After saying goodbye to Liqi, Shaer walked along the main road toward the church.
Nothing happened on the way, and she soon arrived at the church doors.
It was Thursday, not the Sunday rest day. The time for food distribution had already passed. There were few people about, only an old nun in a plain black robe sweeping dust from the steps.
"May the Goddess remove your suffering."
As Shaer went up the steps and passed her, the nun pressed her right hand to her chest and greeted her.
Shaer gave a small nod. She did not reply. She was not a believer and had no need to recite blessings.
Inside, she glanced around. The church felt unusually empty today. Even the "Good Fortune Box," which usually had someone before it, stood unattended.
The Good Fortune Box was like a donation or alms chest. The difference was that those with money could toss in coins, while those in need could press the button below and catch a few pennies as they fell out. Whether you gave or took, it symbolized asking for luck.
Shaer went to the box, pressed the button, and caught the three coins that fell. In her heart she murmured, "Goddess bless me."
"Really, sis? You're asking for help and still pocketing their coins?"
A silver-white screen flickered before her eyes. The system's text scrolled across it.
"Taking money also counts as a prayer," Shaer retorted silently. After a moment's thought, she put one penny back into the slot and murmured again, "Goddess bless me."
A double prayer. If there really was a Goddess, She ought to be moved.
The nave was empty. The pastor who usually preached at the pulpit was nowhere to be seen. Shaer had come specifically to find that pastor.
Out on an errand? Or eating?
Perhaps her prayers had been heard. The door to the side aisle opened, and two people came out.
First was Pastor Maier, a kindly old woman in a black robe with the oval emblem of the Church of the Savior Goddess at her breast. She walked while speaking softly to the person beside her.
That person was cloaked head to toe in a black church robe. Unlike Pastor Maier's plain habit, the hems were traced with intricate white patterns. A white mask covered the face, marked with simple geometric lines for the eyes and nose, but blank below the nose.
Pastor Maier noticed Shaer by the alms box and smiled with a nod, then continued to see the masked person out.
Shaer shifted aside politely to make room. As the masked figure passed, Shaer caught their hushed exchange.
"Grand Priestess Yulis… if there is any news here… we will notify you at once…"
Grand Priestess Yulis?
The one promoted to High Priestess in that notebook? A transcendent of the Church?
Shaer reflexively looked up at the retreating back. She hesitated over whether to approach, but by then the forecourt held only Pastor Maier and the nun sweeping the steps.
A trace of confusion came into Shaer's eyes.
What did I come here to do… Right, I was looking for Pastor Maier…
No, that's not right!
[Cool-Headed Thinking Lv.1]
A cool sensation flowed through her mind. In an instant Shaer recalled why she was here.
"Yu…" The name had barely left her lips when a pair of warm hands slowly slipped around her neck from behind.
"You are in pain…"
A clear, ethereal voice sounded just behind her ear.
"But it's all right. The Goddess will make everything better…"
Chapter 12 — The "Pervert" Grand Priest
Shaer jolted and hurried a few steps forward, her hand flying to the canvas bag on her left shoulder by reflex.
The gun… it's gone?!
She turned and saw the masked woman in the grand-priest's robe sitting with no regard for decorum on a rear pew, turning an old revolver over in her hands with curious interest.
"Little miss, why bring something so dangerous into a church?" the masked woman tilted her head and asked. "Planning to rob us?"
Shaer froze. She was now sure the masked woman was a transcendent, and nine times out of ten, she was the Grand Priestess Yulis from Duwen's research notes.
"Grand Priestess, you scared her. I know this child. She's the sister adopted by the believer Liqi. Her name is Shaer. She came a couple of years ago," Pastor Maier came to Shaer's side, patted her shoulder, and soothed, "It's all right, child. Don't be nervous."
"Just a joke…" The masked Yulis set the revolver down at her side, then stretched both hands toward Shaer. "Come, little miss, let me take a good look at you."
The odd behavior left Shaer unsure whether to step forward. Pastor Maier lightly patted her back and said gently, "Go on. It's fine."
At this point, there was no running even if she wanted to. Fortunately, this was a simulation. Nothing that happened would cause her real harm.
Shaer shuffled toward the masked woman bit by bit until she stood within arm's reach. At the same time, she was already calculating how to use [Death Reversal] to earn the most Fate Points if she died the instant the simulation shifted.
Only now did she notice the woman's hands clearly—pale, slender fingers with soft tips. They were the hands of someone who had never done hard labor, the hands of a merchant or noble.
She watched those hands move up to her, then press to her face, sliding from her brow to her chin, and lightly rubbing at her chin.
"What a pretty little miss…" The masked woman smiled, lifted the hood edged with silver-white thread, and a cascade of silvery, softly wavy hair spilled out.
She withdrew her hands, set them to her mask, and lifted it away with a deft motion, revealing a face chiseled in delicate beauty. Her eyes, however, remained closed even after the mask came off, making her look holy and endearing.
Thinking back, that mask hadn't even had openings for the eyes.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Yulis—Yulis Morra—Grand Priestess of the Church of the Savior Goddess."
So it really was Grand Priestess Yulis… Shaer studied that beautiful face, thoughtful.
From Duwen's notes, she had imagined Yulis to be a stern, middle-aged woman who kept doctrine strictly but had no airs. She had not expected a girl of about seventeen at the height of her bloom.
"My name is Shaer," Shaer inclined her head slightly in respect.
At first she had thought the other party some kind of pervert, hugging her right away and wanting to touch her face. But once the mask came off, she understood.
The other woman could not see. She wasn't a pervert.
"Pastor Maier, could you take us to the small chapel off the side aisle? I have some questions for this girl," Yulis turned toward Maier and asked.
"With pleasure."
Maier led Yulis toward the side aisle. Shaer followed, uneasy. The revolver remained on the pew outside.
They passed through the side aisle. Maier opened a door into a small chapel.
Important figures used this place for private prayers and small rites. There was carpet underfoot, a little altar and a statue of the Goddess in the center. It was a very private space.
Once Yulis and Shaer entered, Maier closed the door. The small chapel fell quiet at once. Only two people's breathing could be heard.
"Would you take me to the bench?" Yulis smiled and reached her hand toward Shaer.
"Mm." Shaer nodded, took the offered hand, and guided her to the prayer bench before the altar, then watched her sit.
"Come, sit beside me," Yulis tugged lightly at Shaer, inviting her to sit at her side.
When Shaer settled, Yulis suddenly said, "Let me take a better look at you."
Shaer: "?"
In that instant she overturned her recent impression of "she's not a pervert."
"You already looked," Shaer said flatly.
"Only by touch can I sense what is in your heart and feel your pain…" Yulis bowed her head slightly, her expression dimming. "Forgive me. I cannot see…"
"All right…" Seeing her like this, Shaer felt a twinge of guilt.
It wasn't that Shaer despised disability or wanted to pick at wounds. It was simply hard to connect "transcendent" with "blind." She reflexively saw the other as beyond the ordinary rather than as a person with ordinary limitations.
Shaer took her slender wrist and set both hands to her own cheeks.
Yulis placed her hands and immediately pinched the soft flesh of Shaer's cheeks with thumb and forefinger, gently pulling them outward, again and again.
She played with great relish.
Shaer: "…"
"Grand Priestess, what did you want to ask me?" Shaer said calmly, having mentally welded the label "pervert" onto the other.
"Ah, quite a lot." Yulis kneaded Shaer's cheeks as she spoke. "Why did you bring a gun into a church? Why do I sense pain from you as if you died several times? And how do you know my name?"
"The gun is for self-defense. As for the latter, I don't know how to answer," Shaer shook her head. She glanced at her canvas bag and went on, "As for the rest, you will understand once you read these."
She reached into the tote and took out the two notebooks, passing them to Yulis.
"Mhm…" Yulis released Shaer's face with her right hand. While her left still pinched lightly at Shaer's cheek, her right hand felt for the notebooks.
Her expression didn't change when she touched Thomas's diary, but the moment her fingers brushed Duwen's research notes, the smile froze on her face.
At last Yulis let go of Shaer's cheek, took the research notes, and carefully stroked the leather cover, tracing the gilt letters.
"Would you read it to me, Miss Shaer?" Yulis held the research notes in both hands and offered them to her with solemnity. Her expression grew serious, the earlier playfulness gone.
Chapter 13 — A Survival Path That Won't Be Exposed
Shaer had read it once already, so she picked out the important parts.
Yulis listened in silence. At the end she sighed softly.
"If I hadn't been transferred, he would not have strayed further and further like this…" Yulis's voice went a little hoarse. She pressed her right hand to her chest and bowed her head, as if in prayer.
Shaer did not interrupt. She waited quietly for Yulis to speak again.
After a while, Yulis lifted her face toward Shaer and asked:
"Is that the end of the notes?"
"Yes," Shaer nodded.
"Did he change notebooks?" Remembering that Shaer held another notebook, Yulis continued, "What is written in the other one?"
"No, he did not continue recording himself. The other notebook belongs to someone else," Shaer said.
"Someone else?" Yulis showed a hint of confusion.
"His name is Thomas…"
Shaer summarized the diary's contents. Halfway through, Yulis's brows drew tight and did not relax again.
When Shaer finished her summary, Yulis spoke: "Duwen was killed, but what he left behind still brings pain to others… How did you get these two notebooks?"
At first, Yulis seemed to be speaking to herself, but then her tone shifted and the point of her question turned toward Shaer.
"Spiritual notes are the most important thing to a transcendent. Thomas may only have been a half-baked one, but he obviously would not hand these criminal proofs to you." She paused, then went on, "On the walk to the side chapel just now, I sensed your killing intent toward me."
Shaer was silent. She was not surprised to be suspected. These notebooks were system copies—there was no way to explain how she had gotten them.
Since a clumsy lie would likely not fool the other, Shaer had planned from the start to tell the truth.
Half-truths, at least. Once she left the simulation, no one would remember what she had said anyway.
"I saw the future," Shaer said seriously, looking at Yulis. "In the future, you, Grand Priestess Yulis, told my corpse these things. When I woke from the dream, the notebooks were at my bedside."
Yulis: "…"
Yulis: "?"
She lifted a hand and felt the girl's forehead.
No fever.
A little girl with no trace of transcendence tells you she saw the future?
Yet Yulis sensed no lie in her.
Either the girl was mad, or everything she said was true.
"How do you prove it? That you can see the future?" Yulis withdrew her right hand.
Shaer: "At 4:45 a.m. today, Thomas and the head of the Blackwater Gang will meet at The Hammer tavern. There, Thomas will carry out the Instigator's final Reenactment. And I will die there as well."
Yulis: "You are the sacrifice?"
Shaer: "Yes."
Yulis: "How did I discover it? I only just arrived in Bolen. My investigation won't officially start until tomorrow. And if you died, how did I speak to you?"
Shaer: "I wasn't completely dead yet. You arrived at the end of the ritual and killed them. After finding their notes, you felt deeply guilty for dragging me into it and decided to leave my sister one hundred thousand su pounds as compensation."
The more Yulis listened, the more shocked she became. She sensed no falsehood from the girl before her.
It was as if that beautiful girl named Shaer had lived through every detail herself. If not for the last sentence carrying the scent of a lie, Yulis might have suspected there was something wrong with her own senses.
Enjoyed this chapter? Get 50+ chapters ahead and support the translation here: [email protected]/rosavyn.