71 The Necromancer and the Priestess 5

Yin Mei was currently lying on the garden grass, her hands folded over her stomach as she looked up at the sky. She wasn't watching the eternally blue and beautiful sky of the church's inner sanctum, but looking at the system's surveillance screen.

The person on the screen was the space mage that Yin Mei was thinking of drawing to her side. This space mage was a frivolous, but handsome, looking man. He looked to be in his potential mid twenties, the same as the male lead. Yin Mei really wanted to say something about it - wasn't this age gap between him and the female lead a little bit too big? But, well, she realized that a lot of novels had male leads with hundreds of years of age gap between them and the female lead, yet it was still acceptable because they looked young and handsome.

So what was the age gap between the space affinity mage and the female lead in the face of that? Plus, the age gap between Rosella and Kai would also be slightly questionable then - in fact, it would be outright illegal in Yin Mei's original world. But maybe because the era was different, the level of acceptance for this sort of thing was also different?

This space affinity mage was a well known personage on the continent who went by the name of Leon. He was well known in part because he was in possession of a rare space element infinity, and in part because he was a truly skilled mage. Plus, he was also the son of a duke and the son of a princess.

A highly desired bachelor and well known playboy who didn't like being tied down, he only got serious when it came to the female lead... She shook her head at this, feeling slightly speechless. She could never understand why it was that only the female lead was so special that all these people would fall for her so easily. At the very least, he was not the type that was unreliable during important moments, or she would really give up on having him on her side.

After all, she wouldn't want a pig teammate dragging her down.

Yin Mei looked at the screen and sighed. He wasn't a pig teammate... probably? She watched as he flirted with the prostitutes at the high class brothel he frequented and really wondered how much she really wanted to go through with this summoning plan.

Whatever! It was an interesting concept, and she was committed. Plus, it would be a good project to pass the time with... In the first place, for the matter of El, even if she didn't give him any clues about his research, he would still be able to complete it within the next year or so, giving him the method.

It was just the matter of his death that she worried about.

She would still also have to interfere with the Knights Templar in similar ways that Celestina had done in the original plot line as well, in order to give El the time and space needed for him to continue his research.

Ah! She then suddenly realized something. Taking Rosella away from his side wouldn't have too big of an affect on the research, right?

She thought about any points where Rosella might have contributed. A few months from now, if they were still following the original plot line, El would have Rosella begin to help him with his experiments. She would be filled with guilt and disgust over herself, but still end up participating, as she couldn't disobey El's orders.

She had slowly gained El's trust not only through her obedience, but also through her small but useful contributions toward his experiments. If Yin Mei recalled, she had been the one to accidentally stumble upon one of the key ingredients for the spell circle, a black flower found in Gloom Forest - coincidentally the same forest that the Bishop had mentioned the other day. She had also discovered an old spell book at a small bookshop in the capital that had allowed El some significant gains.

Aside from those two, that should be it? Yin Mei reviewed the information with a critical eye and nodded. Those two should be the most important points.

So, she would probably need to send Rosella out to find at least the flower? Maybe the book as well. She felt that even though she knew the vague location and descriptions of these items, they would be hard to find without the aid of the protagonist's aura, which was just filled with good fortune. It was an aura that tyrannically claimed all treasures present in the area. As long as it was a good treasure, it would fall into the hands of the protagonist.

Therefore, though Yin Mei was reluctant, she thought that she would still need to send either Rosella or Kai to go look for these two items. She didn't want Kai to leave the inner sanctum, but Rosella was still okay - she said this because Rosella had no combat capabilities and was lacking in experience in comparison to Kai. So in other words, if the situation took a turn and for some reason the protagonist encountered El, or something happened that would lead them to El, it was better for Rosella to be the one to be there instead of Kai.

Yin Mei wondered if she was thinking too much into things, but then shook her head. Considering the power of the protagonist's halo, it wasn't pushing it to assume that if Kai or Rosella went out, they would come across some sort of clue pointing them toward El's true identity.

She decided to make a little checklist in her mind.

Pulling over the space mage Leon to her side.

Sending Rosella to fetch the black flower and magic book.

Researching summoning.

Preventing El's death.

Now she would need to plan out how to do each of them. The most important issue was probably El's death, but that was also something that wasn't going to happen all that soon. There was a year left, so for now, she could put it off. Plus, she didn't know what exactly she could do to prevent this in the first place, other than keep a tight reign on Kai and Rosella.

The next important thing then would probably be sending Rosella to gather ingredients for the unsealing.

The book shop was in the capital, so that could happen at any time. Yin Mei decided that to increase the chances of success, she would specifically send Rosella at the same point in the timeline that she would have originally gone. As for the black flower, Yin Mei would need to ponder this. The best way would be to probably send her along with a squadron of Knights Templar when they go on expedition to the Gloom Forest. This was a regular event, but because they had just left to go, it would probably be several months before they went again.

But if Yin Mei requested it, it may be possible to shorten the time in between the expeditions. She decided that she would mention it to the Bishop next time.

That left the last two. Researching summoning would be a hard process, and would become much quicker if she had Leon to aid her. So she would probably have to leave that for after she recruited Leon. In other words, the first thing that she would have to do is get Leon on her side.

So the next week, when the Bishop paid her a visit again, she asked him about the two matters of the expedition and Leon.

She disliked that to do most things, she had to go through the Bishop, but that was just how it worked. In the end, the one with the most authority in the church was this man. Even if she requested, say, Elaina, Elaina would still have to go through the Bishop anyways. So it was just faster if she talked to the Bishop instead of using her attending priestess as an intermediary.

"You want to push the next expedition to Gloom Forest forward? And allow that girl you took in to go with them?" The Bishop said. Celestina almost never asked for things, so the Bishop felt he was always surprised when she did. And perhaps because she rarely asked for something, he would normally grant it. But this issue was a little tricky. The matter of pushing the expedition forward wasn't too big of a deal, it was the fact that Celestina wanted them to bring a girl with no known combat ability to Gloom Forest.

Gloom Forest was a place filled with monsters and miasmas, having been contaminated several thousand years ago when the bridge to the demon world opened up. It was something that rarely happened, but when it did, a lot of sacrifices always had to be made in order to stand up against the demons until the bridge closed up again.

Even now, Gloom Forest remained corrupted by miasma and demonic magic, so the church had to constantly send people out to purify and cleanse the place, as well as thin out the monsters.

Although the Bishop wasn't really a good person, he was still someone that knew how to take care of his people - in a slightly cunning, manipulative sort of way.

As a result, he couldn't really immediately agree to this. After all, it would make it harder on the expedition members. Yin Mei didn't know what the Bishop was thinking, but she could roughly guess his thought process. Mostly because that was what Yin Mei would think herself. Who would want to babysit some weak girl in such a dangerous situation? Because of this, she would have to say something to give him the incentive to accept...

"There's something I need in Gloom Forest that only she can get," Yin Mei said, and the Bishop seemed to be in thought. He wondered if this was the reason that she was doing things that were out of the ordinary for her? If so, he wondered what item it was that she wanted so much to go this far for it.

He looked to her, and Yin Mei could tell that he was silently questioning her.

"It's part of a project that I'm doing." She said with such a sweet smile that the Bishop couldn't help but stay silent for several moments. "Could you also summon Leon of the Duke of Adellain's house? It's also for this project."

The Bishop finally asked. "What's this project?" She was looking for an item in the Gloom Forest, and even wanting to summon a space affinity magician. He tried to think for a moment, but couldn't really come up with anything with so few clues.

"I'm going to create a hero."

A couple of weeks later, Leon was summoned to the church's inner sanctum. He was extremely surprised, as the amount of people who were granted an audience with the high priestess were very low, and the amount of people who were requested to have an audience with her were even lower. She was a personage that ordinary people could only dream of meeting. Among the nobles of the Erindal Empire of Leon's generation, she was a legendary, untouchable beauty known as the church's golden oriole.

Personally, Leon was not really interested in that sort of sheltered and pure girl that was untouched by worldly desires and impurities - a girl who quietly sat, comfortable in her little cage. But, there was no way that he would reject a summons to meet her. Although she wasn't his type, he was still a little interested in the girl who was often talked about in the rumors.

He had to take a bath in holy water, dress in simple clothes given to him by the church, and was purified by a priestess before finally being taken in to meet the high priestess.

Yin Mei was once again sitting under the garden gazebo, sipping at a cup of tea and delicately eating a slice of cake. The inner sanctum didn't really have any sort of meeting room for her to use, like say a palace would, so this gazebo would often be used instead. There was no need to worry about issues like weather either, as the church's inner sanctum used magic to keep itself at this perfect moment in time - a just warm enough, sunny spring day.

Yin Mei turned to look at Leon, her blue eyes blinking as she studied the man. There wasn't really anything different about him from what she had seen in the surveillance she had performed, though he did put on a much more dignified expression in comparison to the one he had on while wooing prostitutes - though that was to be expected. Leon was the type of person who was at least good at putting up appearances when he needed to, and was also capable of being serious when it was necessary.

When Leon saw Yin Mei, he had to say that he was surprised. He had seen her form a distance before, when she had made a public appearance to a few selected commoners. He couldn't really quite recall what he had thought back then, just remembering commenting to a friend that such a person wasn't someone that they would probably ever see again.

Seeing her now, in person, he could definitely say she deserved her title of a legendary beauty.

It was a beauty and warmth that almost made him completely forget about all that nonsense he had thought earlier, about her not being his type. No matter whether she wasn't someone's type or not, the moment a person met her, they would realize that this type of girl was actually everyone's type - this was not just her appearance, but also Celestina's holy aura at work.

Though Leon was a skilled mage, it required more than strong magic to resist the natural charm of Celestina's holy aura - one needed to also be of strong light affinity, like the Bishop, and have a strong will, like Kai.

Leon had neither the strength of will belonging to a protagonist, nor a strong light affinity. But he was still a second male lead after all. He blinked a few times, partially clearing his head. Although he still had that pleasant and warm feeling in his heart, his thoughts were clear again.

He may not be able to completely resist it, but like the priestesses and guards of the inner sanctum, he was able to retain his calm and control over his mind and heart.

He had to say, above all else, she really was like the second coming of the light goddess! Such strong light aura, it was absolutely one of a kind.

If Yin Mei knew his thoughts, she would roll her eyes. Such strong light aura, in the end, wasn't it still useless against a protagonist's aura?