Chapter 240: Concealment

When Kraft saw Green, it was already the next morning.

The latter sat atop a coffin, leaning against a small bonfire, with matted hair dripping water, and white steam rising from the folds of his clothes.

The mop-like appearance was at least reassuring; at least he could sit on the coffin rather than lie inside it.

It was clear that some emergency had occurred the previous night, the situation deteriorating so rapidly that it could not have worsened further, forcing the person who should have been stationed at the camp to personally go out.

And most crucially, he not only had the courage to go out but also the ability to return; this was rare and precious, and deeply gratifying.

After all, not all church personnel were willing to be flexible; if this link were lost, cooperation limited to verbal consensus would be equivalent to a complete breakdown.

Seeing no corpse, and knowing the priest was not the type to sit on a companion's coffin, Kraft felt slightly relieved and stepped forward to greet him.

As soon as he approached, Green, who had been feigning sleep, quickly grasped his sword hilt and turned to look.

His mental state did not match his excessive sensitivity and vigilance; he first subconsciously drew a conclusion of safety and relaxed his fingers, only distinguishing the identity of the newcomer several seconds later.

"Ah, Professor." Priest Green took a deep breath, rousing himself from a chaotic state, and reached out to stop the professor from finding a spot on the coffin lid. "You arrived later than expected."

"Could you imagine I set off at dinner time yesterday? Not everyone dares to try again after encountering a rain-soaked ambush."

"Ambush?" This keyword effectively stimulated his nerves, and Green's gaze sharpened.

"Pagans. I suspect we were noticed long ago. Most of them remain there forever, but your people also suffered losses." Speaking of the monks who died last night, Kraft expressed deep regret. "Please accept my condolences."

Green did not appear particularly agitated, or perhaps his reaction was contained within a brief suffocation; he seemed somewhat dull to this shocking news.

"The Heavenly Father will welcome their souls into the protected realm." His fingers turned the sword hilt, and a weak flame, refracted by the winged gauntlets, cast a blurred, oxidized pale yellow glow. His gaze unconsciously followed the light spot until it vanished into the shadows beneath a pile of broken pottery.

"They have merely gone ahead to that side, waiting for us to fulfill our duties before we reunite."

He stared blankly at the tangled shadows that had swallowed the faint light spot, then suddenly added, "And the Church is responsible for guarding what they left behind in this world: their reputation, their property, and their families."

The professor tactfully did not disturb him, letting Green immerse himself in this state, as if in prayer or self-persuasion.

Lingering fear, grief, aimless terror, and resentment alternately surfaced in his changing expression, ready to burst forth. But with the fluent prayer that seemed engraved on his tongue, they were gradually smoothed away from his face.

In this way, he seemed to have found some kind of fulcrum again, or perhaps received temporary anesthesia. A few minutes later, the priest returned, weary but steady as usual.

"Tell me about the ambush you encountered."

"It's a long story." How was one supposed to describe this? Meeting pagans wielding Ranami flying blades halfway?

"They didn't seem like trained personnel; eliminating most of them wasn't difficult. The trouble was that one of them employed some sort of, um... 'pagan evil trick,' something that didn't quite conform to reason."

Kraft chose wording he felt might be suitable for communication and observed the other's attitude.

At this point, the conversation would inevitably delve into the depths, and different people's attitudes toward cognitive disruption could not be inferred from their usual impressions; ranging from immediate collapse to desperate outbursts or pathological cravings, it was unpredictable.

"Anomalies, or perhaps 'anomalous phenomena'? I believe that is what you mean, a specialized term used to describe things whose principles cannot be clearly explained, such as..."

Green stopped halfway through, for he noticed someone looking at him with an expression of wonder, as if observing some rare object.

"What? Do I look like someone who has only ever touched the Holy Scripture in his entire life? The library of the church is not necessarily smaller than that of a university; understanding the Lord's will requires knowledge broader than mere general erudition." Realizing he had been pigeonholed into a stereotype, he mercilessly pointed out the fallacy of this view.

Clerics who reached this position had basically undergone education in grammar, logic, and rhetoric; further studies would include elective courses in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and church music, with various prestigious academies under the deep influence of the major churches available for advanced study.

"At the very least, you must know how to accurately and unambiguously name certain types of things."

"Forgive me; prejudice always blinds mortal eyes." Kraft frankly admitted his mistake, yet still did not believe the priest would easily accept certain things.

"In any case, I discovered something very special, something you would never expect, which might secure some assistance for us. Surely no one would remain indifferent."

Surprisingly, Green was not immediately intrigued; instead, he first asked a secondary question: "How many people have seen it?"

"For now, only the person you sent to notify us. What they saw was limited; I have my limits and will not let irrelevant people know things they should not."

"Then it is not too bad."

"Why do you say that?" Hearing this, it seemed the other party was striving to minimize the circle of those who knew, to the point of distinguishing between reliable and unreliable individuals even among "our own people."

"Because of some things you would never expect."

Kraft's words were returned verbatim. Just as he was puzzled, Green stood up from the coffin and lifted the lid.

Inside the coffin, which had been intended to deceive onlookers, lay a reddish-brown, bloated humanoid figure, its surface still bearing scorched and burned marks.

"Armor? Where did you dig this up?" His first reaction was surprise, followed by instinctive regret.

"In the waterway, but I am not certain it was the waterway we thought it was." Green's expression was so gloomy it seemed water could be squeezed from it; the emotions he had just suppressed surged forth again upon seeing this armor, rising with a sour taste to his throat, making his voice hoarse.

"To be precise, we did not find it; rather, it found us. And that stretch of waterway... now that I think of it, it was as if it had been spliced into the normal tunnel at that moment and then removed."

A very strange, illogical sentence construction; it was unimaginable how a stretch of waterway could be spliced and removed like scraps of paper. But to those with an ear for such things, chaos and lack of logic were themselves the characteristics.

"And then?"

"What does this look like to you?"

Following the indication, Kraft's attention shifted from the vaguely visible charred matter inside the armor to the breastplate and the not-so-obvious golden pattern on it, and a word that had been on the tip of his tongue slipped out.

"Sword in the Stone?!"

For a moment, many pieces of information that seemed utterly unrelated were linked together; dense threads intertwined and extended in countless directions within his mind, yet it seemed to point to nothing at all.

"Speak softly; we must keep this secret." Green wished he could sew that mouth shut. Seeing that Kraft had not yet fully reacted, he pointed out his greatest concern. "No one would be willing to get involved in major troubles related to the royal family over a 'pagan cult that hasn't caused much trouble.' Do you understand what I mean?"