The whole group, minus Sergeant Rita, was seated at the same table, with Brother Choi and two Church Guards, who Karl hadn’t seen before.
“I take it that you two are the evening shift? My apologies for the trouble.” Karl greeted them.
The guards smiled and nodded, but didn’t say anything as they waited for the meal to begin.
The process here was a bit different from the Seminary Academy, as everyone here was already graduated and working, so they only waited for the staff to bring the meal, and then someone rang a bell and everyone began to eat.
Karl realized quickly that the Guards on duty were not supposed to speak, as they simply gestured to be passed items from the table, instead of asking. If they had been able to speak to anyone, it would have made sense to just ask Brother Choi for what was closest to him, but it all worked smoothly enough, as the other Clerics knew the routine already.
There was no ritual packing of the rice balls at the end of the meal. Instead, the few leftovers that came from the tables would be kept for snacks, and whatever wasn’t served to the tables would be distributed to the needy citizens of the Capital.
They were led back up to their rooms after dinner, and Karl prepared to spend the night in meditation and focusing to build up the energy focus in the three spaces.
It was a bit embarrassing to admit that he had entirely skipped the first step that the Monks would have taken, and that it had caused him to hit a dead end in his growth, but he would have it sorted out soon enough, and from there, hopefully the beasts would be able to reach their full potential.
There wasn’t much to do in the Cathedral in the evening. Only the major areas had lights, and the rest of the building kept their schedule from sunup to sundown. The Cathedral was primarily a working church, so the daily visitors were the vast majority of the workload, and it was only on a full or new moon that anyone would come to worship at night.
That made the sleeping quarters nearly as silent as the meditation room when Karl settled in for the evening, and allowed him to focus on building the energy cores right until the first rays of sunlight hit his face in the morning.
He couldn’t say that he was well rested, but the act of meditation did refresh the mind to some degree. Fortunately, he had [Refreshing Lightning] to soothe everything else away and leave him ready to face the day after a long shower.
Dana stepped up on one side of him, and Karl tucked an arm around her shoulders. Lotus did the same thing on the other side, and giggled as Karl did the same, while she was silently mouthing the word “Spider” over and over until Karl relented and called out Rae to play with her friend.
The two of them took off out a window, leaving the guards staring at them in shock, but they didn’t go far. They were just in the trees outside, still clearly visible from the hallway, playing in the branches.
Brother Choi walked over to see what the commotion was about.
“Nature Priests, you never really get used to them. Where did she find a Bloodbath Spider?” He wondered.
“Rae is one of mine. They became good friends while we were hunting.” Karl explained.
The Monk nodded. “That makes sense. Beast Master and Nature Priest are even more of a natural choice than Druid and Nature Priest. Those two are too similar, their little differences always seem to cause friction.”
Karl shifted to hold Dana’s hand as they made their way to breakfast, and Rae returned to her space after returning Lotus to the hallway a few seconds later. He suspected that they had been yelled at by the guards, but Lotus didn’t seem like the sort that took it too personally if she got in a little trouble for reinterpreting rules.
They were met at the table by two High Priests today, an older man and a younger, who took the seats of the relieved looking Church Guards, who went to eat with their comrades.
“Good morning, Elites. After the meal, myself and Brother John have a few questions for you all together, and I do hope that you can answer some of them. We will explain everything once we are in a less public venue, but there have been some questions about the recent discovery that you made.
It appears to be authentic, but that has only increased the number of questions that the High Clergy have about the situation.” The old man explained.
The food was served and the High Priests remained silent while everyone ate, then led the group out of the dining hall and into a larger meeting room, with a round table in the centre, and a number of clerks already waiting along the wall to take notes on what was said.
The brown haired High Priest known as Brother John spoke as they were seated. “Now, if everyone is ready, our questions are probably not what you might be expecting. We have read your reports, and they are quite comprehensive, so we’re not going to go over the basics again.
Instead, what we would like to know is how such a strangely effective group keeps forming around each of you. Now that you have been put together, your combat effectiveness is far beyond your rankings, but even through your histories, there is a trend of such events.
We believe that this might have to do with the favour of the World Dragon, which could in turn relate to the reason that it was your group that found the System Stones intact.
We have verified from previous scouting missions that they should not have been there in the past, or if they were, they were inactive. But when your group arrived, they activated in response to your mere presence, with no ritual prayers or spells required.”
Everyone in the group looked at each other, unsure what to say. Dana looked a bit skeptical after her misadventures on this last trip, and the misfits that she had been put with before she began to freelance trips with the military.
Lotus shrugged. She just assumed that was how things were supposed to be. Her patron was the Goddess of Nature, and when you had her favour, the world was right all around you.
Karl had assumed it was political interference by Colonel Valerie for the most part, and possibly by the Academy. But these High Priests had access to the official files, so they should have known if it were someone in politics pulling all the strings.
The older High Priest was looking at Karl, who had been central to multiple recent incidences, including an overwhelming number of above Rank monster kills that were padding his accounts and his combat records at an astonishing rate.
Karl took a second to form his thoughts before speaking. “Well, I suppose that I can start at the beginning, since you already have all the classified details. The first mission was entirely luck. It was just a standard first year outing, in an area that had been scouted to have mediocre but newly appeared resources. We went on the trip and found a Trial Instance in a cave that was scouted to have magical stones that the mages in the group all wanted.
The next major series of incidents would have started on the flight to the combat region we were last in. I met with the Mackenzie brothers on the helicopter, we cracked a few jokes, and they invited me to join them without even knowing my Class or specialty.
Their sisters picked them because they saw the names on the incoming members chart when the threat was upgraded due to the presence of the Ettin Mage.
Then it was Central Command that had us moved to the higher threat area, despite being under levelled, and after that, most of the decisions were made by the Bureau of Elite Development helping me out to find group members and sending me back to the battle lines to gain experience, as that’s how my beasts grow the most efficiently.”
They listened intently to Karl’s description of events, which seemed like perfectly reasonable situations, given his circumstances. But the results didn’t match the situations he was in.
“Alright, Sister Lotus, how is it that every time you go out, something strange happens? Last time you found a rare earth mineral vein that has turned into a large-scale mining project, and this time, you were spotted riding a Bloodbath Spider into combat, when their species is supposed to be extinct.” The High Priest asked.
“I blame Karl for the last part. The spider’s name is Rae, and she’s his partner.” Lotus announced with a cheeky smirk.