After listening to head maid Diana's report, Rosetta's already stern and gloomy expression seemed to grow even darker than usual. Yet he said nothing, merely replying calmly, "Understood. You've worked hard. You may leave."
Diana nodded, elegantly stepped back half a step, and gradually vanished within a Light Bending Field.
"Father," Matilda could not help looking at her father, "is the intelligence Diana mentioned... reliable?"
"Diana would not make a mistake in a matter like this, unless the God of War Church has woven a net vast enough to blind every royal eye and ear and deceive the Rangers," Rosetta said calmly.
"...So something truly has gone terribly wrong within the God of War Church, and Malm Dunite has been deliberately concealing it from us..." Matilda spoke in a complicated tone, the dejection in her voice unmistakable. "The entire Grand Cathedral has been concealing it from us..."
"Before Malm was your elder and my friend, he was first the Pope of the God of War. Therefore, before he was loyal to the royal family or his friends, he was first loyal to his god," Rosetta said calmly, as if he had long anticipated all this. "Any devout believer would do the same... When divine authority and royal authority coexist and their interests conflict, this is inevitable."
Matilda sensed a deeper meaning in her father's words, but before she could ask, she heard him suddenly bring up something else. "You haven't gone to show yourself at the council yet, have you?"
"Not yet." Matilda recalled the rest of her schedule for the day, along with several bills at the council that required her presence. She nodded. "I was just about to go."
"Go early. Reserve is the dignity of royalty, but tardiness is not."
Matilda looked at her father, said nothing,