Chapter 39: Dragged out and Hanged

Salser reached out and grabbed Jeanne’s arm, pulling her back into the chair. “You’re my superior in name at least, can you not make such a scene on someone else’s turf?”

“In fact as well,” she glared at the Dark wizard.

Salser thought to himself, ‘Is this woman babbling nonsense?’

“This… Miss Inquisitor, I mean no offense to your relationship with Mr. Salser, nor do I intend to inquire why you are with a dark wizard, but it seems you are quite dissatisfied with the noble class?” Prinn asked thoughtfully.

Jeanne stopped, turned to stare at Prinn, and then spoke:

“It’s not dissatisfaction, I simply don’t care. Nobles? What about them? As long as they don’t drag their feet due to cowardice or internal strife during war. Our church and secular states are usually separate; I have no prejudice against nobles. At least they are well-educated enough to be of some help in certain areas—though they often do more harm than good.”

“Wait, since when did we start speaking our minds openly?” Salser interrupted Jeanne.

“It must have started when Miss Jeanne said she led the French army to defeat the Celts,” the Dark Young—Saya, or still a Dark Young, interjected casually after chatting with Astolfo. “Since Miss Effie has left, I see no need to keep up appearances.” She said with a smile that didn’t quite suit a little girl, “My master used to enjoy collecting histories from around the world. Could you tell him what happened during that period?”

Jeanne looked at the Dark Young, her eyelid twitching—she wasn’t very receptive to this creature. “Nothing extraordinary,” she shifted her gaze, “just wars over border conflicts. Since Miss Effie has left, I’ll give you something concrete: at that time, the church’s military declared neutrality, but everyone knew—we wanted to see France and Britain bleed each other dry. Perhaps we had plans to bait them into conflict, but I didn’t know, or it was too late to execute them—Britain had already eagerly declared war on my homeland.”

“How did the Church allow Miss Inquisitor to intervene in the war?” Prinn asked her.

“Please, are you an idiot? If we saw Britain about to win, we’d find an excuse to help France; if we saw France about to win, we’d find an excuse to help Britain. Although I didn’t think so much at first, later, I realized I was ‘the church’s excuse’—so I started to openly abuse my power for personal gains, ignoring many secular rules: with my command of the local troops in battle, not to mention minor nobles and local bishops, even the higher-ups who dared to interfere could be executed on the spot by me,—as for sending them to the Inquisition for trial, it was only because I personally respected the Church.”

“So, what if your homeland was about to conquer Britain?” Prinn seemed unconcerned with her tone.

“Oh, that would have nothing to do with me, it would be best if those Celts were completely exterminated.” Jeanne laughed twistedly, Salser always thought her expressions were twisted. After a pause, she continued, “At worst, the church would use another excuse to help Britain push them back, anyway, it wouldn’t be a loss.”

“You’re quite candid…”

“Heh, it’s just the truth, and I extend the same to that woman swinging around a broken sword dug up from some grave—The Black Knight King? Hilarious, my church knights have already died in three batches, it’s just a pity I couldn’t make her Round Table knights die in three batches too. You know? I once paved the bones of the Celtic barbarians from the Brest in the Adai Wasteland all the way to Warsaw, and I almost managed to chop off Gawain’s head and send it to her as a gift—just missed it by a bit! Damn it! My hometown was almost trampled by them, and I couldn’t even see her pained expression!”

“Just say you didn’t manage to do it, why the long rant? Do you think adding more words would make it sounds more convincing?” Salser mocked her.

“…”

Jeanne fell silent for a while. She stomped on his tail with all her might, saw Salser’s face turn pale, and then continued, “In the end, it was just routine mediation. Since the Church had just cured Charles VI’s madness, and the court was busy executing his uncles and purging the nobles loyal to them, in the end, it was I and Duke Anastasia Kruz who represented France to sign the treaty with those barbarians, ending the war.”

“Can you tell me the details of the treaty you signed?” Prinn asked curiously.

“There were no details,” Jeanne shrugged, “if I have to say, Duke Anastasia was very dissatisfied with the so-called Knight King, but he didn’t want to directly insult the other side’s king, so he signaled to me that I could speak freely.”

“Seriously? The solemn ground where a treaty was signed turned into a fish market with you women hurling insults?” Salser finally shook off the agony in his tail, plotting a sweet revenge for later.

“Can you use a better description?”

Jeanne’s frown clearly showed her displeasure, but perhaps she felt Salser’s description was actually not wrong, so she didn’t curse further but continued in a serious tone:

“My opinion at the time was—let the Knight King hand over her three main knights who participated in the war—Gawain, Mordred, and Lancelot, drag them out and hang them, or say, shoot them with that new popular secular weapon, the musket.”

Salser almost spat out his drink:

“What was Duke Anastasia’s expression at the time?”

“I think the duke was quite happy, he just verbally advised me to calm down, but actually did nothing to stop me.” Jeanne’s eyes fixed on Salser, “I tried to bargain with the Knight King, saying that executing only Gawain would be fine. Honestly, I felt I had conceded enough, but she just wouldn’t agree, so I had to give up.”

“And what was the Knight King’s expression?”

“Frankly, it was impossible to read her,” Jeanne remarked with a sneer, “her poker face is as pale and lifeless as a corpse fresh from the grave. I had half a mind she was some sort of ghoul, back from the dead, so I commanded our priests to hurl their exorcism spells at her. Nothing. Not even a twitch. Instead, one of her knights, Mordred, has the gall to throw down a gauntlet to challenge me to a duel, accusing me of slandering her royal sire. As if I cared for such trifles. I was insulting her! And what of it?”

“Miss Inquisitor is very… free-spirited,” Prinn coughed awkwardly. He probably meant to say reckless.

“But now, this is all in the past, it’s been a couple of years since the treaty was signed.”

After a pause, Jeanne added:

“Now I’ve accepted new order, mostly operating across the Genabackis continent, and, by some twist of fate, shackled to this Dark wizard. Given that you’ve remained unscathed in this city of the Dream Warren all this while, I won’t purify you, let’s leave it at that.”

Author's note:

Please don’t mind the historical details, as the setting of this book is an alternate world. 

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