Me, a priest? How could that be!

Chapter 154 The music continues, the dance continues.

After finishing their business, the group returned to the hotel. Throughout the journey, Charlotte's expression remained grim; he seemed lost and dazed.

"Hey Charlotte, are you alright?"

"I'm actually fine."

His smile was awful.

Darkness sighed and said, "While Charlotte's forgery of the noble's token was wrong, I also made a mistake by not correcting it in time. I will write a letter to Miss Claire to apologize later, so you don't need to be so discouraged. And on the bright side, we were stopping the Demon King's army's conspiracy and preventing them from disrupting the stability of the kingdom, so even if Miss Claire is too angry about this, she won't be too upset."

"Exactly, exactly! What's wrong with the kingdom doing its part to stop the Demon King's army from invading the Axis Cult? So, Charlotte, you're completely right!" Aqua said shamelessly.

Charlotte twitched the corner of her mouth.

If it were someone else, it wouldn't be a problem. Even if it were Yūken Hibiki impersonating her, nothing would happen. But if it were me, and the target was Claire—she might find a reason to tear me to pieces in order to prevent me from getting close to Alice again.

"But isn't there an easier way?"

1

What does "和真" mean?

'

"Look, Charlotte just said that the forged token belongs to one of the two great noble families, along with the Dustinis family. So, if Darkness uses his own family's token, wouldn't the misunderstanding be cleared up?"

"Ah!" X4

They hadn't even thought of that.

But now that the mission has been assigned, it's too late to go back. Perhaps Charlotte's keepsake is already on Claire's desk.

"Really." Kazuma Sato shrugged. "It's because Darkness is too stubborn and unwilling to abuse her noble power that her companions are in trouble, isn't it? You're still a young lady of noble birth, can't you be a little more domineering? Just like those hateful nobles who are full of stereotypes."

"What do you mean 'good or bad'? I am indeed a young lady from a wealthy family! Besides, not all nobles are like you say. My father and Balta are quite honest, aren't they? And Miss Claire, she's not the kind of person you imagine! Enough already—!"

Despite what she said, Sato Kazuma and the others had never met Claire, so they could only shrug noncommittally.

"Megumi and Aqua, you two, you tell her something too—hey, what are you two doing sneakily?"

Kazuma Sato wanted to urge the other two to condemn Darkness, but he found that the two had been fiddling with something since earlier. Upon closer inspection, he realized that they were holding clay and concentrating on making something.

"This? This—it's something I made based on the keepsake Charlotte gave me. Look, it's exactly the same, right? With this, I can always claim to be a child of the Sinphonia family, and I can act however I want. Even if I'm caught, I can say it's Charlotte's fault, and we won't be blamed at all—ahhh!"

Darkness snatched the clay and smashed it to pieces.

Charlotte also gave a slight twitch of her lips.

This person completely disregards the lives of others. After seeing someone else take the blame, she actually did something like this—is she really a goddess?

Back at the hotel.

Wiz greeted everyone, and they told her what had happened.

Now that we've handed the wanted poster to the guild and asked them to distribute it to all the hot springs, that's all we can do. That man can no longer easily approach the hot springs, and he probably even has difficulty moving around town. From now on, we just need to leisurely enjoy the hot springs according to our original plan.

—That's probably what Kazuma Sato and the others were thinking.

But plans don't always go as expected. Just when everyone thought things were over, there was a loud knock on the hotel door. When they opened it, they saw a familiar figure standing there—the very same employee who had asked them to issue the wanted poster. He must have rushed here at full speed, he said, panting heavily as he stood outside the door.

"This is terrible! The hot springs—! The town's hot springs are gushing out contaminated hot water—!"

That's what he said.

Aqua rushed to the hotel immediately.

Charlotte looked at the other women who were carrying their clothes and preparing to go to the hot spring, and said, "After fighting the Demon King's army for so long, can't we enjoy ourselves a little? Forget about these trivial matters, let's keep playing music and dancing."

"Mr. Charlotte————"

"Don't look at me like that. Although I really want to help, right now everyone except Aqua can only watch, right?"

""

The others couldn't help but fall silent.

Of all these people, only Aqua possesses the ability to purify water; even Charlotte can't help. Since that's the case, they'll just have to wait at the inn.

The group didn't sleep very well that night, and the streets were a bit noisy. It wasn't until late at night that Aqua returned to the hotel looking exhausted.

Charlotte greeted her.

After inquiring, I learned that the emergence of the contaminated hot spring seemed to be only temporary. It stopped immediately after emerging temporarily, almost as if someone was conducting an experiment.

"I think the problem lies at the source."

"The source? That's the mountain behind the headquarters of the Axis Cult, right?"

"That's right."

The headquarters of the Axis Order, that is, the cathedral—speaking of which, Charlotte, as a follower of the Axis, has never been to the headquarters yet. Behind the cathedral headquarters is a mountain, and the source of the town's lifeline—the hot springs—lies on that mountain. Of course, the source is strictly controlled, and it wouldn't be easy to break in there.

"It's really unlikely that they could poison every hot spring in such a short time. Being wanted would make the criminal so angry that they would just go straight to the source of pollution without thinking twice. That's a more natural way to think about it."

"----Um?"

Why are you looking at me like that?

"No, it's nothing."

Despite Aqua's usual foolish and idiotic appearance, when it comes to her followers, her feet leave the ground and her intelligence returns to its peak. Indeed, the key to stopping her from acting foolishly is to use the Axis Cult to control her.

"I feel like I've been offended, Charlotte."

"You can remove the 'feeling' part."

"I'm going to strangle you!!"

"Let go, let go now!! I can't breathe!"

Aqua gripped Charlotte's neck tightly, clearly taking the Demon King's hatred for Charlotte into her own hands, hence the great force she used. The two wrestled around the guest room, and soon the others gathered around. It turned out they were also worried about Aqua and hadn't gone to sleep.

Charlotte relayed Aqua's discovery to everyone.

So everyone decided—

"Alright, let's go investigate the source!"

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