7. Humanity’s Enemy
“Ahhh—!”
Richard’s drug-addled, sluggish body finally began to writhe in pain.
He let out a hoarse cry, his limbs flailing wildly, his desperate will to live turning into incomprehensible words, accompanied by spittle.
But as time passed, his movements grew weaker, his mind became hazy, his limbs began to go limp, and his consciousness gradually faded.
The Saintess looked at Reina with concern.
That was her brother.
She had no other family—Richard was the only one who remembered the orphanage, remembered the Saintess’s tragic past. She didn’t want Richard to die.
Her reason told her that she had to stop Reina.
If this continued, her brother would die.
“Look how happy you are smiling~”
Suddenly, Bishop Lei said to the Saintess with a smile.
The latter touched her own face in a fluster, only then realizing that her worried expression had turned into one of excitement. If it weren’t for Bishop Lei’s reminder, she wouldn’t have known how happy she was right now.
Instantly, the Saintess’s face turned pale.
The desire from the bottom of her heart and the kindness of her faith gradually twisted her expression. She didn’t know how to express her current emotions, or even how to express emotions at all.
…Am I actually happy because my brother is being harmed?
Why?
Has my heart already fallen?
Have I long wanted to kill him like this?
“…”
At the same time, Reina, as the one guiding the situation, was also slightly surprised.
She couldn’t imagine how much resentment the Saintess had hidden.
Prayer couldn’t eliminate her inner unease and resentment.
Agnes’s eyes darted to the floor, then to Reina’s skirt, intending to explain something, but she quickly realized it was just a pointless excuse. So, this poor Saintess could only use prayer to hide her panic.
“May the Light be with us…”
Reina felt a little emotional.
As expected of the most difficult world.
The Pope was dead, Richard had become an addict, and the Saintess’s mind had become so twisted.
Reina suspected that she was the only normal human in the world.
As time passed, the Saintess’s brother finally died from lack of oxygen. His convulsing body stopped struggling, and his temperature gradually turned cold.
Before his death, his skin showed signs of a drug overdose, quickly losing its color, his withered face becoming even more shrunken, his eyes sunken, a truly tragic sight. Like a zombie resurrected from a corpse, he had once again turned into a foul-smelling corpse.
Of course, the Holy Knights still thought Richard hadn’t died.
They carried Richard and ran towards the Cardinal’s church, attempting to have those people save the Saintess’s brother.
But Agnes knew that her brother had been strangled to death by Reina. Unless a miracle happened, there was no possibility of survival.
The Saintess gasped heavily, looking up in disbelief, and knelt on the ground, unable to accept the current reality. Reina turned and left, not even glancing at the Saintess.
—If she wanted the Saintess to completely submit, there were still many things to do.
…
In the afternoon, Reina returned to her own territory.
The territory was mostly filled with buildings that would be normal in the human world. A considerable number of clerics had gone to work in the monasteries, most of them serving as priests. Thanks to the Saintess’s favor, Reina had a large number of subordinates and might even be promoted to the new Cardinal.
But she was currently facing a problem…
That was, there were too many Cardinals.
The dragons’ Twelve Great Dragons and the Demon Moons served a similar function to the bishops, but the problem now was that humanity’s sphere of influence was at best the theocratic nation and the undeveloped parts of the plains, facing the orcs across the river, a tense standoff.
To put it bluntly, there were too many officials for too few people.
“How about we just kill all the Cardinals?”
In the office, the nun sitting beside Reina, Ann, offered this suggestion.
She was still wearing her iconic nun’s habit, but unlike before, she, like Reina, had evolved into a high-ranking demon, completely bidding farewell to her humanity.
Reina twirled the pen in her hand.
“The position of Cardinal shouldn’t exist.”
“Humanity has encountered an unprecedented crisis, yet the ones who survived are all high-ranking officials and nobles. If it weren’t for their abilities, I would have killed them long ago.”
“Lady Reina is still the same as always~”
Ann crossed her legs, revealing her white-stockinged legs beneath her black robe.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, I’m a little unaccustomed…”
Reina blushed and lowered her head:
“After all, the baby…”
“I see~”
Ann looked as if she understood. She had also carefully read Reina’s documents on prenatal care and was now even more impressed with the Dragon Queen.
It was as if she had never been human, but a real dragon from the very beginning.
So she sighed:
“In the past, Lady Reina was a naive human girl. Now she’s a virtuous wife and mother, pregnant with the Dragon Prince’s offspring~”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
Reina shook her head and said to Ann with a helpless expression:
“By the way, how many succubi are there now?”
Ann poked her lips with her finger and thought:
“Not many.”
“About 300~”
“300?!”
Reina almost fainted on the spot.
The clerics she led only numbered around 600.
And now, even including the trainee priestesses corrupted by Ann, almost half of them were vassals of this succubus queen.
Reina suddenly felt the urge to stop Ann from continuing to sabotage humanity’s development.
If this continued, all the human subordinates she had painstakingly cultivated would probably turn into demons. Reina didn’t want to discover, in the near future, that the human army she was leading was actually composed entirely of strange demons!
—Of course, to avoid exposing her true purpose, Reina could only endure.
“As long as we can control the Saintess, it’s fine. She’s a kind human.”
Reina said with a faint smile.
Ann instantly understood Reina’s meaning and said, “Do you mean that the Saintess is easier to control?”
“Yes, because ever since the Pope’s death, the human world has been divided into two factions. One is the Saintess’s faction, supported by the priests and bishops. The other is the Son’s faction, supported by the Cardinals and Holy Knights.”
The past Reina had naively thought that the Saintess leading humanity to victory in a few battles would be enough to establish her authority and rightfully become the leader of the theocratic nation.
But the reality was a huge shock to Reina.
The main reason for this was that Reina had underestimated humanity’s ambition.
—For the sake of interests and survival, they would even defeat their own companions at any cost.
Reina chuckled wryly.
How ironic.
The humanity she had always yearned for was actually engaged in internal strife at a critical moment, throwing the theocratic nation into chaos, while the dragon race she despised was united by friendship and kinship.
Could this world really be entrusted to humanity?
