She arrived without any pomp.

Even though she held the highest rank now, no escorts or any of the usual fluff was present. Considering what the Elder asked me to do, it was for the better. She was no longer that old hag, quietly puppeteering the Inquisitorias from the shadows. She was the head of the entire Cranta Church now by royal decree. But the way she acted still creeped me out.

"Stern, did you bring all of them?" She asked, wasting no time at all. Lately, she wore more colorful clothes to signify her rank, but not today. Back to the old gray, unassuming robes again. It accentuated even more how beautiful of a woman she became.

"Aye, my Lady." I bowed, trying to act a little formal for now. "While I'm not keen on such brutal methods, I managed to gather all of them. At least the poison you provided ended them all quietly... But it took me some time to pile up the bodies alone."

"I don't trust your soldiers. Can't help but wonder, how many of them are still loyal to the blue-haired child..." She did not hold back on the accusations. Well, no wonder, I didn't trust them either. Or anybody else...

"If I didn't know you better, I'd say you took her taunts too seriously, Lady Elder. I doubt any of the guards would harbor feelings towards her. Especially now that you started that rumor..." I claimed, leading her to my carriage. I covered my nose before pulling the cover to the side.

The thirty corpses I carried filled it up to the brim. They started to smell once I got here, and no amount of incense could help it. It revealed a lot about the guards. None of them noticed me carrying dead people out of the interrogation chamber one by one for a whole day.

"Good, line them up by the roadside. Try not to damage them too much..." She ordered, just like I was afraid she would. "Was it all of them? I expected more, to be honest... Not that I'd complain."

"Ugh, all that was foolish enough to claim they saw the Princess," I confirmed, trying to cover my nose. "For the gods' sake, why do I have to haul them all again? They didn't smell this bad when I put them in..."

"Men sure are useless." She rolled her piercing blue eyes and drew a circle in the air. I was fine with her insults as long as I didn't have to touch these corpses ever again. "So what did the others claim to see? The ones you let go... And what about the guards?"

"Something about the treacherous former Captain of the Guard trying to wrestle power from the newly appointed Head of the Church," I mumbled, mesmerized as she levitated out the thirty corpses as one disturbing fetid mass. And it was still not as horrifying as the woman herself. The way she glanced at me sent a chill down my spine.

"This is the rumor I told you to spread." She looked dissatisfied, putting the dead bodies down side by side. "What did they say, Stern?"

"Well, more or less the same thing, my Lady," I confirmed. "Maybe not with these exact words, but they didn't see the Princess."

"Good. You shouldn't make any more mistakes." She declared, nearly stabbing me with those eyes. "And the soldiers involved should never get anywhere near the King. Neither the gate guards nor the escort... And give them proper training, they were utterly useless facing a single enemy."

"Rest assured, Lady Elder, the guards are properly trained," I claimed confidently. "As trained as everyday human beings can be. They won't hold a candle against you or a paladin blessed by the gods, but as I said, you took Catherine's taunting too seriously..."

"Again, there can be no more mistakes." She glared at me. I knew better than to argue. She turned to investigate the corpses before continuing. "The King can’t learn the truth about the Pope or his daughter. The way he made me the new Head of the Church, he can strip my ranks away and exile me..."

"You could easily take his throne at this point..." I shrugged, looking at her suspiciously. She moved her hands in strange patterns over the dead bodies. "Why did I have to take the witnesses out here anyway? Could have cremated them in the city with much less effort..."

"No, I need these corpses." She noted without as much as looking up. The lack of explanation creeped me out even more. "And yes, I could take over the throne, Stern. And I will, but it's far too early for that... It would create a precedent that the nobles with great wealth and power could follow all the same. I need to become at least a saint before that."

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"So why won't you?" I asked curiously. "What's to happen for that?"

"I need a sect following me, praying for my strength..." She said without batting an eye, but I could barely suppress a laugh.

"A sect? Like a personal cult? Worshipping you?" I tried not to sound sarcastic, but it was almost impossible. She was one of the most hated characters ever to hold power in the history of Cranta. "Good luck."

"No luck will be involved in this, I'm not Alexandra..." She noted patiently, but wouldn't stop that strange ritual she was doing. "And yes, it won't be easy, but I know no other way to become a saint and a deity. I can't force people to follow me against their will, not even with my hypnotism. But don't worry, Stern, I already have a plan."

"Now I am worrying a lot more," I noted, taking a big step back. "Does it have something to do with these corpses?"

"It does. You said poisoning the witnesses was brutal? I agree. But it was necessary, and I won’t waste these bodies." She claimed, steadily performing whatever she did over every one of them.

"Please enlighten me, Lady Elder," I asked, unsure if I was ready for her explanation. Still, it was better to know than not.

"This barony belongs to the church." She started, looking up for only a short moment. "It is the largest in Nordhaben, nearly sixty thousand acres of land, and nobody cultivates it anymore. Same with the other ones nearby... The nobles all abandoned it, retreating into the city..."

"So far so good. Yes, I noticed it." I nodded, pretending to understand.

"The people are afraid of the monsters and abandoned all their cities and villages to gather in Sanctuary, the old capital of Nordhaben, which was aptly renamed to welcome them." She said, still rather cryptic. "And all the neighboring lands are empty now... What do you think, Stern, what will all these people eat? And where will that food come from?"

"That... Okay, that is a good question. I haven't even thought about that before..." I admitted. Yes, as she said, more and more people were crowded inside Sanctuary. The villages that could support them were slowly abandoned, food prices were already rising, and the money itself started to lose its value. "Aren't the nobles managing their lands?"

"They don't. No goblins and orcs do it for them anymore, and they are too greedy to pay humans for the same tasks." She explained with perceptible disgust. "They can still afford to buy the food from the remaining imports or the small farmers near the city..."

"So the poor will soon starve and riot..." I pondered, trying to guess her plans. "Shouldn't the King intervene and start cultivating his lands? And maybe even force the nobles to do the same before it's too late..."

"Hah, yes, but I hope he won't." She laughed it off. "It is my best chance if I can do what they wouldn't, and save the poor from starvation. Then they will start to like me, and I can get them to follow me. Rather than the King or the Cranta Church that did nothing to aid them."

"Right, that makes sense." I realized but still couldn't tell if it was an evil plan or if she wanted to do something good to be loved. "Okay, so you'll have the priests and all the servants come out and cultivate the lands for you? Or have the poor do it in exchange for food? I'm not buying it that you'll do it all alone..."

"Alone? No. But I won't let the Church in on this." She claimed, still doing that weird thing over the corpses. She moved from one to the next, roughly halfway through already. I was surprised she could stand their stench for this long. "No, people would feel like I am forcing them to work to survive... While that's a very sensible thing to do, I can't have them think like that. No, I will give them everything for free.”

"And how will you sow all this land by yourself?" I rolled my eyes. I had no idea, how easy or difficult it was to work on a plantation or farm, but it seemed unlikely that she could do it alone. Lambert maybe, but my scouts still found no traces of him.

"As I said, I won't be doing it alone." She shrugged, moving over to the next body. "I just want to monopolize the entire market."

"For free..." I noted after almost thinking that her plan made sense. Now I started to lose hope again. "It's not much of a monopoly if it's free."

"There are more ways to pay for something than with money." She claimed, taking a short break before the next corpse. "If you get something for free, that just means, you are the product. You are the value that was taken in exchange, simple as that. By the time they realize, there will be nothing to do but they will have no reason to complain either."

"So how are you going to pull it off by yourself?" I repeated. Things she said made sense but in the most cryptic way.

"You are not listening, Stern. I said I won't be doing it alone." She shook her head, returning to that weird ritual. "That reminds me, keep the witnesses under surveillance. If anyone talks about something they shouldn't, poison them, and bring here the bodies. Maybe I'll visit some burial places in the abandoned villages too."

"W-what is this sudden attraction towards the deceased?" I took a step back, covering my nose. She was at the last body now, and the air got chilly around us. It was supposed to be early fall, but it felt like winter already. "Well, it will be done, but that will cost you extra."

"I already made you the Captain of the Royal Guard, and soon you'll get promoted to Major." She shook her head and just couldn't take a joke.

"Well, carrying corpses doesn't feel like a task a future Major should do," I noted regardless. "So are you ever gonna answer me, my Lady?"

"Come on, Stern, you're slower than usual... Normally, you'd have your wits about you. Well, just stay back and relax. All things will be taken care of." She walked back to the center of the line, bragging her feet to draw lines into the dirt, and only uttered a word. "Arise."

That's when the corpses started to move...