Night.
Joshua was in the carriage returning to Hearthstone Tavern. Ciri had failed to suppress her desire to sleep and was sleeping on Joshua’s shoulder.
Joshua could only try his best to relax his shoulder so that this female mage that had once warned him to not touch her will be able to sleep more comfortably. While doing so, he gently touched Ciri’s long silver-gray hair.
An hour earlier. The dark elf informed Joshua some information about the Heresy Tribunal.
With the information she revealed to him and his own guesses, Joshua was practically certain that this Heresy Tribunal believed in a nefarious and evil god.
Even though Joshua managed to avoid having ‘open struggles’ with the Holy Church by opening the Hearthstone Tavern, there will most definitely be a lot of ‘hidden battles’ from now on.
Now that the Holy Church’s team of inquisitors were wiped out by him, they will, after some time, definitely send out another team to take care of him.
Fortunately, Joshua learned from the dark elf that the dangerousness of the Heresy Tribunal’s inquisitors lies in how they were able to change their appearances to that of any human. Furthermore, they possess an attack capable of destroying their opponent’s mind.
For the former, Joshua had a ‘human radar.’ The transformation ability of the last inquisition leader Thousand Faces, i.e. the dark elf, was ineffective before Joshua. Joshua was also confident that he would be able to determine other ordinary inquisitors at a single glance.
The only worry would be their special attack.
‘Once you experienced it for yourself, you’ll know how painful it is. It’s like there’s millions, no, tens of millions of crazy monsters muttering in your ear. Their muttering will make you feel like your head is being gradually cut open with a meat cleaver.’
Joshua recalled the warning and description given by the dark elf.
The dark elf seemed to possess a gift for story-telling. During her description, she spoke with an eerie tone.
Hearing her descriptions, the half-dragon and gray-cat beastmen children all started hugging each other in terror. Even their tails were coiling around each other.
Even though the dark elf repeatedly emphasized how dangerous the inquisitors’ mental attack was, Joshua was not phased at all.
The reason for that was because those mutterings could be dispersed by one’s own emotional state of mind.
In other words, if those inquisitors decided to attack you with their mental attack and attempt to make you enter a chaotic state of mind, all you need to do was to take out your MP3 player, put on your headphones and start playing ‘Gokuraku Judo.[1]’ Once that happens, all those damned mutterings will stop. Then, you can hack down those lunatical evil god believers.
That was only one example of what could be done about the mutterings. Nevertheless, Joshua had already proved it to be feasible in hotel Black Dove.
The inquisitors of the Heresy Tribunal were the Holy Church’s trump card. The Ecclesiastical Templars were definitely not the only people in the battlefields or the war against the demons.
Perhaps... Joshua should find his elder brother stationed at the border of the demon realm and promote MP3 or CD players? Heck, he can even be more direct and set up DJs for the battlefield.
That would be able to resist the dangers brought upon by the Heresy Tribunal’s inquisitors.
Besides, Joshua needed to turn that Frost Elf into a star so that the World Tree seed would quickly germinate.
If the Frost Elf decided to walk the path of an idol singer, Joshua could promote music albums to this world.
However, Joshua currently did not have the time to do that. He must quickly finish the filming for ‘Léon: The Demon.’
.........
After Joshua left the hotel, the dark elf arrived at the attic, the highest point in the hotel.
There were no windows or piled up junk in the attic. It was very spacious and empty. Instead of calling it an attic, it would be more accurate to call it a secret room.
The dark elf walked into the attic. With a wave of her hand, the dust on the ground was dispersed by magic. A magic circle revealed itself once the dust disappeared.
The dark elf took out several originium crystals containing magic power and placed them on the four corners of the magic circle. Then, she began to half-kneel at the magic circle.
Pitch-black radiance started to emit out from the magic circle. The dark elf could feel the Black Dove imprint on her neck staring to gradually get hotter. Magic power flowed out from the imprint and entered the magic circle. Then, the image of a figure appeared above the magic circle.
“How did it go?”
An ethereal voice sounded by the dark elf’s ears. She did not raise her head to look at the master of that voice. Instead, she followed the wish of the master of that voice and reported what happened in Norland recently.
“So, he’s still unwilling to return to the main city?”
“I’ve tried my best to inform Lord Joshua how dangerous the Heresy Tribunal is.”
Before that image, the dark elf no longer dared to address Joshua with ‘you’ or by name. Instead, she added ‘Lord’ to his name.
“But, Lord Joshua stubbornly insisted on continuing to produce the thing he called movie. If he continues to stay in Norland, I will not be able to protect him on my own,” said the dark elf.
“Do you find the thing called movie interesting?”
The next sentence spoken by the owner of the voice caught the dark elf by surprise.
Movie? Interesting?
If ‘Beauty and the Demon’ was the only movie, the dark elf would most definitely shook her head to declare it untrue.
She knew what was being asked was the movie ‘Léon: The Demon.’
Even though the dark elf didn’t wish to admit it, she still wanted to reply with ‘It’s not only interesting, it’s extremely interesting.’
As the elves were a race with long lifespan, she had lived much longer than ordinary humans. In all the years she has been alive, she has experienced too many painful things. What she was unable to forget about the most was the pain of her race being wiped out.
After experiencing all of that, the dark elf had thought herself to be a cold-blooded and ruthless killer now.
Yet, the story ‘Léon: The Demon’ managed to touch upon the softest spot in her heart.
Fortunately, she had already encountered a girl called Mathilda like Léon from the movie.
“I cannot deny it. It is indeed extremely captivating.”
She spoke of the truth of what she was feeling.
“Captivating? Thousand Faces, the last time you praised like so was when I saved you several years ago... I’m beginning to feel interested in the movie that’s capable of moving you. I wonder exactly what sort of movie it is.”
The dark elf was able to hear some anticipation in that voice. This made her raise her head slightly to look at the fuzzy silhouette in the magic circle.
“That movie... is currently not yet complete.”
When she recalled the portion of the movie she saw today, the dark elf felt extremely uncomfortable with a desire to watch more. But, upon considering her identity, her position and her reputation, she was unable to brace the shame and seek Joshua for the movie script.
Because of that, she could only quietly wait for the filming to finish.
“That’s alright. I’m already used to waiting.”
“But... can’t you force him to return to the royal city?”
The dark elf was making her report with the preparation of forcibly bringing Joshua back into the demon realm. Even though Joshua was not renowned and does not possess any substantial power in the demon realm, he remains a demon prince.
If a demon prince ended up being assassinated by their enemies because he was living in a foreign country, it would not be something that the other royals could tolerate.
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Translator YangWenli:
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[1] [Gokuraku Judo is a song by GARNiDELiA]