Chapter 127: Chapter 127: Blood Moon Cult and the Witch’s Gathering_1
Two quarters of an hour later, the infirmary.
"This time, I really owe you one." Rebecca bowed her head to Aiden with guilt in her face, "It’s all my fault for my lack of ability, which led to the witch pushing us to this extent and causing you so much trouble."
"You can’t say that, if you hadn’t swallowed that pendant, I wouldn’t have been able to catch her," Aiden glanced at Presia who was sitting up in the hospital bed.
Presia turned her face away with displeasure.
It was the plain truth—if Rebecca hadn’t swallowed Presia’s Great Witch’s Credential, Aiden wouldn’t have gotten hold of it. Naturally, he wouldn’t have been able to infiltrate the gathering of the Great Witch, let alone obtain Abigail’s divine words.
If not for those words that could turn the world upside down, he would have probably been played to death by Presia long ago. Not to mention that if Presia still had the credential, she could have sought help from the other Great Witches last night.
In other words, Presia’s capture was, to a certain extent, all thanks to Rebecca’s desperate fight at the last moment.
"There’s no need to be so modest. You caught the criminal I couldn’t catch, that’s a fact. I always saw you as my goal, but when you transferred to the prison and I became a Judge, I thought I finally surpassed you. Now it seems that your skills haven’t gone to waste at all; the one who was really standing still was me," Rebecca looked at Aiden and sincerely lamented.
"I’m not being modest, I’m speaking my heart," Aiden shrugged, "Any abnormalities after switching bodies back? Still getting used to it?"
"It’s okay..."
Right as Rebecca said this, Presia suddenly spoke up beside her, "Hmph, feeling something off would be normal since I’ve been using your body to lure one or two men over every night these past days..."
As soon as Rebecca heard this, she was scared pale and subconsciously touched herself up and down.
"Don’t let her lead you by the nose, she’s lying to you," Aiden calmly reminded, "This person has been suspected by Chief Harold for a while because of her poor acting skills. Chief Harold has had people monitoring her all along."
"Really?" Rebecca still looked a little uneasy.
"Look, that’s the person who was in charge of monitoring tonight. You can ask her when she wakes up."
Aiden said this as he pointed at the investigator lying unconscious on another bed.
"Eh, I remember she seems to be... the rookie from the third squadron," Rebecca recognized her, "What happened to her?"
"Nothing much, just got caught up in the fight between me and Presia. She’ll be fine, and should wake up in a few hours," Aiden explained.
"If she was hit by Presia’s Mental Attack, why not just have her reverse it?"
"Uh... no, it was me who accidentally hurt her," Aiden said somewhat sheepishly, scratching the center of his forehead.
If it hadn’t been for his use of a powerful move like "Evil Spirit’s Roar" to accidentally hit an ally, the rookie investigator wouldn’t have to be unconscious in bed for half a day.
"Eh?" Rebecca was quite surprised.
"There was a slight accident when I was catching Presia. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it here. When she wakes up, I’ll explain everything to her. Tomorrow, we’ll go to the office to report the situation. So tonight, you..." Aiden asked with an inquiring look at Rebecca.
"It’s alright, I can go home by myself," Rebecca nodded to Aiden.
"Shall I walk you out a bit?"
"No need, you’ve already helped me plenty," Rebecca waved her hands repeatedly. "I can walk back on my own, after all, I am a Judge. If I need someone to accompany me just to walk at night, what would that say about me?"
"Alright then, just be careful on your own," Aiden signaled to a prison guard to escort her to the prison’s exit.
When she reached the door, Rebecca suddenly stopped and turned around.
"Aiden... no, senior." She adopted a more respectful tone. "Do you have any plans this weekend? I was thinking... I’d like to invite you for a meal, as a thank you."
"Sure, I’m looking forward to it," Aiden responded.
After Rebecca left, Presia immediately started talking to Aiden again: "You haven’t forgotten what you promised me, have you?"
Aiden glanced at her: "Then let’s go into that room there."
Aiden led Presia into a room inside the medical office and casually shut the door behind them.
"So..." Presia found a bed to sit on and crossed her legs, "regarding what I mentioned earlier, how much do you actually know? I’ve fulfilled your request, now don’t tell me you don’t know anything."
"You tell me first, how do you know about the Blood Moon Cult?" Aiden asked, looking her in the eyes.
Half an hour earlier, Presia had made a proposition to Aiden:
"There’s a heretical cult that disappeared without a trace five years ago called the ’Blood Red Full Moon’. They were active in this country at the time, and I bet the heretical tribunal here definitely had some contact with them. I want to know their whereabouts, or any information at all."
When Aiden first heard Presia’s request, he was truly surprised — Presia was actually investigating the cult that had deep ties with him and Melifilia.
"Hey, you just asked me to switch our bodies back, and I’ve already done that. It’s your turn to talk now!" Presia said, visibly dissatisfied.
"Alright, but I can only tell you what I can. Five years ago, the Heresy Tribunal indeed destroyed a base belonging to a cult with that name. The cult is toast, but the founder escaped and has been off the radar ever since."
Aiden revealed some straightforward information but didn’t touch on the most core and confidential matters.
"Destroyed? No wonder I couldn’t find them no matter how hard I looked," Presia mused.
"So, where did you hear about this cult? Why are you looking for them?" Aiden asked.
"It’s nothing much, this cult had a little friction with the witch assembly a long time ago. They once tried to put a bounty on three key members of the witch assembly, but they quieted down after Lamia killed a few cult assassins and bounty hunters they sent," Presia said lightly. "Abigail once revealed to us that this cult not only knew of the existence of divinity and divine words but also had key information on the power of ’Spirit’... so I got curious and started to look into it, but I haven’t found any leads."
"Oh? And how did Abigail come to know this?" Aiden asked with interest.
Of course, Aiden was well aware that what Abigail said was true; the Blood Moon Cult had once succeeded in summoning the ruler of the "Spirit" authority to this world, after all, that ruler was still locked up under his office.
"Do you think I’d tell you?" Presia snorted, "So, since it was your guys who destroyed the cult... did they really have that kind of thing?"
"I don’t know. Even if I did, do you think I’d tell you?" Aiden returned calmly.
