Chapter 39
While Elise chose to focus on steadily raising her spirit, mana, and spell experience, Crimsonwood itself was anything but calm.
During the third week of the Month of Genesis, the Mercenary Guild discovered that the death rate among Awakened had begun to outstrip expectations.
The camp's leadership, the Church included, issued a public investigation commission. They suspected a powerful monster had moved into the nearby forest.
Awakened entering the woods to hunt or gather transcendent materials could investigate as they went.
It was a public commission, after all. Complete it, and the reward was free money.
But the situation soon shifted.
Early on the first morning of the fourth week—
"Mew..."
As usual, Tymis woke Elise.
She rubbed the little creature's catlike head, fed it a cluster of spirit energy, washed up, and opened the door.
"Good morning, honored High Cleric Elise."
Lorna had been handling all manner of small tasks for Elise lately, and the two had grown considerably closer.
"Lorna, may the God of Light bless you."
Elise greeted Lorna first, then looked past her to Lia, who stood making faces, and Lina, who waited quietly with a smile.
"Dear Lia, dear Lina, good morning."
"Elise, you have to bring me. I came to Crimsonwood for field training." Lia spoke around a mouthful of food, the hair on her head flashing at odd intervals.
Lina simply smiled and waited while Elise and Lorna went over Church matters.
Elise invited the three of them in, and they shared breakfast.
Then she glanced at Lina with a touch of guilt.
Lina caught the look at once. "Elise, a hellspawn purification mission isn't right for me. You don't need to feel sorry."
"If I had to pick between Chalmers and Lina, I'd pick Lina," Lia said, cheeks puffed, a sneer on her small face. "That rotten noble. Once I hit Second-tier, I'm going to teach him a lesson."
"Lia, Grand Knight Chalmers is doing this for my sake," Lina explained. "He arranged better positions for my parents in Megalith City."
"Lina, I'm trying to stand up for you." Lia's eyes went wide with indignation.
The day before, Elise had accepted her first commission from Archbishop Norias: purify a monster possessed by a hellspawn.
Since she'd been working with Chalmers fairly often of late, she would team with him temporarily. The other members were Lia, Glenrius, and Telynia.
Chalmers was recruiting melee-oriented Awakened to round out the team's needs—but he firmly opposed bringing anyone below Senior First-tier.
Lia took that as Chalmers looking down on Lina, and since she'd been mooching meals off Lina constantly, she naturally wanted to defend her friend.
"Lia, still no word from Archmage Vesserdali?" Elise changed the subject.
At the question, Lia's smugness drained away.
For a moment she looked like an abandoned kitten. Then her chin came up, stubborn as ever.
"I don't care. Something must have delayed Grandpa. That's all."
"I hope he's safe," Elise said, and let the topic rest.
In truth, Elise found Lia—an Awakened of the Undying Court—rather entertaining.
Lia had originally been caught up in the serious incident of Gullos's attack on Ignis. Megalith Parish had required her to remain until Vesserdali arrived to account for the situation.
They had waited and waited, and Vesserdali never came. Since Lia got along well with Elise, she'd seized the chance to follow her to Crimsonwood.
With a new city to build in the Pyreflame Woods, the Church had loosened its grip on Awakened like her.
The result: Lia, a believer of the Undying God, was now preparing to work for the Church of Light in Crimsonwood.
Elise found the whole arrangement equal parts absurd and hilarious.
She had to admire her own Church. For the sake of a new city, the Archbishop would hand out temporary credentials even to heretics.
Lia heard the comfort in Elise's words, saw the poorly hidden smile on her face, and could only bite down hard on her wheat bun.
Having rarely known a stable life since childhood, Lia didn't actually mind working for the Church of Light in Crimsonwood.
There was food.
There was a stable environment for progression.
And she could run hellspawn-hunting missions with Elise, her "greatest rival."
Honestly, Lia felt her life was going rather well.
It was just...
Where was Vesserdali?
Hadn't he said he was off to capture a contracted lifeform?
He was a Fourth-tier Undying Archbishop and a dark-attribute Archmage. How could an errand that small occupy him for an entire month?
Lia was angry.
More than angry, she was worried for her grandfather's safety.
But as a practitioner of both death and dark magic, she had also sensed a strange presence around Crimsonwood.
Just as Lia was about to share what she'd gathered over the past few days, Lorna spoke first.
"High Cleric Elise, many Awakened have gone missing in the Pyreflame Woods recently. Please take care on your mission."
"Caution is safety's closest companion." Elise nodded, then looked curiously between Lina and Lia. "Have either of you heard anything?"
"This is Lia's specialty," Lina said, ceding the floor.
"I hate being treated like a child," Lia said, lips pursed. "But I'll admit, my appearance makes certain things much easier."
She paused for effect.
"It's probably a lich."
Elise stared at her.
A lich.
The word held her silent for a moment.
A lich was a mysterious being bound to death, darkness, and fate—a special race transformed from other sentient peoples.
In legend, liches were undying. They possessed phylacteries that sealed away the spirituality housing their consciousness. When their bodies died, their souls revived through the phylactery.
At first, that revival occurred only at the level of the soul.
But once a lich performed [Deathbound Conversion], it could reclaim a physical body.
"If it's a lich, why hasn't the Church launched a full encirclement?" Elise found that odd.
Lia took it as disbelief and snorted. "Because the Church of Light is full of hypocrites."
"Lia." Elise frowned.
"I'm not wrong, Elise. Light needs darkness. That's the only reason people believe in the Light. We coexist."
On this point, Lia refused to yield an inch.
Privately, Elise actually agreed with the theory.
If Aurelia had no cultists committing constant evil, commoners would lose their sense of danger—and their faith in the God of Light might thin considerably.
Even taxation and the other duties nobles managed could be viewed as a particular form of divine authority.
But surely the Church of Light wouldn't let a lich roam free and do evil...
Right?
The instant the thought formed, Elise found herself reviewing the identities of the recent missing.
And she noticed something strange.
Not one cleric of the Church of Light had been harmed.
This...
No way.
Archbishop Norias and the others weren't deliberately allowing a lich to prey on Awakened... were they?
But if Norias hadn't sanctioned the lich's activity, why agree to send her into the Pyreflame Woods to purify a hellspawn at this precise moment?
"Archbishop Norias knows this lich's identity and strength. So either he believes I can defeat it with a Third-tier spell scroll... or he believes this lich will not attack clergy."
At that possibility, Elise drew a sharp breath.
A lich that wouldn't willingly attack clergy of the Church of Light?
A name rose in her mind.
She looked at Lia—whose smile now carried a trace of mockery.
"Hmph. If you're not afraid, neither am I." Lia tipped her chin up, tone proud and lofty. "Anarias, the Death Sovereign, hunts only the guilty."
"It's really the Death Sovereign?"
"God above. If it's Lord Anarias, then we truly have nothing to fear."
The moment the name landed, Lorna and Lina both relaxed.
Elise's own mood turned strange.
Because the name Anarias was no mere ripple in Aurelia's long history.
It was a tidal wave.
Awakened revered him as the Death Sovereign.
Educated commoners, meanwhile, were far more interested in gossiping about his love life.