C102: Father Victor’s secret

‘What a competent girl.’

Arnold walked into the empty church calmly, his thoughts absentmindedly drifting.

To be honest, he hadn’t expected Mary to succeed. That’s why he had prepared several backup plans beforehand, just in case of failure.

‘Do we need him anymore, Izzy?’ Arnold’s fingers brushed lightly over the mouse tucked inside his coat. The small creature shifted against the fabric.

The other plan had involved this little one. He would have been the one to create a distraction for the priest. He had even considered involving Jack in this infiltration.

But who would have thought Mary would actually succeed?

‘Yay! Mr.Kaiser, you are safe!’

‘?’

Izzy knitted her eyebrows. Mr.Kaiser? What was that?

Apparently, the young mind had decided the mouse was now called Kaiser. Izzy ignored the odd naming choice and returned her attention to Arnold’s perspective.

‘What did she mean by that?’

Arnold had overheard the conversation between Victor and Mary, but it was full of cryptic words.

However, he knew one thing for certain: Victor wanted something from Mary, and now, Mary had successfully used it as bait to lure him out of the church.

‘Is it something related to the Moon Elf?’

The black monument did mention it, but he was not entirely sure.

[“The Moon Elf. On the day of the Rite, the Moon Maiden will bless the Elf in front of the full moon, offering the Elf to Her Majesty.”]

[“The Moon is associated with the Elf, a fantasy race that brings better harvests and gentle dreams.”]

[“The rite of the Moon Maiden, only children below the age of sixteen may participate. By becoming a Moon Elf, one’s status in the village will be elevated.”]

Arnold shook his head lightly, clearing his thoughts as he approached the shrine room.

Inside his pockets, he carried a handful of small stones.

He glanced at the White Monarch statue standing solemnly upon its pedestal.

It depicted an aged yet dignified man with angular features carved in stone. He wore a long cassock and a cape draped over his shoulders. A cross necklace rested prominently upon his chest. On his head sat an exquisite mitre hat.

In one hand, he held a long staff topped with a cross pointing toward the sky. In the other, he carried an ornate orb crowned with a small cross, the Globus Cruciger. A crown rested in the crook of his right arm.

On his chest, a symbol of three interlocking rings was engraved.

Arnold stepped closer. He grasped the lower portion of the staff carved into the statue’s hand and rotated it.

“!”

All of a sudden, the ground vibrated. Right behind the statue, a section of the stone floor shifted with a low grinding sound. A rectangular slab slid aside, revealing a pitch-black staircase leading downward.

“It did exist…”

Arnold swallowed his saliva, his heart pounding in his chest.

With a determined look, he took a slow step downward into the hidden staircase beneath the church.

The air below was cold, as expected. It carried the familiar scent of aged stone, dry dust, faint mildew, and something slightly metallic lingering underneath, like old iron left too long in dampness.

Arnold extended his Field Vision the moment his foot touched the lower steps. The darkness unfolded around him in layered perception.

With a flick of his thumb, a small stone shot up from his palm.

The pebble rotated midair in front of him, hovering for a moment, before it abruptly launched upward into the ceiling’s shadows.

*Biiik!*

Accompanied by a small, high-pitched shriek, something small fell down, landing with a soft thud at his feet.

Arnold looked down at the inanimate small thing under his boot, examining it with his Field Vision.

“…”

Black fur, snout-like nose, two sharp-edged ears.

It was a bat.

He lifted his gaze toward the ceiling.

Numerous violet orbs shimmered in the darkness like scattered stars in a miniature universe. Hundreds of glowing violet eyes stared back at him.

“Sorry for the intrusion, guys,” He stroked his chin, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Or should I say, long time no see?”

Immediately, all of the violet-eyed creatures swirled down from the ceiling in a chaotic, screeching vortex. Their wings beat rapidly, and their sharp fangs flashed. Trails of violet light streaked in the darkness as they dove.

“Isa.”

‘Yes!’

Arnold threw all of the stones he had gathered up into the air.

‘Rocket stone!’

Controlling her Psychokinesis, Isa shot all the stones toward the descending swarm. The stones accelerated violently, shooting toward the bats with precise aggression.

After ‘eating’ the finger bone, based on the information in the monument, their energy reservoir had increased drastically. There was no longer a need for them to save up their energy.

“...”

Arnold stepped calmly down the staircase as chaos erupted around him.

Stones of various sizes orbited him like a moving barrier, slamming into the black-furred creatures mid-flight. Each impact sent a bat tumbling down the steps, stunned and neutralized.

The stones ricocheted efficiently. When one struck a bat, it rebounded and targeted another. If it hit a wall or the floor, it immediately shot back upward under Isa’s control.

They were exploiting the enclosed staircase to its fullest advantage.

Controlling her mastery of psychokinesis, Isa launched the stones with incredible precision, each one hitting a target in the head, chest, or wings, a deadly ballet of psychokinesis force.

‘Ahahahaha!’

Isa’s laughter rang through the mindscape. She was enjoying herself far too much.

Arnold shook his head, baffled.

‘This girl.’

He waved his hand. Immediately, a bat that had managed to bypass the bouncing stones stopped in their tracks, suspended in the air.

Then, they were immediately launched back into their companions, creating a cascade of falling, disoriented bats.

‘Mmm.’

This was the result of Izzy’s psychokinesis. While her control was nowhere near Isa’s level, she could still use it to its basic extent.

She used it to prevent any bat from closing the distance, pushing them away before they could reach her male vessel.

With their upgraded Psychokinesis after killing Benjamin, lifting and throwing creatures of this size was entirely possible. Their current weight limit was approximately a human limb.

Gradually, the number of bats attacking Arnold decreased. Each time one was struck, it fell to the steps and remained there, watching from a cautious distance instead of rejoining the assault, gazing at him angrily with its glowing violet eyes.

Arnold deliberately avoided killing any of them. He didn’t want to alert whoever controlled these creatures. He also wasn’t sure whether there were other warning mechanisms in place, like the lamp system in his own mansion.

This was as careful as he could reasonably be.

Soon, he reached the end of the staircase. He stepped into the hidden room and pulled the wooden door shut behind him.

*Thud! Thud! Thud!*

Outside, bats slammed themselves against the closed door, but Arnold wasn’t concerned.

‘Finally, a safe zone!’

Isa directed the mouse Kitty to monitor the church exterior while Arnold surveyed the interior of the hidden room.

“Here we go,” Arnold muttered, ignoring Isa’s strange gaming terminology as he examined the room before him.

The hidden room was smaller than Arnold had expected.

A modest, dusty chandelier hung from the ceiling, though it was unlit. Four oil lamps were mounted evenly along the walls, one on each side. Unlike the lamps in the mansion that ignited automatically with orange mist, these required manual lighting.

Arnold stepped around the room and lit them one by one. Warm light gradually filled the chamber, pushing back the darkness and revealing its details.

Along both side walls stood two long bookshelves, each holding dozens of books. Their spines bore titles such as Church Teachings, Ethical Learning, Hymns of Devotion,... There were also Children's books, Children’s Scripture, basic teaching manuals, and various tomes on local history and folklore.

‘This is where they store the teaching books?’

He ran a finger lightly across one spine. Dust coated his glove. The pages were yellowed and slightly curled at the edges, some torn or repaired clumsily.

‘Maybe they’re outdated.’

The wear suggested these were not part of the general circulation. They appeared to be archival texts, preserved for the sake of record-keeping rather than reading.

In the center of the room stood a long wooden table.

It was cluttered. Notes, loose parchment, open books, quills, ink bottles, sealing wax, and small metallic tools lay scattered across its surface as if the owner had never considered tidying it.

‘This feels like a workspace.’

It definitely didn't look like a ceremonial space. It was also very different from the basement chamber at the mansion, Arnold noted.

At the far end of the room hung a fully draped brown curtain covering a section of wall. The fabric was heavy and thick, reaching from ceiling to floor.

He wasn’t sure why it was this way, a random drape of a curtain on the wall, when behind it was literally just a wall. An empty, bare stone wall.

“Hmmm.”

‘Very suspicious!’

Why hang a curtain over nothing? Was this simply Father Victor’s peculiar sense of interior decoration?

Arnold shook his head. He turned around and focused on the cluttered table.

‘First things first, I should investigate them.’

He should examine the notes and books spread across the table before doing anything else.

This mess, surely, held some secrets.

If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.