“How dare you…” With a look on his face like he had bitten into something unpleasant, the member of the court looked through the documents he had in his hands. “Your misdeeds are unpardonable. Lady Lunaria said that, ‘If those of the clergy do not live in honorable poverty, the believers will not listen to them.’ However, you seem to do the opposite.”
“What? Do I not look poor to you?” Souji said, spreading his priestly robes out for them to see. His robe was cut off at the sleeves and below the knee, making it look like a samue. “I wear these shoddy clothes and live in a dilapidated shack on the outskirts of the city. If that’s not living in honorable poverty, what is? If anything, all of you here are wearing finer clothes and living in better houses than I am, no?”
“…However, we’ve heard of you receiving substantial donations from the followers,” the member of the court of inquiry pressed.
Souji shrugged. “Surely I have no reason to refuse what is offered to me.”
“How dare you say that! What do you take the believers’ offerings for?”
“If I were using their donations to fatten myself, indeed, that would be a sin,” said Souji. “But just look at these abs. I’ve got a perfect six-pack.” Souji pulled off his top to show off his abs.
When he showed off his body, which it was hard to believe belonged to a clergyman, and started shadow boxing, the members of the court were struck dumb for a moment, but they quickly turned bright red and got angry with him.
“That’s not what we’re talking about!” one of the members shouted, slamming his hands down on the table, but Souji seemed completely unconcerned.
“I’ll bet. I mean, we’ve got a pretty fat cardinal, too.”
When Souji glared at them a little, the members of the court found themselves at a momentary loss for words.
In mentioning the fat cardinal, he’d most likely meant Cardinal Gold. His pudgy body was inexcusable for a clergyman. In fact, the court of inquiry were already aware that most of the donations Souji collected were going to Cardinal Gold. In other words, Souji was implying that they shouldn’t squeeze him, but the cardinal instead.
However, in Orthodoxy, the cardinals were next only to the pope in rank. He was out of the court’s reach. If they were going to censure him, it would take the pope himself or a unanimous decision by the rest of the cardinals to do it. The pope could also be removed by a unanimous decision of the cardinals, so neither wanted to set a precedent for their own removal. That was how Cardinal Gold continued to manage to hold on to his position, despite being unpopular.
The court of inquiry wanted to squeeze Souji, who was connected to Cardinal Gold, in order to push the pope into censuring the cardinal, but Souji was under the cardinal’s protection. If they tried to force an unreasonable judgment against Souji here, the members of the court could find themselves censured by Cardinal Gold for overstepping their authority. Because of that, there had always been zero chance of Souji being excommunicated over the issue of donations here. That was why his composure hadn’t failed him.
The court of inquiry decided to change tack. “Outside of that, we’ve received reports that you travel from pub to pub every night.”
“Is it a sin to drink? I thought wine was sacred.”
“There are still limits.”
“Well, sorry,” said Souji. “A lot of the folks who come to hear me preach are drunkards. They ask me to come to the bar, not the church, so it just works out that I end up drinking too much.”
Incidentally, when Souji performed his pub sermons, he did it at parties…
“Lady Lunaria once said, ‘Live for today and be grateful for it.’ Cheers!”
…and all he did was quote some scripture as part of the toast. He was a big hit with the lazy believers because (they selfishly assumed that) it was just as virtuous for them to listen to him there as it would be for them to go to the church and listen to a priest’s boring sermons on the day of rest.
The court of inquiry seemed irritated, so they changed their angle of attack again. “That’s not all! I’ve heard you have a prostitute that frequently visits your house! Shouldn’t you be ashamed of that, as a member of the clergy?!”
“Oh my,” said Souji. “Do you mean to say that women are impure in some way? In that case, all of you here, where were you born into this world from? Surely you don’t mean to tell me you grew out of the fields? If you did, you could never eat vegetables, could you? You’d be eating your brothers and sisters.”
“Quit rambling on with your meaningless sophistry! The one we must truly love and respect is Lady Lunaria. That is why, even after going through the proper procedures to get married, the pious believers still feel a sense of guilt towards Lady Lunaria. It is inexcusable that you would be seeing a prostitute!”
The members of the court had completely snapped, but Souji cackled. “I don’t know about that. Our lady Lunaria said this: ‘Believers are to be honest with others.’ It’s only natural for us, as living beings, to want to embrace women. That’s because Lady Lunaria created us this way. Between those who, despite having taken the vows of marriage, hide their position in the clergy and sneak off to visit prostitutes, and I, who openly invite them to come visit me, I wonder which of us is being more honest!”
Souji declared it so proudly that the members of the court were at a loss for words. It was an empty argument if they stopped to think about it, but Souji said such stupid things with a seriousness that was so exasperating that the members of the court couldn’t say a word.
From there, Souji took advantage of the court’s silence to expound at length and with great passion on the beauty of the female form (especially their breasts). With the utter pointlessness of everything he had to say, he had already destroyed the atmosphere of the inquiry.
“…That’s enough,” one member of the court of inquiry snapped at last. “Be more careful of your actions in future.”
In the end, the court was dismissed without being able to do anything to Souji.
When he left the room, Souji was walking through the corridor humming to himself when he passed a young nun. She was an eye-wateringly beautiful girl with her silver hair tied back in two tails.
That outfit… It’s one of the young saints in training, huh? Souji thought as he looked at the girl.
He wasn’t looking at her in a particularly strange way. Souji was into voluptuous older girls, so the pretty girl in front of him didn’t arouse his appetite in the least, and he was only looking at her out of innocent curiosity.
However, the silver-haired girl, who was walking expressionlessly, as if she had almost no emotion, furrowed her brow slightly when she saw Souji. Then, as they passed each other, she turned her head away so she wouldn’t have to look at him and walked off at a brisker pace.
When he saw her do that, Souji scratched the back of his head and smiled wryly. “…Good grief. Looks like someone hates me, huh.”
This man, Souji. Despite his slovenly personality, he was strangely popular with men of all ages and old women. On the other hand, young girls hated him with a passion.
Well, I guess it’s too much to expect a young thing like her to appreciate this old man’s overflowing adult charm, Souji thought, making excuses for himself as he stroked his stubble-covered chin.
Around two weeks after that…
That night, Souji was in a certain pleasure quarter in the holy capital Yumuen.
Yumuen could have been called the Mecca of Lunarian Orthodoxy, but for as long as there were people living there, there would be a pleasure quarter where they could drink alcohol and fool around with women. Though there were no clergymen visible in the pleasure quarter, they were probably just in plain clothes and blending in with the ordinary customers. There was probably only one clergyman bold enough to come here and fool around in his (already modified) priest’s uniform, and that was Souji.