Chapter 163: Shangguan Wan’er

Oh? Qiu Nuoya could not help feeling that this was an incredibly unfair situation for the Saintess. Her fiancé had been taken away by some unknown woman who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Qiu Nuoya could certainly sympathize with her.

Three years ago, when Viktor had been summoned to deal with a dragon, he had mentioned that there was another woman beside the prince rather than the Saintess. That woman must have been the aforementioned Shangguan Wan’er.

"As for me, I was in no position to object to the broken engagement if that was what the prince wanted, so I accepted it. However, regardless of my personal feelings, the Church could not accept the situation, and the matter grew into a serious dispute. For generations, the Velikorya royal family has had a rule that whoever becomes the queen must possess the qualities of a Saintess. Therefore, the Church questioned whether she truly possessed the qualities necessary to become a Saintess. As it turned out, she had more than enough potential to become a Saintess in terms of her abilities, but there was one small problem..."

With that, Sherria let out a sigh.

"What was the problem?"

"She certainly possesses the qualities necessary to become a Saintess. However, I suppose you could say she lacks the qualities necessary to become a queen consort. That is to say, she had absolutely none of the modesty or decorum expected of a woman..."

... I see!

Shangguan Wan’er was fourteen years old. In other words, she was just an ordinary middle-school girl. Meanwhile, the Saintess standing before Qiu Nuoya had probably received elite training from a young age to prepare her for life as a queen consort. Compared to someone like that, it would have been difficult for a middle-school girl who had suddenly appeared from the modern world to possess the qualities expected of a queen consort.

"Even the current queen, who was the previous Saintess, was at a loss over the situation. Yet the girl herself and the First Prince, her fiancé, seemed completely unconcerned. Eventually, the queen declared that if the prince intended to marry that girl, she would strip him of his status as crown prince and disown him."

Whoa, this is getting serious. Wait. If that’s what happened, then why did this turn into a conflict between the royal family and the Church? That was simply an internal dispute within the royal family. What did the Church have to do with it?

As Qiu Nuoya wondered about this, Sherria continued. "The Church was certainly displeased, but we were beginning to reach an agreement that we would recognize the marriage as long as she truly possessed the qualities necessary to become a Saintess. It was then that the queen made that declaration. I had been close to Her Majesty since I was young, so I believe she was also speaking out of consideration for me. However, it seems that her words somehow touched a nerve with His Majesty the King..."

"....."

"To put it simply, His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen had also entered into their marriage because of tradition. Naturally, the King began to question whether such an arrangement was truly appropriate. He was furious that, despite her undeniable qualities as a Saintess, the Queen had chosen to disown their son and strip him of his position as crown prince without considering those qualities at all. He also argued that the Queen did not have the authority to make such a decision in the first place."

"Although their marriage was essentially a political arrangement, both of them deeply loved their children. His Majesty the King wanted to allow his son to spend his life with the woman he loved, while Her Majesty the Queen insisted that possessing the qualities of a Saintess alone was not enough to fulfill the role of queen. A queen needed the qualities necessary to support the country as its mother. As the two of them took opposing positions, the dispute only grew more heated."

So this is basically a massive marital argument?

Come to think of it, the former Saintess, who was now the Queen, probably had the Church supporting her. If so, it was only natural that the Church would eventually get dragged into the dispute.

"During one particularly heated discussion, His Majesty the King suddenly questioned why members of the royal family had to marry a Saintess in the first place. He wondered whether the tradition itself was flawed."

"However, that tradition had been passed down continuously since the time of the first king, and it also served as a means of preventing the royal family from becoming too powerful. The royal family and the Church were supposed to stand on equal footing. Those were the words personally declared by the first king."

"Before the Kingdom of Velikorya was founded, the land was ruled by a tyrannical king who governed the country as a dictatorship. Having witnessed such a ruler firsthand, the first king of Velikorya established the Church so that it could serve as a force capable of stopping the royal family should they ever begin to make a grave mistake."

"Since then, the royal family and the Church had maintained a relationship in which they restrained one another to prevent either side from becoming too powerful. Yet His Majesty the King declared that perhaps such an arrangement was wrong in the first place."

His Majesty the King had completely turned his back on the Church. He argued that the royal family was responsible for governing the country, while the Church did nothing more than praise and pray to the gods, yet still insisted that the two sides were equals. To him, that very claim was absurd.

The fact that queens had traditionally been chosen from among the Saintess also meant that several daughters of powerful nobles lived as Saintess within the Church, providing it with a substantial amount of wealth. His Majesty the King was unhappy about that as well.