At this point in time, only Zhen Liu and Jinju Ren were conscious in the shared room, so they were more or less able to have a private conversation.

The moment Zhen Liu shared the real reason why he wanted to go on a religious building tour, Jinju Ren directed a mildly judgemental gaze in Zhen Liu’s direction.

It wasn’t a horribly judgmental gaze that seemed upset with Zhen Liu’s actions. Rather, it was the type of judgemental gaze one would give to a friend or loved one who was clearly overworking themselves and needed a break...or a very strong drink.

"Uh...Xiao Ren?"

Jinju Ren remained silent as she got up from her bed, walked over to Zhen Liu, and hugged his head.

Zhen Liu was mildly confused at the action at first, but then he felt her rub the back of his head in the same manner Jin Fang would do sometimes when he was...ah.

"First, how do you know about this? Second, you think I’m overstressing myself for no reason again, aren’t you?"

"I learned this from Jin Fang, you should know women talk to each other about matters of the heart. Especially when they happen to like the same person," Jinju Ren answered in a surprisingly motherly tone. "Also, yes I do."

"Mmm."

Zhen Liu would’ve argued against this statement, but Jin Fang had an uncanny knack of calling Zhen Liu out whenever he did decide to overwhelm himself for no good reason. Evidently, Jinju Ren had that same knack.

"Just because you happened to find some holy relics related to some weird ancient flame doesn’t mean you have to immediately pounce on it the next chance you get," Jinju Ren said as she continued to rub the back of Zhen Liu’s head. "Hells, you didn’t even plan on going this way until that Bishop guy showed up."

"Is...is this your way of telling me to have bygones be bygones and get out of town? Because—"

"Nothing like that, you big baby," Jinju Ren lovingly teased. "I’m just saying...roll with it. If something happens that compels you to act, do so. Just don’t plan so far ahead that you end up causing whatever you were trying to avoid to happen. Self-fulfilling policy and all that."

"That’s...fair."

Zhen Liu took a moment to breathe and digest Jinju Ren’s words before finally exhaling a rather heavy sigh.

"Aside from own paranoia, I do still kind of want to tour around the city," Zhen Liu eventually said. "It’s not often we visit a city with this many conflicting religious sects. I’m kind of curious what kind of [Desires] I can find popping up around here."

"Fair enough."

The tender moment lasted only for a few minutes but could’ve gone on for longer. However, as the two embraced one another, the other members of their group began to stir from slumber.

It was honestly kind of surprising that none of them were disturbed by all of the religious chanting that was happening just right outside of their window.

"Baaa," Zhen Tai yawned. "Felt like I just slept for a—eh? You two are already awake?"

"Yeah..." Zhen Liu answered. "You ready to go touring churches?"

"Say what?"

...What do the kaijin think?...

[Wait...by definition, we’re like...demons, right?] Corpse Doll asked her older counterparts. [And churches, regardless of the denomination, are considered holy ground. Doesn’t that mean it would cause us pain to be walking through them?]

[That only applies to certain worlds and universes, not ours,] Blazejudicator answered with surprising confidence in his voice. [Besides, if that was the case, then we would’ve been howling in pain when we went exploring last night.]

[Oh yeah...]

[Adding on to that, we’re already weak against Law, Chaos, Dragon Force, true Nirvana, and technically music,] Nepherage piped up. [Which...now that I think about it, shouldn’t a church be the ultimate culmination of all those weaknesses?]

<=You’d think, but no. The average religious order can’t seem to blend all of those little things in a cohesive enough blend to actually do anything. It’d be more accurate to say that kaijin and [Chaos] is weak against certainty, not faith.=>

[Huh...neat.]

[Does that mean we have free reign to mess around the churches when we get the chance?] Hurricroak asked.

...Back to the mortals...

When Zhen Liu had suggested the church tour thing, he had meant it.

The day prior, when they were dodging the preachers and priests as best they could, he had noted that among them was a peculiar-looking fellow advertising a tour of the city’s more accommodating sects and their facilities.

It made sense to a point; many religious sects would try to present themselves as being gentle and open so that vagabonds, tourists, and the like would feel comfortable enough to join them on a more permanent basis.

And in a worse-case scenario where nobody decides to join at the end of this tour, at the very least, they would get some of the money that was paid as the price of admission.

Correction: They would get the money as a church donation.

Much to the surprise of everyone in Zhen Liu’s group, except Zhen Liu, the guided church tour was surprisingly popular with foreign visitors.

"Huh... I’m honestly surprised that there are this many people who signed up for a church tour of all things," Zhen Xing commented at the sight of all the people waiting for the tour guide. "Then again, I guess we’re not exactly the most spiritually inclined people...despite everything we’ve seen and dealt with."

"To be sure, I’m pretty sure having to fight some so-called deities would make one anti-religious," Olstenna said.

"True."

When Zhen Liu suggested the church tour, his friends and family assumed that the tour would be depressingly empty.

The entire city was forty percent churches, so having someone act like a guide in such a place was weird to the Zhen Clan group. But lo and behold, the tour that Zhen Liu had selected was hosting a wide variety of tourists.

Some appeared to be scholars, others appeared to be traders, while a great majority were just ordinary tourists looking to kill time.

It was honestly crowded enough that Zhen Liu felt like he could just sneakily drop some of the kaijin on to the ground and have them blend in as mortals.

But if last night was any indicator...perhaps that wasn’t a good idea for the time being.

^Hello, everybody! I hope you have all had a blessed morning!^ a cheery voice called out near the front of the crowd of tourists. Which, coincidentally, was where Zhen Liu and his friends were situated.

’Huh...he looks like a tour guide.’

The man who had called out a greeting to the crowd was a tall, thin man who was dressed in missionary clothes and had a holy symbol around his neck in the shape of a flame burning in a brazier.

This symbol was, as far as Zhen Liu could remember, the symbol for the central church of the Sacred Flame Theocracy, aka, the guys in charge of everyone else.

^Now as a quick introduction, I am Cleric Oswin of the Sacred Flame Church and I shall be your guide for today,^ the man said with a slight, humble bow. ^ Our tour for today is going to consist of three churches that have gracefully volunteered to showcase their rituals as well as their bases of operation. As is tradition, the first church will be of a recently created offshoot of the Sacred Flame, the second church will be one that was created during the time from before the war, while the third will be of a church that has been established since the day the Sacred Flame was first sanctified. ^

’Okay, I was expecting that kind of set-up,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he tried to imagine these churches. ’I wonder what kind of Kaijin would pop out if I could transform the whole building...’

^And with that out of the way, ladies and gentlemen, let us begin the tour!^

^Woo!^

...Scene change time...

The first church that the tour group stopped by was a quaint little building that was done in modern Dozing Salamander-style...which in Zhen Liu’s head was kind of like a brick version of a pueblo-style building. As for the occupants of this particular building, they were a group known as the Holy Candle Monastery.

As the name implied, this monastery had a heavy candle theme going on with them, mostly due to their group’s exclusive aether formula requiring that the user understand the intricacies of candle-making...and have a candle burning 24/7 on the top of their heads.

Zhen Liu and his friends thought this was kind of weird, but they knew better than to bring it up in front of the monks themselves. Plus, they all got handmade candles with unique fragrances that only these monks could make.

"Is it weird that this candle is making me hungry?" Rianna asked as she sniffed the wax object. "It smells like a cookie."

"Mine too," Antonio agreed as he sniffed his own gifted candle. "Although mine smell like berries..."

Unfortunately for Zhen Liu and his friends, this was going to be the only church that they would be able to visit without shit going south.

Why?

Because sometimes, preachers fail to read the fucking room.