A few hours later, several people were gathered in the headquarters of Moonlight Glow.
Charise, Madeline, Javelin, Illina, Bloed, Regina, Liu Ying, and the knight standing behind Charise.
After a few minutes of talking, Madeline gave Charise a recount of the situation with the Blight.
"… In other words, you are telling me that the duke, a demigod of the church of slaughter, a powerful merchant of the city, and the archbishop of an unknown church are among the people related to this case."
Madeline nodded.
"It looks like the situation is more complicated than we thought." Charise's expression turned grave.
"… It feels like you believed our story about the Blight very easily." Madeline said with a suspicious expression.
Charise shrugged. "Well, I know that you are not one to joke with something like this… Besides… I already knew about the Blight before coming here."
Bloed and the others were stunned.
"What are you speaking about?" Madeline asked.
It was the knight who answered.
"Actually, the saintess received an oracle from the goddess recently. 'There is chaos in Calice City. Remnants of an otherworldly danger have appeared, and the time of chaos is approaching.' I think you can understand what that means."
"The Blight? In Calice city?" Javelin asked surprised.
Charise nodded. "I think that our friend Bloed knows about it, right?"
All the eyes in the room turned towards Bloed. Only Regina and Liu Ying were not surprised by Charise's words.
Bloed thought for a moment before nodding.
"… I learned about it a few days after the disaster of Calice city. The people behind the monster wave that destroyed part of the city used the Blight to control the monsters."
"!!!"
Bloed could see expressions shock on Madeline, Illina, and Javelin's face.
"A-Are you sure?"
Bloed nodded. "More accurately, they used a strange monster created by manipulating the Blight' DNA. It's not a Blight, but it will turn into one with enough time."
"… DNA?"
Bloed looked at Charise and rolled his eyes. Now he was not in the mood to explain her about it.
Fortunately, Charise seemed to understand the situation, so she did not insist.
With a nod, she continued the conversation.
"We already knew that the Blight was related to the disaster in Calice City. Thus, when our branch in Diadel received a mysterious letter about the Blight, I did not hesitate to come here. I then asked the goddess for help and she used the fate of the letter to determine the person who wrote it, thus reaching to Mr. Bloed."
Bloed smiled wryly. He thought he had been careful enough, but even so, he was found by someone.
Using fate to locate the writer of the letter. How could he know that something like that was possible?
It seemed like he could not underestimate the means of this world.
Although they did not have the human confederation's technology or ESP abilities, the magic and special talents of this world were sometimes just so impressive.
"… Unfortunately, we have hit a deadlock in our investigations about the Blight. It's not like we can go to interrogate the Duke about it, can we?" Madeline said with a dispirited face.
Bloed frowned and looked at Charise. "Can't you use your powers of fate to learn about the duke's plans? Perhaps we can find something that way."
"That is… not so simple as it looks." Charise smiled bitterly. "The goddess's ability to see through fate is not omnipotent. In fact, many people in this world have found ways to hide things from the goddess's sight. Plus, the other gods don't like it when the goddess tries to see through fate, so they tend to use their power to interfere. Due to that, the probabilities of success are very small when it's something related to other churches. In fact, even watching the fate of the letter was very complicated. Fortunately, Miss Regina was not using her power to shroud your fate, or we would have not been able to find you."
Bloed was confused. There were several things about Charise's explanation he found strange.
It seemed like the gods of this world also have their limits.
Furthermore, Regina seemed to have the ability to interfere with the goddess's foresight. Bloed decided to investigate more about it later. He did not want to have his secrets leaked to a voyeur who calls herself a goddess.
"Then, what are we going to do?" Bloed asked.
Charise thought for a moment before looking at the Knight behind her.
"Kallevang, do you think it's possible to catch that Bernard guy."
Kallevang nodded. "Saintess, you only need to give the order and we will catch him this same night."
"Wait wait wait." Madeline was startled. "You are going to attack an important merchant of the city without any proof!? Are you crazy!? Everything will be alright if you find something linking him to the Blight. But if you don't, you will put the entire city against your church!"
Charise tilted her head before smiling sweetly. "It looks like you have a small misunderstanding about us, Miss Madeline. We are not like Moonlight Glow who is overconcerned with diplomatic issues and avoids causing trouble.
"We are the church of fate! Our duty is to protect this world from danger! And if that means going against the world itself, we will not hesitate! As for the Bernard guy, he is just a merchant. Even if we kill him wrongly, what can the duke do about it?"
Charise then chuckled and stroked her habit like an innocent girl.
"To be honest, I would have liked to confront the duke directly, but just Kallevang alone is not enough to take care of the duke's demigods. We need at least three demigods if we want to have an opportunity, and that is assuming the demigods of the church of slaughter don't participate."
Madeline put on a strained smile.
"Now I understand why our saintess says that you are crazy."
Charise just smiled and changed the topic.
"Then, it's decided. We of the church of fate will capture Bernard tonight. With luck, that will lead us to the Blight."
Madeline smiled wryly. But in the end, she agreed.
Madeline was aware that catching Bernard was the best option. If not by the fact that she could not afford the backlash of catching an important person like him without enough proof, she would have ordered it herself.
"Then, we will leave this conversation here." Charise stood up elegantly and bowed to the group. "We will contact you after tonight's operation."
Before leaving, though, Charise seemed to remember something and turned around to face Bloed.
"By the way, Mr. Bloed. I forgot to tell you something. When our goddess used the letter to find you, she also saw a bit about your fate. Do you want to know?"
Bloed hesitated slightly. But his curiosity ended winning over.
Charise smiled.
"There is a trial waiting for you soon. The eyes of your past are looking at you closely."
Bloed was startled before falling silent.
Then, he bowed slightly to Charise.
"Thank you. I'll keep an eye on that."
Charise chuckled.
"You don't need to thank me... I'm just sympathizing with a poor child that was abandoned by his family."
...
P4TRE0N: patr-eon.com/aidnovels