Goddess Kaleidoscope

Without a doubt, if the facts are indeed as Ludl speculated, then this is absolutely the biggest scandal in the history of the Holy Church of Light, and its severity is beyond imagination, definitely more serious than the Pope's infidelity!

It's important to know that the selection of saintesses is the most prestigious and large-scale event in the Holy Church of Light, bringing immeasurable benefits to the Vatican in various aspects, including faith, politics, and economics. It's no exaggeration to say that if it weren't for the fear of appearing disrespectful, the Pope would probably hold it every year.

Therefore, once Lude exposes the truth that this year's Holy Maiden is "not what was advertised," the blow to the Church of Light will be beyond imagination. If things really get out of hand, it won't be something that can be easily resolved by having a few cardinals come out and bow in apology.

This is some kind of other world, not Earth or Japan!

However, after thinking it over, Lud quickly realized that, at least for the time being, he and the Holy Light Church were friends, not enemies. The two sides had already agreed on relevant cooperation projects. If Lud were to betray them at this moment, Pope Leonid would probably be furious and rush over with a knife to chop him into mincemeat.

Therefore, at this point, Ludwig not only cannot expose the matter, but also has to do his best to fulfill the obligations of an ally, helping to cover it up, or simply pretend to be confused and act as if he has not discovered anything.

For the next two days, Lude pretended not to know anything, but secretly kept observing Selica. The more he looked, the more he felt something was wrong. He noticed many subtle differences. He had initially assumed she was a beautiful girl, and at most thought she was a little boyish, which could even be considered a cute trait. But after discovering that she was more than just a little "boyish," he realized that something was completely off.

It's worth mentioning that during this time, Hume and Shanes, while secretly observing Ludwig, discovered that he was also secretly observing Selica. The two goddesses initially thought that Lord Ludwig was interested in this saint, but after asking, they learned that Ludwig had made a "big" discovery two nights earlier, so the three of them secretly observed Selica together.

Two days later, on the morning of the same day, the mission of the Holy Light Church arrived as scheduled. The skyship Icarus, bearing the emblem of the Holy Light Church on its hull, flew over Pine Town, attracting countless locals to stop and marvel, and even to prostrate themselves in worship.

In appearance, the Skyship Icarus resembles a three-masted sailing ship with wings on both sides, and the wings on both sides are actually sails. When fully spread, a huge magic circle with flowing silver light can be seen on them. The entire ship is pure white like jade, shining brightly in the sunlight.

Guided by ground personnel, the Icarus landed on a specially prepared open space outside the city. All the prominent figures in the town were there to greet it, and Ludwig had even prepared a red carpet, a band, and two groups of elementary school students carrying bouquets.

Soon, a ladder was lowered from the spaceship, and a red-haired woman wearing the golden armor of a Sun Knight and the cloak of a cardinal was the first to step off the ship. She was none other than Serana, the vice-commander and chief instructor of the Sun Knights.

This woman was actually in her late forties, but because she was a top-tier expert who surpassed ordinary people and had been protected by holy light, she could easily be mistaken for being under thirty based on her appearance alone. She had sharp eyebrows and bright eyes, and although her appearance was quite similar to Celica's, her temperament was not as gentle as her daughter's (?), and her heroic spirit seemed a bit too overwhelming.

Long before the other party arrived, Phillips had given Lud a heads-up, saying that Selana was a hot-tempered person and that she should not be treated like an ordinary woman just because she was beautiful. When this woman got obsessed, even the Pope had to give her some leeway.

However, the Pope sending such a flammable and explosive figure wasn't to intimidate Ludd or to avoid proper negotiations. On the contrary, sending Serana on this trip was a demonstration of the importance he placed on the matter.

Because this woman is a candidate for the next pope... without exception!

Although this world is unequal in status between men and women, and its feudal dregs are even more severe than in the old days of Earth, in a world where the strong are respected, there are always a few exceptions who can overcome various obstacles and reach the peak that ordinary people cannot reach. Serana is one of the representatives of this world.

This woman is said to be a practitioner of ancient martial arts, possessing unfathomable strength. As a chosen one of the Holy Light Church, she has received the blessing personally bestowed by the Holy Lord of Light, Karius. While not necessarily the strongest in the mortal realm, she is certainly among the top three. Even Hamilton, the fire-elemental archmage who always boasts of being evenly matched with anyone, can only mutter under his breath when mentioning "that traveler" from the Holy Light Church, "I certainly can't beat her."

Given the other party's unparalleled status and strength, Lude treated them with the highest level of hospitality, daring not to be negligent in the slightest.

Soon, the entire delegation disembarked. Excluding crew and guards, the official members, including Serana, numbered only twelve.

Since it was a religious exchange, Ludd was the primary person to receive the two, while Phillips acted as an intermediary to introduce them.

Facing Serana, Lud maintained a warm smile, trying his best to appear enthusiastic yet neither servile nor arrogant. After all, their meeting was about negotiating a partnership, not seeking a sugar daddy or being taken care of, so he needed to maintain the proper demeanor to avoid giving the impression that he could be manipulated at will.

It must be said that Ludwig's direct attitude did have some effect.

Originally, Serana, who was sitting opposite him, had a cold and aloof expression and was mentally prepared to be mindlessly fawned over by the leader of a third-rate sect in order to curry favor with the Holy Light Church. However, Rudd was so reserved. He did fawn, but only a little bit. At least in this first impression, he left a much better impression than the other guys.

Serana couldn't help but give Lud an evaluation in her mind.

"This guy is alright."

Upon arrival, the delegation was accommodated at a hot spring hotel. Serana's purpose in coming was twofold: to negotiate and to conduct an on-site investigation. The Pope wanted her to personally witness the actual situation at the Pantheon and to see how much it differed from the intelligence reports.

On her way here, Serana carefully reviewed the information about the Pantheon and Rud, and found many suspicious points.

First of all, this sect is very rare in that it worships multiple gods at the same time, and the names of these goddesses are all very unfamiliar. Apart from the goddess of the hearth, Marigius, whose name can be found in some ancient books in the collection of the Vatican, the others have never been heard of at all.

In addition, the Church of Light could not find any record of the Pantheon sect. The earliest record that can be traced back to is about five years ago, when the wandering priest Rud suddenly appeared in the pioneer village in the northern border of the Kingdom of Duran, which is the predecessor of today's Pine Town.

They weren't called the Pantheon back then, but the Cult of the Medicine God. Later, their fame gradually spread throughout the northern part of the kingdom, and they accomplished several earth-shattering feats. As the number of gods they worshipped increased, they changed their name to what it is today.

With the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the Holy Light Church, even cultists who engage in heretical worship would find it difficult to completely avoid their spies spread across almost every corner of humanity. Yet, this Pantheon seems to have appeared out of thin air, growing to its current size in just a few short years.

Therefore, Serana could conclude that this pantheon, like the gods they worshipped, was a newly established sect and deity. His Holiness the Pope, based on the available information, reached the same conclusion.

Like most traditional sects, the higher up in the hierarchy, the more taboos they know. Lower-ranking bishops may only know how faith originated, but they may not know that the deity worshipped by the sect is a powerful being born from faith.

In fact, the higher-ups of the Holy Light Church had long anticipated that, as the world gradually recovered, the populations of various civilizations and races were now almost back to their peak levels before the Divine War. This population growth also meant an increase in the total amount of faith, making the emergence of new gods unsurprising.

The Vatican's top brass unanimously agreed that such things could not be stopped. Even if the three major churches could unite, they could not completely suppress it, and it might even backfire and tarnish their own reputation.

Therefore, the Pope believed that when these rising stars were discovered, they should first be assessed; those who could be won over should be won over, and those who couldn't should be dealt with. Thus, even when the Pantheon's true nature was found to be problematic, the Holy Church of Light turned a blind eye, demonstrating a very flexible bottom line.

Of course! Regarding the specifics of how to deal with the Pantheon, the Vatican's higher-ups are still waiting for Serana's assessment. The current Pope is a "doting father" type who is determined to build up his religious alliance and make him, the Pope of the Holy Church of Light, the Pope of the alliance.

As a result, they spent a lot of money to aid many small and medium-sized denominations, but they were all money-losing entities, which greatly angered the College of Cardinals. They had suffered too many losses before, and they were all a bit afraid.

However, as things stand, the Pantheon is far superior to those precious objects. The moment Serana saw Rude, she sensed that he was also a "chosen one," and Pine Town was a rather magical place in her eyes.

Serana does not possess the primordial fire and cannot see faith with her naked eye, but as a chosen one, she is extremely sensitive to faith. As soon as she stepped off the skyship, she could clearly sense the extremely strong "religious atmosphere" of the place.

Serana's intuition led her to believe that Rudd must be a very talented missionary. The locals, under his tutelage, must be extremely devout, with believers constantly revering their gods—a feeling she had only experienced in the City of the Sun before. This indicated that the Pantheon had a large number of high-quality believers in the area.

"interesting!"

Serana had previously represented the Vatican in conducting investigations in other places. In her view, many of those small local sects that relied on powerful figures were just a bunch of useless people who couldn't even do their jobs properly. Without the assistance of the Holy Church of Light, they couldn't even guarantee their own survival.

The most outrageous one Serana had ever seen was someone who, in order to impress her, used funds provided by the Vatican to hire people to convert to the religion. It would be a miracle if these temporary workers could actually develop faith!

Having seen so much trash, Serana was pleasantly surprised to suddenly find someone reliable.

If possible, Serana plans to personally go out into the streets of Pine Town tomorrow in casual clothes and have a real chat with the locals.

However, she had some personal matters to attend to before that.

In the top-tier suite the hotel had arranged for Serana, Saint Celica sat opposite her mother, head bowed and silent, the atmosphere between them slightly awkward.

Serana knew perfectly well why the child was being difficult, and couldn't help but sigh.

"Are you still angry with me? I know you're unwilling, but Mom is doing this for your own good. It's only three years. As long as you can endure these three years, Mom promises you that you can continue to be a knight, and you'll have a bright future! Don't be angry, say something to Mom!"

"..."

Seeing that Celica was still being stubborn, Serana, who usually presented a tough, devilish image to her subordinates and students, showed a gentleness that was hard for others to imagine. She sat down next to Celica and coaxed her softly, which finally made the stern-faced Celica soften up a little.

"Mother, has my elder sister... been found?"

"That brat! We won't be able to catch her anytime soon. It's all thanks to you, otherwise I don't know how things would have ended. Anyway! Let's not talk about that unfilial daughter. How have you been lately? Hope you haven't given yourself away. Have those young masters tried anything with you... you know what?"

“No, I wasn’t exposed, and I wasn’t… you know. Jenny and Ellie have been covering for me the whole time. But…”

"But what?"

"I failed this trial..."

"You don't need to worry about this, it's a small problem. Just leave it to your mother to handle. That Priest Lud of the Pantheon did help us a lot this time. The higher-ups of the Vatican are very interested in him. Since you fought alongside him before, why don't you talk to your mother about him?"

"Senior Lude? He was a very reliable and learned man, kind and polite, and deeply loved by his followers. Sometimes, looking at him, I couldn't help but think of... my father!"

Celica's father, Lucas, was once the most famous religious scholar of the Holy Church of Light. In Celica's memory, her father was almost omniscient and kind, and was therefore deeply loved by the people.

However, fate is unpredictable. When Celica was ten years old, a terrible plague broke out in the parish under his father's rule. All the local doctors were quickly wiped out, leaving only a few priests from major churches struggling to hold on. But faced with the ever-increasing number of infected people, even though Lux called on all the priests of the church to unite, the limited divine magic was still a drop in the ocean and could not stop the further spread of the plague.

Faced with this terrifying calamity that mortals could hardly resolve, Archbishop Lucas ultimately made an astonishing decision: he resolved to sacrifice himself to save the suffering people.

The Holy Church of Light possesses a supreme divine art called "Divine Descent," which can summon an avatar of the Holy Lord of Light, Karius, to descend to the mortal realm. However, there is an even more powerful advanced version of this technique called "True Divine Descent," which can directly summon Karius's true form.

However, the price of using "True Divine Descent" is harsh. First, the user needs to have extremely high qualifications, at the very least a divine magic user at the archbishop level. In addition, directly summoning the deity in person also comes at a price, especially for a high-ranking deity like Karius, who is at the peak of the eighth rank.

Because the power of the high-ranking gods is too great, powerful enough to affect the laws of the world within a certain range around them, they are rejected by the main plane. They can only stay in the holy domain they have created and do not dare to use their true form when they want to go out for a walk.

"True Divine Descent" uses the caster as a vessel, allowing the gods to temporarily descend to the mortal realm using their bodies without being rejected, giving it a somewhat "taking advantage of the world's inattention" feel.

However, as a vessel for mortals, one must pay a huge price for this. After all, the power of high-level gods is simply too strong. A clone with only a portion of that power is manageable, as long as one has high aptitude, one can withstand it, and may even benefit from it, improving one's own aptitude. But the direct descent of the main body is different, far exceeding the limits that mortals can endure.

In the end, Lucas summoned the gods and borrowed the powerful divine power of the Holy Lord of Light, Carius, to instantly heal all the infected and successfully end the plague. However, he himself was exhausted and died a year later. He was posthumously honored as the "Saint of Savior" by the Holy Church of Light.

Therefore, after actually meeting and learning about Lud's past deeds, Celica couldn't help but think of her own father.

Serana was surprised that her child had such a high opinion of Lud. Just as she was about to ask him something else, the door to the room was suddenly pushed open, and a beautiful girl with a long silver-gray ponytail rushed in from outside, carrying a large bag of food and shouting excitedly.

"Serana, Serana! I bought something called fried radish balls outside, it's super delicious! Do you want some?"

"Par, be more careful..."

"Come on, come on! The shopkeeper said it won't taste good when it's cold. Little Astley is here too, here! Have a skewer too."

Without a word, the overly cheerful and beautiful girl handed a string of fried dumplings to Celica, and then, as if presenting a treasure, took out the food from the brown paper bag one by one and placed it on the table.

Upon seeing this, Serana immediately looked troubled, but quickly realized that there was something wrong with how she addressed Serica earlier. She subconsciously looked around before whispering to the beautiful girl called Pal.

"Pal! This isn't the Holy City, don't call me by the wrong name."

"A name? Oh! My bad, I'm so sorry, little Selica!"

"..."

Looking at Pal, who at first glance appeared to be about the same age as Serica, Serana couldn't help but sigh again. She knew very well that Pal's actual age was twenty times that of her, and that he wasn't human either, but a giant pegasus of the level of a magical beast lord.

The Holy Light Church has six guardian beasts, and the Great Pegasus Pargamar is one of them. It has always been the mount of the Grand Master of the Sun Knights. In the latest generation, Pargamar took it upon itself to follow Serana, the Vice Grand Master, because it liked her more.

The poor commander-in-chief dared not speak out against this, because in terms of individual combat strength alone, Serana was indeed better than him.

It's worth mentioning that Parjama's ability to transform into human form wasn't due to any inherent skill she possessed, but rather because of a low-level artifact unique to the Holy Light Cult—the Transformation Ring.

As its name suggests, this ring allows the wearer to change form, but its use is limited to non-human beings. The Holy Church of Light bestows this artifact upon top-tier magical beasts loyal to the Church, enabling them to transform into human forms and live in human cities.

For these top-tier magical beasts, the human form might not be more suitable for combat than their original forms, but it's extremely convenient for daily life. Basically, once they've tried it for a while, they won't want to revert back. And this is precisely the purpose of the artifacts the Holy Church of Light gave them—to make these incredibly powerful and intelligent magical beasts more compatible with the human race.

Parjama is the most senior of the six guardian beasts and the only one who participated in the War of the Gods. However, her actual age of nearly nine hundred years has not made this "horse girl" calm and mature. She is still energetic and lively every day, jumping around like a husky that has broken free!

Parjama accompanied Serana on this visit to Pine Town, but before the Sky Ship arrived, Parjama, finding it too slow, set off ahead. By the time the delegation realized what was happening, the horse was gone!

The Pegasus girl arrived a full day earlier than the delegation, disguised as an adventurer, and indulged in a feast in town. She only returned by herself after Serana and the entire delegation had settled into the hot spring inn.

Serana was exasperated by her partner's willful and capricious behavior, yet she couldn't control her. Fortunately, her partner was just a bit gluttonous and playful; she was quite reliable when Serana needed Serana's help.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Lud was also holding a meeting, assigning tasks to his men. Their only goal this time was to ensure that the Holy Light Church's delegation arrived happily and left peacefully; stability was victory in itself.

However, the other party planned to stay here for a whole month, and it was possible that the female knight would become impatient and insist on venturing into the labyrinth herself. Lud had to do his best to stop her, but without arousing her suspicion.

Fortunately, at this moment, Lude remembered that he had promised to help organize a training camp for low-level adventurers when he was chatting with the head of the local adventurers' home a while ago. Before he knew it, almost a month had passed, and he finally remembered it.

Because of its proximity to the Virtual Forest, a large portion of the transient population in Pine Tree Town consists of adventurers and mercenaries. As the town continues to urbanize, two mid-level organizations, the Mercenary Guild and the Adventurer's House, have emerged to make it convenient for users to accept quests nearby.

Although adventurers and mercenaries are often seen as the same type of people by the general public, there are actually significant differences between them.

Mercenaries are, to some extent, the kingdom's reserve force, and the Mercenary Guild, which manages them, is a nationally unified quasi-official organization. The main source of mercenaries is retired soldiers, and there is a fairly strict ranking system. Although the commissions they can earn are not low, the entry requirements for the profession are also high, and they also have corresponding obligations.

In the event of war, all registered mercenaries of the nation must answer the call to arms and unconditionally serve the king. Those who refuse will have their mercenary status revoked or even be severely punished as deserters.

Adventurers can be seen as a lower-tier version of mercenaries. Most adventurer guilds are local guilds established by the people themselves. Although they are not very formal, the sources of adventurers are diverse, and any kind of nobody can register. However, they earn less and are subject to fewer restrictions.