"But this isn’t over yet. Not yet..."
Muen placed the fresh banknote into Pero’s palm and said softly, as if making a promise:
"I will rewrite all of this."
A cold wind blew in, making the crooked tree in the courtyard creak, as if mocking Muen’s delusion of overestimating himself.
Muen did not gather Pero’s and the others’ remains, because there was no time, and because burial represented an ending. Muen did not believe this was the final conclusion.
He stepped past them and quickly moved forward again, all the way to the only remaining high point nearby.
It was the half-destroyed roof of a cathedral. The roof had almost completely collapsed as well, but that half-standing spire was still much taller than the many surrounding buildings that had already turned into ruins.
Muen stood atop it and swept his gaze around.
Without the streets blocking his view as before, Muen could easily see the entire city.
But this was not good news.
The fact that he could see the entire city meant that the entire city, just like this place, had completely become ruins and dead land.
Everywhere were corpses buried under ash.
Muen’s gaze passed over those corpses, searching for something.
Yet what he found seemed to be only desolation.
Boom!
The battle and impact above the heavens continued, like peals of thunder exploding one after another.
That terrifying might shook the heart, as if it meant to destroy all of Saint Blancfazesiya once again...
But that was only destroying it once again.
Destroying a city was certainly terrifying, but compared with what the Salvation Society had done before, it could simply be called not worth mentioning.
And so the doubts in Muen’s heart grew even stronger.
"How exactly did the Salvation Society... split the timeline here?"
This was the question Muen could not help developing from the moment he learned the truth.
Manipulating time was absolutely not some easy trick.
Every use of this kind of power, which surpassed ordinary levels of understanding, would inevitably require a correspondingly enormous price.
There were no free meals in this world.
At most, there was only equal exchange of price.
Take Muen himself, for example. Even with the alchemical core in his possession, allowing him to rely on his connection with the Eternal Clock and thereby gain the power to influence time to a certain degree, every use consumed an enormous amount.
Just now, merely stopping the Witch of Repentance for two seconds had nearly wrung him dry.
And to use pure power to drive this kind of "miracle" that ordinary people could not understand, the price that had to be paid was surely extremely vast.
Power capable of merely destroying a city was absolutely not enough to manipulate the timeline of such a massive city and the several million people within it.
Then how had the Salvation Society done it?
Ancient Magic?
No. Ancient Magic was not so cheating that it could split a timeline without paying a price. Ancient Magic was indeed very powerful, but it still had to satisfy the most basic operating laws and required a sufficiently vast amount of magic power.
Then had the Salvation Society obtained some powerful hidden energy source?
That was not right either. If that were the case, they would not have needed to go through such twists and turns at all. If they had enough power, and wanted to harvest this city’s souls, would it not be better to simply use brute force?
Had the Salvation Society not created such a complicated plan precisely to buy themselves enough time under the eyes of the Empire and the Church?
With enough power to destroy this city several times over, making this city submit in a very short time should not have been difficult.
So... since none of this worked, then within this series of Salvation Society actions, there had to be some special factor still hidden, something concealed in this so-called "third phase" plan, yet something Muen had not experienced and had not noticed.
"That must be the key to breaking the situation..."
Muen clenched his fist and continued searching forward.
The city was empty, and it looked as though Muen was already the only living person left, but everything the Salvation Society had done could not possibly have left no traces, especially when they had used Ancient Magic comparable to a miracle.
And that thing, or rather that method, must also be able to...
"Hey, kid."
"Don’t bother me. I’m thinking."
"Is that so? Then I won’t disturb you."
The object or method used by the Salvation Society must...
"Hm? Wait."
Muen’s brows furrowed slightly. He suddenly stopped, rubbed his chin, and said, "Did I just... hear someone calling me?"
Was he too tired?
No, even if he was exhausted, he should not make that kind of mistake.
It was not an illusion. But this city had already been turned into a ghost realm by the Salvation Society. Aside from him and the Salvation Society’s people, how could there be any living person?
And moreover, someone had actually approached him without a sound while his senses were fully open...
Could it be...
Muen’s expression instantly turned grave. He slowly turned his head to look, while both hands tightened around Elizabeth’s hilt. His whole body went taut, ready to slash first and see what happened... then run immediately if things looked wrong.
"What?"
But that person seemed very displeased with Muen’s actions.
"We haven’t seen each other for only this little while, and you’re already drawing a blade on an old fellow like me?"
"You!"
Muen’s pupils abruptly contracted. His expression was shocked, but not because he had encountered some powerful enemy he could not handle.
Rather, because he had seen an acquaintance he never could have imagined would appear here.
"Why are you here?"
"Ah, young people nowadays. Always making a fuss over nothing."
The limping priest shook his head, then crouched down and rummaged over a corpse. Very soon, he found a box of high-grade cigars on the body.
He leisurely clipped the end of the cigar, then leisurely pulled a box of matches from who knew where and lit it. Then he leisurely took a deep draw.
Pale smoke coiled up from his mouth and nose into the sky, seeming as though it meant to climb all the way to the highest point and merge with those shattered clouds. It was clearly only a few wisps of smoke, yet even the city’s deathly still atmosphere seemed to be dispersed considerably by those wisps.
"Well, well. So this is what cigars taste like. Strong enough, sure enough. No wonder rich people like these things."
Having smoked something good he had never tasted before, the priest looked intoxicated. Yet while exhaling clouds of smoke, he still did not forget to nag the impolite young man in front of him.
"Although our relationship isn’t exactly deep, it shouldn’t be to the point where you’re this guarded the moment we meet, right? That expression of yours... Do you really want to cut me down?"
"Who exactly are you?"
Muen did not lower his guard.
"Impersonating an unscrupulous old priest who has been limping and single for decades is not worthy of respect at all."
"..."
The limping priest nearly snapped the cigar in his hand. "Your words really are as sharp as ever."
"It’s really you?"
His aura, appearance, even the expression when he spoke—every detail overlapped with the old priest in Muen’s memory.
But having only just experienced the Salvation Society’s grand deception, he instead did not dare confirm it casually.
"If not me, then who else?"
The limping priest flicked his cigar and sighed. "If those bastards from the Salvation Society wanted to transform into someone’s appearance to deceive you, there should be plenty of options, right? No matter what, they would not choose an old thing like me, someone who only has a short stretch of karma with you."
"True."
Muen thought for a while, then nodded.
"Turning into an old priest who has limped and stayed single for decades to use a honey trap—surely even the Salvation Society wouldn’t do something that insane."
"..."
So there really were people who would do that? What exactly had this kid been through?
The limping priest let out a long sigh.
"All right. You should be glad I’m not my younger self. Otherwise, just based on those words of yours, I would already have pulled out the scripture and started reciting the Goddess’s great achievements and broad-mindedness to you."
"I’ve known about the Goddess’s broad-mindedness for a long time. Compared with that, what I want to know more is..."
Muen could not help sizing the old priest up and down carefully again. "Why are you still alive?"
The limping priest was not even slightly different from Muen’s memory. He was still wearing that old, tattered priest’s robe, and still had that old face covered in weathered wrinkles. Even the snapped-off part of his eyebrow was exactly the same.
He looked... as if the last time Muen parted with him had only been a few hours ago.
But Muen knew very clearly that this was not simply a short time difference. The priest before his eyes was someone who had lived in the Salvation Society’s "first phase" timeline. According to their plan, he should have followed this city, along with the several million people inside it, into destruction during the "third phase." But...
"Is it strange that I’m alive?"
"Of course it’s strange."
Muen said, "Everyone in the entire city is dead, yet only you are alive. How is that not extremely strange?"
"Hm. It does sound quite strange."
The limping priest took another puff of his cigar. "But I think it is probably because there is still a duty that belongs to me left unfinished, so I cannot die."
"Duty?"
"Forgotten? I am a gravekeeper."
The priest pointed around them.
Muen followed his gesture and looked, only then realizing that aside from the priest, the rest of this place also felt extremely familiar.
It was that cemetery.
The tombstones still stood one after another. Only, the trees between those tombstones had long since been burned away by fire, and the buildings around the cemetery, as well as the priest’s hut, had all turned into ruins. That was why Muen had not recognized it immediately.
Right. This cemetery had originally been not far from the cathedral and the orphanage.
"You’re a gravekeeper. What connection does that have to you still miraculously being alive?" Muen asked.
"Of course it has a connection."
The priest rolled his eyes. "Did you think a gravekeeper’s duty was merely to guard graves?"
"Isn’t it?"
Muen was taken aback by the question.
If a gravekeeper did not guard graves... did he also take part-time work providing full-service weddings and funerals?
"Looks like last time, you didn’t fully understand my job. Watch."
The limping priest clipped out the half-smoked cigar, then carefully tucked it into his robe and put it away. Next, he pulled out a shovel from who knew where. After spitting twice into his palms, the priest grabbed the shovel and began panting as he dug into the ground.
One shovel, then another.
The priest looked thin and dry, and one of his legs was lame, but his digging speed was very fast.
In a few breaths, he had dug out a square pit.
Muen could tell at a glance what the pit was for, because no matter what world it was, when a corpse was buried, such a neat burial hole would be dug.
"First of all, as a qualified gravekeeper, of course one cannot be limited to the so-called 'guarding.' One must reach a higher realm."
The limping priest pushed the corpse he had looted clean into the pit. Then he took out that scripture, which looked even more like a brick than a brick did, and prayed for the dead in an extremely professional manner that was beyond Muen’s expectations.
"May the Goddess receive your resting soul."
The limping man touched his forehead lightly to the sacred text, then opened its pages and muttered words under his breath, solemnly completing the prayer.
The seriousness made even Muen hold his breath and focus. He could not help sighing with emotion. Although this fellow drank, smoked, cursed people, and when he was young had even been suspected of liking little boys, when it came to professional competence, he was indeed so excellent that one could find no fault in him.
"All right."
Before long, the entire ritual had been completed in an extremely solemn and extremely smooth manner.
But just as Muen thought the priest was about to proceed with the work of burying the corpse according to common sense, this fellow suddenly jumped into the pit, swung the scripture in broad, sweeping motions...
And smashed the corpse’s head to pulp in one blow.
