CHAPTER 514: CHAPTER 514 - DIVERTING ATTENTION AND TROUBLE

After the eventful evening wherein the huge group of onlooker priests outside my villa saw me carry Clarence inside my house, I decided to push through with my plan of diverting attention away from me. If you ask me how, well, I just have to pick one out of the 40, right?

I sent Clarence to his room on purpose for everyone to see, After that day, I did not avoid him inside the academe anymore. I don’t mind talking to him or even sitting beside him during classes. He still kept a respectful distance with me, never acting coy or flirty whenever I am around.

As for the other priests, I can befriend them, sure. I just don’t want anything beyond that. At least for the time being and it is not likely I like any one of them in particular.

After a few days, I chose to talk to the others, specifically those that do not look at me like I am some kind of a grand prize for some contest. I started with the meek ones that I have noticed in the past few weeks that don’t do anything but look at me timidly from afar.

In a sense, I am dealing with this whole situation using the idea of operant conditioning. In simpler words, it is the idea of reward and punishment. The more eager and aggressive one is towards me, the more they will be ignored. The more docile, respectful and friendly they are, then I will give them some attention once in a while.

It only took a week for the whole conditioning thing to work. Gone are the days that I have to teleport here and there just to avoid a crowd of obsessive people in the corridors of the academe. Now, I can pass by peaceful along academe corridors and all I hear are polite greetings, simple smiles or maybe a shy nod of heads.

I started treating the priests like normal classmates and acquaintances that I have in the academe. The priests eventually learns to befriend other people besides me which is a good thing if the church’s target is to let them learn about the outside world. The outside world doesn’t have only me, anyways.

Most of the priests, stopped following me around in my classes and started taking in short term classes based on their hobbies and talents which is I think was a good thing for all of them, Only Clarence and a few others chose to stay in the same classes as I have since they also learned to enjoy learning things in the courses too.

The more I talked to the priests, the more I learned about the internal information in their religion. I guess, in a sense, I used their conviction that I am the "goddess" or the "saintess" of their religion for them to let down their guard when it comes to sharing even confidential information.

Eventually, Clarence also divulged information that besides trying to be closer to me, his other role is an overseer for the younger priests that were sent to the academe. He has to ensure that all of them are in good health and all their needs are provided. He doesn’t meddle in all of their affairs but in case they create a mess, he has to deal with it and send a letter back to the temple to consult on how to deal with the matter.

The priests in general are young (around 16 to 18 years old) and have been shut inside the temple since they were born. They are technically naïve in worldly affairs and relationships between the opposite genders. As the third month of their stay in the academe came, the problems started to sprout one by one.

Generally, the priests are quite good looking and they have exceptional training not only in mind and spirit but also in their bodies as well. It seems like the pope is expecting for these men to somewhat gain a "blessing" one way or another and it turns out that all of them were given a secret concoction to enhance their fertility before they were sent out of the main temple.

As for the said problems, some of the priests after being close with other women in the academe for some time ended up getting pregnant. There were four of them who came inside my home together with Clarence to discuss what happened and their plans moving forward.

As expected, all four nonchalantly said that the women they had intimacy with were chosen by the goddess and that they were guided accordingly to proceed with the blessing ritual. They simply said that it is part of their mission and they do not have anything to do with the mother of their children.

As it turned out, the mother of the children in their bellies are indeed exceptional people. They were exceptional mages and talents from nobility from inside the empire and also from other kingdoms. The problem was, if these women will let these priests keep their children.

The more I listened into their conversation, the more my head hurt. It seems that part of their training is hiding one’s pregnancy and giving the woman a partial amnesia through spells albeit just temporary. The spells are only good for a week which means they have to leave the academe and return to the temple before the spells wear off.

No wonder these priests can safely return to the main temple after their missions are deemed completed. This is definitely a damn cult and a syndicate in one with how shady the deal with these things.

I couldn’t help but put one hand on my forehead to ease the throbbing of my head with everything they were discussing in front of me. As to why they are in my house, of course they knew that my place is the most secure and most secretive. They said that no one will hear about what is being discussed if they are here.

Being friendly and all, I agreed for them to have their little meeting here in my living room. At first I did not have any idea what is so important that they need the security of my home. Now that I know why, I became an involuntary accomplice.

I am also quite sure that this is not the last group that will have this issue now that they are bound to leave the confines of the academe by the end of this month. These crazy people will definitely make their move within the next four weeks to complete that mission of theirs.

For the next four weeks, these meetings in my home increased from twice on the first week of the month to thrice a week on the second week. By the third and fourth week of the month, these secret meetings occurred almost everyday as the number of priests that have completed their "mission" increased.

As for Clarence, being a high priests, he nonchalantly discussed the next steps of the plan to each one he had a meeting with. He congratulated them for completing the mission and told them to prepare for their departure within three days. It seems that there were already envoys within the Athanoviya empire even before the designated time to leave the academe has arrived.

Gradually, the number of priests that were staying in the academe dwindled. By the end of the month, only 17 remained to complete the term which included Clarence. As for the other 23, they were fetched by envoys of the church one by one to return early to the main temple. It was done discreetly and the only ones who knew about their departure was me, Clarence and the person being fetched.

Clarence told me that their empire is quite near so envoys can come and go qucikly. It turns out that the church had their own territory, southwest of the Athanoviya empire. They territory forms a triangle with Athanoviya on the north direction, Sklavryet south of Athanoviya and the Lumienere Empire at the southwest direction of Athanoviya.

Before the semester officially ended, I was able to get permission from the academe grandmaster to bring the priests outside of the academe to go shopping for a whole day. This is my gift to the last 17 that survived this very eventful academe term.

The goal of this short excursion was so that the young priests can at least know what a normal city and market looks like. They can also get knowledge of common products sold in other territories and the price of goods and services. The church had money and each of the priests were like little lords, buying personal things that they can bring back to the temple with them.

At the end of the semester, Clarence, together with the 16 other newbie priests left the academe using a very grand and huge teleportation circle that will send them straight to the main temple of the Church of Lumienere. Before the teleportation completed, Clarence mouthed a short message towards me, "See you next semester" together with a meaningful smile before he disappeared from the teleportation portal.

I think the next semester would be as headache-inducing as the one that just finished. Why would does he have to accompany the next batch as well?!