This was St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
Inside the largest church in the world today, an old man was reviewing documents in one of its incomparably luxurious rooms.
"Hmm?"
Suddenly, as though he had sensed something, the old man raised his head and looked toward the door.
"Bang—!"
Almost at the same moment, the door abruptly exploded.
A fierce gale hammered heavily against the door like an iron mallet, blasting it apart, shattering and disintegrating it. Countless fragments of rubble swept into the luxurious room amid the howling shockwave, sending the documents spread across the desk before the old man flying everywhere.
In response, the old man immediately began chanting an extremely brief spell under his breath. The documents around him seemed as though time had reversed: first freezing in midair, then following their previous trajectories as they flew back to their original positions, neatly arranged once more before him.
Only after doing this did the old man narrow his eyes and stare ahead.
"Oh? Working, are you? Pretty diligent!"
Along with that flippant voice, someone slowly walked in through the shattered doorway.
She was a woman who did not appear very old, likely around twenty.
The woman had a curvaceous figure, but her appearance was hard to praise. Not only was her eye makeup outrageously exaggerated, but iron rings pierced her ears, nose, lips, and eyelids, throwing her entire face off balance and making her thoroughly unpleasant to look at.
Her attire seemed deliberately designed to be obnoxious as well. She wore a long dress based on a one-piece Western gown, a thin leather belt around her waist, detachable sleeves extending from her wrists to her upper arms, and a piece of cloth over her head that concealed every strand of hair. It looked like medieval clothing, yet