"Do you know about Dittmarschen?"
At the question from Diocesan Alonso, Priest Roberta blinked.
"Pardon?"
"You don't?"
Dittmarschen, huh.
She searched for the place name in her head.
"If you're talking about the place at the northern end of the Osnober Kingdom, I've heard it's extremely cold and full of monsters because it's the entrance to the Ice Peninsula."
"That's right. I was once the head priest there."
Alonso nodded once, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. It was a habit he had when he started thinking deeply about something, and Roberta knew this well, so she sighed inwardly and turned her gaze away.
It was a day in late spring.
The sunlight came in through the mosaic window, warming her body and causing drowsiness during lunch.
Roberta, as a young priest of twenty-three, was in charge of copying scriptures in the scriptorium set up in a corner of the Nua Grand Temple. She had been yawning and working slowly until a moment ago when she was suddenly summoned by the diocesan.
'Are they going to send me on a mission somewhere?'
She took it lightly.
The Nua Grand Temple was where the diocesan resided and carried out his duties, so there were plenty of people to help with the work, but she was the youngest of the priests. She was often called upon for tasks that were difficult to entrust to trainees.
For example, monster hunting, ruin exploration, or being an observer.
"I would like to entrust that place to you."
However, the proposal that came from the diocesan's mouth was unexpected.
"I'm saying I will recommend you as the head priest."
Roberta received a letter.
The content was that the head priest of Dittmarschen had gone missing, creating a vacancy in the work, so a successor should be immediately appointed and sent. The seal of the Pope of the Pantheon was stamped at the bottom.
"Pardon?"
Her reaction was the same one word as before.
She couldn't even think of closing her gaping mouth and read the letter again and again. It couldn't be helped. She had only received her priesthood two years ago. But already, they were going to entrust her with a temple?
"For your information, this position is directly appointed by His Holiness."
Alonso pointed to the seal with his index finger.
"Is there even a grand temple in Dittmarschen…?"
"Of course not. That place is the most remote of remote areas. Its location is close to the end of the world, and although it is larger than our grand temple's jurisdiction, the arable land is less than a tenth. The population is even smaller."
There is only one temple, small and cozy, Alonso added.
"His Holiness directly appoints the head priest of such a place?"
"Well, the predecessor was a person directly chosen by His Holiness himself. It seems he disappeared due to an unfortunate incident."
Disappeared?
"His Holiness probably doesn't want to experience failure twice. Since I know the situation there well, to me—"
"Wait, just a moment!"
Roberta almost dropped the letter on the table and raised both hands to interrupt Alonso. She had no idea where to start to grasp the situation that had rushed in.
"I apologize for interrupting, but let's go through it one by one. You're saying that the position of head priest in Dittmarschen is vacant, and you're recommending me for it, right?"
Alonso nodded.
"The reason the position is vacant is because the predecessor disappeared."
"Unfortunately, yes."
He frowned.
"And that predecessor was appointed by His Holiness the Pope?"
"Yes. That's how it is. Isn't it a simple story?"
"No, it's not simple…"
Roberta trailed off, her lips trembling.
He had euphemistically said 'an unfortunate incident' earlier, but she could guess. As the authority of the Pantheon had waned in recent years, there were secular lords who coveted the temples.
Acts that she could not have imagined when she devoted herself, such as confiscating temple assets or exercising the right to appoint clergy, were being carried out openly.
In the midst of this, a priest disappeared?
It was obvious. He had been murdered.
'They're entrusting a place like that to me?'
She thought there was no chalice more poisoned than this.
"Shouldn't we find the missing priest first?"
"Don't worry about that. His Holiness would also want you to forget about it."
But, as she was about to say, Alonso cut her off.
"Roberta. What you need to do is go to your assigned post immediately and fulfill your responsibilities as the head priest. Leave the predecessor's affairs out of your concern."
The two made eye contact. As Roberta opened her mouth to ask further, Alonso shook his head. It meant she shouldn't ask any more questions, and it also meant she should accept it quietly.
She wanted to say 'That's enough' and storm out of the place. But she couldn't. How could she, a mere common priest, refuse the order of someone who was the diocesan? Also, she knew Alonso's personality well.
'He must have already appointed me as the successor.'
The agreement is just a formality. The only rebellion she could do was to sigh deeply and throw out a question.
"Why me of all people?"
"Because you resemble me."
She made a strange expression.
"Ah, I'm not talking about appearance. I'm talking about personality."
Alonso smiled and got up from his seat. Then he turned around and looked up at the wooden panel hanging above the wooden window.
On the left side of the long wooden panel, there was a scene of a woman finding a baby dropped on the ground, and on the right side, there was a scene of the baby growing into an adult and handing a torch to a group like monkeys.
It was a print of two verses from the scripture.
"As you know, I don't have a very deep faith."
Roberta quickly looked behind her. She was flustered, wondering what would happen if the door was open and someone heard.
"Alonso."
At the voice filled with reproach, he shrugged.
"That's the truth. How many people today truly have deep faith and become priests? They all harbor secular purposes and wear the means. You too."
Roberta coughed dryly and turned her gaze away.
Because her conscience ached to say no.
"I wouldn't say it's your nature, though."
"..."
"Roberta, I'm the one who took you in when you were abandoned. I'm also the one who ordained you as a priest. Even if I'm not your biological father, I raised you, so you can't help but resemble me. Isn't that right?"
She scratched the back of her neck awkwardly and turned her gaze away.
"In my younger days, I think I lived quite well as the head priest of Dittmarschen. So, you, who resemble me, will be able to do well too."
#
After such a conversation, Roberta headed to Dittmarschen. It was a journey that took at least four months just to get there.
There was no companion. Alonso told her to go alone, saying that only one person was needed, and only gave her travel expenses and a horse.
"Take care of what's missing yourself. You're old enough, aren't you?"
What she was supposed to take care of also included information. Alonso didn't tell her anything. Even though he had been the head priest for over a decade and would know a lot, he didn't tell Roberta even a little bit of the story.
'It's strange when I think about it now.'
Alonso had raised Roberta, telling her all sorts of experiences like fairy tales, but he had left out the story of that time, the longest period of his life.
And he recommended her because their personalities were similar? She had grown up in her adoptive father's arms and unknowingly resembled him, but would that be a reason to recommend her for a public position?
'There's something there.'
She left the grand temple with questions.
She wanted to know the facts that Alonso hadn't told her.
At the point of leaving the grand temple, all she knew was that the priest appointed by the Pope had been killed in her assigned post. Because of this, she asked about Dittmarschen wherever she went.
Since she was a priest, she naturally borrowed a room from the temple and stayed there, and the informants were also priests. But for three months, the answer 'Isn't it roughly in the north?' was repeated. She barely knew her adoptive father's former assigned post, so how could others know?
She only heard a proper answer when she reached the Osnober Kingdom.
"They say he's a half-elf."
Said the old priest.
"You mean a Gallua?"
Gallua is a word that refers to a half-elf, a hybrid of human and elf. There is also a similar word, Mannium, which refers to a hybrid of human and dwarf.
"It's just a rumor. However, there are few reasons to live that long."
"If he lived long, how long?"
"Well? I don't know his exact age either. I've had several conversations with him, but I couldn't guess his age from his appearance. It's just a guess based on the fact that there are records that he succeeded Lord Hilde after he died a long time ago. That was 300 years ago."
Roberta narrowed her eyes.
"He certainly lived a long time. He wouldn't be an ordinary human."
"Either a member of the royal family or a hybrid born by chance."
When the civilizations of dwarves and elves coexisted with human civilization, humans had frequent exchanges with them, so hybrids were common.
So much so that there are records that there was a kingdom composed of hybrids. Gallua, Mannium, etc., were the names of those kingdoms, and today they have become words that lump together certain hybrids. That era was not the era in which Roberta lived, but a very distant past.
Hybrids are said to live very long lives, but they are not immortal. They lost their independent civilizations along with the flow of the times and were assimilated into human civilization, and now hybrids were as rare as pure-blooded dwarves and elves.
"What's his name?"
"Ulrich. He has no surname. To be exact, he's Ulrich of Dittmarschen, but that's a surname he took when he came as a son-in-law, and there are no records about him before that."
"That's unexpected. I thought he would be famous since he lived so long."
"Hmm, he is famous. There's no one in this country who doesn't know the name Ulrich. The reason there are no records about him is literally because there aren't any, not because people aren't interested."
"Is that so?"
"It's strange not to be interested if there's a lord who has lived for 300 years. Moreover, this place had been going through a civil war until a few years ago."
It was a civil war that lasted as many as 32 years.
The accident in which the crown prince died of an epidemic was the starting point, and brothers and sisters fought and killed each other, and then it became a great war in which all the people of Osnober participated.
Since they were fighting for the throne, not for small profits, there was no mercy for competitors, and the value of ten heads fell lower than a penny.
This chaos seemed to end with the victory of some idiot who received mercenaries from neighboring countries. The country that had collapsed on its own had fallen to the level of being conquered by an idiot who didn't even realize that he was a puppet.
But the idiot invaded Dittmarschen.
No one knew why he was aiming for such barren land. It was so unexpected that there was an opinion that 'he must have been annoyed by the sight of them watching alone while others were shedding blood.'
And the result doesn't need to be said.
"That idiot lost. No one knows how he lost, just like the lord's life. What is clear is that the idiot's head was sent to the old capital, and the count's head, who was manipulating him, was also sent to his master."
"And then?"
"And then the evil neighbor withdrew his hand, and we realized that we didn't recognize the beast."
If a fox riding on the back of a wolf ruled the animal kingdom and was bitten to death by a lion, how would the weak animals accept it? Wouldn't they naturally try to make the lion their king?
A family that prided itself on its history had been wiped out during the civil war, and it was a world where only rookies remained whose history was shorter than Ulrich's reign. They made a crown to replace the lost crown and offered it to him.
In response, Ulrich chose a person from his deceased wife's clan, put a crown on them, and sent them to them. That was four years ago.
"That's quite an ungreedy old man."
Greed, the desire to eat up even a small profit if given the chance, is a quality of the nobility, but to refuse the throne that nobles long for?
"Old man? Well, anyway… he's a noble person."
The actions he showed after that were also unusual.
The only thing he did after sending out the new king was to arrange marriages between the Hilderson clan and the rookie noble families.
As a result, kinship relationships were formed between the nobles, and the civil war was quelled in an instant, but the person who led the work did not show himself. He did not attend the wedding ceremony, nor did he leave his territory when the coronation ceremony was held.
"I thought he might be wielding power behind the scenes, but not even that. It was a detached act, as if he had no interest in the secular world, as if he didn't want to go outside his garden."
"Could there be other intentions that we don't know about?"
Roberta couldn't easily believe those words.
The Pope's priest died. Even if there was no certainty that the lord killed him, there was some kind of incident that led to that situation, and she thought that a detached person couldn't be involved in such an incident.
"I also belonged to the grand temple like you, sister, and I saw several hybrids at that time. The oldest of them was a duke of a certain country, and he was said to have lived for three hundred and twenty years because he had dwarf blood."
The duke, he was so old that his body was like a mummy. He couldn't walk, and he didn't even have the strength to lift an arm while lying down. It was clear to anyone that death was lingering nearby. But even until the moment his breath was cut off, he didn't try to share what he had, not even with his own flesh and blood.
"Greed, the ancient saints said, is human nature. Even if time dulls the character, greed is sharpened all the more. I realized that fact while watching the hybrids."
"..."
"But he was different. He seemed like a person without desires."
"Like a monk?"
"It's different from a monk. A monk is a person who forgets or suppresses desires, so he can't eliminate the desire itself. That's why they sometimes succumb to evil gods, and even cut out their brains to prevent this. On the other hand, Ulrich, it was as if the desire had become ashes that had all burned out."
The old priest hesitated for a moment and then continued.
"I don't know how that's possible. I knew he was a strange person, but maybe he lived longer than recorded, and time dulled even greed."
Roberta thought it was impossible.
"Could you tell me more?"
As seen in the story of the duke, even hybrids have a lifespan of only a few hundred years. Like the saying that he lived for 300 years and became a mummy, even if a hybrid continues to live beyond that, they will only be maintaining their lives. She thought that the lord of Dittmarschen was the same.