Ch.190Revelation (4)

“I barely get to see her face. Once a week. As you know, Lily is currently in Valhalla Castle, and we’re in the village outside it.

I thought about going to see her directly, but there’s no easy way. First of all, Valhalla Castle isn’t a place you can enter freely. From what I’ve heard, it’s practically like a foreign city.”

“Does she look sick or anything…?”

“She’s gotten really thin.”

“Thin?”

Maria sighed again and nodded.

“The training is incredibly harsh, she says. Her face has completely changed. Before, she had quite a cute impression, but now… are you laughing?”

“No.”

He hastily denied it, but apparently couldn’t hide his expression. However, Kain quickly became serious.

“Wait a minute. Training? Isn’t she in the tournament?”

“It hasn’t ended. No, to be precise, it hasn’t even started yet.”

This was incomprehensible.

Originally, the reason High Executioner Astrid took Lily away was partly to treat her wounds and oversee her recovery, but ultimately it was for the tournament.

Lily’s father, the White Blood Knights Commander, had died. Before his death, he had designated Lily’s brother as the next commander, but he too had fallen into a coma due to complications from an old injury.

And he hadn’t named a successor.

The first in line for commander succession is the person designated by the previous commander. This means that a commander’s child doesn’t automatically inherit the position.

But in ambiguous situations like the current one, where it’s unclear who should succeed, they hold a tournament among 12 pre-selected elite warriors, and the last one standing is appointed as commander.

The structure of the White Blood requires that a superior vacate their position before a subordinate can be promoted.

Therefore, a commander needs to be selected quickly so that personnel changes can occur from the top down. Then tournaments can be held at lower levels to determine who gets promoted and who doesn’t.

It’s a major event that changes the entire landscape of the White Blood. It was so important that even the official escort for the Seven Heroes requested by the current imperial family had returned to their homeland, citing their oath with the previous emperor.

Yet the tournament still hadn’t been held.

“Have you heard about Lily’s brother?”

A patient who couldn’t fully exercise command authority due to his physical condition, and who had recently fallen into a coma.

“I know.”

“He’s woken up. His mobility is still limited, but his mind is relatively sound and he speaks well.

For someone who’s been sleeping like the dead for so long. Given the situation, it seems awkward to hold the tournament.”

It was a difficult situation. With the commander still alive, it was hard to hold a tournament to determine his successor.

“Opinions seem divided within the White Blood. Those who want to proceed argue that they should select candidates in advance since no one knows when the current commander might die.

But the opposition says this: what if they select a candidate through the tournament, but then the commander designates his own successor? What would they do then?

Since this has never happened before, even the White Blood Knights are having trouble resolving the issue.”

Kain could understand. The White Blood is fundamentally a warrior collective. Each member is like a weapon to the others.

Because of this, discipline must be stricter than anywhere else, and that discipline must be just and supported by everyone.

Even they wouldn’t want internal division and fighting caused by ambiguous regulations.

“Couldn’t Lily’s brother just designate the next commander?”

“He refuses to do it. He’s absolutely adamant. Of course, he’s not in perfect physical or mental condition. Isn’t it ironic? The commander position is meant to resolve such issues, but now the commander himself is fueling the confusion.

Anyway, Lily’s brother makes the important decisions, while High Executioner Astrid handles the mundane or everyday matters. Remember?”

Of course Kain remembered. The sharp-featured woman with gray hair. Lily’s aunt. And the hint she had subtly given Kain.

“She told me to come catch rats.”

“What?”

“She said she wanted someone to catch rats in the archives. Obviously, the rats were just an excuse, and she meant for me to come in and read.”

After all, the High Executioner had told him to catch rats, not specifically to read or not read the books.

If Laios had truly been a White Blood descendant, his personal information would be recorded in the archives. That would be necessary to return his belongings in case of an accidental death.

Kain knew Laios’s name and roughly his age. He also knew he needed to look at records from ten years ago.

He wasn’t sure how the archive’s classification system worked, but it was probably similar to a noble registry. Names, ages, hometowns, and ranks written in neat rows.

So by searching the archives, he could learn about Laios’s hometown. He could discover what kind of children Laios and Ismene were, and who had given them revelations.

After hearing Kain’s story, Maria rubbed her forehead.

“That’s strange. She seemed like such a stickler for rules, yet she told you something like that?”

“She told me various other things too.”

“Hmm… so she’s not completely rigid?”

“It was probably a compromise.”

“Huh? Kain, what do you mean by compromise?”

“Astrid is a White Blood knight and the High Executioner. What she values most is keeping the White Blood stable, and she governs warriors through discipline. And according to what she’s told us, we could enter the archives right away.”

But Kain’s expression wasn’t bright. Maria’s lips twisted as well.

“So we can get in even without Lily’s help?”

“I think that’s what Astrid really wanted. She can’t give us Lily. But instead, she’ll let us get what we want, even if it means bending the rules a bit.

After all, Lily is a runaway girl who fled to the capital because she hated home, and now that she’s back, they’ll try to prevent her from running away again.”

“That’s absurd. What does the Security Bureau say about this?”

“They probably haven’t said anything. They likely think she’s still on a mission. But if certain communications don’t happen, she’ll probably be referred to the disciplinary committee.

If you spend more than three months on purely personal matters rather than your mission, you get disciplined. And the result would be dismissal.”

Even entering the archives would be problematic.

You can’t exactly say, ‘Excuse me, I need someone to help catch rats in the archives, could you please call Valkyria Liliana, the current commander’s sister and one of the top 12 knights?’

“Anyway, I need to talk to Lily. She’s supposed to come to the village chapel for mass this weekend too. At that time…”

A mischievous smile spread across Maria’s face.

“Since you’ve come all this way, you should at least see her face, right?”

“Do you have a way, Maria?”

“Of course I do.” Maria leaned back. “You’d better be nice to me, seriously.”

* * * * *

Weekend.

The small chapel was packed with people. It was crowded with nearby residents and knights from Valhalla Castle.

There was a chapel inside the fortress too, but young knights preferred the village chapel outside the castle. Not because they particularly liked this chapel, but because they wanted to escape the tedium of the castle.

While they valued training and discipline, they didn’t enjoy being confined to the castle year-round.

Besides, the castle and chapel were only a 30-minute walk apart. It wasn’t a difficult path, just a straight road. Thinking of it as a simple stroll and exercise, it wasn’t much of a loss.

Next to the chapel was an attached building. The confessional.

Converted from stables, it had seven rooms lined up in a row. Each room was small enough for two people, with a wall in the middle, and doors at both the front and back. Like a public toilet with doors on both sides.

In fact, it’s not entirely wrong to think of it that way, considering it’s about resolving long-held concerns. You expel your spiritual waste and return with a purified mind.

That’s also why there’s a wall in the middle. When faces aren’t visible, the priest can’t know who’s speaking, and the believer can’t distinguish who they’re speaking to.

However, if the wall were too thick, sound wouldn’t travel through, so there’s a gap in the middle section large enough for two hands to pass through.

To avoid the awkwardness of seeing faces, this gap is placed at chest or stomach level and covered with an opaque cloth.

One might wonder if voices could be recognized, but matters in the confessional must be kept absolutely confidential.

It’s not simply a conversation between two people, but between a person and God’s representative. The believer expresses their suffering to God through the priest, and the priest in turn ‘relays’ God’s teachings.

The confessional. Literally, it’s where believers confess their sins to priests, who are God’s representatives.

Priests don’t forgive secular sins like harming others. ‘Render unto earth what is earth’s, and unto God what is God’s.’ Instead, they encourage surrender while persuading the sinner to return to the path of light despite once harboring wrong thoughts.

But such cases are very rare. Most confessions involve religious or personal matters.

Feelings of jealousy, hatred strong enough to want to kill someone, or growing resentment toward God due to hardships—these are wounds buried deep in the heart that can’t be easily shared with others.

But the confessional in this village was somewhat special.

While it was like confessionals in other cities in that people confessed their sins, this one focused less on “confessing sins” and more on being a place to share gossip.

The population here is small. Small enough that everyone knows how many spoons their neighbors have. In such a situation, it’s difficult to freely express gossip or complaints.

As a result, villagers would confess sins like, “That person made me feel so upset that I felt a strong temptation to hit them!”

The knights were the same. Living together inevitably leads to frustrations. Some can be resolved through duels, but sometimes even that isn’t possible for childish thoughts that cause self-torment.

Jealousy over insurmountable talent, concerns too trivial to mention yet too trivial to discuss with others, or worries too difficult to share with comrades.

Knights would express such things to the village priests. It was a comforting outlet, especially since they wouldn’t meet these priests inside Valhalla Castle all week.

Seven rooms in a row. Villagers and knights lined up in seven lines to confess their sins, receive comfort and wisdom from the priests,

and receive practical advice like “Apologize to the person who upset you” or “Pay back money you owe,” as well as penance such as “Then offer a prayer to God.”

But today there were only six lines. The rightmost confessional was closed.

“I’m sorry. A mouse got in. Could you wait a moment?”

No one wants to be in a small space with a mouse. People nodded and stepped back. Everyone was relaxed and unhurried since it was before the service began.

As people retreated, Maria jumped lightly in place three times. It was a signal.

Kain, wearing priest’s robes prepared by Maria and with the hood pulled low, entered the seventh confessional’s priest seat. Of course, he removed the “Empty” sign and replaced it with “Confession in Progress.”

After confirming Kain had entered, Maria waited anxiously for people. Soon, a tall blonde woman walked over from the other side.

It was Lily. As always, her face was somewhat dark, and she looked even thinner than last week. Though Maria was filled with joy at seeing her, she couldn’t approach carelessly.

No one here didn’t know Lily. But few knew Maria. So if Maria and Lily were to exchange jokes and laugh together as usual, it would look strange to anyone watching.

So Maria greeted her lightly. Lily smiled brightly.

“Are you here for confession?”

“…Yes.” Lily added, “This week too.” But then she tilted her head.

“There are only six lines? The rightmost one…”

“Ah. There was a mouse, but it’s been killed now. I think you can go there.”

The last words were almost a whisper. Maria hurried away, and Lily, not understanding what was happening, entered the rightmost confessional.

There was a small noise from beyond the wall. Someone seemed to be there. Lily sat in the chair and made the sign of the cross.

“Father, I have sinned.”