Nearly six years had passed since the Saintess’ Prophecy foretelling the coming of the Demon Kings, but the church was still just as busy as ever, if not more. Paladins exhausted themselves traveling the world to protect the nations, the priests had dark circles under their eyes from spending so much time healing and blessing the people, and even the normal church employees were struggling to find time to rest and relax.
However, no one was working harder than Antonio Verdi. Day in and day out, the cat man could be found holed up in his office dealing with the endless stream of paperwork flowing in and out of it. He hardly ever took breaks, except to sleep and eat, and the amount of work he got done was more than double the next most productive person in the church. This was to be expected, as he was the [Godly Emissary] chosen by Diligence.
Over his years working in administration, Antonio had discovered that the best time to respond to non-urgent messages was after eating a meal, as he would no longer be distracted by his stomach. In accordance with this discovery, on this particularly night, after consuming a balanced, nutritious meal of salmon and rice, he was now in his office, reading a letter from Temperance. He had just finished the letter and pulled out a pen and piece of paper in order to write a response when his door suddenly flew open.
Without waiting for Antonio to respond, the one who had opened it strode confidently inside, letting the door slam behind her. It was a young woman, no older than thirty, barefoot and dressed in a white dress whose plainness was marred by a dense collection of wrinkles along its right side. She had long black hair that danced around her head in a web of discord, and gray eyes so pale and limpid they seemed to shine silver as she smiled at the beast-person at the desk.
“Tony!” she said loudly, as she walked towards him.
“I asked you not to call me that,” said Tony without looking.
“And I ignored you,” said the woman cheerfully, walking around his desk.
“My name is Anton- hey, what are you doing? Stop this at once!”
Antonio’s pointed ears flattened against his head as he leaned away from the woman’s outstretched arms.
“Awww, come on. You look tense. I was just trying to give you a little massage,” said the woman, accelerating towards him.
“I am not tense!” he said as the woman finally caught him. His chair scooting was not fast enough to avoid her. “I am perfectly- perfectly- uh. Mmmmmm…” He closed his eyes and began purring as she began to scratch his ears.
“See? I knew it,” said the woman. “You never tell the truth about things like that. Why couldn’t you have been the incarnation of Honesty, instead of Diligence?”
“There is no incarnation of Honesty,” he said, eyes still closed. “Only the seven Virtues have- Ooh, just a little lower. Right there. Perfect.” He continued purring.
“Yeah, I know,” said the woman. “I was just joking. In all seriousness though, you need to take better care of yourself. Getting proper rest and relaxation is part of being diligent, you know.”
“Yes of course I know that. I schedule two hours of rest and relaxation every day in addition to my regular sleep.”
“If it’s scheduled, it’s not rest or relaxation,” chided the woman, moving behind the cat person to start massaging his shoulders. “You need to take unprompted breaks sometimes. If you just keep plugging along like that, it will be bad for your mental health.”
“Actually, with the skill granted to me by Diligence, I never get tired or lose focus while doing work, so there is no reason for me to take unprompted breaks, as it does not affect my productivity,” said Antonio.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “Even if your work doesn’t suffer, you do. If you spend all your waking hours working, you’ll break down eventually, no matter how many skills you have.”
“I’ll stop once the Demon Kings are all taken care of,” said Antonio stubbornly, leaning forward to give the woman easier access to his lower back.
The woman sighed as she kneaded between his shoulderblades. “If you won’t do it on your own, I’ll just have to keep coming in here to make you relax.”
“No,” he said, arching his back as she manipulated a particularly tight knot in his back. “You’re interrupting my work, and cutting into my productivity. I should call the priests in here to escort you back to your chambers.”
“What are you working on right now anyway?” asked the woman, peering at the open letter on his desk.
“It’s a letter from Temperance.”
“Again? What is this, the 10th one this month?”
“It’s the twelfth. He is once again asking me to assign Humility to a different mission. I was about to write a reply when you walked in.”
“Well, it’s understandable. I’d probably be asking the same thing in his situation,” said the woman shrugging. “How did someone like them even get chosen by one of the Virtues in the first place?”
“Probably the same way that someone like you got chosen to be the Saintess of the church of Order,” said Antonio.
“Bah, that’s completely different,” scoffed the Saintess. “The church of Order doesn’t exist to keep order and eliminate chaos. It exists to maintain the balance between Order and Chaos. Just because I’m the Saintess doesn’t mean I need to be a neat and orderly person. I am the Chaos within the Order. I am the perfect embodiment of the ideals of the church, as I-”
“Spare me,” interrupted Antonio. “You’ve already given me that speech six times.”
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“You were counting? Whatever. Anyway, I still don’t see how they got chosen. They may be humble but… They doesn’t really fit the image of a holy hero chosen by the gods. If Themis didn’t confirm their identity and abilities, I would have guessed they were one of the Demon Kings.”
“As would I,” agreed the cat as he leaned his shoulder into the Saintess’ elbow. “However, they are a [Godly Emissary], and they have agreed to work with us, so I must make use of them, no matter how unpleasant it is for Temperance and Chastity. If we knew the location of any of the other Demon Kings, I would not hesitate to split them up, but until they are found, it is best that they remain together. Especially when hunting Greed. Chastity was nearly killed when she and Temperance faced him without Humility.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said the Saintess. “But wouldn’t it be better to send them to help out with Wrath? It’s been almost a year since Patience went incommunicado. Isn’t it about time to send someone else in?”
“It is, but they are more needed more against Greed. We cannot afford to lose Temperance and Chastity. We can send the three of them after Wrath once Greed is dealt with.”
“They should be much stronger by now though,” argued the Saintess, returning to rubbing Antonio’s feline ears. “The first battle with Greed was three years ago. And the two of them have been training hard ever since to make up for their failure. Surely they should be enough to handle Greed by now, right?”
“Perhaps, but we do not know how much Greed has grown, or if he was even going all out in the first fight. He is a dragon, after all. The situation is far too unpredictable to make such assumptions.”
“Yes, but isn’t Wrath actively leading one side of a civil war? Shouldn’t we be focused on stopping him?”
“It is true that Wrath started that war, but it was Greed who funded him. By keeping Greed on the run, we are crippling Wrath. Additionally, because Wrath is at war, he is far more likely to be killed incidentally without our interference. And finally, Patience believed that Wrath was not someone who needed to be stopped. She believed that whether he won or lost, his disruptive activities would end with the war.
“I suppose,” said the Saintess as she began scratching under Antonio’s chin. “What about the other Sins. Any updates on their whereabouts?”
“No changes there,” said Antonio, lifting his head along with the Saintess’ hand. “We know who Lust is, but he is far too slippery, and far too powerful. There have been many sightings of him, but with his Spatial magic, that’s hardly any better than nothing. Envy is making noise all over the world, but they’re even harder to track down than Lust. Sloth is still unknown, but we don’t need to worry too much about them.
“What I’m most concerned about is Pride. The fact that we have no concrete evidence of their existence at this point is incredibly concerning. I would have guessed that Pride would have been the easiest to track down, not the most difficult.”
“Is it possible that they’re already dead?” asked the Saintess, moving her hands back to his shoulders.
“It is, and the more time that goes by without any sightings of them, the more I think that might be correct. It would be foolish to assume that though. We are keeping a close eye on all of our suspects, but none of them have made any moves that are overly suspicious, so we cannot act against them.”
“Who are the suspects again?” asked the Saintess.
“Well, as we cannot narrow anything down fully, every noble, or person of skill who takes pride in their work or position is a suspect. We do have a few with slightly higher priority though. Duke Louis Lyon IV and his eldest son Louis Lyon V are two. Lord Gasparo Paganini. Emperor Feng Qiulong, The Sage of Darkness, Archmage Emerich Freud-”
“What about Alexei’s nemesis?” interrupted the Saintess as she continued to massage in between his shoulderblades.
“Who?”
“You know, the one that stabbed his sister.”
“Oh. Lucille. Yes, she’s on the high priority list, though only just barely. I personally don’t think she’s the one. I do not want to discount Alexei’s opinion, but we both know how much he obsesses over his sister, so he is not the most reliable source in this case. Her origins and abilities are suspicious, but that’s all I can say about her. She has been training under Archmage Natalya for five years now. If she were a Demon King, I’m sure she would have been found out by now.”
“Huh. The way Alexei talks about her, you’d think she was a Demon God in the flesh,” said the Saintess. “They fight every time they even catch a glimpse of each other, and afterwards, it takes him a week to cool down and stop ranting about her.”
“Yes, well, that’s a personal issue, and I can’t use his personal vendetta against her as evidence that she is a Demon King. Her stubbornness in dealing with him does count against her, which is the only reason she’s still on the high priority list, but now that you’ve reminded me, I think it’s about time to remove her. If Natalya has no issues with her, then there’s little reason to waste manpower keeping watch over her.”
“I dunno.” The Saintess leaned over the back of Antonio’s chair and began rubbing her cheek on his. “I met her once. She gave off a bit of a weird vibe. Maybe it’s just because she’s a vampire, but I feel like that isn’t the only reason.”
Antonio flinched away as her nose tickled his whiskers. “What are you doing?”
“Your fur is so soft,” said the Saintess, moving closer. “And it smells so nice. How do you keep it in such great condition?”
“I wash it every night, perfume it every morning, and I have a skill to help prevent shedding and increase fur density,” he said, holding perfectly still as the Saintess continued to gently nuzzle him. “I believe I have told you this multiple times.”
“I know, but it’s just so soft,” she said with her eyes closed.
The two sat in silence like that for a few seconds when a knock on the door made them jump back to less suspicious positions.
“Saintess Evelyn,” called a woman’s voice from the other side of the door. “It is time for your holy bath.”
“Aw, snap,” said Evelyn, straightening out her wrinkled dress. “Sorry, Tony, but it looks like I have to go.” She scratched behind his ears again.
“Good,” he said, leaning his head into her hand. “You’ve interrupted my work for long enough. And my name is Antonio.”
“Whatever you say, Tony,” replied Evelyn with a smile.
The knocking on the door came again, this time louder. “Saintess Evelyn, I know you’re in there! Please come out!”
Evelyn gave Antonio one final scratch on his chin and made her way back to the door.
“Bye, Tony. See you next week,” she said as she opened the door.
“It’s Antonio. And don’t come back. You’ve wasted enough of my time already,” he called after her.
Evelyn winked back at him, then let herself be led away by her attendant. As the door closed behind them, Antonio heard the attendant start to fuss over the Saintess.
“Look at the state of your dress! And your hair! What if we had a surprise visitor tonight? You have an image to maintain!” The attendant gasped. “Where are your shoes? Do you know how filthy the ground can get? As soon as we get back…”
As their voices faded to the point where even Antonio with his powerful ears couldn’t hear them, he sighed, and slid his chair back to his desk where it was originally. Before setting work on the reply to Temperance’s letter, he opened the drawer to his right and pulled out a small notebook with ‘Daily Planner’ written neatly on the cover. He opened it to a page near the end, where he had written out his schedule for the day. Near the bottom of the page, in between ‘Dinner- Salmon and Rice’ and ‘Respond to messages (Prioritize Temperance)’ he crossed out a line that simply read ‘Saintess Evelyn.’ He stared at the planner for a few seconds, then sighed again, returned it to its place in his desk, and started writing out his response to Temperance.