I Reincarnated as a Noble Girl Villainess But Why Did It Turn Out This Way?

Chapter 14 - Scales of karma

On the second day of my birthday celebration, a priest from the church would perform a ceremony to receive blessings. As soon as their plain horse-drawn carriage arrived in the morning, just like yesterday, today's plans went out the window.

"This is...... Faris-dono......"

As soon as he saw the priest get off the horse-drawn carriage, Earl Terejia raised his voice questioningly. Faris? The priest that was coming today should have been named Almenes. Even more surprising, was how shocked Earl Terejia had sounded at seeing Faris and the earl respectfully lowering his head. They must be quite a high-ranking priest.

Just before the priest bowed, our eyes met for an instant. The priest's pupils were absolute pure black, it raised goosebumps on my flesh.

The priest was dressed in white priest robes and a veil, with a black shawl on the shoulders, and was holding a sword and staff taller than their body in their hands, both age and gender were difficult to determine.

The head of the staff was decorated with a triangular symbol that represented balance scales, and the circlet that was holding their veil had an ornament that resembled having a third eye on the forehead. The balance scales were meant to judge a person's good deeds against their bad deeds, the eye was a symbol of how the Xia church could see through one's sins, and the sword represented punishment and order, and the god Misorua would give blessings.

"Siegmund. It's been a while."

The voice seems a little too low for a woman, but slightly too high for a man. The gender is getting even harder to determine. When Kamil took the person's shawl for them, although he made a mockery of what a page was supposed to do, even though I could see the priest's shoulder line, as expected I still couldn't determine their gender.

"What happened to Almenes-dono?"

"Around this time of year, he's been busy everywhere helping pray for the success of the spring festivities. Because of his accumulated fatigue, I'm replacing him today."

Their skin and face still seemed young like a teenager's, but their tone and attitude seemed like that of an old person. But why is it that there seems to be no sense of incongruity.

The two of them walked towards the mansion in silence. The priest named Faris had closed their eyes right after getting off the horse-drawn carriage and greeting the earl, without paying attention to me. Since even the earl is allowing this, I wonder just how high-ranking this priest is.

There were distinctions between priests, monks, and other clergymen. Priests are given their positions by the king, and would carry out various rituals for both the royal palace and temples, they belong to both the royal palace and the church. Since the earl is ignoring the fact that this priest didn't even deign to greet me, a Viscountess, the priest must be at least at the level of a temple head or chief priest...... Comparing it with noble ranks, at least a senior earl in rank. I wonder why such an important person would take the place of their subordinate and come all the way out here.

"When will the ceremony be?"

"It's planned for noon."

Faris walked with long strides, at a fast pace. It's impressive how fast the priest's walking considering the difficulty of doing so with the length of the robe's hems, and that they're not walking so fast to the extent of being rude. Since I'm a child, sometimes people forget about that and I can't keep up.

"Until then, is it alright if I take a look at the garden?"

"......Of course."

Earl Terejia glanced at me. He probably wants me to return to the mansion first. If the priest wants to see the garden, it might mean that they have something to talk about. Otherwise, since the earl probably has more preparations to finish, it might be better though if somebody else had guided the priest.