Chapter Thirty-Eight: One Hundred Thousand Without Scruples

Seeing that there was no way to keep up the pretense, Reimu dropped all disguise, curling her lips nonchalantly. “Sorry, this is my real personality. I guess it’s too bad that your image of a saintly maiden has been shattered!”

“I don’t see any sign of embarrassment on you. And how do you know what I’m thinking? Can you read minds?” Link couldn’t help but complain inwardly. He then cleared his throat to cover up his own awkwardness. “Haha, no, it’s nothing. I’m just a little surprised, that’s all. By the way, High Priestess of the Celestial Spirit, what did you mean earlier when you said you forgot your lines?”

“Uh…” Reimu hesitated for a moment, but since her disguise had already been exposed, she shamelessly admitted, “It’s nothing. The old ladies in the church kept telling me that meeting you was a big deal, and I had to maintain a mysterious and noble demeanor. They even made me memorize a bunch of annoying lines. But I forgot them halfway through, and you saw what happened next.” At this point, she looked at Link with a blank expression and added, “Let me introduce myself again. My name is Reimu, as you know, current High Priestess of the Celestial Spirit Church. Archbishop Neil, I look forward to your guidance in the future.”

“Uh, hello, High Priestess of the Celestial Spirit. I understand your situation, but could you tell me what this so-called arrangement of fate actually means?” Link asked awkwardly.

“Oh? That? I was just bluffing you. You’re a fellow trickster—you should know that as a professional charlatan, you need to be able to talk nonsense at any time. Fate is the perfect thing to use for that, right? Any priest worth the title won’t go a day without mentioning fate or the gods—would they?” Reimu’s face didn’t even twitch as she spoke, her tone so matter-of-fact it was almost laughable.

Link immediately broke into a cold sweat. Everyone understood these things, but no one would say them so openly as Reimu did. He could barely keep up with her pace. He forced a laugh and said, “By the Father above, High Priestess, isn’t that a bit disrespectful to your god?”

“Pah, what god? Do such things even exist?” Reimu sneered, dismissively. In her mouth, gods were reduced to mere trinkets.

Link was completely speechless. Was this woman for real? How did the Celestial Spirit Church pick such a character as their High Priestess? Weren’t they afraid she’d bring ruin upon them?

Well, whatever—if digging holes is good for their health, that’s their concern, not his. He just needed to stay calm.

After silently reminding himself to remain composed and taking a few deep breaths, Link managed to squeeze out a smile. “So, High Priestess, when you said earlier that you foresaw I would come here, that was all a bluff?”

“Oh, that part wasn’t a bluff—we really did know you’d come,” Reimu scratched her head. “It was around the twentieth of the month before last, I think, when the old ladies in the church said the Eye of the Prophet, which hadn’t reacted in decades, suddenly showed a sign. They pulled me in to perform a prophecy ritual with them. You probably don’t know what the Eye of the Prophet is, right? It’s our church’s holy relic—lets you glimpse the future, but the activation conditions are so strict it might not trigger for decades. If you’re interested in it, you can steal it for yourself, I won’t mind.”

“…,” Link thought it best not to comment. Was this the first church leader who’d encourage someone to steal their own relic? She was truly something else.

Seeing Link’s lack of response, Reimu lost interest and carried on, “Anyway, through that relic, we foresaw the rise of you and the Church of the Father. After that, the old ladies made a decision and sent me to meet you, hoping you’d agree to an alliance. Also, they told me that if you don’t trust the Celestial Spirit Church, I could serve you—whether as wife, lover, or slave, it’s all fine.”

Link’s jaw dropped and he stared as if he’d seen a ghost. How did the story suddenly take such a melodramatic turn? To secure an alliance, they’d offer up their own leader to serve someone? What were they thinking? And why was Reimu, the person in question, able to say this so calmly, as if it were someone else’s business?

Looking at the utterly unruffled Reimu, Link couldn’t help but frown. “Doesn’t it bother you, being asked to do this as your church’s leader?”

“Bother me? Not at all,” Reimu replied indifferently. “From the moment I joined the Celestial Spirit Church, my life was forfeit to the church. Every High Priestess is called the highest authority, but in truth, we’re just valuable tools. And tools exist to be used, don’t they? I’ve long since come to terms with it—whether I serve you or die of old age in the church, it’s all the same to me.”

“…,” Link was momentarily at a loss for words. Her tone was so flat, but the implication was deeply tragic. To speak of her own life as if it were someone else’s property—somehow that made it all the more sorrowful.

But before Link could muster any sympathy, Reimu’s composure vanished and her eyes sparkled as she stared at Link: “Besides, I heard the Church of the Father has received many donations, and as Archbishop you must be very wealthy, right? My demands aren’t high—just give me a hundred thousand Sola every year and I’ll do whatever you want, whether it’s warming your bed or anything else. If you’re not satisfied, I can round up all the beauties of the Celestial Spirit Church for you—they’re all pure virgins, not a single secondhand among them!”

“…,” Link was left utterly speechless. If a million galloping wild horses had been trampling his mind before, now it was a billion, and “unbelievable” didn’t even begin to cover it.

This woman was no tragic beauty—she was a shameless, unscrupulous, and unprincipled “three-no” girl: no virtue, no morals, no restraint. And yet she had the face of a goddess. If there really was a god, he must have been blind to let such a person be born with such beauty.

At this moment, Link felt that the gold-digging girls he’d met in his previous life were paragons of virtue by comparison. At least they knew how to act coy. Reimu, on the other hand, didn’t even know the meaning of restraint, embodying shamelessness to the extreme.

Faced with such a character, Link decisively changed the subject, asking a few other questions. Reimu was forthright and answered everything she knew, occasionally volunteering more—like suggesting he rob her own church.

In the end, Link couldn’t help but ask, “Just how obsessed are you with badmouthing your own church?”

Reimu actually paused to consider, then answered solemnly, “Probably about as obsessed as I am with a hundred thousand Sola. After all, they never let me eat my fill as a child. Do you know, whenever I was hungry, they’d only let me eat half a meal, saying it was good for my cultivation. I was always starving. Why was it only me? All the other followers ate their fill every time. My treatment wasn’t even as good as an ordinary believer’s. So I swore, one day I’d make them eat only half a meal every time too.”

Link had an epiphany. So, years of constant hunger had built up this powerful resentment. In fairness, some cultivation techniques did benefit from eating less, and they probably meant well. But for Reimu, being able to eat her fill was far more important than diligent cultivation.

All in all, she was a shameless, unscrupulous, and unprincipled “three-no” girl. Whoever ended up with her was truly unfortunate. Link even suspected the Celestial Spirit Church was sending her to him just to get rid of her.

Toward such a character, Link instinctively kept his distance, making it clear that while an alliance was fine, there was no need for any kind of personal servitude.

Reimu showed no sign of disappointment or pleasure at this, only said calmly, “Oh, I see. I’ll pass your message to those old ladies. But if you ever want me, just come find me. I’ll wash myself clean and wait for you. Remember to bring a hundred thousand Sola.”

Just how obsessed are you with a hundred thousand Sola? And you’d sell yourself for that? You should be called “Hundred-Thousand-Sola Shameless”!

Link was howling inwardly. He felt that if he spent too much time with this troublemaker, he’d soon turn into a howling madman himself.

Very well, his composure was already in tatters thanks to her. Let’s recap what he’d learned—on the twentieth of the month before last, which was when Link transmigrated, the Celestial Spirit Church’s prophetic relic suddenly activated. Using the relic, they caught a glimpse of the future: mainly, that the Church of the Father would rise rapidly under Link’s leadership and become one of the most powerful churches in the Stellar Kingdom—a disaster for the other churches.

The Celestial Spirit Church told no one of this, but internally there was fierce debate: should they try to destroy Link and the Church of the Father before they rose, or should they form an alliance and help them ascend?

This almost entirely female church debated for a month, and when they saw how quickly the Church of the Father was growing, they ultimately decided to form an alliance—negotiating from a position almost like a vassal, and even preparing to sacrifice their High Priestess Reimu if necessary.

Now that Link thought over everything, he was secretly shocked. He hadn’t considered it closely before, distracted by Reimu’s outrageous behavior, but now he realized the church’s relic was frighteningly accurate. It had predicted his arrival and the rise of the Church of the Father. And with the system as his golden ticket, Link had no doubt the rise was inevitable. The only question was how long it would take.

“This relic is too accurate—it’s even more precise than a master fortune-teller!” Link couldn’t help but be intrigued. According to Reimu, it was an ancient relic left from times long past. When they resolved to ally with the Church of the Father, the Celestial Spirit Church already planned to give Link this relic as a sign of good faith. Though they were reluctant, the church’s leaders decided that nothing was too precious when it came to the future of the church.

The real reason, though, was that while the Celestial Spirit Church claimed to believe in gods, in reality none of them did. What they truly worshipped was the spirits of their ancestors.

Of course, these were only Link’s deductions—other possibilities might exist, but he couldn’t think of any.

After mulling it over, Link delicately expressed a desire to see the sacred relic. Reimu agreed immediately, saying Link could bring anyone to take it whenever he liked.

But Link had no intention of taking the relic—he just wanted to have a look. Once he’d made his intentions clear, Reimu thought for a moment and said, “If you want to see it, you’ll have to go to Bass City. Coincidentally, the Festival of All Gods is next month. I’m sure your Church of the Father received an invitation? You can stop by and see it then.”