Chapter 349: Heresy
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren led his merry band out of Gelton's meeting room and two monks led them to their rooms. The four ascetics stayed behind. It seemed like what the bishop and marshal wanted to discuss, had something to do with the secrets of the religion. The moment she stepped into the guest room, Becky realised something. "Oh, yeah! Right, I haven't asked about the rewards... Say... they wouldn't conveniently forget about it, right?"
Hao Ren immediately glared at Becky. "Oh my god, grow up would you? Do you really think a mighty country like Holetta would take away your rewards or something?"
Becky pouted. "Time is money! I don't have a lot of time here. I have 15 days at most. If someone tells me that I need to report to the Royal City, and what if the reply comes when I'm away, won't that be horrible?"
Hao Ren facepalmed. "Well... you do have this problem. But, lets take it one step at a time. Say... why do we always see Gelton and Ophra at each other's throats? Does the royal army have a tiff with the church's armed wing?"
Becky waved her hand furiously. "No, no. There's no tiff or anything. You're just imagining things. Both the regular army and the church forces have been working side by side for so long; there's no tiff between the two. But, there is friction on how they go about doing things. The church is focused on conservatism while the army is all about expediency and effectiveness. Lady Ophra is a larger than life personality that has led the army for a couple of centuries. So, each side is pretty stubborn on how they operate. But lets not poke our noses into that. Nothing good will come out of it."
Hao Ren just gave an emphatic, "Oh." He had no interest in getting involved in political intrigues. That was just beyond him. He was only interested in the secrets hidden in the land. Lily on the other hand, was very excited. "Hey, you're saying that they're discussing how to eliminate the rock monsters? Those things fell from the mountain and they're very big! It's like fighting an endless tide! Do they really intend to do so? The royal court didn't say anything about it?"
"I noticed something along the way," Becky said as she adjusted her equipment. "The Royal City dispatched two groups of troops over here as reinforcements and the nearby orders of knighthood also got here a few days back. So, the military strength in Beinz has increased by three times. But you're right, seems like the royal court doesn't have any better ideas either. They can't be moving the whole ridge, right? Until they can figure out how the rock monsters are made, things will stay this way." By then, a worried look formed across Becky's face. "I hope things don't get worse..."
This was after all her hometown and in the face of such unusual incidents with monsters popping out all over the place, Becky could not help but worry. This issue was not for a small player like her to solve.
At the same time, in Gelton's meeting hall, the atmosphere suddenly turned grim.
"You said there are heretics there?!" Big Beardy slammed his hand on Gelton's office table, his face grim. "What's the status?"
"Not sure what's with this heretic group." Gelton waved his hand at Big Beardy, motioning him to calm down. "They only appeared about half a month ago. And we have yet to catch anyone. We only have abandoned sites of foul rituals. This area also have reports of unusual activities, and should be related to the heretics."
"What unusual activities?" Big Beardy frowned. Only news like this will be able to rattle a stoic ascetic like him.
Ophra sneered, her voice calm, "Many of the bodies of our dead are missing as well. Based on the reports from the front, the missing dead bodies were placed aside due to reasons and the moment the guards looked away, they disappeared without a trace."
"Not only dead soldiers," Gelton's voice was heavy, "it includes civilians as well. Anyone who had died recently, their bodies would have gone missing mysteriously. What's left of the scene is only a little blood trail. Sometimes we don't even have any. The most obvious was the outpost by the lake. The outpost was lost during the initial assault and when the soldiers who had escaped returned to check the place out the next day, all the bodies were missing."
The ascetics quickly looked at each other and realised that the outpost mentioned was the one they went through. Not only that, they had discovered a mysterious tunnel beneath the outpost! The only thing is that they had found nothing there. This gave Big Beardy difficulty to link the tunnel to the lost bodies. He decided that he would bring it up later and asked a different question. "What are the common things between the bodies?"
Ophra demurred for a moment, "All recent dead. And the area that the bodies have gone missing are all on the west side of the mountain, using the range's centerpoint as a guide. Those that had died on the eastside did not suffer such a fate. That aside, there are no eyewitnesses. All the bodies disappeared when no one was looking. I had sent men to keep an eye out on this and when there were someone watching the bodies were fine. The moment someone looked away it disappeared."
The marshal angrily clenched her fist as she finished. While she was certain she will get to the bottom of things, come hell or high water, the latest incident was almost like a mockery and that really got on her nerves.
The asectics pondered for a moment before asking, "Have you checked the graves?"
Gelton nodded. "Yes, we did. The keepers had checked the graves and found that only the newly dead were missing. The old graves in the cemetary were fine. Only those that were recently buried were missing."
"So they 'need' fresh corpses." The hoarse sounding female ascetic said. Doubt was apparent in her voice, "A necromancer?"
"Unlikely..." Ophra crossed her arms, her voice almost mocking. "While necromancers aren't who you'd invite to a ball, they are still a legal school of magic. As long as they follow the proper rules and regulations, they can experiment all they want. The most foolish of necromancers would not take such a risk to raid the holy grounds for corpses. The disappearance started about half a month back and the number of rock monsters have exploded. I've keen to believe that this is the work of some heretics seeking some power of old. They better not let me get my hands on them..."
"Actually, we might have something of a clue," Big Beardy decided it was time for his to disclose the matter regarding the tunnel and he stood up. "When we came here, we did pass by the outpost that you mentioned. I'm not sure if you had checked what's underground..."
"No, we have yet to check there." Gelton shook his head. "But as you know, most other places did not have the same tunnel structure."
Big Beardy was slightly surprised. "Other places? Means you have checked underground? So all the other places don't have any tunnels at all?"
Ophra shook her head resignedly. "No. The first time a body went missing we went all out on the search, underground included, but we did not find any tunnels. We never bothered looking underground after that. Seems like we need to refocus our investigation... may be there is something insidious undergorund. Bishop Gelton, what do you think.... Bishop Gelton?"
Gelton was deep in his thoughts when Ophra called him and it took him a while before he responded. "Oh, of course. I will send men to check the place. But I remembered something else..."
"Something else?" Ophra frowned.
Gelton motioned as he spoke. "The heretics seems to have powers beyond our understanding and have something to do with the unnatural changes on the Dragonspine Ridge. I'm starting to think maybe the evil acolytes of the mage emperors have seeped into this holy ground. Lady Ophra, I cannot leave the diocese, so I hope that you can make the trip to the royal city for me. Report this to His Holiness the Pope and his Royal Highness on this. This is not a diocese level crisis anymore. We need help and reinforcements from the highest level."
Ophra broke into a smile as she heard it. "Seems like you do have some sense of urgency after all."