Sword of Dawnbreaker

For as long as a year’s time after the outbreak of the Dark Wave, all believers lost the ability to listen to the revelations of the gods. It wasn’t limited to only those low-ranking pastors and chaplains; the bishops and even popes of the respective sects lost this ability at the same time.

Of course, even in normal circumstances, humans were unable to directly hear the voices of gods. The so-called ‘listening to the revelations of the gods’ actually referred to the almost hallucinatory, soft murmurs that pious believers were able to hear in the process of sincere prayer, carrying out sacraments, and testaments as their mental state had gotten close to the gods’ spiritual nature. These whispers would reverberate in the minds of the believers and form a permanent and ineffaceable ‘spiritual mark’, and this spiritual mark would, in turn, alter the consciousness of believers, bringing them even closer to the gods’ spiritual nature. This was the main path for clergymen in this world, to promote and become stronger.

As those obscure whispers indeed had the power of altering humankind’s consciousness and making humans stronger and purer, it was lifted out of those common auditory and visual hallucinations and were viewed as sacred phenomena by clergymen.

However, in the year that the Dark Wave occurred, all the believers of gods could not hear such ‘whispers from the gods’. They realized in terror, that regardless of how they prayed or how strictly they performed the ceremonies, their gods no longer responded. It was if all the gods had collectively disappeared.

As they’d lost divine grace, in that year, all the clergymen were unable to obtain promotions. Amongst the shallow believers and laymen, not a single new person who could grasp theurgy emerged. The babies born that year were even proven afterward to not possess any natural gift for theurgy.

If the situation continued to worsen following that kind of trend, the future of the believers on this continent would have been difficult to tell. However, like the last thread of hope in despair, people discovered that the mastered theurgies had not completely lost effect. Although the might was slightly weaker than before, at least, the priests who had officially become clergymen before the Dark Wave could still use theurgies. And these priests who were still able to use theurgies did their best to maintain the various teetering churches in those days. Yet despite so, a considerable number of small churches were unable to continue on. They disappeared in the Wasteland when people began to escape from the Gondor Empire.

Gawain remembered that the leaders of the various big churches conducted secret talks and attempts at divine communication more than once. People gave up on their former prejudices and hostilities. Just like laymen who advanced shoulder-to-shoulder amidst the Dark Wave, clergymen no longer had any qualms about their respective beliefs and historical hatreds. In turn, they gathered together and attempted to find a solution to the problem. Subsequently, the few large-scale sects representing the God of Holy Light, the God of War, and the three goddesses of fertility finally found some progress. After several emergency meetings, the leaders of the sects proceeded with an attempt to communicate with the gods at the summit of ‘Ancestral Peak’ at the eastern border of the tribal country of Augari. That attempt was a private meeting; even Gawain Cecil was unaware of the specific happenings. He only knew that the leaders of the sects announced after leaving the summit that the gods had sent a new message: a sign for mortals to abandon their disputes and strive to survive in unity. After all, the Dark Wave was a disaster that incurred due to humankind’s various follies.

The sects signed an agreement called the ‘Sacred Alliance’ on Ancestral Peak. They renounced all disputes regarding beliefs. The sects no longer opposed one another and would do their utmost best for humanity, regarding the continuation of human civilization as their responsibility. And as if it was really such acts that had pleased the gods, in the second month after the signing of the Sacred Alliance — also the same day as the one-year anniversary of the Dark Wave’s occurrence — the gods’ graces were bestowed upon humankind once more.

The believers could hear the voices of the gods once more.

This was what Gawain knew of the historical event that led to the current rather peaceful situation despite having so many sects on this continent.

That historical event changed many things:

It ended the conflict between various beliefs on the continent and also united the clergymen of every sect, joining hands to help human civilization resist the Dark Wave and rebuild their homeland. However, there were also some unduly obstinate sects that could not accept such reality. They chose degeneration, setting all the sects who signed the ‘Sacred Alliance’ as their enemy. They become various twisted heterodoxies and gradually evolved into a few of the most-dreaded dark organizations. The theurgies they used were also named ‘Dark Theurgies’…

Even to this day, those degenerated and warped fanatics remain one of the most terrifying shadows on this world.

As a person with normal logic and a healthy brain, Gawain naturally had a very high opinion of the ‘Sacred Alliance’. Although he was an atheist, he really admired those believers who, in the moment of crisis, put down their conflict, united as one, and worked hard for the continuity of civilization — regardless of whether those efforts were due to the gods’ orders or not.

However, he also knew that to a race like humans whose lifespan was short (compared to elves), even the Sacred Alliance was not everlasting.

Today, 700 years had passed. Though the alliance from those years were still carved on the cornerstones of every sect, just like the ‘Brotherhood Treaty’ between Typhon and Anzu that was now long gone, the later generations were also gradually forgetting the significance behind the alliance that their ancestors established at the foot of Ancestral Peak.

Presently, although the sects of the continent still maintained a peaceful picture, in reality, the disputes and discriminations in private had never lessened. Some sects with huge differences in their religious doctrine had also come to the point where they were just a step away from openly declaring war.

After all, no one could truly listen clearly to what exactly the gods were telling them. Even the pope of the Church of the Holy Light could merely hear fuzzy whispers from the gods. And the ambiguity of the gods’ messages gave humans the space to improvise…

“What if the gods are telling us to have a fight with the heretics? In any case, that’s what I believe. This has absolutely nothing to do with me consuming too much dream herb before praying…” — A considerable number of people thought this way.

But no matter what, the Sacred Alliance did have that little bit more authority than the alliance treaties between human kingdoms (it was written in the name of the gods after all). Even if the conflict between the sects intensified in private, at least on the surface, everyone maintained a win-win situation. At least with the churches in large towns, for the priests of various sects to meet each other frequently was still very normal. — Of course, priests turning to the side to spit after greeting one another and returning home to prick voodoo dolls were also very common.

However, no one would speak about such situations in the open, especially the high priests of every sect. They would not make comments of ‘though there are many gods, my boss is more impressive than all of you’ in public.

Yet Veronica did.

Gawain did not know whether that Saint Princess was giving an intentional hint or that hidden under her pure and intelligent outward appearance was a heart that spoke without thinking. In any case, he was very concerned about this matter. Moreover, the high priest who appeared with Veronica and resembled a light form had his heart full of doubts. In such a situation, he did not dare accept anything that the other party was tossing over without careful consideration.

As for whether the camp would be constructing cathedrals and bringing in the church in the future, he wasn’t too conflicted about that. After all, gods really do exist in this world; theurgies were also certainly a part of people’s day-to-day lives. As a pragmatic person, even if he was an atheist himself, he would not stop others from believing. — Since he had arrived in such a bizarre world, if he still hung so forcefully onto atheism, it would be too idealistic.

However, by that time, he would definitely strengthen supervision over the church and ensure that everything was under his control. It was true that theurgies were real; it was also true that theocracy would affect political power. He wasn’t willing to trip and fall in this aspect.

Just like for every qualified transmigrator, theurgies, in Gawain’s opinion, were to be used as a means of production.

Of course, it was too far away to be planning these things now. In the circumstances where the camp could not even construct a small cathedral, it would be more practical to think of how to manage capital construction instead of wondering how to control religion on his land. Hence, Gawain decided to make use of this period of time where foreign aggression was temporarily nonexistent to build up the camp’s foundation.

The news regarding the eastern border that Veronica and company had brought had given him a reminder. In his not-too-peaceful world, the dangers were much more complicated than the Dark Wave in the Gondor Wasteland. This continent had enjoyed 700 years of peace. There were too many people restless and eager to make trouble under the appearance of peace. If one wanted to live an easy life in such a situation, one would have to become nervous first.

Gawain returned to his own tent — speaking of which, more and more tents were turning into wooden houses or even houses that were more resilient and warmer. It was time this tent of his was upgraded too. He woke Betty, who was curled up on the cushion, fast asleep, and drooling all over. He had the girl bring over all the blueprints that he had accumulated some time ago.

He spread out those blueprints one by one and then weeded out the unrealistic items (but he did not plan on destroying them; what if they came in handy in the future?). Finally, he found those that he wanted. It was a certain simplified machine — metal wheels, connecting rods, and cylinder blocks were ingeniously assembled together. There were the split-up and detailed explanations of these mechanisms and structures on the blueprints. However, at the bottom of the main blueprint was a line of striking red words, “Initial motive power could not be resolved, temporarily shelved”.

“Go get Rebecca and Heidi.” Gawain looked towards the little maidservant who stood in a daze beside the desk. “Just say I have something… Never mind, just remember to get them here.”

Betty jogged out in a dash, leaving Gawain in thought as he faced the sheets of semi-finished blueprints. Amber’s voice suddenly sounded behind him. “What are you drawing here? Why can’t I understand it?”

“A certain motive power trigger,” Gawain said without lifting his head. At the same time, he slapped the half-elf bandit’s claw from his silver stamp with ease. “In theory, this is something that only needs to consume energy to operate continuously by itself and drive other mechanisms and structure, but the design is not completed yet.”

Amber’s whole body left the shadows. She bowed her head and studied those blueprints on the desk curiously. “Oh? You’re referring to those magic puppets powered using elemental cores?”

Gawain shook his head. “No, not the same thing at all. This is an equipment that is more universal and basic, but its value far exceeds those magic puppets… Regrettably, it still lacks the most important part.”

Yes, the part that could not boil water…