Chapter 594 (2/2)
The two were silent for almost a minute when Tessa spoke once more.
“There is… another angle that might be of interest to you. It is regarding Randidly Ghosthound.”
The other. Alumuran almost jolted into a standing position, remembering the man’s piercing emerald gaze, looking downward through several layers of plaster, metal, and wood, to see him. To truly see him, like none others ever had. And at that moment, he had named him truly: Heretic.
Alumuran was a man who had taken the cursed power and couldn’t now escape it. Heretic. His only saving grace was that he could be the sword and shield that the righteous people of the Unity Church congregation needed.
“Oh? It truly appears that he is as famous as they say. I have in fact met with Mr. Ghosthound. He seems… somewhat domineering. With the strength to back it up. You also mean to use the Orders as a method to bind him?”
“I mean to use the Orders as a method to explain him to people,” Tessa said as she leaned forward over the table.
After the younger woman had left, the Bishop sat at her desk for a long time, looking at the proposal that had been left by Tessa. The younger woman’s handwriting was looping and elegant. It was impressive in a way that Alumuran didn’t have words for that she had handwritten and signed the proposal she had left with the bishop. Wondering if she did that for every document, Alumuran closed his eyes and prepared to go into deep meditation to refine the almost toxic energy roiling within him.
There were donations from so many strange sources that it all mixed together in a viscous muck. Almumuran slowly extracted threads of it, purified them, and then added it to his main total, but the process was so slow and the donations were coming in so fast that he was quickly falling behind. The polluted energy within him weighed on his chest like a death sentence. But he had learned the Skill Aether Purification, which would speed up the process gradually. Hopefully, it would be enough.
But to Alumuran’s surprise, he was interrupted by a voice.
“Chosen one, what do you think of this idea?” The bishop said.
Blinking slowly, Alumuran’s thoughts moved like molasses in response to the question. He was… being asked for his opinion. But he- He was a Heretic. It was his role to discard his individuality and be simply a tool for those whose minds weren’t polluted as strongly by the influence of the System. Of course, it would be foolish to keep the leader completely without a Class or Level, otherwise they could easily be targeted. But only Alumuran received the energy from the congregation.
Well, there had been others, but the influence of thoughts had left them… broken. They had strayed from their mission. Father Foster, for all her flaws, had herself decisively killed any of the Heretics that began to behave overly erratically. After she had died, the experiments into finding new Heretics had largely stopped. No one had the nerve, a small part of Alumuran suspected.
The bishop was still pondering, and it hit Alumuran once more that she had asked him a question. He licked his lips, along in a dark room three floors below her. His lips were dry.
“I… dreamed of being a knight when I was a child,” Alumuran found himself saying. “In my fantasies… they were the ones that would slay the monsters that haunted me.”
The Bishop nodded, almost absent-minded. Then she nodded again, more decisively. “Hmm. Well, maybe that foolish girl knows more than her brash exterior would indicate. Oh, and Alumuran? I know the purification of the faith power is important, but you must not lose touch with your humanity. Please occasionally take a walk in the gardens to remember normalcy.”
Alumuran noded. Then he realized with a flash of guilt that the bishop couldn’t see him and said, “I accept.”
I accept? What sort of response was that? But the bishop seemed satisfied and left her office, heading over towards her private quarters.