Chapter 684: Lyra Decides to Become an Idol

In terms of looks, Lyra Beckett, the original protagonist, was naturally a top tier existence within the entire work.

In terms of sacred power, a Chosen Knight wielding a three-foot sword and clad in the Holy Armor of Light could stand toe-to-toe with Monica, the Saintess of Light, without being at a disadvantage.

Besides, there was the most important point of all: Lyra possessed the world’s one-and-only, limit breaking level of affinity with the Light element.

And she had already been acknowledged by another holy relic, the [Sword Of Light]. This was practically a ready-made gimmick Astrid could make use of.

A holy existence bearing an exalted status had been born in the Valeria Empire, an empire with no faith worth speaking of.

Did this represent that the self-proclaimed orthodox Church of Light had already deviated from its original path, gradually running counter to the righteousness upheld by the all knowing and all powerful Lord?

Coupled with the intelligence Monica had just provided, seeds of unease and doubt had long since been planted within the Church of Light. If they lit a fire at this moment, it might yield twice the result with half the effort.

"The Kingdom of Velys... idol..."

Hearing Astrid’s words, Lyra, who had only just come back to herself from their conversation, froze for a moment.

Her white-socked snowy legs, which had been neatly pressed together, reflexively lifted upon feeling the touch. The fine folds of her stockings brushed lightly against the tip of Astrid’s shoe, making an extremely faint sound.

Having known Astrid for so long, it wasn’t the first time Lyra had heard fresh terms like these from her, like those secrets that, even after becoming so intimate as to merge into one, she still couldn’t understand.

This silver-haired regent always had so many strange notions and expressions that even most Imperial Capital nobles raised on elite education had never heard of.

"...Like what the Empire Weekly did before?"

Using print publications to guide public opinion, shaping an image of a Holy Light Knight who had won supreme glory for the Empire, serving as a military benchmark and meeting the regent’s needs for internal propaganda.

That was the entirety of Lyra’s understanding of the word "idol." After she was crowned with the title "Beauty of the Valeria Empire’s Bulwark," she could even hear bards in small towns embellishing her deeds when she went home to visit family, painting her match against the Velys princess as something out of the heavens.

Aside from the names matching, the rest of it was completely theatrical: celestial anomalies, a sword descending from the sky, none of it aligned with the facts.

Adaptation isn’t random fabrication, and dramatization isn’t talking nonsense. When Lyra heard one of those tales at the market while helping her parents buy furniture, she was so furious she nearly tore the reinforced tip of her white stocking.

"Mhm." Astrid nodded there, speaking softly.

"Something like that, but in a wider direction there’ll be some differences."

If they wanted to minimize casualties to the greatest extent and turn blades into jade, then naturally the focus of publicity should fall on Lyra’s affinity with the Light element, as well as the [Sword Of Light].

Hearing Astrid’s words, Lyra fluttered her lashes a few times, lowered her gaze to the breastplate before her, and to the silver-white scabbard hanging at her waist. She spoke gently.

"Will that prevent the war from escalating further?"

"Not necessarily, but at the very least it can greatly reduce the resistance to our advance."

Astrid didn’t know what sort of extreme actions Hebrew might take if he realized the faith he had believed in all his life was about to be overturned by someone else.

But one thing was foreseeable: if Lyra truly became an "idol" of the Kingdom of Velys, then the Church of Light would have a very high probability of developing doctrinal-level divisions, leading to a schism.

After a brief moment of thought, Lyra’s gaze landed on the translucent knight’s sword upon the table, and she quickly grasped the key point.

"Then... what exactly do you need me to do?"

"No need to rush for now. From what Monica meant, the Church of Light’s primary strategic objective isn’t to besiege Coldwind City, it’s to contain the spearhead of the Empire’s expeditionary army."

The brutal scenes from the siege battle at Liya Tower Fortress were still fresh in both sides’ memories.

To forcefully attack Coldwind City, already under Astrid’s control and fortified with defenses, was something the current strength of the Church of Light’s knight order could not accomplish unless they dispatched a top-tier combatant, an Arcanist mage.

And even if they did, the Empire’s powerhouses wouldn’t just watch. It would only spark sharper conflict, making White Maple Town of that day repeat itself.

"These next few days, I’ll contact Monica again and talk with her about the plague raging in the kingdom’s north."

"Since this batch of church knights are believers forcibly transferred to the front under the Holy Emperor’s decree, then as the epidemic behind them grows more severe and spreads wider, their family and friends will soon be covered by the shadow of the disease."

Whether from Monica’s own words or from the intelligence network Amalia provided, Astrid could grasp a key point: the Church of Light didn’t actually have a reliable cure for this plague.

They could only use Light-element magic to suppress its large-scale spread, but could not eradicate it.

But in their hands, there exists ancient magic capable of purifying the plague using the ancient language as an incantation and the Sword of Light as the casting material, there was a high probability it could heal the afflicted.

Back when Astrid and Lyra were only at the Magnus tier, they could already heal a town’s outbreak through resonance casting.

Now that both their strength and their intimacy had climbed a step higher, there was no reason they couldn’t do it.

"Even rumors can make a tiger with three men, and rear-line intelligence with a measure of truth will only be more lethal. Once the church knights’ war-weariness reaches its peak, it’ll be Lyra’s time to perform again."

As the true founder of the Empire Weekly, the invisible hand behind Valeria’s public opinion, Astrid was intimately familiar with how to manipulate sentiment and steer topics.

By then, all it would take was for Monica’s confidants to casually spread some information related to the plague within the army, and they could easily shake the already unstable morale, prompting them to question just how feasible Hebrew’s series of religious reform truly was.

When her voice fell, Astrid propped her cheek with one hand and looked at Lyra. Her pink lips parted.

"This time, the Sword of Light may not need to be stained with blood. We might welcome a turning point through negotiation."

Not just Lyra, this was the outcome Astrid also hoped to see.

Hearing that, the pink-haired girl pressed her lips together and gave a small "Mm." She lifted her eyes, only to find those cool red pupils quietly fixed on her. The clear, beautiful eyes carry a faint watery sheen, as if Astrid were looking at a peerless work of art.

"...Astrid?"

"Mhm?"

"Did I... get something on my face?"

"..."

Astrid shook her head. Her voice was low and gentle.

No.

"I was just thinking... whether I should have Lyra change her look a little."

No change would be fine too. A knight bathed in holy light and a healer who saved the sick, those two overlapping images might not be a bad thing.

Change her look?

At Astrid’s words, Lyra fluttered her lashes a few times, immediately recalling the Saintess of Light Monica from a few minutes ago, kneeling on both knees within that illusory light screen, almost to the point that the word "loyalty" seemed ready to spill out of her thin fabric.

Astrid... she isn’t going to make me wear that style of outfit, is she...

Lyra couldn’t help glancing at her own chest.

First, she felt that kind of nun’s outfit was a bit too spicy, unsuited to her. Second, no matter how she thought about it, she didn’t seem capable of pulling it off as well as Monica.

Seeing Lyra’s gaze sway slightly, carrying the shy embarrassment of a young girl, her pink lips bitten by pearly teeth until they turned a little pale, Astrid, who always understood her, immediately realized what this pink-haired knight was imagining.

"Don’t misunderstand, Lyra."

"I just mean making some slight adjustments based on your existing set of holy armor."

And besides, out of certain private intentions, she also didn’t want Lyra to dress too flamboyantly.

A faint, pale possessiveness flowed through Astrid’s heart.

Along with it, the tip of her shoe, originally only lightly tapping Lyra’s knee, pressed closer.

The exquisite feeling made side of the shoe and the delicate instep wrapped in black stockings slide past the leg armor, silent that unique chill of metal.

"Lyra is still better suited to outfits that are either pure and innocent... or heroic and dashing."

....................

"You’re saying that regent, His Highness, didn’t just send a letter to you alone?"

"Yes, Your Highness Iris. Not only me, nearby nobles above the rank of count so all have received these letters."

Wearing a thickened velvet robe and chestnut-brown short leather boots, the Kingdom of Velys’s princess Iris Kroyd sat in the reception hall, flipping through the letters submitted to her by the local nobility.

[The expeditionary army had only one objective: to secure the war reparations owed by the defeated nation and bring the war’s chief instigators to justice. These included the King of the Kingdom of Velys, the Pope of the Church of Light, Grand Duke Grant, who had led the vanguard along the border between the two nations, and a small number of kingdom nobles responsible for inflicting significant property damage on the Valeria Empire.]

[We will do our utmost to avoid unnecessary military conflict and reduce impact on other noble territories. As long as you provide no military or logistical support to any targets on the liquidation list, the iron hooves of the expeditionary army will never set foot there.]

This was the first letter Astrid had sent, timed before Coldwind City fell.

The second letter came after Coldwind City had completely fallen; it mainly elaborates on the fact that the expeditionary army had, step by step from Kaelrent City, eaten into Duke Grant’s territories, thus seizing a great deal of land in the kingdom’s east, while beginning to military grain from surrounding nobles and selling their most prized household mana-powered appliances.

"The war’s still going on outside, and you lot are already doing business first?"

Iris’s tone was low, betraying no emotion. The noble opposite she looked at the princess of exalted status with respect, but it was only surface-deep.

Rather than genuine feeling, it was more an ingrained inertia born of the old belief that royal authority was inviolable.

A centipede dies but does not stiffen, let alone when the royal house had not yet completely perished.

"Your Highness Iris, you know it. We’re just ordinary nobles with weak strength. Even if we unite, we can’t amount to anything."

Even Duke Grant himself had gone missing with the fall of Coldwind City. For these counts and viscounts, maintaining the status quo was already a great stroke of fortune.

As for answering the king’s call and becoming cannon fodder to block the Valeria expeditionary army’s advance, that was seeking death. In fact, the first thought this count had upon hearing the news was rather pure:

Huh? Me, fighting the Valeria Empire’s Bulwark, seriously?

One path was undeniably death; the others still leave room for compromise. For the loose-knit kingdom nobility, considering their own interests, they naturally lean toward the latter.

That he could present these letters to Iris today already made him one of the few loyalists of the kingdom.

"..."

After a long moment, Iris put the letters down, her voice still low.

"So... you sold grain to the expeditionary army?"

Doing such a thing at this time, at the mildest, was selfishness at the expense of the greater good; at the worst, it was aiding the enemy and treason. If the king still retained any degree of control over the country, he could seize the opportunity to mobilize troops and reclaim territory.

Unfortunately, they were surrounded by enemies on every side and could barely ensure their own survival, leaving them with neither the strength nor the time to concern themselves with such matters.

"..."

The noble did not answer at once. He kept silent before Iris, while the wall clock creaked and clicked, the sound of gears turning echoing in both their ears.

He hadn’t planned to sell at first, yet the Valeria Empire offered far too much. To earn some extra money, and also to give the expeditionary army a face, the compromise-minded kingdom nobles ultimately still struck a sinful bargain with these enemies, selling the grain Astrid needed most through barter.

Seeing the man had no intention of speaking, Iris let out a soft sigh. Her attention finally moved away from those bewitching letters and returned to the room’s surroundings.

With that look, Iris quickly obtained the answer to her earlier question.

"This hot tea... wasn’t boiled over fire?"

Next to the porcelain-white embossed teacup sat a small kettle of exquisite craftsmanship. Faint mist drifted from its spout, constantly passing heat into the air.

To the naked eyes, nothing might seem amiss. But if she extended her mental power, that faint ripple of magical fluctuation was plain before Iris’s eyes, light-red fire-element motes active at the bottom of the kettle, continuously keeping the liquid warm.

The scene was identical to the mana-powered hot-water kettle Iris had seen years ago when visiting the Valeria Empire, in the capital city.

Looking up again, the chandelier overhead was a light-element crystal stone engraved with magic patterns.

Unwilling to believe it, Iris extended her spiritual power into the estate’s bathing room: a water-attribute crystal stone had been quietly placed there, replacing the water vat that would naturally freeze once the frost arrived.

Compared to swords and blades you can see and touch, the Valeria Empire had already, in other ways, taken the lead in investigating these border nobles.

Perhaps... the decline of the Kingdom of Velys had been fated from the very beginning, by its arrogant, careless attitude toward the outside world...