Guide Of Miracles (4)

“Thank you. But it’s all right. Letting me use the Benevolence Order’s secret passage would cause problems for you later.”

Azadine understood what Haine meant. She was trying to offer Azadine a secret passage meant for them, the Benevolence Order’s operatives.

But that meant Sir Haine herself would be staking her life.

If it was revealed that Azadine’s group had used the Benevolence Order’s secret passage, the Order would realize there was a traitor among them and immediately interrogate her.

‘This is really troublesome.’

Azadine had been chosen by the angels when he defeated the Wendigo in Korasar. However, the reason he had hidden the fact that he had been chosen by the angels from then until now was because he feared something like this would happen….

The thing Azadine had feared most had become reality in a strange direction.

“There is no need to worry about this servant’s safety, Sir Azadine. Please….”

“No, you don’t have to worry too much. I have my own thoughts too. I’ll accept only your feelings.”

“I-is that so?”

“Yes. So speak comfortably. You’ve been using extreme honorifics since earlier. I don’t like that sort of thing.”

“I am deeply honored. However, how could I dare?”

“The more you do that, the harder it becomes to keep you by my side. Look. Since someone who never acted like that is suddenly using extreme honorifics, everyone is looking at you strangely, aren’t they?”

Azadine pointed at Zebec and Scott’s suspicious gazes.

“T-that is true. They do not know of your great mission.”

“I’m telling you not to say it like that. So, Sir Haine. Keep this a secret.”

“Of course. I will protect this secret with my life.”

“Don’t stake your life on it. Then go. The Benevolence Order side must be waiting anxiously for your report.”

“Yes, then.”

Haine bowed her head before Azadine, then left while clearly reluctant to part.

“What on earth did you do, captain? Did you perhaps cast some kind of charm spell? You didn’t do anything worth getting castrated for, did you?”

Scott asked in bewilderment.

“She just agrees with my cause.”

“Rather than agreeing with your cause, I could see personal worship and passion.”

Zebec also could not help but nag him.

“Something happened that made her accept my cause. Well, I’ll tell you later, so keep it secret for the time being.”

“Understood. In any case, my existence is causing trouble for you, Sir Azadine.”

“Don’t worry too much about it. If you think about it, it’s because I’m Aragasa. Originally, the Rescue Knights Order has never zealously captured those who left the King’s Church.”

Had the Rescue Knights Order ever passionately captured excommunicated priests or apostate knights of the King’s Church? Absolutely not.

The King’s Church and the Rescue Knights Order recognized each other as legitimate religions, but that was only their official position, and inwardly both wished for the other to fall flat on its face.

So there was no reason to shed blood and sweat to catch them. Rather, it was a greater benefit if they survived for a long time and damaged their image.

Even so, the reason they were specifically targeting Zebec was to find a weakness in Azadine, not because Zebec was at fault.

“So, about that….”

Azadine took out gold coins and handed them to Zebec and Scott.

“Buy as many necessary items as you can before we go. We leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, not now?”

“The sun has already set, so the city gates are closed anyway. We have to leave tomorrow. I hope nothing happens until then. Though if something does happen, I’d like to meet it as it comes. I want to establish a relationship with the Wisdom Order too. If possible, I’d like to see the Courage Order as well.”

Azadine felt half anxiety and half anticipation over what sort of method the Wisdom Order would use to come out.

The Wisdom Order, whose most important Celestial reincarnation ritual site had unfortunately been attacked by an unknown assailant, immediately gathered its high-ranking clergy and Holy Knights and entered a countermeasure meeting.

Grinding angel statues to draw out angel’s blood, reincarnating the Divine Gods of the Eight Kingdoms and Yaegas God tribe members who had reached the end of their lifespans as angel’s eggs—each one of those alone was enough to invite enormous criticism.

Moreover, it was not simply that the ritual had been violated. Clear physical evidence had been stolen as well.

The reincarnation ritual scroll. The scroll personally written by Cohen Rioneir, the Northern Emperor, a master of magic, had been stolen.

The important figures of the Wisdom Knights gathered at their Order headquarters, the Saint Mallory Academy, and began a meeting.

“I told you, didn’t I? No matter how great the Angels of Corruption are, they are not something we can control, so we must not entrust our safety to them! I told you this again and again.”

A high-ranking cleric who was a scholar of the academy reproached the research team’s security design, which had tried to protect the secret by using the Angels of Corruption and the monsters of the giants’ underground passage as a shield.

“Shut up. What kind of face do you have to say that, when you were the ones who cut the budget for the fortress knights? Isn’t it because of you people that we used the Guiding Flame of the Dead in order to use the Angels of Corruption? You should be praising us for saving guard expenses with our magic, but instead you cut the budget and mock us!”

“Fortress knights? Even if gold were rotting away, it would still be a waste to spend a budget on men who have never held a sword in their lives and only wag their hips with lodging expenses.”

“Now, now. Both of you, calm down. Why are knights fighting with their mouths when they have perfectly good duels? Later, the two of you can fight each other hard in a duel, and for now, let us solve the immediate problem first.”

A young Holy Knight said that with a smile covering his entire face. Surprisingly, he had features similar to Karna, the commander of Celestial Fire, though his skin was darker than Karna’s, and his hair was an even darker reddish brown.

He was a blood descendant of the Northern Emperor reincarnated as a Celestial. In other words, he was a Celestial of the Northern Emperor’s bloodline, just like Karna.

“You said the person who stole the scroll escaped into the underground passage, yes? What is the state of the underground passage? Are the monsters quiet?”

This Celestial knight asked the Knights of Wisdom who had explored the underground passage.

“Yes, surprisingly, even the Angels of Corruption have become quiet.”

The underground passage, swarming with Angels of Corruption, various oozes, and monsters, had until now been an impregnable labyrinth that no one could break through.

However, the enemy had, astonishingly, intruded through the underground passage and escaped through the underground passage. That meant they were someone capable of handling the Angels of Corruption.

And such people were extremely limited.

“Who could the culprit be?”

When the academy scholar asked, the Holy Knights answered.

“The first suspect is… Sir Ject the Inquisitor.”

When Ject’s name came up, everyone let out groans.

The strongest knight of the King’s Church. And a man versed in black magic, sinister schemes, and everything else.

If the reincarnation ritual scroll had passed into his hands, it would be a great misfortune not only for the Wisdom Order, but for the entire Rescue Knights Order.

“It must be him. There is no way the King’s Church would not be interested in Celestial Fire, is there? Even now, we must contact the Northern Emperor and devise countermeasures.”

When the Celestial knight, Triodana, said that, everyone was flustered.

“No, wait. Sir Triodana. I think that is too hasty.”

“Contacting the Northern Emperor now will take too long. It is not too late to first find the reincarnation scroll with our own hands and then report it.”

If they reported their incompetence to the Northern Emperor, then while they were already being pushed back in initiative, they would completely become the Northern Emperor’s underlings. They wanted to avoid only that situation as much as possible.

“And before suspecting Sir Ject, is there not another threat? The soulless blasphemer.”

“Yes, just the day before yesterday, Azadine of Chadra passed through the gate.”

“What was he doing?”

“There is a report that outside the gate, he fought with a wereboar.”

“A wereboar?”

“Yes.”

“What a bizarre fellow. What was he doing on the day of the incident?”

“On the day of the incident… they say he got an inn, asked the innkeeper, and looked for a sightseeing guide. This morning—ah, since midnight has now passed, it would be yesterday morning. During the morning, he registered for a group sightseeing course, then came into contact with the Benevolence Order. He was taken to their interrogation room.”

Because Haine knew that the Wisdom Order was also tracking Azadine’s traces, she had disguised things so that he had been taken to the Benevolence Order’s interrogation room.

This disguise strategy worked effectively, so the Wisdom Order believed that Azadine had been investigated in the Benevolence Order’s interrogation room at the time the incident occurred.

“Group sightseeing?”

“Pfft.”

At that moment, the Celestial knight burst into laughter. Since he could not hold it in and laughed during a solemn meeting, everyone’s gaze focused on him, but he was confident.

“What an amusing man. I wonder if it was a smokescreen or sincere. I would like to meet him once.”

“We are in the middle of a meeting, Sir Triodana.”

“Ah, my apologies.”

“So is it true that he went sightseeing?”

“I apologize. The official name is Saint Mallory Pilgrimage Site Guide. He formally paid the fee, and they say he was taken by the Benevolence Order in the middle of the pilgrimage.”

“…….”

Everyone lost their words at that point.

That soulless blasphemer was lured by a sightseeing product aimed at ordinary pilgrims and went on a group tour? After coming all the way here from the Chadra Plateau?

“Seeing as the Benevolence Order called him in, perhaps he may have joined hands with them.”

Azadine’s absurd behavior left them dumbfounded, but that did not mean they removed him from the list of suspects. Rather, that strange trail stirred their vigilance even further.

“First, let us interrogate him. Summon him. If he refuses, remove him.”

“What pretext should we use?”

“He is an accomplice of Sir Zebec, the Heavenly King’s murderer. The mere fact that he hid Sir Zebec means he committed high treason.”

The Wisdom Order decided to secure Azadine.

Ject, an inquisitor of the King’s Church, was someone they could not treat recklessly, so it was not easy to touch him, but Azadine had no backing, and his status was what it was, so they had disliked him from the start.

They had already intended to punish him if they could catch any kind of fault, and since he himself had become an eyesore and was loitering right in front of them, nothing could be better.

“Understood. Then I will go meet him.”

Sir Triodana, a descendant of the Northern Emperor and someone reincarnated as a Celestial, volunteered for the mission.