Ch.97Report on the Downfall of Kindness (7)

Maria covered the broken leather strap with her hand. Lily didn’t notice as she was busy looking for a towel to wipe Maria’s sweat.

“No. Please don’t get up. I’ll bring water.”

Lily ran toward the kitchen. Kain spoke up.

“Maria.”

“Don’t say anything.”

Maria turned her head and stuffed the strap deep into her pocket.

“Please.”

Kain couldn’t bring himself to say more.

When Lily returned with a wet towel and a water jug, Maria had returned to her usual self. Lily handed her a glass of water and carefully wiped Maria’s forehead and face with the towel.

“I’ll wipe your sweat!”

“I know. I’m just doing this because my heart aches so much.”

Maria momentarily forgot what to say, which allowed Lily to wipe away her sweat without interruption. Meanwhile, she explained in a low voice what had happened while Maria was unconscious. After listening carefully, Maria looked at Kain.

“Kain. Can you still smell the sap on your hands?”

Kain smelled his hands. The smell that wouldn’t go away no matter how much he washed was completely gone.

“No.”

“…Hah.” Maria clutched her head. She chewed her lips nervously before finally letting out a deep sigh.

“…Like everything in this world, fire has contradictory aspects. It gives light to brighten the world, but it burns away things you want to hide. Of course, there are things that need to be burned. Things that shouldn’t exist in this world. Demons. Devils. Monsters… those can be burned even with holy fire.”

“What about the black fire that was drawn on my hand?” Kain asked.

“Black fire? That’s witch’s fire.” Maria exhaled deeply.

“Holy fire is a gift from God to humans, but black fire is a sinful fire created by humans wanting to become gods themselves. It’s a kind of symmetry… Kain. Come here for a moment… no. I should go to you. Since you’re monitoring outside the door. Lily, could you help me?”

With Lily’s support, Maria approached him. She opened her palm and placed it on Kain’s forehead. She muttered a prayer quickly in a low voice.

Somehow, a warmth, a vitality, spread from Maria’s hand throughout his body. Maria stumbled for a moment, and the startled Kain and Lily quickly grabbed her, but Maria playfully flicked Kain’s forehead.

“You’re perfectly fine, so don’t worry. Brother. No evil spirits have attached themselves to you. Though I don’t like it.”

“What don’t you like?”

“That my dear mother burned away the impurity on you, the sap, with evil fire. Fighting evil with evil. It’s like a worm eating another worm—in the end, it’s still a worm… Cough! Cough! Damn… making herself at home in someone else’s body but not using it properly…”

Her final words were unclear. Lily and Maria sat back down on the bed.

“Anyway, what did they say to you, Kain? Something about trees…?”

“‘One who has the blood of trees on his hands,’ ‘One who has committed an unforgivable sin against trees.’ That’s what they said. I know that tree blood means sap. But I don’t know what unforgivable sin I’ve committed.”

Kain, too, had grown up hearing that “trees should not be treated carelessly” or “you shouldn’t cut them down or break branches recklessly if you’re not using them for firewood.”

It wasn’t because he grew up as the eldest son of an orchard owner. It was just common teaching from adults that “even creatures that cannot speak should not be treated arbitrarily.”

“What sins can one commit against trees? I really don’t know.”

Lily also seemed completely baffled.

“That tree stump was strange too. When I accidentally sat on it, there was no reaction, but when Kain placed his hand on it and looked inside, it spurted out sap… if that was sap, that is.”

“Ugh…” Maria shuddered. But Kain just stood there blankly. He repeated Lily’s words a couple of times.

‘It spurted sap. When does a tree spurt sap?’

Obviously, when the tree is injured.

‘Then why did the tree, which didn’t react when Lily sat on it, spurt sap when I placed my hand on it?’

It means that Kain’s touch injured the tree. Come to think of it, he vividly recalled what happened in the forest. When he tried to wipe his sap-covered hands on another tree, Edith screamed “No!” almost like a shriek.

Kain rolled up his sleeve. He examined the bruise he got from fighting the thugs. Perhaps because time had passed, the bruise had grown larger than before.

‘The fat one and the skinny one said it was “spoiled” when they saw this. Edith also looked at the bruise on my arm with interest.’

Spoiled. People don’t describe injured people as “spoiled.” That’s a word used for food. Inedible food. Unclean food.

Food that trees can’t eat.

“…Maria.”

There was a strange vibration in Kain’s voice. Maria looked at him with slight surprise.

“Yes, speak.”

“I’m really sorry to ask this… but when do trees eat food?”

Maria blinked. Lily carefully answered.

“Kain, trees may grow by consuming nutrients from the soil, sunlight, and water, but they don’t eat food like people do, do they?”

“My goodness. You’ve become stranger than me. What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Sorry. I asked the wrong question. Let me ask again. When do people offer food to trees?”

“In ancient primitive religions, they offered food during rituals. Setting up a table of various foods in front of trees. Didn’t the White Blood Knights have a similar custom?”

“Did they?” Lily opened her eyes wide.

“How can you not know what I know! Not just the White Blood Knights, but ancient warriors and priests offered sacrifices to trees, stones, or places they considered sacred. Freshly slaughtered lambs or unblemished animals, or their best offerings. Well, I suppose you might not know since you’re now a knightly order rather than an ancient tribe… Kain? What’s wrong?”

Kain leaned against the wall. A sudden wave of fatigue had hit him. He wiped his sweating face with his palm. He tried to explain what he had realized, but couldn’t. Through the crack in the door, he could see Brother Henry approaching unsteadily. He had a basket on his arm.

“Brother Henry is coming.”

Kain went to the chair and sat down. Maria whispered to Kain and Lily.

“What should we do? Should we confront him?”

“No.” Kain shook his head. Then he shared the plan he had come up with. They barely managed to finish before the door opened.

Brother Henry, who had been staggering just moments ago, opened the door with a forced bright smile. He had a basket on his arm that seemed to contain fresh herbs just picked from the forest and fields.

“You’re here. Well, did you finish your conversation?”

“We had a good talk, thanks to you,” Maria responded. “You look tired. Should we leave?”

“Oh no, not at all. I’m just sleepy. At times like this, I need to move around more. If you haven’t had tea yet, would you like some?”

“That would be nice.”

The tea Henry brewed was unique. It was made by steeping clean-washed mushrooms and herbs in water, leaving a savory taste on the tongue. It had the scent you might smell in a forest after rain.

“Actually, we were getting a bit sleepy too,” Maria said with a smile as she put down her teacup.

“But since we’ve been invited to dinner, if we sleep now, we might end up eating dinner while half-asleep. I don’t like that, so instead, I’d like to hear an interesting story.”

“A story.” Henry smiled as if at ease, but hesitation and caution could be read in his eyes and the corners of his mouth.

“What kind of story would you like to hear?”

“Of course, a story about the Life Tree Order,” Maria shrugged. “Brother Henry, you’re the expert in that field. You came here for research, after all. There’s a strange longhouse in the village—is that also related to the Life Tree?”

This was the plan Kain had shared with the two women. Subtly pressing, closing off escape routes one by one, and eventually trapping the person in a corner. Maria was gradually driving Henry into a dead end.

“Ha ha, well. That part of my research isn’t complete yet. I can’t share unfinished research. Besides, while it might be appropriate for clergy, it’s not a story that would benefit the young couple here.”

“But I’m curious,” Lily folded her arms.

“Just a little bit—could you tell us just enough for ignorant people like us to understand? I was actually quite scared of that building. And the decorations in the forest where the knights had their accident.”

“Why do you want to hear about that?”

Henry’s question seemed troubled. But Lily handled it very simply.

“Because if I know what it is, I’ll be less afraid. When I don’t know, I keep wondering about it, but once I know, I can forget about it, right?”

The old brother made a peculiar “puh-heh” laugh. He seemed unable to hold back his laughter. The brother, laughing as if he had no choice, settled into his seat.

“Well… but let me just tell you there’s nothing to worry about. Have you ever touched the longhouse?”

“That large, elongated wooden building? No, I haven’t touched it. It was scary just to look at.”

“Actually, it’s all stone.”

The brother added an explanation for the confused group. He said that as one travels the world, one can find trees that have turned to stone.

“It’s natural you don’t know about it. It’s a topic only monks who dig in the ground all day or university scholars would appreciate. They’re called petrified wood… simply put, they’re fossilized trees.

So that longhouse is essentially a stone house built with that petrified wood. I suppose that’s why it has withstood the harsh passage of time.”

Kain recalled the longhouse. What he had thought were logs apparently were not. Fossils—trees that had turned to stone.

“Who would build something like that? Could it be heretics?”

Maria frowned, but Brother Henry shook his head.

“I don’t know. Whether it was built by a wealthy king who settled here before the Empire was formed, or by some pagan…”

Kain looked at the brother.

Brother Henry was an old and frightened man, not a skilled liar. And one of the skills required of a security bureau agent like Kain is the ability to read the signs of lies.

The brother didn’t avert his eyes or hesitate. So everything the brother had said so far was likely close to the truth.

But the brother was being threatened by someone. It meant that he was in a position where he sometimes had to lie to Kain, Lily, and Maria.

And people who lie always leave signals of some kind. Kain carefully asked:

“It’s an unusual building. Were the patterns on the longhouse there from when it was first built?”

“Patterns?” The brother opened his eyes wide and pursed his lips. “What patterns are you talking about?”

“The faces with missing jaws carved on the pillars. The same pattern was in the forest where the knights had their accident. The locals said ‘they were there from the beginning.'”

“Ah. That’s what you mean. Huh huh, I thought it was something else.”

The brother trailed off. He rolled his eyes around and didn’t answer immediately. It meant he needed time to fabricate an answer.

“Well. As you know, the people who settled here did so only about 10 years ago. So I don’t know when those were carved, and neither do they.”

“I understand that for patterns carved on petrified wood, but the ones carved on trees seemed quite recent.”

Kain remained respectful. The brother momentarily turned serious but tried to relax his expression.

“Is that so? Perhaps the knights imitated it? I haven’t seen it myself, so I don’t know what it is.”

“I see,” Kain nodded demonstratively. “So, where did you pick these herbs?”

The brother leaned back at the sudden change of topic. He rolled his eyes nervously, genuinely surprised.

“What do you mean all of a sudden?”

“I’m talking about the note. The note you left here.” Kain held out the paper note—a poor imitation of Henry’s handwriting.

“Well… why are you bringing up a note while we’re talking about patterns? This is quite perplexing.”

Displeasure appeared on the brother’s face. It was similar to the reaction of a cornered person who suddenly gets angry. An instinctive bluff to hide fear. And bluffs always crumble in the face of facts. Kain tapped the note with his finger.

“Because Brother Henry has sufficient motive to lie.”

Lily stood up. She locked the door with a bolt and blocked the window with her body. Brother Henry tried to stand up, but Maria snapped her fingers. Holy fire rose from her fingertips.

“…You!”

Of course, Henry knew what it was. Maria declared in a rigid tone:

“Article 41 of the Decree for Inquisitors: An inquisitor may, if necessary, conceal their identity and operate in secret. However, it must only be a means to reveal the truth. Those are the Pope’s words.

It’s not a lie that I’m a nun. It’s true. But there’s something I didn’t tell you. I am an inquisitor from Magdeburg. These two are helping me.

So, in my capacity as an inquisitor, I ask you: Brother Henry, why are you telling such obvious lies?”

The brother’s legs gave way, and he collapsed to the floor. He covered his face with his palms. Whether to hide his shame or because he was flustered was unclear.

“…You shouldn’t stay in this village for long. I was trying to protect you.”

“No,” Kain tapped the table with his finger. “That’s not all. You’re being threatened, aren’t you?”

“…You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to us. We came to set things right, not to leave things to rot. We want to help you.”

Kain knelt on one knee in front of the brother. But the old brother snapped harshly:

“You cannot help me! Leaving is how you can help me!”

“Is that so?” Kain didn’t hesitate. He stood up abruptly and drew the imperial sword from his bundle.

“What, what are you trying to do?”

“I’m going to catch whoever wrote this fake note first. If I grab and beat up everyone I meet, someone will talk eventually.”

Kain strode toward the door.