Is this the so-called Demon’s Temptation? N..no, comparing the Saintess with a demon was a reprehensible thing to do.
But, there was no reason for the adjutant to refuse the Saintess Herolia’s request.
He began to tell Herolia all that he had witnessed and experienced in Norland. Some of those things were stuff that will put him to death should the archbishops learn of them.
“A magic that could connect everyone’s consciousness together?”
The only thing the adjutant talked about that caught the Saintess’s interest was that ‘miraculous magic.’
“That’s... that’s right. Lady Saintess, a new sort of magic has emerged in Norland recently. Practically everyone around me is using that magic,” said the adjutant.
“To connect people’s consciousness, that sounds like an advisory magic. I want to know more details about this.”
The Saintess Herolia searched through her knowledge of over a hundred years. She was only able to find two or three magics that could allow others to enjoy one’s consciousness. But, all those magics were far different from the one described by the adjutant.
After all, ‘connecting everyone’s consciousness’ was a description enough to comprehend as being a work of gods — a miracle.
“It’s a magic called ‘magic network.’ It is constructed using runes from the Order system of magic. One only needs to purchase a very small originium crystal in Norland’s Weissenasche Theater and crush it in one’s hand to use the magic network.”
The miraculousness of the magic network was not something the adjutant could explain with words.
Faint white colored magic power appeared on his hand. He used his magic to materialize the magic network’s interface he was seeing in his mind.
Finally, Herolia saw the interface of pure-white light . A large amount of characters and images appeared there.
“What is this?”
Herolia was standing right across from the adjutant. Because of that, the images and characters she saw were all reversed. She circled around the adjutant and ended up standing behind him to read what was on the interface.
The contents were an utter mess. There were things like ‘Damn it! Who soaked my lizard in alcohol again this morning?!”Question for the mages of the Fire system. Which rune should I start learning first?”Working out one’s muscles is the first step to becoming a qualified mage!’
The large amount of information, so much that one could feel dazzled by them, made Herolia uncertain as to where to start reading.
“Mage Forum.”
The adjutant took a glance at the lower right corner which showed the current time. There was a post in the Mage Forum that outlined the functions of the magic network. One of the things that post mentioned was the concept of network connection and network speed.
When the adjutant was staying in Norland’s little chapel, his signal strength would barely reach three bars. But now that he came to the Holy City, the signal strength had turned gray and red, two colors signaling warning.
Those two colors called to his attention that... he had lost connection.
Recently, he acquired a habit to post on the mage forum after he finished his prayers. To him, losing connection to the mage forum was a disaster.
Fortunately, the Mage Forum utilized local storage. That is, the contents of the Mage Forum will be stored in the users”mind.’ The posts will only be updated once a user connects back with the network.
As the human mind was a ‘drive’ of super ultra high capacity, Joshua would naturally have to utilize it to its fullest.
Of course, the users were able to clear the history of the useless contents on the forum.
“Mage... Forum? So it’s a conference, one where people interact using words?”
Herolia soon found out the pattern to which the forum’s texts were arranged. Once she found the pattern, the chaotic-ness instantly disappeared.
“That’s right, Lady Saintess. The mages of Norland are issuing their various opinions and questions onto this forum. Then, other users will quickly be able to see them. Furthermore, they could issue replies to them too.”
The adjutant extended his finger and tapped one of the posts to show to Herolia.
“The people on this forum are all anonymous?”
Herolia discovered that the Poster and the Repliers were all not using their actual name. Instead, their names seemed to be some sort of code names.
“They’re all anonymous. Very rarely do people know others’ identity.”
That was also one of the reasons why the adjutant liked the Mage Forum so much. As long as he doesn’t violate the ‘User Agreement,’ he would be able to discuss with everyone on the forum as an equal.
He very much enjoyed the feeling of communicating with others on the forum and expressing his true thoughts and opinions. And... sending those amusing dwarf expressions. Oh, a new sort of expression, one much simpler than the dwarves, has been added recently — yellow faces.
Among them, the ‘funny’ expression was the most popular one on the forum.
“Truly... laughable.”
Once the Saintess Herolia finished listening to the adjutant’s descriptions, she suddenly revealed a self-mocking smile.
“Lady... Lady Saintess, I... I’m not certain...”
The adjutant suddenly realized that he seemed to have lost himself to the joy of using the Mage Forum. Even though no one in Norland had stood out to claim themselves to be the creator of the Mage Forum, the adjutant could guess that it was most likely the creation of that demon.
“You don’t have to be so flustered. I only feel this to be quite ironic.”
“Ironic?”
“The canons left by God always expressed his desire for his followers to show forgiveness to one another and create a world where everyone’s equal. The Holy Church had spent a millennium but still didn’t accomplish that. Yet, a demon managed to fulfill God’s wish before us. Albeit, it is only in the state of one’s consciousness right now. But... say... don’t you think this is ironic?”
Herolia took a glance at the adjutant. The adjutant lowered his head uncertain as to how to answer her. Or perhaps, it would be better stated that he was afraid of answering her.
The Saintess was the only person in the entire Holy Church who dared to criticize the Holy Church and God like so. If he was the one who spoke those words, he would be charged with blasphemy and be condemned to death.
“Don’t lower your head. I wouldn’t be able to see the content on the Mage Forum when you do that.”
“Yes... Lady Saintess.”
Herolia skimmed through the contents discussed by the users on the forum.
She was amused by a lot of the replies. She felt the urge to join them and submit replies of her own.
“How do I respond to them?” asked Herolia.
“About that... the range of the magic network is currently only limited to covering Norland. The Holy City is unable to receive information from the magic network. What Lady Saintess saw were contents stored from a couple hours ago.”
The adjutant explained to the Saintess Herolia per his memories of what he read on the ‘Magic Network Usage Instructions.’
“One can only view the stuff from the past and not be able to join the forum in the Holy City? Are there any posts that have things to do with the Holy Church on this forum?”
Herolia was able to vaguely guess the reason why Cheryl defected.
After being ordered by the Saintess, the adjutant immediately found a post he was extremely familiar with — ‘Diary of an Inquisitor.’ There were already over a thousand replies to the diary. It was on the top of the ‘Motionless Library.’
“Skotan Nun, that’s a name from the far far past. Is this the reason why you betrayed us, Cheryl?”
Herolia had gained the information she wanted. Her line of sight shifted away from the magic network. At this moment, a sphere of light floated wobbly over to Herolia’s shoulder.
That sphere of light seemed to be some sort of living organism. It whispered some words to Herolia’s ears before disappearing into specks of light.
“You will be returning to Norland in three days. You shall be the guide in our crusade against that demon.”
“Three... three days?”
The adjutant was pleasantly surprised by what he heard. The teleportation gate to Norland had closed shut. If he wanted to return to Norland by foot, it would take him at least three months. Furthermore, that was on the condition that nothing unforeseen would appear in his journey.
“There seemed to be a special teleportation formation located beneath Norland’s chapel. Upon your return, I have a mission for you. I want you to bring back an originium crystal that contained the ‘magic network’ and check whether there’s a way to connect to the magic network past Norland.”
Herolia was certain ‘Skotan Nun’ was the defected Cheryl.
As she was the Saintess, it would be impossible for her to leave the Holy City unless its due to special circumstances. Because of that, she would have no choice but to place her hope on the miraculous magic network to get in touch with Cheryl.
“This here is the funds for you to use. If you wanted to stay in Norland, you’d do your utmost to complete my mission.”
Golden runes appeared on Herolia’s fingertips. She waved her hand and a pile of gold coins and precious gems floated over to the adjutant. The adjutant immediately extended both hands to catch the gold coins and gems.
“Else, I might recommend you to become an ascetic.”
“Ascetic ... Lady Saintess... I... understand.”
Even though the adjutant was holding a pile of gold coins and gems, his heart was filled with unspeakable sufferings. Those so-called ascetics were people that consecrated their bodies to God. Even though they held very high positions, they lived miserable and difficult lives...
But, the adjutant simply had no authority to refuse the Saintess’ mission for he had already accepted her ‘bribery.’
He saw the smile on the Saintess’ face. To her believers, seeing that smile would be like being basked in God’s brilliant light.
But, to the adjutant, that smile was no different from a demon’s smile!
Sure enough... it was the demon’s temptation!
.........
Hearthstone Tavern. Noiseless Room.
“This shall be your work. Are there any other questions?”
Joshua took a couple minutes to explain ‘Voice of Norland’ to Pluk. He also informed him of what his work consisted of.
This Faceless Demon had a good voice. Perhaps it has something to do with his race. If a Faceless Demon, a race known as the Deceivers, possess an unpleasant voice, likely no one would be ‘incited’ by them.
Pluk had portrayed Léon in ‘Léon: The Demon’ with his original voice. That slightly hoarse sounding voice had charmed a lot of the lady film-goers.
“N...News?
Pluk slowly read this unfamiliar word.
He had encountered a lot of unfamiliar vocabularies ever since he stepped into the Hearthstone Tavern. Joshua had already informed him what his job would be.
He was to arrive at the Hearthstone Tavern at 9 in the morning, sit inside the Noiseroom Room and narrate the written news content.
Pluk knew of the human writings. Spending a dozen minutes to read out a script everyday was not difficult of a task for him to do.
But, Joshua was not only employing him. He was employing the entirety of the Black Dove.
“You can comprehend news as ‘valuable information.’ In other words, it’s the same as what the members of the Black Dove have been doing the entire time. You are to inform the people of Norland all the important or interesting things that occurred in Norland through the Voice of Norland immediately.”
Joshua provided the Deceiver an explanation that he could understand.
“You mean, you want to provide the information to the residents of Norland free of charge?”
Pluk’s comprehension ability wasn’t bad. However, what Joshua wanted to do would be a business of enormous loss to them, information dealers.
“Your Highness Joshua, you wouldn’t be able to gain anything from doing this... Many of the information gathered by the Black Dove could cause certain mages to pay a large sum of money to purchase them. If you are to do this, you will cause all information to lose their value.”
Pluk held even greater seniority in the Black Dove than their current leader the dark elf Thousand Faces. He knew very well that the Black Dove was a low-level organization that belonged to the dark and shadowy side of Norland.
But, that was also the reason why there were merchants in Norland that would spend a large sum of money to purchase information on their competitors from the Black Dove.
To Black Dove, information was their commodity. What Joshua wanted to do was completely equivalent to giving out the commodity for free.
“Pluk, doing this would allow me to gain over ten thousand... or even over a hundred thousand listeners for the Voice of Norland.”
It was only at this moment that Joshua displayed his ‘ambition’ to the Deceiver.
“Imagine it. They will open up the Voice of Norland and be able to learn about the latest happenings in Norland by listening to your morning broadcast. Whether it might be some freakish major event or some interesting small news, they will learn about all the latest developments in Norland. To all the residents of Norland, that would be something well worth for them to sit down and spend a couple minutes listening to the news.”
Joshua believed the aspect of broadcasting that truly attracts people was not music or night-time stories. Instead, it was the news. After all, everyone would be concerned about what was happening around them.
“Your Highness Joshua... is there a significance to doing something like this?”
Pluk was still unable to understand what significance or value there was in doing this sort of thing. The Black Dove would be able to, at the very least, gain some gold coins by selling their information. But, should they change their information to ‘news,’ there would be no profit to be seen at all.
“The significance lies in how there’ll be over ten thousand people sitting down to listen to your voice. It is equivalent to the Holy Church’s missionaries. In a city, missionaries were able to gain over a hundred listeners to their speeches...”
“...”
After Pluk finished hearing Joshua’s simple comparison, he wiped away the cold sweat on his forehead. This Deceiver finally understood what Joshua was planning; he finally understood what sort of influence the Voice of Norland will bring to this world.
“But, if you wanted to employ the members of the Black Dove, you would need to wait for Thousand Faces to return to Norland. It will likely take her a week to return to the human world.”
Pluk does not hold a very high position in the Black Dove. After all, Black Dove was once very scattered. Only the current leader of the Black Dove, the dark elf Thousand Faces, was able to make those members act obediently.
“In that case, we can talk about the actual employment details when she returns. You can also return to your hotel now.”
Joshua did not try to detain the Deceiver. Ever since the movie ‘Léon: The Demon,’ Squirrel Street has, starting from hotel Black Dove, began to develop toward a tourist center.
If Joshua decided to shoot another movie there in the future, he might really be able to develop it into a Hollywood.
Pluk expressed a slightly awkward bow toward Joshua and then left the Hearthstone Tavern.