Volume 7 - CH 9

Chapter 9 – Priest Francesco

“Sage Eto-sama, right?”

After exchanging greetings, Eto, who sat down at the prompting of the other party, was asked by Priest Francesco. The eyes of the Priest are shining with joy, like a child meeting the Hero he longed for.

“Yes. Yes?”

The priest nodded deeply, without minding Eto, who gave a half-hearted answer.

“As expected! I’ve seen you in the Royal Capital before. Are you here with Hero-sama?”

The Priest asked Eto something that he didn’t want to talk too much about.

“No. I am now distancing myself from the Hero’s party… that’s why it’s troubling if you called me the Sage…”

“I see. Some time ago, there were indeed rumors that couldn’t be discerned whether it was a truth or not about that, but… looks like there were some circumstances.” The priest said and immediately stopped talking about the Hero and his party.

“Regarding the support activities for the victims of the crime, we at the Goddess Church are also forming a self-help group by gathering people who cannot return to their daily and social lives.”

This time, the Priest no longer had the light tone like the previous exchange, but he showed a thoughtful expression as a responsible person. And while being perplexed by how the Priest’s expression switched so quickly, Eto nodded to the Priest’s story.

“Is that self-group a group where victims can talk to each other?”

“Ee. But as expected, it is difficult to tell someone else their unpleasant story, so people such as Pastor Teilhard will intervene and create an environment where it’s easy for them to talk to each other. And by talking about their experiences to each other, it will create a sense of solidarity and trust. If the self-help group becomes akin to a safe place for them, more and more people will be able to talk about their painful memories to others. The most important thing is that by repeating these meetings, they will be able to control their emotions even when they look back at the incident.”

Pastor Teilhard nodded deeply next to the Priest. When the meeting of the self-group is held, Priests and Pastors always participate and watch over the situation. Besides the Priests and Pastors, those who have participated in self-help groups in the past and have recovered also participated, and seem to be taking on the role of coordinating the meeting.

By setting a guide for the meeting, the dialogue of the participants will be guided in the desired direction. And Eto was interested in the fact that those who have overcome difficult situations in the past cooperated with the activities of the self-help group.

“The collaborators are civilians, aren’t they?”

“Yes. They offered their cooperation for free as gratitude for saving them as the reason. It’s all thanks to their cooperation that we are able to carry out the self-help group activities until now with a few people.”

“I see. We are also trying to build our own support activities in the Knights’ facility that aim to be like the church’s self-help group, which is also because of the large number of victims of this incident.”

“May I ask how many people became the victims of the incident?”

“The total number of kidnapped victims, including those who are still missing, may exceed 100.”

“That many, huh…”

Hearing that, the Priest’s face clouded. Even in church organizations that operate throughout the Veil, their self-help group is just one of many activities. It will be difficult for them to accept more than a hundred victims.

“Ee. This time, because the former Acting Lord was deeply involved with the incident, the authorities probably cannot ignore it. The Knights are also supportive of our activity. My idea is to take this opportunity to create a kind of mechanism to support the kidnapped victims. So, may I also ask Priest-sama for your cooperation?”

“I have heard about Eto-sama and his support activities from Pastor Teilhard. Of course, we, the church of Veil, would like to cooperate as much as possible.”

“Thank you very much!”

Eto then shook the Priest’s hand and thanked him. The Priest says that when Eto creates his own self-help group, he will send a pastor to provide advice and consultation. It was also decided that Eto’s self-help group will have a cooperation with the church’s self-help group in the future. In addition, the Priest also said that he will introduce the members who play the main role among the civilian collaborators.

However, Eto also began to wonder why the priest was too friendly to him; he even wanted to meet with Eto. And at such times, Eto also worried that there might be a trap.

“Ano, this is a little difficult question to answer, but are you cooperating with our support activities because I’m the Sage?”

Although he doesn’t know when, Eto eventually will leave Veil. He knew that if his existence becomes too large in that support activities, it may be disassembled when he disappears. That’s why Eto thought that this was something he has to confirm now.

“Of course I won’t deny that it was one of the reasons. It is natural for us to cooperate in something that the Sage chosen by Goddess-sama wanted to do. But that’s not all. Eto-sama’s plan is indeed important to many people, but it is also very difficult to realize without a key person. Because, you see, if we had more cooperation from the Lord and the Knights, we would have been able to increase the number of people involved in our self-help groups. We would be able to obtain budget, information, authority, and people who have knowledge and experience of handling the victims. It’s hard to get what we need for the activity. So, in that sense, I have great expectations for Eto-sama’s activities.”

As far as Eto sees, the Priest wasn’t someone with two-faces, and seemed to decide his actions according to his words. On the side, Pastor Teilhard is also staring at Eto with a smile.

“Thank you very much, Priest Francesco-sama. I will do my best to make this activity a success.”

Eto stood up and bowed deeply.

“Ee. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Saying that, the Priest looked at Eto with calm eyes reminiscent of a quiet river surface.

“Oh, I have another request.”

“A request? What is it?”

“Can you stop calling me with ‘sama’? If Priest-sama calls me Eto-sama… it would be troubling.”

“Hahaha. Alright. I’ll call you Eto-san from now on.”

For a moment, the Priest seemed to be taken by surprise, but he listened to Eto’s request while laughing.