Chapter 63: Forgive Me, Father

In a game of chess, the first to win is the one who realizes he’s losing while there’s still time to fix his mistake.

Adonis looked at Mother Superior, then at Hershant.

And just like that, he had all his answers.

"Four priests of the Melcian Church found in a den of vice with their robes loosened and their purses open."

The flat, quiet voice belonged to Mother Euphemia who looked down at them with disgust. She was a woman who can be quite expressionless when she wants to be. Much like now, her gentle voice and calm, beautiful eyes like a red ocean.

The four men knelt before her with their foreheads pressed to the floor.

"For these crimes, you will be stripped of your station. Your years will be spent as servants of the convent."

Her tiny fingers slid her sword an inch out of its scabbard.

"Unless you object."

Shing.

"We don’t object!"

"Please, Mother Superior, spare us!"

"We’ll scrub floors! We’ll kiss your feet! Anything!"

One of them screamed desperately and started crawling across the floor like a cockroach, hands reaching for her polished feet and alabaster toes.

Smack!

The scabbard knocked him flat before he got within a foot of her radiant presence.

Mother Superior looked around the hall; there’s women in thin silk and open chests, women wrapped around men who put their hands where they shouldn’t be.

In her eyes, they were garbage.

But there was nothing she could do about it. They were nobles. The only noble scions who ever bothered to attend the church were Godfrey Falsbane and Lloyd Halcyon, and most of the others who tried had their titles stripped for it. The Church and the peerage had never agreed on anything, so no sane lord would worship at an altar that opposed the throne.

Her eyes moved on, and stopped.

A boy sat in the middle of the room, buried in so many women that she almost mistook him for one of them.

He smiled at her. "Helloooo..."

"... Hm?" Euphemia is a little confused by him.

Ding!

[You’ve drawn the attention of Mother Euphemia and achieved a first encounter with a heroine!]

[Euphemia has an adopted daughter, Noelle, a nun of the same convent. Noelle is the losing heroine of this arc. Unlike her mother, Noelle’s faith is shallow. She harbors feelings for Lloyd Halcyon, who is infatuated with Euphemia.]

[Euphemia currently has no feelings for anyone.]

[Opportunity: ★★★★★]

’Both of them, huh? Heroine and losing heroine, with the same man standing between them.’

Adonis stroked his chin.

A lot had changed, but the bones of the story were still there. In the original, Lloyd strung Noelle along for years while Mother Euphemia, worn down by his devotion, finally gave in to him. Noelle walked in on the two of them together. She couldn’t bear to betray her mother, and she couldn’t bear to stay either.

... So, she slit her throat.

His fists tightened at his sides.

It was one of the saddest volumes the author ever wrote.

’Not this time.’

Across the hall, Euphemia pressed a kerchief to her nose and looked at the boy with the golden hair.

He was still smiling.

’Does this child have no respect for his elders?’

She shook her head, then lifted her eyes to the upper floor.

To the old merchant with the badly drawn disguise.

She saw through it in a matter of seconds.

Aldrius took a step back with sweat rolling down his neck and his legs shaking unbelievably. Lily looked at him and couldn’t get how a man that was so "confident" before could be scared by the sight of a harmless churchwoman.

"Ah, ah, ah... eh, ah..."

Adonis watched it all, and the last piece fell into place.

’It’s a setup.’

Church dignitaries never wandered into the diplomatic district, in fact, they barely left the Church except for evangelism and papal processions. Her arrival tonight was too perfect.

So Hershant had maneuvered the king here; he was the one shifting the pieces. With five wives too busy for him, Aldrius had no choice but to find his pleasure elsewhere, and it only took the right nudge.

Then the Church would catch him in the act.

A king found in a brothel. Within days, the commoners would turn on the royal family, and Godfrey would be carried to the throne on a wave of holy outrage. He’d be king in name, a puppet with the Church pulling every string.

A political disaster was about to happen, and barely anyone in the room knew it.

Adonis had two routes.

Let the Church win, then find a way to tear them down later.

Or save Aldrius now, then destroy the Church.

...Heh, he grinned.

’Why choose? I’ll just win on both sides.’

Mother Superior raised a finger and pointed at the shivering king with disgust in her eyes.

At that very moment, Adonis shot out of his chair.

He ran up the stairs, crossed the upper floor, and threw himself at Aldrius’s feet.

"FORGIVE ME, FOR I HAVE SINNEEEEEED!!"

Silence.

Then the wailing began. Adonis rubbed his face against the carpet and sobbed so hard his shoulders shook. Every few seconds, he peeked at the crowd below to check if they were buying it, then went right back to crying.

"...Eh?" said King Aldrius.

His face had gone completely pale.

Old Hershant narrowed his eyes with a grimace.

’What is this boy planning?’

Aldrius tried to ignore him and failed as the boy wrapped both arms around his legs and clung like a child.

"Father, I’ve been such an unfilial son! A disappointment! I’m sorry I came here, it will never happen again, I swear! Please forgive me for everything I’ve done! I’m sorry for bringing shame upon the royal family name!"

Aldrius had no idea what was happening.

Neither did Mother Euphemia, whose kerchief had slipped from her small lips.

Neither did the nobles.

"Did he just call him father?"

"Has the prince gone mad?"

"Maybe the merchant is his real father, and the King isn’t!"

"You idiot! If the merchant is the King, then, then..."

"Impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!"

The whole hall was shouting at once.

Adonis popped to his feet with an impish grin, then swung an arm out and pointed straight at Aldrius.

"Where is your respect?! Can’t you see who stands before you? This man is the King! The man you all adore, who graces you with his presence tonight! He has come into a brothel, just like each and every one of you!"

He smiled so innocently and kept roaring.

"Don’t you know what that means?!"

Aldrius glared at his son with red eyes.

"Son, how could you..."

Tears threatened to roll down his pallid cheek.

He turned his face away.

’How dare he... my own son, my own son was my undoing. It’s over. The throne is lost...’

Hershant walked closer and smiled.

Adonis giggled gleefully in his mind.

’Hehe. I win this round.’