John's brain turned numb. Looking at the item in a jar filled with some kind of yellow liquid. Inside the jar, a bottle cap-sized eyeball is a sink in the bottom. The purple-haired girl is showing it to him so casually, with a bright smile. Waiting for his compliment.
His sense of reality is turning into mush.
"Where did you get this?"
He blurts out the first question that came to mind. John desperately needed something to hold onto. He needed proof that she did not receive this from a living person. This did not result in the death of that individual.
Blood will be indirectly on his hand.
"I get it from a mystic like you instructed"
Her smile became more sinister in his vision. The nightly candle stand in his hand started to shake. His eyes twitch at the sight of eyeball jar. A gentle reminder that he was not in the 20th century anymore.
But somewhere inside the divine twig book.
A book that dealt with the divine and the wretch. this is far from the most grotesque thing in the novel but seeing it yourself and having it described to you has a different effect. One might be able to imagine a sheep from its description but when you see the real one, something might be off.
"No, like who did you get it from"
His voice felt uncertain, he tried to keep his disgust and shock in but a bit slipped through. Luckily she didn't seem to notice.
"Kuron kart, one of our house knights that just died recently. He's only 1st circle like you instructed"
John learned a lot from what she said. One is that this girl came from a noble family. She must be noble with quite a bit of wealth or have a knight with mystic power.
Second was the fact The dark mystic knew what he was looking for. A lot of people might skip the first circle and build their foundation on a 7th circle item but that's a fetal way to go about obtaining power. Simply because the price you have to pay for that power would be so high it's likely would cost your life every time you use it.
Similarly, the girl right in front of him is paying that price. From her hand, a darkness could be seen dancing inside of her blood veins. Picturing a rather painful look on her arm. The heretic doesn't intend to keep her around for long considering the price she needs to pay.
"Was he alive or dead when you got this"
This time he asked in a much more composed manner. He pushed the question of morals behind him and will ask that later, survival comes first.
"He was already dead, lost in a duel between houses to keep our family treasure...."
The girl said it with a sad tone to her voice however, she herself knew that was not true. John couldn't help but follow her mood since it looked like that was someone important to her. He walked over and took the jar from her hand.
"I'll take care of this"
She could be lying about the circumstance of how she obtained this but looking at her pitiful body, he couldn't bring himself to question that. Also, there's a limit on how much you can be asked before a person suspects something. He would like to lay it safe.
"Thank you, master," She said gratefully before asking "Um.. master about the promise to join the cult..."
This is the moment that he dreaded. John didn't know what kind of promise the heretic made to her. From the look of it, the heretic likely planned to kill her after obtaining the eye. He couldn't do it.
The girl doesn't seem like a bad person, just desperate.
"For what reason did you seek me out in the first place"
He managed to change the subject for now.
"I..." She bit her lisp and tears began to well in her eyes. "Want to help my sister regain our family glory... I don't want to be a burden anymore"
With that, he was fairly certain who this girl was but, just to be sure John asked the following question.
"What's your name again?."
"Theia," The girl said "Theia Fynimen"
A rush of memory ran through his brain like a flashback. She is another minor character that wasn't seen much in the book. Theia is a twin sister of Onia Fynimen the Fl. In the early chapters, Theia went missing and Onia couldn't allocate enough manpower to find her. The divination was blocked by something and she couldn't afford a better seer.
Onia found the corpse of her sister when she raided a heretic cult building. That will send her down the spiral of hatred and anger. Vowing to erase all of the heretics he came across.
This is rather problematic for him.
His greatest weapon was his information and he already changed something just by existing. His sword starts to lose its edge bit by bit just by him being here. He is not a cold-hearted heretic who could kill off people willy-nilly. But the whole story of Onia would differ so much from the original that it would be like taking his sword and bending it down the middle.
However, he also recognized that if Theia didn't disappear, the story would derail. He placed his hand on his chin, thinking. Leaving Theia confused and hopeful about the answer she could get.
After a while, he decided that he would be the cult that she was after. It should create the same effect by bringing Theia out of the main story. And into a cult, leading Onia to have animosity with heretics.
He also needed to make her believe that she was in a cult. Otherwise, he might just look like a scammer who can't give her power and she'd leave. Letting a real heretic get their hands on her.
I need to abduct her myself to save her...and myself
That's his conclusion. His plan ran through his head again to make sure that it would work.