Chapter 151: Chapter 155: Suspicions
Fenna’s gaze lingered on this record for a few seconds, and the Judge’s sharpness let her sniff out something noteworthy from these brief phrases.
Sacrificial acts of heresy suddenly emerging among ordinary residents, targeting a nonexistent entity—sacrificial actions that utterly failed to meet ritual requirements had actually drawn the attention of transcendental powers. Isolated incidents of mental disorder, with no follow-up investigation…
Fenna suddenly remembered something, put the file in her hand down, and hurriedly flipped through another record she had just seen.
In the year 1889, a bit earlier, an armed assault happened in a street-side shop in the Lower City District. This incident should have been managed by the public security bureau and not appear in the church’s archives, yet the post-incident investigation proved that the assailant—a “customer” who suffered a sudden mental disorder inside the shop—insisted he saw a blasphemous shadow in the store’s display window and wielded a knife to “counterattack” against the “unseen entity’s pursuit.”
In subsequent inquiries, the church discovered traces of heretical worship in the shop’s basement. However, the sacrificial symbols on the site were jumbled and indiscernible, not pointing to any effective entity. Through interrogation, it was learned that the shopkeeper, who conducted the sacrifices in private, had no understanding of mystical rites at all, his haphazard sacrifice was guided by “unknown instructions.”
As before, a haphazard sacrificial ritual, theoretically ineffective, sparked mental disorder in a small area, again with no further investigative conclusions.
Fenna slightly furrowed her brows. These two events seemed to have no connection with the factory leak from eleven years ago or the fire that was erased—timewise, they didn’t match up either. This was not the focus of her investigation today, but the consecutive mention of two similar incidents of heretical worship in such close records touched a nerve in her as a Judge.
Moments later, she put down the two files she was holding and continued searching the shelves for subsequent volumes, this time paying extra attention and actively looking for records of incidents that might be related to heretical worship.
After an unknowable amount of time, she suddenly stopped.
The third record was still at some point before the “factory leak” incident, occurring on the edge of the Upper City District. A maid working in a wealthy household suddenly went mad, grievously injured three servants and the male owner of the house, then locked herself in a storeroom. By the time the church guardians and the public security officer arrived and broke in, the maid had already taken her own life.
In the storeroom, symbols of sacrifice carved with a dagger were found, made by the deceased just before her death. The maid’s room also revealed traces of heretical sacrifice—once again pointing to another nonexistent entity, and the sacrificial procedure did not comply with any standards. However, unlike the previous records, the ineffective sacrifice did not drive others insane, but rather the sacrificer herself.
There were already three of them…
If Fenna was only slightly concerned when she saw the first two records, her expression turned completely grave upon seeing this third record.
She rapidly arranged the information from these records in her mind, analyzing them based on the timing and locations of their occurrences.
The incidents were dispersed, independent of one another in time, unrelated in location, and there were theoretically no connections between the people involved.
Moreover, there was nothing related to the factory leak from eleven years prior, and no traces of the Sun Heretic were found in the subsequent investigations.
Fenna concentrated and continued to search for more records. It wasn’t long before she found the data on the factory leak.
It was a major incident, its impact widespread, and the number of captured heretics was nearly the highest in recent decades. Therefore, the whole thing was recorded in a separate file, a thick and hefty file filled with numerous pictures and interrogation reports.
But it did not take Fenna long to go through the entire contents of the file.
Because she had seen these contents many times before in other places, in the past few years, she had reviewed files related to this old case more than once.
It seemed that even in this archive deep within the church, there was no more information about the factory leak from eleven years ago.
Fenna put the file concerning the factory leak back in place and continued to look through more records when she suddenly realized something:
After the “factory leak” incident, there were no more records appearing like the previous three cases of “heretical worship.”
Yet, the factory leak happened in the middle of the year, leaving half a year’s time after it.
This gave Fenna a feeling as though all the “ineffective yet somehow effective” heresy cult events had cropped up right before the factory leak, and after the incident, they became a turning point; all the heretical worship had come to an abrupt stop thereafter…
Of course, this could also be explained by common sense: after the factory leak accident, the church and authorities had arrested thousands of Heretics, and this large-scale crackdown had cleared up the City-State’s heretical forces, so it was quite normal for there to be no heretical worship incidents in the following half a year.
However, for some reason, she always felt that the logic behind these seemingly unrelated events should not be so simple.
She paused next to the large bookshelf and, after pondering quietly for a long time, returned to the starting point, pulling out the first file about “heretical worship” and flipping through it while musing.
The events were too scattered, drowned in a mess of disaster records. If it hadn’t been for her sudden, bullheaded determination to sort through them today, and the suspicion already planted in her heart, she probably wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual when she first received these materials. Yet once noticed, the discordant and uncomfortable sensations took root in her heart like a seed, making it difficult for her to ignore the warnings from her intuition.
While Fenna was earnestly reviewing the materials, a measured pace of footsteps suddenly came from nearby, accompanied by the faint scent of machine oil mixed with incense.
Fenna looked up to see the old priest responsible for managing the archives approaching her.
As he walked, he limped, making it obvious that it wasn’t just his right hand that had been injured; his legs had suffered as well.
“There are not many people around in the archives at this time, so I came over to see,” said the old priest with a smile, “Have you found the materials you were looking for?”
Fenna exhaled softly and put the file back in its place, “I found some materials, but not the answers I was looking for.”
“Answers?” the old priest asked curiously, “What kind of answers do you want?”
“…How long have you been here?” Instead of answering directly, Fenna suddenly asked a seemingly unrelated question.
“Ah, it’s been a long time, let me think… nearly twenty years,” the old priest said with a smile, “Ever since my hand and leg were blown off by those heretical fanatics’ homemade bomb, I’ve been here.”
After some thought, Fenna curiously asked, “Is it usually this quiet here? Does anyone else come to consult these archives like I do?”
“Most of the time, it is very quiet here—there are some who come to consult the archives, but not many,” the old priest replied with a smile, “Books are a person’s memory of the world, and this archive is where memories lie deepest—stored here are ‘old cases’ that have been dealt with or ‘confidential scrolls’ deemed unsuitable for public disclosure. Once filed away, they are buried deep in the annals of history along with the past.
“Every day in the City-State, countless new things happen, and everyone is busy moving towards tomorrow; who has that much time to come back and flip through these sealed documents. And moreover…”
The old priest suddenly paused there, raising his head to quietly gaze at the stacks of scrolls reaching up to the dome, taking a while before he softly continued.
“And moreover… the archived documents sometimes are not just a record of the past but might contain ‘history’ itself sealed within those pages. Our world’s past, present, and future all rest on unstable foundations, and rifling through too much in this archive can be detrimental to one’s well-being.”
“…That sounds somewhat like a warning from the Fire Transmitters.”
“Yes, Fire Transmitters like to caution about such things. They guard history and are always worried about something creeping over from ancient times, contaminating the roots of our world—they are excessively sensitive on this matter, so much so that some people even think that the Doomsday Preachers spreading ‘end-of-the-world contamination theory’ are Fire Transmitters who have fallen…”
As he spoke, the old priest chuckled and shook his head, “I had close friends from the Fire Transmitter sect when I was young, and naturally, I heard plenty of their theories. Even though their direction differs from the teachings of the Storm Goddess, they all belong to the orthodox gods, and some of their ideas are certainly worth considering.”
For some reason, as she listened to the old man speak, Fenna’s thoughts also gradually calmed down. She held a measure of respect for this elder who had dedicated most of his life to the church, and at this moment, she did not mind engaging in more conversation with him, so she casually asked, “Do you still keep in touch with those friends?”
“No more contact,” the old man slowly shook his head, “One morning, I suddenly realized I never knew their names, so most likely they have already been martyred…”
(A new month begins, and it’s time for double monthly votes, everyone gives some votes~~)