced back at the name and furrowed his brow.

It was his son: the crown prince, Kyle.

As the ruler of the nation, the king was prepared to abandon his son, should it ever prove necessary. However, Kyle was one of his sons by his late wife. At present, he didn’t have enough concrete evidence to dismiss the contents of this letter. And his heart wanted to send aid.

“It would take a great deal of time to confirm the veracity of this letter,” the king voiced his thoughts.

The prime minister understood what he was getting at. “At any rate, I believe it would be wise to deploy a mage to Zaidera. If the letter is indeed true, then the prince’s condition could very well worsen while we await verification. Others may even contract the disease.”

The prime minister provided multiple justifications, but he said this more because he knew the weight of the king’s feelings.

The king allowed a small smile of appreciation for his prime minister’s consideration, thanking him from his heart as he accepted the proposal. “Yes. As for who we should send, our choices are few, as they will need to be able to use Holy Magic.”

Since the patient was the king’s son, it was only natural that he would want to send the best. However, that posed a problem: the person in Salutania most gifted in Holy Magic was the Saint.

A king rarely left his kingdom because of all the ­potential problems that entailed. If he were to do so, the kingdom would need to enact all manner of security measures, and he would require numerous guards. This went for the Saint as well, since her rank was equivalent to the king’s.

Furthermore, the Saint possessed powers far beyond her commonly known ability to purify the miasma. If the kingdom lost her while she was abroad, it would be an immeasurable loss. As such, both the king and prime minister were reluctant to let her go—especially as there was an even more pressing reason not to do so.

“If all we needed to do was treat the prince, then asking Lady Sei to lend her aid would be the surest way forward. But given the possibility that the letter is fraudulent, it would be wisest to send someone else.”

“That may be so, but this isn’t the sort of thing we should ask of Sei to begin with. She has already more than fulfilled her Saintly duty on our behalf.”

Sei had originally been summoned to their world to slay monsters, which had been spawning from the thickened miasma at an unprecedented rate. By performing the Saint Summoning Ritual, they had brought her here without her consent, and thus she had no obligation to do as they wished. Nevertheless, Sei had accompanied the knights and mages across the land to use her magic to purify the black swamps from which the monsters had endlessly crawled. She had only just purified the last one, meaning that the Kingdom of Salutania was now freed from the monstrous pall.

It was just as the king had said—she had more than done her duty. The king understood duty and obligation better than anyone, having been raised to shoulder the burden of responsibility for the whole kingdom from an early age. Therefore, he was exceedingly grateful to Sei for stepping up to her role to save his kingdom even though she was neither royalty nor nobility, nor even from his world.

At the same time, he was reluctant to ask any more of her beyond monster-slaying. He had as yet been unable to repay her for everything she had lost when she was summoned to their world, nor had he been able to properly reward her for what she had accomplished as the Saint.

“Then I suggest that we dispatch Grand Magus Drewes,” the prime minister said. “He is proficient in Holy Magic and, should matters come to that, can handle himself in a fight.”

“A fight? Do you think that likely?”

“Should the letter prove false, then I believe it may be a possibility.”

“If it is a fake, what do you think their aim is?”

“An excellent question, Your Majesty. I doubt they are targeting the Saint.”

They had both quickly considered whether the sender might be trying to lure out the Saint by asking for critical medical treatment. However, the prime minister dismissed that idea out of hand. After all, the delegation sent from Zaidera had not known very much about the Saint.

While the delegation visited Salutania, the palace had ordered everyone to keep quiet as to the Saint’s abilities. Therefore, they were sure that the Zaiderans only knew as much as the general populace did—that the Saint was proficient at slaying monsters. They had concealed the Saint’s appearance, as well: She had only been brought before the delegation once, and during that time she had worn a white veil to obscure her features. They also knew that when Prince Ten’yuu had come to Salutania, he had not sought the aid of the Saint to heal his ailing mother. Rather, the Zaiderans had been interested in the potions concocted by the Research Institute of Medicinal Flora.

“In that case, they must be after the panacea.”

“I believe this is likely the case,” the prime minister agreed.

The panacea was a potion that could cure any ailment. It was unprecedented; no potion before it had been able to cure any and all conditions. Typically, potions that cured status abnormalities were tailored to specific ­statuses, and each required a different recipe. If one suffered from multiple conditions, one needed to drink several separate potions for each one. Given that, the panacea’s true value was blindingly obvious.

The panacea had initially been created to cure Prince Ten’yuu’s mother. Sei had been moved by the prince’s devotion to finding a cure and developed the recipe herself.

“Which means that someone with an eye on what we gave Prince Ten’yuu has finally appeared, just as we predicted.”

“Our plan to obfuscate the origin of the panacea worked.”

“Yes. That work is likely the only reason they haven’t set their sights on the maker instead.”

The king had given the panacea to Ten’yuu with his own hand. However, just as the prime minister said, they had kept Sei’s role in its creation a secret from him. This was because the panacea could not be made without the Saint’s powers. As Salutania followed a mandate to conceal the powers of the Saint to the best of their abilities, they had no choice but to keep the panacea’s origin a secret.

Therefore, they had told Ten’yuu that this precious potion had been kept in the royal vaults for generations and that they had no means of making more.

“Since we gave Prince Ten’yuu three doses, they must assume that we have more.”

“You are surely correct, Your Majesty. They can’t possibly believe that we would simply hand over our entire stock of something so valuable without asking for compensation in return.”

“Indeed. Which I suppose means that we should likely send a bottle of panacea as well.”

“If they manage to steal it, they might even leave us be. And if we manage to catch whoever steals it, then we may be owed some manner of debt.”

“Yes. Let’s send the panacea then, to ensure they don’t shift their focus to the Saint instead.”

And so, they decided to send the grand magus of the Royal Magi Assembly to Zaidera, along with the panacea. 

However, several days after this conversation, their attempt to protect Sei came to naught. Knight Commander Albert of the Knights of the Third Order informed them that Sei wished to join the delegation.

It was difficult to accept this request, from a security standpoint. However, if the letter from Zaidera was indeed genuine, then Sei was most qualified to handle this case.

The king was troubled, but Albert was persuasive. Ultimately, they agreed to let her go.