112 — 12 (3)

Prince-King Orpendius looked at the drawing the informant claimed to have sketched on the spot. Water was circulating down and up around the pyramid-like spire at the very center, and green plants had blossomed into leaves and flowers. And right in front of it stood Pontina Louis—along with priests paying him homage, and a countless number of people pressing their heads to the ground. It was reverence the Prince-King himself had never once received. The hunger for power he had chased all his life was drawn into that picture, and as he realized the drawing was close to the truth, the Prince-King felt a deep inferiority rise in him without meaning to.

“If this is a lie, I’ll take your head.”

“It is not a lie. And if I may add to that drawing—when Duke Louis had a mage pour mana into the building, plants that had not existed at all in the hanging garden began to grow explosively, just as I drew. It would have been impossible without a high holy priest. And of course, there was no priest there capable of using that level of divine power.”

The Prince-King’s feelings were tangled. He had been planning to cast Louis out once he saw Louis was difficult to control, but things were spiraling out of control far faster than he had expected. If he had known this would happen, he should not have broken off talks at the last party—he should have tried to win Louis over, even if it meant forcing the issue.

And this was not information that reached only the Prince-King. In Beiherobo—the city that produced the largest surplus in the Duchy of Eron and was ruled by House Batenberg—people were already beginning to move. If the place the Pope visited was declared a holy land, an enormous number of nobles would visit Pontina territory going forward.

Nobles were extravagant. It was obvious that any merchant who could pry open their purses would seize a new chance to become rich. And since Beiherobo’s citizens were sensitive to money, the population drain was not something you could stop just by trying. If someone went to Pontina territory under the excuse of “tourism” and never came back, it would not even be strange—they would simply become Louis’s subjects.

More than anyone, Marquis Maximilian—the head of House Batenberg who had been watching Louis’s movements with sharp calculation—was regretting things now. In his office, one daughter and two sons stood before him again. But the atmosphere was stern and serious.

“Blancfor. Linsia.”

“Yes, Father.”

A heavy silence.

“I’m disappointed in you.”

“………………..”

“I ordered you to open a relationship with Duke Louis by any means necessary. Yet it seems Linsia couldn’t even hold a proper conversation with him, and Blancfor—you only managed as much familiarity as everyone else. Do you understand that in the order of letters, you were pushed behind that brat from House Parse?”

Who Louis wrote to first was itself one of the absolute measures of closeness. Nobles were obsessed with such things. And yet Louis had sent House Parse the first invitation letter: The Pope would soon visit, so please come to Pontina territory accordingly.

“Father! That’s unfair. I like him too. But if that idiot Boarne Aust hadn’t caused a scene, I could have shown Duke Louis my charm.”

“…Yes. What happened with House Boarne was unexpected. If they’re excluded from the Pope’s visit, they won’t be able to avoid political isolation. But even so, they’ve been the backbone of an alliance until now. Even if they lost one Sword Expert, their military strength doesn’t simply vanish…”

“Father, just give me one more chance—”

“No. Still, you do have some connection, so it’s best you go this time as well.”

“Then do I have to stay here again and handle the aftermath? Father, shouldn’t it be proper to send me?”

When Batenberg Mesond started to flare up—furious that he’d been outranked by his younger brother again—Maximilian cut in.

“This time, everyone goes.”

“………Father too?”

“Yes.”

Maximilian, who had never budged from Beiherobo, finally made up his mind. As Remitri’s friend, he wanted to see with his own eyes just how capable Pontina Louis truly was.

If you asked who suffered the most from all this, the answer was plainly House Boarne. In its long history, House Boarne had never once lost a battle of pride within the Duchy of Eron. Their territory was vast, and their children’s sword training was brutally strict. Boarne Gregor was so shaken by the humiliation his son suffered that he was bedridden for days from stress. And quietly, he began issuing preparations for war. He intended to declare a territorial war on Pontina Louis. His judgment—that if he missed this timing, he would be politically isolated—was frighteningly precise. But then a new incident followed: news that the Pope would travel all the way out here to see some building in Pontina territory, some damned “miracle” or whatever it was. And sure enough, the invitation letter he had been waiting for never came. He suffered on and on, until he chose a single course—go in person to Pontina Louis and ask for permission.

The man who had stayed silent finally spoke, his voice grim.

“Pack.”

“Surely… you mean to go see Duke Louis?”

“Yes. I need to see this ‘Louis’ for myself.”

“I will go in your place and meet Duke Louis.”

“No. I need to see his face with my own eyes.”

Among dozens of armed men with grim faces, arguments broke out. In sheer military scale, they were twice Louis’s. In number of fighters, even more. The debate was the same as always—whether it was right to bow one’s head or not. Most insisted they should keep preparing for war with a hard line. But that method had been a valid strategy only before the Pope’s visit became certain. Pressing his temples in irritation, Boarne Gregor finally shouted.

“I’ve decided—so shut your mouths!! We leave tomorrow. Those who wish to join, submit your names!”

Gregor’s charisma, which had held House Boarne like iron, silenced dozens of fighters at once.

There was a forbidden sanctuary that not even the Empire dared touch. A single region where the whole world had formed an unspoken pact of nonaggression: Lorencia. This place was protected by divine power so strong it was formidable in itself. Even if war broke out, it possessed strength enough that it would not fall easily—but they were deployed only in cases that demanded a grand word like “humanity.” In reality, they were a power that played money games for enormous sums in the cracks of politics, but regardless, they were undeniably the richest and most recognized religious order in the world. Nobles and commoners alike visited on pilgrimage, and above all, the sick—burdened with severe physical illnesses—came without end. The high priests and highest priests here could perform what was called “miracle” healing. It required massive divine power, and divine power could not be replenished as easily as mana, so receiving their treatment was effectively impossible with money alone; only people of special status could do it.

Pope Urbani Benedict III was the figure at the pinnacle of those highest priests’ spires—an elderly hierophant with absolute support. The reason he decided he must go to Louis’s territory was, truly, an accident of coincidence: a dream he had the night before. Divine power existed, but in this world, a true miracle had never happened even once. A miracle, by definition, had to defy universal principle.

He had wanted to see a miracle before he died, but the vivid dream—and then the letter that followed—was enough stimulus to set his aged heart racing. The distance was immense, so inside the Papal Court there was strong criticism trying to stop the Pope’s journey. Why would the Pope travel even to a small country like the Duchy of Eron? But since this was an immovable structure, they ultimately could not break the Pope’s will.

And so the Pope’s guards, long slumbering deep beneath the world, began to stir one by one. Chosen from only the youngest and finest talents, their strength was terrifying. The Pope’s carriage was pure white, the horses leading it were white stallions, and even the armor of every soldier gleamed in shining white—a fearsome procession that finally began to move. Even if you only watched it pass, it would be an unforgettable sight for the rest of your life.

And the rumor reached the Empire as well. Curiosity stirred about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon that the Pope would visit. Curiosity was always a good thing. Louis only needed to seize this chance and harvest immense economic profit.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon was only a Tier-2 building. Yet the ripple effect it brought was far larger than Louis had expected. But there was one problem: after he invested points to open science, most of the buildable entries were located elsewhere. In other words, once the System activated, every building in the world infused with extreme beauty and mystery had been granted its own special effects. The Magitech University that appeared after breaking through Theology already belonged to the Mage Tower, and the Hagia Sophia Cathedral was a special building already erected at the Papal Court.

In any case, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was producing tremendous effects. Louis himself visited it, and the most obvious effect was the removal of heat. It was always cool, and merely being there restored fatigue rapidly. Louis bought buildings near the plaza with his own money and tore them all down. It was to widen the central plaza, and also to use the fatigue recovery effect there more efficiently. And the wheat harvest was growing at a pace that looked almost unreal, as if it had swallowed cotton. The +1 food effect on the existing farmland zone was enormous—dense stalks rising so thick you could see it with the naked eye.

Even Sweet Harris, confined at home, was forced into complete admiration of Louis. It was the first time in his life he had truly acknowledged anyone of House Pontina. This year was, by anyone’s eyes, an obvious bumper harvest. Louis’s foresight was so visible it practically toyed with Sweet Harris. He split and sent huge amounts of grain to the four cities that had just finished war, yet Pontina’s own food supply showed no sign of falling.

And in front of the gate, an endless flood of merchants poured in—every last one of them merchants with money. They brought expensive goods no one had seen before, and all of them wanted to trade and build businesses within Louis’s territory. Louis issued permits and slapped them with heavy taxes. Some complained, but the title of “Papal Visit,” and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—the source of all the rumors—made their complaints vanish in an instant.

The beauty that could only be explained as a miracle, the strange aura, and the sense of healing it brought—these were experiences you might not even taste once in your life.

Louis ordered part of the wall torn down. He sensed the population would grow beyond the existing subjects. Even just in front of the gate, all he could see were people, people, people. Louis wanted to invest the 40,000 points he’d gained again into a Unique Building, but now that he’d confirmed the Magitech University had been taken by the Mage Tower, he was weighing his options. It felt like a good timing to build an ordinary special building instead.

‘With money to spare, at least I can worry less about hosting the event.’

A party, in itself, was a reassertion of wealth and power. If you looked shabby, other nobles would look down on you. Louis thought he might even host a party on a far grander scale than the Prince-King’s. If so, it would be best to create a dedicated venue. He formed a plan to pour some of the 40,000 points into that.