Meanwhile, the Archbishop sat there with his teacup in hand, smiling on the surface while, in his head, he was beating his two useless subordinates half to death.
Why in the world did you two idiots have to pick this timing, of all possible timings, to start mouthing off?
I just finished praising the capital church in front of the princess, talking about discipline and noble character, and then you immediately turn around and slap my old face in public. Are you doing this on purpose? Are you trying to retire me early?
Even if the target of your insults is that infamous Wensley, the one Her Highness openly despises, this is still the worst time to do it. You make the Dawnglow clergy look cheap. What exactly is going on inside your heads?
Now that things had already blown up, he could not very well explain, "Ah, do not worry, Your Highness, they only treat certain people this way. They do not treat proper believers like that." That would be public admission of discrimination.
Down in the courtyard, Wensley was also cursing in his heart, but his anger was not aimed at the priests at all. All of his resentment was focused on the goddess statue towering in front of him.
Old Ancestor, I have been kneeling here for almost two hours. You have not given me even a single crumb of benefit.
If it were not for the circle of clergy and believers watching from all sides, Wensley would really have wanted to walk up and give the statue a good kick, just to see if he could shake a few Merit Values loose.
As for what the two clergymen were muttering in the distance, he truly did not care. Even if the words drifted into his ears, he would not bother to respond.
What? You want to insult me? Go ahead. Just do not stop me from farming merits.
So he lowered his head again and continued praying, honestly a little annoyed but stubborn enough to keep going.
Time crawled forward until finally two full hours had passed.
Just when Wensley was about to lose his patience and, in his head, aim a double-barreled shotgun at the statue for a bit of imaginary target practice, a faint line of golden words slowly appeared across the stone surface.
[Merit Value +2]
"Good, great! Praise be to the goddess!" Wensley almost blurted it out without thinking. His eyes lit up and the invisible double-barreled shotgun in his mind instantly vanished.
The statue of the goddess was safe for another day, which was probably for the best.
That sudden outburst startled several nearby clergymen, and on the second floor, even Mirecia and the Archbishop paused with their teacups halfway to their lips.
To be fair, was an extra two points of merit a major event? Not really. But for Wensley, it was more important than the number itself. It meant he had found a clear and reliable way to grind merits.
That method was prayer.
Two hours in front of the goddess statue gave him two points of merit. For someone as broke as Wensley, this was a massive return.
He glanced at his panel and then at the clock on the wall. It was already four in the afternoon.
In other words, even if he stopped "spending money to gain merit" and simply came here to pray for two hours every day, he could still reach the required value to awaken his bloodline in about thirteen days.
After standing there for so long, Wensley finally rolled his shoulders and stretched his stiff neck. He ignored the curious and disdainful looks around him, walked out of the courtyard with an easy stride, and never noticed the pair of eyes following him from the second floor.
His mood at that moment could be summed up in one word: awesome. He felt good, really good, and he did not care what anyone else might be whispering.
With his farming done for the day, it was time to focus on real business.
He tuned out the background noise, letting all the chatter fade away, and lifted his gaze toward the magnificent royal city ahead. The towering walls and gleaming parapets made his eyes brighten, as if someone had quietly pointed him toward a new road.
If you looked at it from a certain angle, being reborn as cannon fodder or a villain was not entirely the worst fate. At least he was alive and walking, not lying in a coffin.
As long as he watched his step and refused to give the protagonist any convenient openings to kill him, he should be able to live, right?
Being an ordinary passerby with some solid ability did not sound too bad. People might hate him, curse him, spit in his direction. So what?
He was not the same Wensley from before. He did not intend to live according to other people's eyes anymore.
I am the one living my own life. Why should I waste time caring what they think of me? People will talk no matter what, and it is not as if I can tell them all to shut up.
Still, even if he refused to walk the original villain route, things would not magically become safe. As long as he stayed tangled up with those main characters and their constant drama, trouble would eventually knock on his door again.
So the first rule of survival was simple: cherish life and stay away from walking disasters.
Why not leave the royal capital altogether? He could go to some small, quiet country where his infamy had never reached, enlist there, work his way up to a knight captain, maybe receive a tiny border fief and become a minor lord. After that, he could find some ordinary girl who genuinely liked him and settle down for the rest of his life. Would that not be a fine ending?
With that thought, Carmella Kingdom's so-called King of Brilliant Ideas happily promoted himself inside his own head and came up with another "perfect" plan.
The annoying part was how to make any of this actually happen. The young king was not some naive pushover. With Wensley's current situation, empty wallet, bad reputation, and a Merit system that had barely started ticking, was it realistic to dream of becoming a knight, let alone a lord?
Obviously not.
However, problems like these had solutions. A lot of doors could be opened with one thing.
A diploma.
A proper diploma from a prestigious academy could smooth out most of the bumps on his path.
Take Crown Academy on the Aurelis Continent, for example. It was one of those places where only the very best managed to graduate. Graduates from there did not need anyone to sing their praises. The name of the place alone was a guarantee that they would land on their feet somewhere important after graduation.
That was one of the reasons why the game was called Citrus Crown. The main storyline was set in and around Crown Academy.
The prologue of the game began there, at Crown Academy, with Aisiefis, Mirecia, and most of the other main heroines gathered on the same campus.
Was it dangerous to study under the same roof as a whole gallery of walking time bombs and main-story disasters? Wensley had only two words left to say.
All in.
Going all in was its own kind of wisdom.
Besides, Crown Academy, as the premier academy on the continent, was as large as a small island. If he made a deliberate effort to avoid certain places, certain classrooms, certain social circles, then even being on the same campus did not guarantee that he would constantly bump into the main characters. As long as he stayed away from the obvious main story triggers, disaster would always lag just a step behind him.
Once he survived the hardest part and actually graduated, the road ahead would open up. That was the launchpad.
Under normal circumstances, someone like Wensley would not even qualify to sit the entrance exam for Crown Academy.
But he had one advantage. King Carl, the current King of Carmella, existed.
King Carl was genuinely devout. Out of respect for the Goddess Fauslis, he had always extended a hand to the declining Fauce family, even if that kindness was limited. You could say he cared, but only to a certain degree.
In the original game plot, King Carl personally granted Wensley the right to take the Crown Academy exam. He covered the exam fees, the tuition, and the basic living expenses. The Dawnglow Church had stripped the Fauce family of almost everything they owned, yet they did not dare to lay a finger on Wensley himself, most likely because his viscount title had been granted by the king.
Thinking about that now, Wensley could not really blame the Peony royal family for not openly opposing the Church back then. When the Fauce family had been taken in, it was purely for the goddess's sake. The Fauce and Peony families had never been particularly close. The royal family did not owe them anything. If anything, they had already gone out of their way to help. And the Dawnglow Church was a giant of its own. Why would the Peony royalty pick a direct fight with such a monster for the sake of one fallen household?
As for how the original Wensley in the game managed to pass the entrance in the first place, the answer had already been laid out.
He chose the crooked path.
A shortcut, a fast way to gain power. In the early stages it seemed wonderful, but in the end, the price he paid was heavy.
He traded it for his life.
This time around, if Wensley wanted to walk through the gates of Crown Academy, he could forget about shortcuts. With his current aptitude, the difficulty would be brutal.
The path might not be realistic at all, but he still wanted to try.
If he could just find a soul art that fit him perfectly, there might be a sliver of hope.
He exhaled slowly, forcing his nerves to settle.
As he neared the city gate, two fully armed dragon knights stepped forward, long spears crossed, blocking the way.
They obviously recognized him. Almost everyone in the capital did. But rules were rules. Without a pass, no one, not even a halfway familiar troublemaker, could enter the royal city.
"Honored sirs, I am Wensley Fauce. This is the pass granted to me by His Majesty, permitting me to enter the royal soul art repository and choose a suitable soul art." Wensley cleared his throat and deliberately adjusted his tone, speaking with as much respect and calm as he could manage while handing over the pass.
The two knights exchanged a brief look. If words like that had come from another young noble, they would not have stood out, but coming from Wensley, the capital's famous delinquent, they sounded almost surreal.
Everyone knew his reputation. This was the guy who flattered those above him, stepped on those below him, stirred up trouble wherever he went, and somehow always picked the worst possible time. People could barely recall a single decent sentence that had ever come out of his mouth.
Even so, the knights did not comment. Their duty was to guard the gate, not to judge character.
They examined the pass several times, confirmed the royal seal was genuine, then handed it back, straightened, and stepped aside. One of them even gave Wensley a formal bow, not saying a word more than necessary.
Wensley thanked them and stepped through into the royal city.
It was not his first visit. In the past, he had often come here under various excuses, usually to pester Mirecia.
The royal city did not disappoint its name. It was vast and richly decorated, but he barely paid attention to the streets or the elegant buildings today. As soon as he passed through the main avenue, he headed directly toward the Royal Soul Collection Hall.
Whether the future turned around or crashed and burned might depend on what happened there.
Everything hinged on that Soul Art Guide.
If he could pick up a one star soul art with compatibility around eighty percent, or even seventy percent, he would be satisfied.
Wensley's standards at this moment were not high at all.
"Stop."
A young man's voice rang out behind him.
Wensley pretended not to hear and kept walking. There were plenty of people in the royal city today. That shout could be aimed at anyone.
"I told you to stop. Did you not hear me?"
The footsteps behind him quickened, getting closer. The tone was not casual at all.
A moment later, an armored figure strode past him and cut him off, blocking the road ahead.
Wensley slowly lifted his gaze and looked at the tall, handsome young man standing before him. The moment he recognized the face under the helmet, he sighed inwardly and rolled his eyes in his heart.
Ah Great. Of all people, it had to be this guy.
The knight in front of him was Charon, son of the commander of the Raging Dragon Knights. He had outstanding aptitude and had absorbed the [Dragon Eye] soul art at a very young age, joining the Raging Dragon Knights early and becoming the youngest member in the history of the order.
In Citrus Crown, he was also not just some random background character. He was one of Princess Mirecia's most devoted and troublesome suitors.