novelraw Chapter 1790: 1789: Lock of Affection and Warning
Chapter 1790: 1789: Lock of Affection and Warning
Capítulo 1790: Chapter 1789: Lock of Affection and Warning
Since visiting Mrs. Lemer in the north of the city took some time, there wasn’t much of the morning left. So, Shard spent the time before lunch at the ritual site. Besides the cold weapons combat training with Sister Delphine, he mentioned that he encountered “Desire” again and introduced the Believers of the God of Love’s Divine Arts – Love God’s Sting.
The Spiritual Practice Order is extremely proficient in using soul-related sorcery and arcane techniques, so Sister Delphine had many different opinions from Shard about these arcane techniques. As for the pink crystal soul spell that the maidens use after invoking the Love God’s Sting, she also selected a few books for Shard to take back and teach the girls.
Regarding the three specialized believers of the God of Love in “Spirit, Flesh, and Desire,” Shard felt they were quite “remarkable.” Sister Delphine had a different view:
“The God of Love, also known as the ‘Lock of the Red Heart.’ The preciousness of love, is it because it’s rare, or is it truly of utmost importance? The three remaining believers of the Old God seem not to ponder this question. They are superficial, trying to lock the emotions between people in their own ways. They haven’t touched the core of the soul.”
Sister Delphine, who might have no experience in love, spoke in a way Shard struggled to evaluate. He wasn’t a master of soul spells, and his understanding of the deeper meaning Sister Delphine wanted to express was not profound. But Shard was taken aback by the vocabulary used in her sentence:
“Lock… Affection?”
Memories of his hometown suddenly flooded his mind, reminding him of a story—a story of destruction and despair brought on by greed and desire. This story intrigued him because Shard saw parallels with himself. However, he did not possess the spell for locking affection, though he was similarly greedy, he understood love, loving others, and loving himself, and he never went against the wishes and expectations of any girls around him.
In fact, his continuous efforts and struggles, besides aiming for the ultimate goal of ascension, were also for the future where his family could coexist harmoniously and live comfortably.
At that moment, the outlander felt like he understood something. Sister Delphine did not voice any guidance, knowing that her chosen “Hero of the Flame,” who could always see clearly into his own heart and excel at reflecting on his every step, would eventually figure it out.
Shard still went with the nun to the Cassandra Auction House in Midshire Fort for lunch. As he left the ritual site with Sister Delphine, “she” quietly proposed a possibility to the contemplative outlander:
[What if Sister Delphine had just pierced the Love God’s Sting into her own chest?]
“Oh, how could I defame this respectable nun?”
Shard thought to himself, sneaking a glance at Sister Delphine’s back, realizing even having such a thought felt like a mistake.
Granny Cassandra, Sister Delphine, Grace, Helen, and Miss Swift would set off for the Green Lake Region later this week. Granny Cassandra’s reputation was so immense that she borrowed a steam hover zeppelin from the Church of Creation.
Therefore, their travel time would be quite short. As a native and established large chain auction house of the Draleon Kingdom, the commercial power represented by Granny Cassandra outwardly supported Draleon.
During lunch, Grace and Helen informed Shard of their travel plans. As for their temporary departure from the scope of Midshire Fort and Sicarl Mountain, they relied on a Scribe Level (Level 4) relic, [Undying Wax Stone].
This wax stone’s original function was merely to leave a mark on the body, allowing one to achieve a certain degree of “undead” status for a period of time. Its effect is just slightly better than Shard’s “False Immortality.”
This relic enabled the Red Butterfly maidens to temporarily leave Midshire Fort because, since the battle at Midshire Fort last year, they had tucked this relic away in the temporarily sealed Interstice of Life and Death—they had sealed the interstice for two eras and naturally had a way to enter it again.
The power of the Unclassified Level Relic had imbued this wax stone, granting it temporarily some of the interstice’s traits. Although this directly caused the relic to go out of control, such loss of control is nothing significant when it comes to the Angel-Level Relic [Red Butterfly Twins].
Holding this special wax stone, Grace and Helen could leave Midshire Fort for up to two months. But as a consequence, they would not be able to leave Milestone through special means like this for a long time afterward.
After lunch, Shard had a separate conversation with Grace and Helen:
“You know the Old God – Golden Sovereign, right? The deity of commerce and wealth?”
The Red Butterfly maidens naturally nodded, but Shard did not delve into the details:
“What is your most significant impression of this deity? Yes, just answer this question.”
Grace, dressed in a white gauze dress, answered first:
“Very compliant with contracts and agreements, hence this Great One’s believers also have quite a good reputation.”
Then black-skirted Helen replied:
“We mortals find it difficult to judge a Great One with our human standards of good or malice, but one thing is certain: this deity of commerce and wealth will not refuse to trade with anyone who can offer a price.”
She was very sure about this:
“Our memories of the Fifth Era were sealed significantly, but I still remember that once when I strangled my sister and tossed her corpse into the mouth of Sicarl Mountain, during my solitary life thereafter, I had contact with this Great One’s believer and heard two different stories.”
Helen extended her first finger:
“In order to let his elderly wife live past midnight on the current day, allowing their marriage to surpass the 60-year mark, the man used the remainder of his life as a bargaining chip to extend his wife’s brief life. After the clock struck midnight, the elderly couple both reverted to the appearance of eighteen or nineteen years old when they first met, and after sharing a drink of wine, they entered death together.”
“A very romantic story, mortals gave what they could, and the deity brought them a miracle.”
Shard commented, as Helen extended her second finger:
“After the couple died, their envious neighbor, jealous of their happy marriage, used the remainder of their life as a bargaining chip to resurrect the elderly woman, leaving her to live alone in this world. Thus, this trade was fulfilled, and I personally witnessed the gray-haired, almost eighty-year-old lady kneeling and crying loudly before the grave. I still remember that scene after all these years.”
Speaking of this, Helen felt a bit sad, and Grace gently embraced her.
“This…”
Shard was unable to comment.
“Trades are ruthless. As long as the stakes are sufficient, and a way to make the trade is found, [Golden Sovereign] will not refuse any trade. Fair yet ruthless, and sometimes one must be wary of the traps in the trading terms. Helen and I revere and even fear such deities, so we have never made any trades with this Great One and their believers.”
Grace said softly, then cautiously asked:
“So sir, in the past you encountered…”
Shard cautiously nodded:
“You don’t need to worry about this, I will handle it.”
“Then allow us to give you a piece of advice.”
The girls said earnestly:
“Small wishes require grain-sized stakes, big wishes require mountain-sized stakes. But if it’s not necessary, please do not make any trades. Trades are merely shortcuts; we could have realized our wishes through our own hands. Never, absolutely never, ask deities for things we might be able to gain by ourselves.”
Two pairs of beautiful blue eyes looked at Shard together:
“Mortals should not expect to be saved by deities; only we can save ourselves, and…”
Their hands held together, in the light of the red butterflies, they transformed into young ladies of seventeen or eighteen. The girl in a black and white gauze dress stood up and gently kissed Shard on the cheek:
“…you, who travel through time. May you be able to save everyone.”
After lunch, returning home, since Shard had prepared lunch for Mia before heading out, the house cat was taking a nap at the time. Seeing Shard appear at the door, it merely lay on the windowsill, basking in the sun, and lazily “meowed” once.
After Shard got home, he found a letter thrown into the foyer through the door’s mail slot. The letter was without a stamp, and upon opening it, he saw it was a message from Dr. Schneider. He had come to visit Shard in the morning but had to take the train to the Green Lake Region in the afternoon. Since Shard wasn’t home, he left a letter asking him to wait in Green Lake.
This time, the “Maze Demon – Yaruu” is far less formidable than the “Stone Mirror Demon: Goethe,” so the focus is not on how to win, but on finding the opponent’s hidden true form. The doctor has already devised three detailed plans and will continue to make more schemes and plans during the upcoming short train trip. He is expected to arrive in Green Lake around Wednesday evening, and if things go smoothly, the demon’s issue could be resolved this weekend.
“The doctor truly is a professional.”
Since Laplace Klein Howard’s appearance on last week’s Wednesday, the night of the lunar eclipse, Shard’s investigation into the Green Lake Region had slowed. Now, with the witches having arrived in Green Lake, and each making their own moves, Shard chose not to investigate Green Lake as usual that afternoon. Instead, he handled some routine matters in Tobesk from the beginning of the month and leisurely completed his thesis titled “Speculations and Translations on Early Fifth Era’s Unresolved Writings.”
In the evening, he took little Mia to visit Dorothy, leisurely had dinner together, then returned home alone, and spent the night reading before going to sleep.
Such occasional rest is good for relaxing the mind, so when Shard opened his eyes on Tuesday morning, he surprisingly awoke earlier than the cat beside the pillow.
One day of leisure is enough, especially since the witches in the Green Lake Region also anticipated Shard’s reappearance. Therefore, this Tuesday, he returned to the Green Lake Region. As for today’s action plan, it involves handling matters that Miss Galina included on the “task list” she gave him, the ones he believed he could manage.
The witch’s task list is quite long, and it’s unknown what future the witch of time had glimpsed. Simpler tasks—like commissioning a blacksmith or having local detectives find a cat—even an ordinary person could do. But more difficult tasks include handling certain troublesome relics and even breaking into a church at night to steal a painting from the wall.