Chapter 155: Idle Talk in Heaven

The fake priest, hands bound behind his back, struggled to flee, knocked over two rows of pews, tripped over himself, and landed without cushioning, his body pressing intimately against the stone tiles. Still feeling no pain, he strained to move away from the pendant.

As if fear had temporarily stripped him of reason, had it not been for the attendants pinning him against the wall, he might have tried to smash a hole directly into the wall.

Such an intense reaction startled many, who reflexively stepped back half a pace to distance themselves, then scanned the main hall where wails echoed, wary of every dark doorway and window that might spawn something.

For a moment, Kraft suspected the object clamped in the tongs was a smoking grenade or some kind of mechanism trigger, but it merely emitted its usual faint glow, like a stone eye embedded in metal, contemptuously observing the crowd's ugliness, too disdainful to even sneer.

The tongs swung the pendant twice in the air; after a few pendulum swings, the pendant obediently wrapped around the jaws of the tongs. Nothing happened.

"What? Is that angel too far away to be summoned at will?" Kraft pushed the tongs forward. Hoel shrank back as if electrocuted, but the attendants held him firmly in place.

"I remember this thing." After the initial panic subsided, he calmed down slightly. "When the 'angel' came to take the priest away, that person had the same thing glowing on his chest."

"That person?"

"I've only seen him once, but only his robe had such a ring, so I guess..."

"Guess he held some status among that group?" Kraft returned the pendant to the lead bottle and sealed the lid; the other man's expression relaxed somewhat.

"Yes, yes. After that stone dimmed, he told me to find the priest, saying the angel had already come." Fear still lingered in his trembling voice; that experience had left him with deep psychological scars.

The heretics called themselves the "Orthodox Church," coming into the church to announce to the man who had served God for over twenty years that the "angel" would take the priest, and it happened immediately.

Even in the most terrifying imaginations of the believers, such a scene would not exist. If it were truly some evil spirit or demon capable of breaking into the church to cause trouble, that would actually be preferable; but what if it isn't?

"So this thing shouldn't stay lit all the time, right?" It didn't sound like something that would make a Geiger counter click, but rather something functioning similarly to a Geiger counter, indicating the approach or departure of something.

Martin, listening from the side, grew increasingly uneasy. This thing had never gone dark since it was pulled out, accompanying them all the way from Westmin Castle, glowing until they reached Hudson Town. "By that logic, isn't that so-called 'angel' always right beside us?"

This remark immediately caused a subtle shift in the atmosphere. An unspoken thought spread through the crowd. The followers exchanged glances, unconsciously changing their postures and drawing closer to one another, showing no explicit statement but默契ly displaying a certain state of alertness.

Until Sir Barro strode forward and slapped Hoel across the face. "Spreading demonic lies! Do you think such heretical tricks designed to fool the ignorant can frighten us? Confess honestly: where is the body of the murdered priest?"

"No, I'm telling the truth! I watched the priest argue with them, then return to rest. I personally locked the room from the inside, yet he simply vanished."

The slap, delivered while wearing armor and thus carrying blunt force, did not make him change his story; he merely covered his face, insisting on this rural ghost-story version of events.

Hearing this, Barro prepared to strike again, half believing the man before him was incorrigible, half angered that such a claim had actually shaken the morale of the group. He raised his hand, ready to deliver a symmetrical blow to the other cheek.

Fortunately, Kraft and Martin stopped him; otherwise, Hoel would have inevitably suffered a fractured jaw accompanied by a concussion.

"Calm down, Barro. It's not worth it."

"What? Don't tell me you think he's speaking the truth."

"After that beating, you probably won't have the chance to speak even if you wanted to." Kraft halted the physical exchange. "Besides, what this fellow saw may not be the full picture; there's no point in questioning him further."

"Let him take us to see the room where the priest vanished, then hurry to search the church thoroughly. Return to the manor by evening."

As expected, the matter here would be concluded. Capturing a fake priest was already an unexpected bonus; one could fully guess that no clues would remain in that room, just like the two people who disappeared at the previous banquet. It was merely a procedural sweep.

Anyway, Hudson Town's church is small; flipping through it inside and out won't affect their return to the manor for dinner.

"By the way, remember to send someone to notify the mayor." Martin led the priest into the church, while the others dispersed to search for clues.

However, Kraft remained skeptical that this group could find anything. After all, at most one-third of them could fluently recite the scriptures, and those with any understanding of religion couldn't even make up half a person. Even if the heretical scriptures were laid out before them, they might not be able to spot the flaws.

As anticipated, they escorted Father Hoel to inspect a room with nothing unusual. The broken door latch had not yet been repaired, left half-open to welcome any factors of destruction and investigators arriving months late.

A damp quilt, never aired out for a long time, clung to the straw mattress, stained with dark wet patches. As expected, they found some blackish-green mold spots, grown during continuous rainy days, then repeatedly dried and soaked again, seeping into the clumped cotton wadding. Overall, it looked much like failed cured meat.

A wooden cup lay overturned on the table, stuck to the tabletop by a congealed substance of unclear composition. When lifted, it made the entire table tremble, pulling out long threads with the texture of dried syrup.

According to Hoel, this might indeed have been some kind of syrup-based drink, perhaps containing ground grains, cinnamon powder, and the like. As for where so much sugar came from, that touched upon why the original priest deserved to die; perhaps even without the heretics, someone would eventually have knocked him unconscious with a blunt stick.

They found nothing useful, not even much recognizable information, except for a few mushrooms growing from the laundry basin. But this quantity was hardly abnormal; instead, it gave Kraft the illusion of returning to his dorm after a long university holiday.

The church's volume was limited; its internal structure was much like elaborately packaged New Year goods, emphasizing emptiness. Apart from the main hall, there was hardly any practical space. As the sun began to set, they toured the simple building layer by layer from bottom to top, climbed out through the attic skylight, and sat outside the dome.

According to the conventional church layout, the ceiling frescoes depict Heaven looking down upon the mortal world; thus, they were now essentially sitting on the head of the Heavenly Father.

A bit disrespectful, but to be honest, the feeling on the buttocks wasn't great. Kraft shifted his position, found a relatively flat tile to settle on, and said, "The view isn't bad; from here, you can see the entire town."

"Pity we can't see where those heretics are. If only we had brought someone from the Church along, but then we'd have to watch what we say in front of them." Martin leaned against the window frame, removed his waterskin, and gazed down at the houses with rising cooking smoke alongside the professor. After rushing around all morning and working hard all afternoon, he also felt somewhat mentally exhausted.

"Speaking of which, where is your... um, female attendant?"

"Oh, you mean Yin Feng." Kraft turned a corner in his thoughts before recalling who was being referred to, finding the situation both amusing and frustrating. "She's essentially my student. Since she can't help much right now, I left her in Westmin Castle along with two weeks' worth of coursework, entrusting Mr. Wilbert to send someone to look after her."

"Few women enter Rivers University. Even if there are exceptions, none are that young. So, does that mean her talent is exceptional?" Martin was quite curious about this. If not for the fact that Kraft appeared far too young and their faces bore no resemblance, one might have mistaken her for his sister or even his daughter.

"It's not that complicated; it was merely a coincidence. What I know isn't difficult; there's nothing requiring extraordinary talent or insight to access."

"Haha, the professors and lecturers at the university might not think so."

Kraft gazed at the sun approaching the tree line, seemingly lost in thought. After a moment of silence, when Martin thought he was immersed in his own world, he suddenly said, "Speaking of the university, something just occurred to me."

"Hmm?"

"Since we can basically confirm that all these sudden disappearances are heretical tricks, we should start considering why they would act within the university, and specifically against a surgical lecturer, Piteli. Is there any logic to this?"

"You are too, except you didn't encounter the 'vanishing trick'." Speaking of this, Martin still felt a lingering chill. That handful of devil cherries was truly a stroke of genius in the world of assassination, returning to simplicity; who knows how it was uncovered.

"This proves it wasn't a random case; it is indeed related to the identity of a medical scholar." Kraft brought his hands together in front of his chest, an old habit, as if propping up his chin or preparing for some action. "At that time, they could have killed anyone at the banquet, yet they singled out Piteli, the visiting lecturer. What reasoning is there for that?"

"Do I share anything in common with Piteli? In the outside world, we are both surgeons?"

"So they wanted to prevent surgeons from participating in discussions about the Duke's illness?" Martin guessed, but then immediately rejected his own theory. "That makes even less sense. Assuming the Duke's condition was truly leaked, I mean hypothetically, on what basis would they judge that only a surgeon could find a solution?"

Did the heretics also harbor departmental discrimination?

"Exactly, that reasoning doesn't hold. I haven't discussed this treatment method with anyone before, nor have I heard of any precedent, unless they possess prophecy arts, and even then, they would have to accurately predict an invasive therapy."

Based on the prevailing concepts known, Kraft recalled that the status of internal medicine would remain higher than that of surgery for centuries; no one would believe that tuberculosis could be curbed by physical means.

"Does that mean we can only wait for those stationed near that mushroom forest to make progress?"

"Let's hope so. I suspect they aren't that foolish." Clearly, judging by Martin's observations so far, that would be very difficult.

The two fell silent, watching the sun press even closer to the tree line. The sounds of the others below searching and conversing had also reached the topmost level.

"Speaking of which, if we don't limit our perspective to the Duke, I've thought of another possibility." Kraft stood up, brushed the dust from behind him, and spoke again. "I recall someone telling me during the introduction that Professor Piteli performed some kind of surgery. What was it called again?"

"Ah, yes. The ice-chilled pain-relieving anesthetic amputation technique. Now that I think about it, he was also researching anesthesia before, wasn't he?"

"Forgive me, my abilities are limited; could you explain what possible connection might exist here?" Anesthesia is currently still at the forefront of surgery, which enters Martin's blind spot.

Kraft waved his hand, indicating not to worry too much. "No, I just said that; I and Pietri barely share this common point. Besides, Pietri is from Dunling University, right?"

"Yes." Martin nodded; he had noticed this during the subsequent investigation. Fortunately, how to explain things to that side was Wilbert the Steward's worry.

"That is indeed a bit of a headache."

"Indeed."