LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 95 — In which they meet (9)
Chapter 95 — In which they meet (9)
Vern took a deep breath and swept his hand over his racing heart.
‘I thought I was prepared but…’
His heart was racing, and his head felt as if it was crushed by a boulder.
Part of him was completely convinced that it was just some strange dream.
But his rational part was certain that there was no way for his torturous brain to produce something so beautiful.
‘If it was a dream he would be either covered in blood or curse me for ten generations…’
Suffering from similar nightmares for over 100 years, Vern knew how to differentiate a dream from reality.
‘But it doesn’t seem like you recognize me…’
It should be obvious.
If that man safely reincarnated as Vern always prayed, his memory should be clean.
The past memories, suffering and grudges washed away in the death’s rivers.
In fact, it should be strange that Vern could even be certain of who was standing before him.
He didn’t even see the man’s face in the previous life.
When he was burying him, his face was too damaged by flames and heat to make out any of it.
Vern could only rely on his extraordinary memory and visual imagination to reconstruct it.
‘… Still… I wanted to see the real thing so much I did something so stupid…’
Once, unable to cope with his grief, he broke the taboo of this world and designed a spell to track someone’s soul.
The entire research almost costed him his sanity and body, but his siblings finally made him come back to his senses.
Later, they almost never mentioned it.
Am only sometimes grumbled that gods related to fire could no longer stand citrus fruits because of it.
‘… At the time I wasn’t sure if it was actually working… I thought it may be better if I didn’t know…’
He smiled at those memories.
‘… I’m glad it worked though.’
He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again.
‘Back to work then.’
He had no time to think about the past or his long-dead love.
People’s lives were at stake.
After halting for a second to gather his wits again, Vern started walking quickly towards the empty room where a suspicious gift was left for him.
*-*-*
Saffra raced through the corridors of the Archmage’s villa.
‘There must be a designated prayer room for Purplus’ envoys… It should be a fully enclosed room, far from the main facilities, somewhere where servants and other guests don’t enter very often…’
As she quickly drew the architecture plan of the building in her head and guessed where her destination was, she swiftly crossed another corridor, turned around and…
Bang!
She bumped into someone, who was also running like crazy.
Feeling like both of them are losing balance and are about to fall, Saffra instinctively grabbed the person in front of her and pulled them towards herself, while she with a complicated footwork regained her balance.
She looked down and…
She started to wonder if she didn’t hit her head.
“Huh.”
“Huh.”
Answered her the miracle with an equally confused tone.
Saffra was briefly lost in the wide-open eyes, so pale they were almost white if not for the slight touch of purple around the irises.
They always reminded her of a particular cultivar of phlox flowers she used to…
“… How could you possibly be…”
The miracle mumbled as her eyes started to shake, and her face became pale.
“Yes?”
Saffra had no idea why her miracle was reacting like this.
… Actually what were they just doing?
Realizing that she was still holding the woman to her chest, Saffra quickly let go and took a step back.
“Ahh! My deepest apologies! I was just so lost in the flowery seas that just unfolded before me, I completely forgot myself. Are you alright?”
“Huh? Ah… I…” The woman also took a small step back, looked Saffra up and down, and only then calmed down a little. “Yes. My apologies, it appears I briefly mistook Lady for someone else.”
The woman bowed lightly.
“It’s okay. It’s my mistake that I bumped into you, causing a misunderstanding…”
Saffra was spitting out nonsense.
But the woman just nodded, as she observed her with an absentminded look on her face.
Saffra fell quiet, and the two just looked at each other, both terribly confused who the person in front of them was and how did she get here.
It was Saffra, who broke silence first.
“Can I ask where were you going…?”
“To a prayer room… Ah! The prayer room!”
The woman’s dazed face turned fierce.
“I have to go!”
She quickly passed Saffra as she sprinted through the corridor.
‘… The prayer room…?’
Saffra’s thoughts were a bit sluggish, but the moment she realized what the miracle said, she turned around and chased after her.
“Wait! Lady Priestess, let me assist you!”
“What?!”
Thankfully the last weeks of training weren’t wasted and Saffra managed to catch up to the miracle.
Though her breath was a bit shallow.
“You’re going to shower them with ice right? Let me help you, Lady Priestess!”
“… You don’t have to call me Lady Priestess, it’s enough to just say Sis-… No, nevermind. And why are you following me?!”
“Because you- didn’t say that I couldn’t!”
“I-…”
The miracle was about to argue, but seeing how Saffra was doing her best to keep up with her, barely catching her breath, she just shut her mouth.
Swiftly, they arrived in front of the prayer room.
Before Saffra could assess the situation, the miracle opened the door with a bang and barged in.
She caught a glimpse of the strange symbol on the floor and scattered sunflowers as if a big ritual was being performed.
The miracle’s expression turned grave as she yelled:
“What the hell are you doing?!”
And then she smacked the leading priest.
The priest immediately collapsed on the floor.
‘Ooh…’
Saffra just stood in the doorway and admired.
But her admiration was cut short..
Even though the leading priest was knocked out, she could still feel strange heat coming from the holy symbol.
The ritual was continuing.
The other priests were still maintaining the ritual, even after her miracle made a ruckus!
‘Aren’t you a bit too devoted!’
The miracle must have also realized that, because she mumbled something very rude under her breath and started to smack priests around her.
Saffra couldn’t directly hit priests as she wasn’t from Purplus, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t help.
‘To disrupt a ritual…’
Though she wasn’t sure what exact ritual it was, she was certain it was related to sun, so…
She quickly found what she was looking for.
Saffra ran to the window and pulled the thick black curtains, perfectly blocking any sunlight.
The heat immediately was dropped down by half and was quickly dropping even more as the miracle was knocking down priest after priest.
‘That should do it, but…’
Saffra glanced at a small thermometer installed in the corner.
The overheated device wouldn’t cool down that quickly.
‘Something is happening… If Archmage won’t be able to respond properly something bad is sure to go down.’
She hoped that she wouldn’t have to go that far, but she couldn’t take her chances on people’s safety.
Saffra ran to the door, then stopped at the doorstep, turned to a miracle that suddenly appeared in front of her, and shouted:
“Don’t hurt your hands!”
“Huh?”
And then ran out without being able to admire the cute, dumbfounded expression.
*-*-*
Far away from all of this, in a quiet Universe Temple.
Amara opened his eyes.
He was currently performing the rites for gods of secrets, which meant that no one was around and no one knew what he was doing.
Usually, the rituals would take around an hour, but today, thanks to using Phlox’s terrible scheduling abilities, he managed to have an entire day of them.
It was important, because Amara was just about to leave the temple without anyone around knowing.
The communication stone which was silent for a few minutes sent a message again.
A string of numbers. The coordinates.
Amara didn’t waste time.
According to the sent coordinates he drew a teleportation circle.
As the circle connected and activated, Amara, wearing a deep-hooded robe and full-face mask used during the Secret Rites, took a step in.
While the light enveloped him, Amara said to the god he secretly preformed a ritual for and connected with, even though they had little to do with secrets.
“Guide me.”
*~*~*