Chapter 13

I pretended to pray, keeping an eye on my surroundings.
Sensing that everyone else had finished, I ended my prayer as well.

“…Thank you all for coming today. Those whose prayers are recognized will be contacted by the church.”

After the priest’s closing remarks, we left the church and boarded the carriage with Mom.

“This prayer will decide who becomes the Saint, right?”

It was Solene who spoke up first.

“Yes.”

“Then isn’t it unfair?”

“Unfair?”

Suddenly, Solene began questioning the fairness of the church.
I had no intention of joining the conversation between Mother and Solene, but since it piqued my interest, I listened quietly.

“The prayer topic assigned to me by the church was utterly impossible.”

“An impossible topic?”

I couldn’t imagine the church, which emphasized fairness, assigning such unreasonable tasks.
“Yes. It was about the disappearance incidents in the Anguis Forest of the Miraldy region.”

Disappearances.
Recently, not just children, but even adults had been going missing.
Because of that, entry into the Anguis Forest alone had been prohibited for both children and adults.

“Disappearances…”

Back when I was the Saint, no petitions requesting prayers for incidents like that had ever been submitted.

“Disappearances are something knights should be solving. It’s wrong to entrust that to Saint candidates.”

“Yes… that’s true…”

“Handing over investigations that the knights are struggling with to the Saint candidates… isn’t that just the knights shirking their duties?”

Unconsciously, I found myself nodding at Solene’s words.

“Maybe it’s the church’s last desperate hope that if it’s a Saint, something miraculous might happen.”

“A Saint should be preventing incidents before they even happen.”

“But if that happens, it becomes harder to evaluate the Saint’s powers.”

“Then what happens if a Saint causes an incident herself and then solves it?”

Indeed, Solene had a point.
That might have been why I was misunderstood before.

“…Such things will eventually be exposed.”

“That’s it! If I do that, I can definitely become the Saint!”

“You must never do that!”

Mother, who had been passively listening until now, suddenly denied it forcefully.
Since Solene was the real Saint, even if she staged something, a re-investigation would just confirm her authenticity.
But only I knew that—so perhaps Mother’s strong refusal was the right move.

“…Fine, I understand…”

“Truly, don’t even think about it.”