“A concerned citizen... are you joking?”

The Limping Priest’s face went flat.

“You think, as a gang member, you won’t get hauled off by the city watch?”

“Well, I’ve got you, don’t I?”

Muen spread his hands. “My identity obviously can’t stand the light of day. But if you step forward when the time comes, won’t that solve the problem? You can have the authorities handle everything for you directly. Isn’t that better?” 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

“Heh.”

The priest let out a cold laugh. “I’ve lived here for decades. I know better than you what those useless bastards squatting in their posts are really like. If calling them were actually useful, why would I have contacted the Xipos gang instead?”

Saint Blancfazesiya was an enormous city. Precisely because it was so enormous, the rulers’ roots could not reach into every inch of it.

Perhaps once, they had reached deeper. But beneath these decades of surface peace, those roots had long ago rotted away in silence.

Just like Belrand before it had been cleaned up.

No—under decades of unchanging calm on the surface, that rot might well have spread even further here.

“I think this is different. No matter how corrupt those people are, they should know what matters and what doesn’t.”

Muen tapped on one of the coffins. “They might ignore small things, but they won’t turn a blind eye to major ones. Even rot needs a warm, damp, comfortable environment if it wants to keep rotting, doesn’t it?”

“But with nothing more than the city watch’s bunch of idiots—”

“If the city watch won’t work, then we use someone else. The Kingdom’s capital can’t rely on only one organization to maintain order, can it?”

“You mean...”

“If I remember right, the Kingdom’s organization for handling special incidents is called... [Eye of the Saints], isn’t it?”

Muen leaned closer to the priest and suggested, “Why not report it directly to the Eye of the Saints?”

“No!”

The Limping Priest reacted violently, shaking his head over and over. “Absolutely not!”

“Why not?”

Muen looked a little surprised and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you did something so awful that if the Eye of the Saints caught you, they’d have you torn apart?”

“I’m not afraid of the Eye of the Saints. The problem is the Church!”

The Limping Priest said, “Organizations for dealing with so-called special incidents are mainly meant for heretics or bizarre events ordinary people can’t understand. Aside from the Empire’s Silent Bureau, which is completely independent, almost every other country’s equivalent is built on the Church and established with Church support!

“I’m afraid the Eye of the Saints would immediately pass this on to the Church and bring Church people in. And if that happens, then I...”

“I see!”

Muen clapped his hands and said in sudden realization, “So what you’re saying is that you did something so awful that if the Church caught you, they’d tear you apart!”

“You... what nonsense are you spouting?”

The priest’s cheek twitched. “Young man, you can be careless with food, but not with words. If the Church had really listed me as a wanted criminal, do you think a limping old man like me could’ve survived until now? Do you really think the Church’s Judgment Hall is as incompetent as the city watch?”

“That’s true...”

Muen stroked his chin. “Then that’s strange. Why are you so afraid of the Church? If you broke some rule and got expelled, does that mean you’re not even allowed to ask for help afterward? The Church can’t be that petty.”

“Well... this is a little hard to talk about.”

The Limping Priest’s lips moved awkwardly. A faint trace of embarrassment—and something that looked suspiciously like shyness—appeared on his aged face.

“Sir, this concerns your safety.”

Muen patted the priest on the shoulder, looking so upright and righteous that, with the shadow cast by his hat brim across his stern face, he seemed nothing like the type who would pry into other people’s gossip. He merely looked like a man gently listening to someone’s confession.

“Please, tell me. I’m absolutely not the sort of person who would go around flapping my tongue, and I certainly wouldn’t judge you for it.”

“...Sigh. It’s really not that big a deal.”

The priest thought for a while, but in the end, he chose to tell the whole story.

“All I did was choose to confess my love to the person I loved in front of the goddess.”

“A confession?”

Muen blinked. “That’s not allowed?”

“Of course not. How could a member of the clergy do something like contaminating the faith with personal feelings? It’s a forbidden matter written right there in the canon.”

“I see...”

Muen suddenly thought of Liya and, all at once, felt a little guilty.

“That’s outrageous. Emotions are part of human nature. How could they simply stamp them out? In this, the Church is clearly in the wrong... although, come to think of it, I’ve never heard that ordinary clergy in the Church aren’t allowed to fall in love.”

As far as Muen knew, only the Saintess, whose duty was to guide the faithful, and the sacred choir, who devoted themselves wholly to the goddess, were required to remain single for life in order to preserve their purity.

As for the rest of the clergy, Muen had never heard of any such restriction. After all, the goddess the Church served was the Life Goddess. How could she possibly forbid her followers from bringing forth new life?

“You’re right. Ordinary clergy aren’t strictly forbidden from falling in love. They only need to voluntarily step down from duties directly tied to serving the goddess. As for why the Church alone expelled me...”

The priest lifted his head at a forty-five-degree angle and exhaled smoke in melancholy fashion.

“It was probably because the one I loved was a cute thirteen-year-old boy.”

“I see. I thought maybe it was because—... huh?”

Muen’s body went rigid. Even nerves honed through who knew how many brushes with death seemed to short-circuit for a moment. He stared blankly at the priest.

“What did you just say?”

“I said the person I loved back then was a boy. I failed to suppress the feelings in my heart, so when he came to pray, I confessed to him in front of the goddess. His parents broke my leg on the spot.”

The Limping Priest stroked his crippled leg and sighed wistfully.

“After that, the Church refused to treat me and expelled me outright. Sigh. When you’re young, a moment of hot-blooded impulse can cost you dearly. Thinking back on it now...

“I really was too rash. I should’ve waited until the boy came of age before making my move.”

“...”

Muen looked at the hand with which he had just touched the priest. A nameless chill seemed to seep from his fingertips, making him shudder as goosebumps burst across his skin.

“You beast.”

Muen instantly retreated several paces, ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) his voice turning hollow.

“I never imagined you were that kind of beast, sir.”

“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t judge me?” The priest rolled his eyes.

“That was before I knew you were this much of a beast! You actually... you actually went after a thirteen-year-old boy—”

Muen looked genuinely appalled. “This is too much. Being into men was one thing, but going after someone that young? That’s worse than the sick freaks I’ve met before. Damn it... now I want to drag you straight back to the Church for judgment.”

“For a gang brat, you’ve got a surprisingly good heart.”

The Limping Priest gave Muen a long, meaningful look, lingering a moment especially on his distinctly Slavic features. That made Muen instantly wary again. He thought to himself that if this old bastard’s getting older, his tastes hadn’t broadened too, had they...?

“All right, enough. I’m joking.”

The priest crushed out his cigarette, and his tone changed abruptly. “As if I’d actually do something like that.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“It means I made all that up. Just a little lesson for some brat who likes poking into other people’s past.”

The priest ran a hand over the thick canon at his chest, as if remembering some story far, far in the past. His eyes turned complicated.

“How could I possibly have done such a thing? A person like that could never return to the goddess’s embrace...”

“Really? You really just made that up?”

Muen was still suspicious. “You’re not trying to fool me now so I’ll drop my guard and—”

“Whether it’s true or not, what difference does it make to your plan?” the Limping Priest asked suddenly.

“Of course it makes a difference.”

Muen straightened his collar.

“As long as you’re not some criminal and haven’t committed anything unforgivable, then even if the Church really does take you, I can probably get you back out and let you go on being a solitary gravekeeper instead of spending the rest of your life in a Church prison.”

“Oh? You can do that?”

“Probably. I have a few very minor connections in the Church.”

“Heh. A few very minor connections won’t shake the Church’s diehards. Their methods for dealing with sinners are more brutal than you imagine.”

The priest shook his head with a smile, feeling that this gang brat was still a little naïve.

“Really?”

Muen thought for a moment, then lightly pinched his thumb and forefinger together. “Then maybe it’s not a very minor connection. Maybe it’s a connection this big.”

“What good is a connection that big?”

“Like I said, as long as you didn’t really make a move on some little boy and didn’t commit some unforgivable crime, then if you help me, I can guarantee the Church won’t do anything to you.”

“You brat...”

The priest narrowed his eyes. He was starting to realize the mysterious man before him was not merely talking nonsense. He really did seem to have some enormous backing.

Did he know some bishop? Or was he outright some bishop’s illegitimate son?

“I see. So you’re not just some common gangster, and you didn’t come here only to help me deal with this incident.”

The priest took out another cigarette and lit it.

In the decades since leaving the Church, he had gradually come to depend on cigarettes and strong liquor. A priest who had once stood in holy light had, in the end, fallen low enough to numb himself with things like these.

Still, compared to some bishop who had secretly left behind a bastard child, maybe he wasn’t all that bad.

Sigh. It seemed that aside from His Holiness the Pope and the Saintess, the two people closest to the goddess, mortals caught in the world of dust and desire could never truly escape corruption.

“Go on, then.”

The smoke the limping priest exhaled seemed, in that hazy blur, to carry the past he did not wish to speak of.

“What is it you really want to do? And how exactly do you want me to cooperate?”

“It’s simple.”

Muen took a few steps through the shed, then suddenly picked up a long pole from a corner. He gave it a couple of test swings, mimicking the motion of casting a line, and then asked with a smile,

“Sir, have you ever gone fishing?”

...

...

Night fell once more.

The royal capital. Inside a deeply concealed underground stronghold.

The long silence was suddenly broken as a voice came from outside the heavy metal door—somewhat urgent, yet still steady.

“Captain Krete.”

“What is it?”

Inside the room, the middle-aged man was currently studying an intricate ancient relic. At the sound of the voice, he did not even raise his head.

“A message has come in from the graveyard in the western district.”

The man outside paused, his tone turning grave.

“Someone filed a report saying there’s been an extremely serious incident involving heretical activity there.”