Chapter 82: Joint Investigation Team (First Chapter—Requesting Monthly Votes)

Lyra also noticed Michel’s odd behavior and turned to Ryan, silently asking whether they should knock him out immediately.

At that moment, Lumian spoke, addressing Michel:

“Is the parish priest not here?”

Michel’s eyes instantly brightened:

“The parish priest is resting—you may come to me for prayer.”

His face was filled with pleading.

Lumian “hesitated” for a few seconds, then reluctantly said:

“Fine.”

Seeing Michel’s obvious excitement and joy, he turned to Lyra and the others:

“What’s wrong with you? Coming to church to pray is what every believer should do—why be afraid?”

His implication was: we’ve already left the basement without being caught—what’s there to worry about?

After all, as a follower of the Eternal Sun, praying at church is perfectly normal; taking a shortcut through the side door is a trivial matter, and the parish priest and servants sleeping too long—what does that have to do with us?

Lumian knew such an excuse would only fool ordinary people—it could never deceive the parish priest—but before receiving the “Blessing,” the priest would surely pretend ignorance and never expose them, unless Ryan and the others acted as if they intended to report immediately and end all anomalies in Kerdou Village.

As long as Lyra and the others continued their usual behavior—wandering around the village, chatting with everyone, appearing as if they hadn’t gathered enough intelligence from beneath the church—the parish priest would gladly maintain the status quo.

Moreover, since Ryan had destroyed the underground altar, the group would likely need time to repair it; Lumian estimated the parish priest had little chance of receiving the “Blessing” in the next two days, and not until the day before Lent at the earliest.

Once Lent begins and the anomalies erupt, whether or not they’re suspected won’t matter—normality itself will be the biggest problem.

Hearing Lumian’s words, the assistant parish priest Michel Gariq nodded vigorously in agreement:

“Yes, yes! No matter what you’ve done in the past, if you pray sincerely and are willing to repent, the God will forgive you.”

Is that so? If the parish priest now repented to the Eternal Sun, confessing he had once strayed, worshipped a false god, and now wished to return to the true path—what would happen? Lumian didn’t believe it, but outwardly he appeared devout, walking toward the altar.

Michel walked ahead with light, almost floating steps, radiating pure delight.

Lyra, seeing such fervent, zealous clergy, couldn’t help glancing at Valentine, whose expression was deeply complex.

This was precisely the state Valentine would normally approve of—but he also clearly recognized that the assistant parish priest was profoundly abnormal.

Returning her gaze from Valentine, Lyra stepped closer to Lumian and whispered into his ear, lowering her voice:

“When you said all that just now, did you consider that half the people here aren’t followers of the Eternal Sun?”

“You’re not?” Lumian was genuinely startled.

It wasn’t that he was perceptive and understood Lyra’s hint—it was that among the five present, excluding the abnormal Michel, four remained; Valentine was certainly one, and Lumian himself barely counted as one—already half.

Lyra gave a slight nod, making her bells chime softly.

She smiled and whispered:

“Ryan is from the Mechanical Heart; I’m from the Eighth Bureau—we both belong to neither the Church of the Eternal Sun.”

Lumian had heard his sister mention that the Mechanical Heart was roughly equivalent to the Church of the Eternal Sun’s Inquisition—a branch of the Church of the Steam and Machine God responsible for supernatural affairs—and that the Eighth Bureau, full name the Eighth Bureau of the Intis Intelligence and National Security Committee, was the Republic’s most official organization in the realm of the extraordinary.

“I thought you were sent by the Church?” he asked curiously as he sat down on a chair.

Lyra sat beside him, smiling:

“In recent years, dangerous supernatural incidents have occurred frequently along the borders of various nations, especially in disputed jurisdictions. So when we received the distress letter from Kerdou Village, we took it seriously. After preliminary investigations and intelligence gathering, once we confirmed real anomalies, higher-ups decided to form a Joint Investigation Team to enter Kerdou Village and assess the situation, providing the most reliable reference for future actions.”

“But who knew, here…”

She suddenly fell silent, unable to continue, shaking her head with a jingle of bells.

The anomalies and horrors here exceeded her imagination.

Sometimes, she even thought Valentine’s idea of reporting everything and requesting the immediate destruction of Kerdou Village was correct.

Still, she didn’t want to die, so she had to suppress her professional instincts and moral convictions.

At that moment, the assistant parish priest Michel Gariq picked up the sacred text placed on the altar and turned his gaze toward the four preparing to pray.

Lyra immediately raised her arms, crossing them over her chest, lowering her head and body slightly.

“...” Lumian stared, momentarily stunned.

You just said you’re not a follower of the Eternal Sun!

Lyra sensed his gaze and turned to smile:

“When carrying out missions, pretending to be a follower of another church won’t anger the gods—don’t believe me? Look…”

She pointed with her lips to the other side.

Ryan from the Mechanical Heart had also crossed his arms over his chest, appearing deeply devout.

So one can have flexible moral boundaries during missions… Lumian had wanted to mock Lyra and Ryan, but everyone had begun praying—he couldn’t lag behind.

When he finally assumed the posture and closed his eyes, the assistant parish priest Michel Gariq flipped open the sacred text and intoned solemnly:

“God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light…”

Standing inside the familiar church, hearing the familiar sermon, Lumian suddenly felt a pang of emotion.

Previously, when he came to pray, he merely followed the crowd, never focused, often glancing around or whispering—but now, how he wished everything could remain as it once was, even if it meant offering the most devout prayer.

Activities he once disliked now filled him with profound nostalgia.

When Lumian and the others left the Church of the Eternal Sun, the parish priest and the servants had still not awakened.

Ryan glanced toward the direction of the castle and sighed sincerely:

“That lady is far stronger than I imagined.”

“How strong?” Lumian asked curiously.

Ryan paused, then said:

“It seems she has touched the threshold of divinity—or perhaps not.”

You said something, yet you said nothing… If not for needing Ryan’s help, Lumian would have already voiced his thoughts.

Still, with his solid knowledge of esoteric lore, he could likely guess what Ryan meant by “the threshold of divinity”:

Rank 4! The beginning of demi-godhood!

He thought for a moment and said:

“I think Pualis, when appearing as the Night Lady, seemed… off.”

He had already told Lyra and the others about the Otherworld and the legend of the Night Lady.

“I felt the same,” Lyra said with a smile. “Like a patchwork monster—one that hasn’t been properly stitched together yet.”

Ryan nodded in agreement:

“We have some understanding of the Night Lady. In the region along the border between Intis and Feneport Kingdom, similar incidents have occurred many times over the past few years—some called her the Night Lady, others the Helt Lady, some called themselves the Benevolent Lord, others the Malevolent Lord—but so far, we’ve never captured any of these ‘Ladies,’ and our understanding of them remains fragmented.”

“Hmm, ‘the Otherworld’—that’s the first time I’ve heard of it.”

As Lyra walked toward the edge of the village square, her bells jingled:

“I’ve connected the description of the Otherworld to something else.”

“What?” Lumian never felt asking was embarrassing.

Lyra turned her gaze southward:

“In the Feneport Church of the Earth Mother, there’s a saying:

‘The soul returns to the earth.’”

The soul returns to the earth… Lumian’s mind immediately conjured the wasteland and the wandering spirits upon it.

He had to admit Lyra’s association held some merit.

Arriving beneath the elm tree at the village entrance, Ryan looked around and said:

“We must avoid provoking that lady further. In resolving the cycle, she may not be an ally, but she won’t become an enemy either—we only need to observe her movements and see if we can exploit the specific time node she mentioned.”

Isn’t avoiding her simply because we clearly can’t beat her? Lumian suppressed the urge to speak his mind.

Instead, he turned to Valentine:

“How many minutes left?”

He feared missing the moment—his sister triggering the cycle and resetting everything.

Valentine pulled out a pocket watch with a gold casing, snapped it open with a click, and glanced:

“Ten minutes.”

“Good…” Lumian exhaled, waving to Ryan and the others. “I’m going to find Aurora. If you’re free, help track down Jean More, Sybil’s husband, and investigate who’s spreading rumors that the constellations are changing and good fortune is coming. If you find anything, come straight to my place. Goodbye, my cabbages!”

This was exactly what Lyra and the others had planned—no one objected.

…………

As Lumian parted from the Joint Investigation Team and walked toward the agreed-upon village edge, he fell into deep thought.

After completing the exploration beneath the church, he had formed a complete hypothesis about the anomalies in Kerdou Village:

The cycle must be caused by the parish priest and his group—they’ve secretly worshipped a false god for at least half a year, secretly sacrificing numerous foreigners and outsiders beneath the church in exchange for many “Blessings.”

Before Lent, thanks to the three extraordinary individuals brought back by the shepherd Pierre Berry—or perhaps just one of them—the parish priest and Pons Bene and others received their “Blessings”; the former, in particular, became a remarkably powerful extraordinary being. Thus, they began a grand ritual, timed to commence with Lent.

On the twelfth night, during the final stage of the ritual, the hidden entity named Fate accepted the mass sacrifice, preparing to fulfill the parish priest’s group’s request—when suddenly, something went wrong. The ritual failed. The power tied to past, present, and future scattered, triggering the time loop.

As for why the failure occurred, Lumian recalled something the mysterious lady had once said:

“You were destined to be heavily corrupted. Fortunately, the mark left by that great being was activated, and its power descended upon you, sealing the source of corruption and establishing balance…”

PS: First chapter—requesting monthly votes~

(End of chapter)