“I heard a strange noise and came to check—only to find this guy rummaging around when he’s supposed to be in prison! He said he had to hurry and find the rest of the money before escaping!”
In reality, I’d been lying in wait on a stakeout, but since Seth had only just arrived, I shamelessly lied to his face.
“Now that you mention it… I did hear about an embezzlement case earlier today…”
Thankfully, it seemed he’d been briefed on the matter. Seth scanned Kento with a cold gaze.
With his bruises and disheveled appearance, he looked exactly like someone who’d crawled through hell to escape confinement.
“I even saw him pull a pouch out from under the counter!”
Physical evidence and a direct witness—there was no way Kento could talk his way out of this.
I never thought my instincts from being a detective would come in so handy.
“I see. I assumed he kept fidgeting to draw a weapon—but it was to hide something. If you don’t want to die, put down what’s in your hand.”
Seth, ever the swordmaster, had already figured out every detail of Kento’s awkward movements and raised his blade.
Unlike me, who had the AI’s support, Kento had to endure Seth’s bloodlust head-on. His face turned ghostly pale.
“C-Captain, please! This is a misunderstanding! Don’t listen to her—she’s—!”
Kento’s eyes darted toward me.
Clearly, he was about to reveal I was a fake saint to try and wriggle out of this. But like hell I was going to let him.
“Oh! Now that I think about it, he said the next hiding spot was the drawer!”
I cut Kento off and yanked open the nearby silverware drawer.
Beneath its false bottom, just as expected, was another pouch of money.
“You—how the hell did you—?!”
As I held up the pouch, Kento reeled in shock.
He’d only checked under the counter and hadn’t touched the drawer, so of course he was freaking out.
To him, I was nothing but a clueless fake saint. Now here I was exposing the exact locations of the embezzled funds, smacking him upside the head with the truth from every direction.
“Considering the money found earlier today was hidden in a different place, there are probably more stashes elsewhere.”
There definitely were. I just couldn’t remember them off the top of my head.
Which meant we’d have to interrogate Kento and make him spill everything.
“Confess the locations—all of them. I can kill you right here and mobilize the entire temple to find it instead. Your choice.”
Seth’s firm voice left Kento in utter despair.
There was no way he could expose me now.
With this much evidence stacked against him, doing so would only make Seth think he was grasping at straws to frame me—and it’d piss him off instead.
“I-I’ll tell you everything…”
Kento finally crumpled to his knees and started sobbing as he confessed the rest of the hiding spots.
Seriously—how did he manage to hide all this in a cramped kitchen? Wasted talent, honestly.
“To think we entrusted such an important task as food preparation to someone like this.”
Seven pouches total.
Disgusting, really.
Even Seth looked overwhelmed, his expression grim as he stared at the stream of recovered money.
From the way his fist was clenched so tight the veins stood out, I could guess Kento’s future wouldn’t be a kind one.
Seth soon called in the Holy Knights and ordered them to imprison Kento in the deepest dungeon.
He also commanded they tighten the security so that no one—except for himself and High Priest Irik—could access the area.
The knights were horrified to learn Kento had escaped, and doubly shocked that there was still more stolen money hidden away. They dragged him off at once.
I’d been hiding in the corner, covering my face and hair to avoid shocking the knights with my appearance in the middle of the night. Only after everyone left did I step back into the light.
Seth bowed his head to me.
“Thanks to you, we were able to apprehend him. If not for your actions, we would’ve lost both the money and the criminal. Truly, thank you.”
No need to bow that deeply…
“As a saint, catching criminals is only natural for me.”
“…Excuse me?”
Huh? Why does he look so surprised?
Even more than when he found out his trusted chef was a corrupt thief.
“Pardon? What did you just say…? Did you say you’re… the Saint?”
“…?”
Wait, don’t tell me… he didn’t know?
No matter how often Seth gets dispatched outside the temple, there’s no way he wouldn’t recognize Ordell, the temple’s saint.
Sure, I wasn’t wearing the saint’s robe right now because I was on a stakeout, but still—he’s sharp enough that a change of clothes shouldn’t throw him off.
And anyway, Ordell rarely wore her saint’s attire to begin with.
Then why didn’t he recognize me?
“Captain!”
Just then, the awkward silence in the kitchen was broken by someone bursting through the door.
High Priest Irik, no doubt having received a report from the knights, had rushed over.
“I heard the chef escaped and more embezzled funds were found—what on earth…?”
Flustered, he began asking questions, but then spotted me.
“Why is the Saint here…?”
“She… she really is the Saint?”
Seriously, you too?
“I didn’t expect the Captain to not recognize me.”
“M-My apologies.”
Seth bowed his head in haste. Still looking dazed, he was no help at the moment, so I turned to Irik.
“The truth is, I anticipated Kento would escape and sneak back in, so I waited here to catch him.”
“What? You knew?”
Irik’s eyes widened. Seth looked just as shocked.
They were probably surprised because I had just told Kento earlier that I’d stumbled across him by chance.
I decided to tell them the real story.
“Kento isn’t just some random embezzler. He’s a spy my father—Count Kiris—planted in the Grand Temple.”
“…What?”
Both men were visibly stunned. Not once had they suspected him, clearly.
“I found out when I recently returned to the estate. I happened to overhear my father and his aide talking about him.”
I couldn’t exactly say I’d read it in the original novel, so I spun a plausible story.
It was true that Count Kiris had planted Kento, after all.
“For someone who always showed me such stern discipline to be doing something so filthy behind my back… It was a real shock.”
I trembled like someone truly betrayed.
“Honestly, I struggled. Whether I should report this to the temple, or protect my father’s secret.”
“…But in the end, you chose to expose Kento’s crimes.”
I nodded in response to Irik’s words.
“Once I returned to the temple knowing everything, I started seeing what I couldn’t before. The money my father siphoned off behind the scenes. The childish, thoughtless luxuries I indulged in. The temple growing poorer. The children suffering…”
I embellished a bit, but it was true that I’d decided not to run away because I couldn’t get those kids out of my mind.
Right now, I was the only one who could fix things at the temple. How could I run away?
“I’ve committed terrible acts out of ignorance. I deeply apologize to both of you.”
I bowed my head. Even if I hadn’t personally done those things, I still needed to apologize.
I needed to win their trust if I was going to rebuild the temple.
“I’d like to apologize to everyone else, too. And from now on, I vow to put the Grand Temple before my family.”
“…This is all so…”
Seth, who had only just arrived and knew nothing of the situation, stood there looking overwhelmed.
Irik, however, looked deadly serious as he asked me a question.
“Are you saying… Count Kiris ordered all of this?”
“I can swear it in the name of the Sun.”
In this world, swearing in a god’s name is not done lightly. Lying under such an oath can bring down divine punishment.
“Then why didn’t you tell us sooner? Why did you try to capture the chef alone, knowing he’d return? Why didn’t you come to me?”
Irik’s voice was heavy with doubt.
I shrugged and replied, “Because without proof, you wouldn’t have believed me. I wanted to bring you solid evidence first.”
That was exactly why I hadn’t told them during the day that Kento was a spy.
If I showed too much knowledge about the location of his stolen funds, it would only make me look suspicious.
They might have wondered if I was an accomplice instead.
So I waited—waited for him to break out and come looking for the money on his own.
Seth had been an unexpected variable, but we still caught Kento in the act, so it all worked out.
God. That thrill you get from nabbing a criminal according to plan? Nothing beats it.
“You thought I wouldn’t trust you.”
Of course. I’m a fake saint. Count Kiris’s daughter. If I was the one exposing his embezzlement, who would actually believe me?
Especially considering how I’d been terrorizing the temple not long ago.
“Even though the Captain’s help wasn’t planned, I still managed to catch Kento. Please, just trust me a little.”
I looked at Irik and smiled softly.
Obviously, this one incident wouldn’t make them trust me completely.
But if it was enough for them to stop obstructing me every step of the way, then it was good enough for now.
Trust—well, that can be built slowly.