Chapter 190.2
Then, the immediate problem would be the church. Sure enough, when I turned to my father and asked him about that side of the story, the situation was not good.
There seems to be a part of the church that wont listen to us, saying that it is their role to investigate the church.
Thats to be expected, isnt it?
I let out a sigh. I understood what he wanted to say, but it was really a really troublesome matter in this situation. It seemed that not only the Prime Minister and the Crown Prince, but also His Majesty the King had been working on various things behind the scenes, but the walls of the church were thick and high for them to push through with their investigations.
Originally, the church had a kind of extraterritoriality. This in itself was not unusual. Even if not all religious facilities were like that, churches had an aspect of being a refuge asylum where the law and authority could not reach, as was also the case in medieval Japan with the Enkiri-ji temple.
(T/N: I checked some articles including some theses and wikipedia to ensure this whole thing is as accurate as possible.)
The word King gave the impression of an absolute monarchy, but in the medieval world, or in this world, which was medieval-style, the existence of an asylum of refuge was inevitable in a political system where state power and the legal system had not yet fully developed and there was no clear separation of religion and state. Of course, it may also be significant that religious institutions had their own armed groups.
Historically, even in my previous life, the religious centers such churches slowly lost their power to act as refugee asylums as the world began to tread toward the separation of religion and state, but until then, they would be like autonomous territories that existed within the country, making it difficult to step into them.
If the relationship between the state and the church is bad, their reputation with the public will inevitably decline.
Yes.
In this world, the Church was a symbol of faith, as well as a hospital-like existence. To put it bluntly, because the medical development of this world was lagging behind, even the royal family had to rely on the church when they fell ill, which inevitably meant that the Church had to be treated with care.
Moreover, some of the nobles and people who have had their relatives saved by the magic of the church, or rather the priests, may not be able to lift their voices against the church, and some of them may not even be willing to do so from the beginning.
Above all, for what it may be worth, there were many people who were serious about helping others, such as the priests at the end of the line in the provinces. Unfortunately, the deterioration of the relationship between the state and the church would affect those serious people as well.
In addition, there was also the fact that the second princess, Laura, was a saint recognized by the church, which made things very complicated. As a result, there were voices from the noble society asking whether the royal family could undermine Lauras position as a saint if they tried to exert its power over the church. She was also a beautiful girl, you see, so everyone wanted her.
I mean, I would like to say that they should just give up on trying to break into the relationship between Laura and Mazell, but this may be all the more difficult. Especially for the nobles who have a stake in this endeavor. Besides their own feelings, the ups and downs of their families might also be at risk.
Moreover, even the Church is not monolithic.
True.
It was inevitable that there were various factions even within the church. If the church as a whole was against the royal family, it might be possible to prepare something that could deal with it in one swing disregarding all the consequences, but that was not the case.
Some factions within the church had already been leaning towards the royal family because of the Finnoi incidents, so the Royal Family was more keen in supporting these factions and having them clean up the church instead of brute forcing things. After all, fighting the church directly may worsen the situation as they needed healers.
Unlike games, relationships never progressed with a single click in the real world.
All of this was not something that could be solved by talking only within Count Zeaverts office, or rather my fathers office. For now, I was able to organize the information and that was good enough for today.
I returned to my room and told Frenssen that I wanted to try out something I had noticed the other day and that I would experiment with it tomorrow, so I told him to get ready. Frenssen left the room and came back soon after. His complexion was not so good.
Whats wrong?
Yes, they found the body of priest Kempel.
I didnt get up or do anything that would change my expression, but I was sure my eyebrows were furrowed. After Count Gamrich, another sudden death of someone involved in the Duel Trial.
It was a blatant and poor attempt to neutralize the situation. It was as if someone who was not familiar with conspiracies was pulling the strings. It was as if they wanted to tell us that there was someone conspiring against us. Hmmm.
Suicide or murder?
No external injuries were reported, but its still just hearsay.
I understand. Im sorry, but could you check on that tomorrow?
Yes, sir.
If we had access to the Internet or social networking sites, we would have new information by the end of the day, but in this world, that was impossible. I stopped thinking about it for the moment.
The most dangerous thing was to be swayed by half-baked rumors. I have to confirm the information first before I think about it.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l