Hush Now, Saintess!

Chapter 64

Translator: Yonnee

—

“Ah, Reverend…?”

“Greetings to you again, Ducal Lady.”

It was the high-ranking priest who had guided me to the donation room earlier.

He did say that his name was Joseph, I guess.

“Oh, by any chance, what I told you before…?”

When I asked, the priest nodded stiffly.

“I wanted to check it quietly, but I apologize. I got worried about the ‘disruption’ that Your Ladyship mentioned earlier, so I went to check. But…”

“I ran into him.”

When Reverend Joseph trailed off, the high priest himself naturally filled in the blanks.

“I heard that Your Ladyship came to visit, and that there is a commotion going on in the temple. So, I went out to see what’s going on and at the same time greet you, but then…”

His soft, gentle eyes felt as if they held the pinnacle of kindness in them, but for a moment, his gaze sharpened in an instant.

“I never imagined that I’d be faced with such a shameful sight.”

Hiccup.

After hearing the high priest’s cold words, Owen bowed his head in shame and made some strange hiccup.

It was quite painful to see him like this, actually. Shivering like a kicked puppy in the rain… or not. Haha. I’m actually savoring this sweet, sweet victory.

Inwardly sneering at that guy, I then faced the high priest and answered him.

“I apologize for inadvertently causing a commotion, Your Holiness.”

“Not at all. It’s thanks to you that the divine beast has been found, and you were able to bring to light that someone here is not qualified to be a priest. I can only be grateful.”

“Then, his position…”

When I asked faintly, the high priest’s expression hardened coldly once more.

“As of today, I declare this man unfit to be a priest. He is hereby stripped of his position.”

“…Y-Your Holiness! Please, to that extent…!”

In the face of punishment, Owen reached forward to cling onto the high priest with tears in his eyes.

However, the other priests around him stopped him, and so he just fell on the ground in an unsightly manner.

“I shall not rescind my decision on this. Your family will be contacted to notify them. And, there will be a separate punishment for the crime of the divine beast’s maltreatment.”

“Huhk— Your Holiness! Please show me mercy!”

“Joseph. Kick this scoundrel out of the temple at once.”

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

Answering as such, Reverend Joseph gave some instructions to the apprentice priests.

And they ran somewhere and soon returned with paladins.

The knights wearing white armor firmly clasped Owen’s arms.

“Don’t, don’t! Let go of me! Do you know who I even am… Your Holiness! Your Eminence! Ladies, please! Please help me!”

He begged loudly and relentlessly to be saved, and for a moment, the image of Charlotte doing the same overlapped with him.

‘Yes, that’s right. Live a good life from now on, like me.’

After Owen was taken away like that, I glanced to the side where the three noble ladies were.

As our eyes met, they visibly flinched.

Owen, who they had sided with, was taken away in such a pathetic manner like that. The sight of him like that must have given them a reality check.

I smiled brightly towards them.

‘Just you wait.’

Let me just hand over this cat to someone else, then I’ll gladly claim my money from you guys.

* * *

“Then, I’ll be leaving first. Take care, Veronica, Scarlet.”

“You too, Helena.”

“Be safe on your way.”

The three noble ladies parted ways at the temple’s front steps.

Helena left first, going away in a carriage. Then, Scarlet and Veronica got into the same carriage.

The two of them smiled as they saw off Helena, but as she went away, they both scowled soon enough.

“How could this be?”

“Exactly. This is absolutely absurd. Did she really find the divine beast in such a short amount of time?”

“I know right. And that priest, too. Unbelievable.”

“He swindled us completely. He’s nothing but an animal abuser.”

“Right, right. How despicable.”

The more they thought about it, the more they bristled with anger and speechlessness.

Quite naturally, they expected that they’d win the bet. Yet at the end of the day, they were walking away with a loss of ten million shillings each.

That aside.

“You saw that earlier, too, right? When His Holiness was trying to take the divine beast…”

“Yeah. The divine beast staunchly refused to leave that woman’s arms.”

It was just as they said.

Soon after Owen was dragged out of everyone’s sight…

Roella tried to hand over the divine beast to the high priest.

However, the divine beast showed not a single sign of leaving Roella’s arms.

The other priests tried to yank the divine beast away and pull him off, but.

—Nyaaaaaaaaaaaong!!

The cat even went as far as hissing at everyone while fiercely resisting.

Because of this, they all hesitated. The divine beast was expressing such strong and loud dislike, and so the priests feared that they would get into trouble if they were to touch it wrong.

And soon after that, people began to make a great fuss.