Josh had originally wanted to run.
He did not know much about the Church, but with his meager religious knowledge, what he had done was probably enough to get him tied to a stake and burned to death ten times over.
He had established a religion in Castel's name—no, a cult.
That in itself was nothing much. Under any other lord, at worst he would have gotten a whipping. He was not stupid; although he had borrowed Castel's name, he had desperately sung Theus's praises throughout the Holy Scripture. If he argued his case properly, it might have amounted to nothing more than a well-intentioned mistake.
But who could have imagined that the lord herself would establish a Church?
Just like that, Josh had been promoted to heretic on the spot.
As everyone knew, heretics were far more hateful than heathens.
And of all people to write about, Josh had chosen Theus himself, lavishing pages upon him in the Mystic Society's Holy Scripture. He had personally shoved himself onto the throne of arch-heretic.
What was more, when Josh learned that the Church founded by the lord was called "Empire Truth," he felt even worse.
After the Empress's death, the Empire had fallen completely into the hands of several Holy Sees. The imperial family had been thoroughly driven from the center of power. It was no longer the Empire it had once been.
The lord was the Border Count, held a legitimate claim to the Storm Ocean, possessed such formidable military strength, and had now even extended her reach into Blood Port.
All she needed to do now was raise her arm and declare Castel the true successor of the Empire, then establish some Second Empire or something. Easy enough.
Though, put that way, it was a little strange. The Holy