Awkward. Absolutely, unbelievably awkward.
Felix kept a perfect poker face. Andoain wore a gentle smile. Mostima looked wary. Lemuen kept glancing at Felix from time to time.
Four Sankta stood frozen in place, as if each were holding a gun to the next person's head. No one dared to move first.
Eventually, Felix rose to his feet. He glanced around at the ruined chapel. The benches had long been blown apart by Originium Arts, and the floor was scorched black. Fortunately, the church's central statue remained intact, though the stained-glass windows had shattered across the ground.
"I don't suppose you'd mind if two more helpers joined us on this journey?"
Felix looked at Andoain.
The priest reacted as if he had heard something delightful. A soft, pleased chuckle escaped him. He nodded with a warm smile. "Working with old teammates again would indeed be refreshing."
With that, Felix waved him off and walked toward Mostima and Lemuen. The two women looked confused at first, but seeing that he and Andoain weren't facing off against each other, they lowered their weapons.
They gave Andoain a long, pointed stare that clearly meant we're watching you, then followed Felix out of the chapel.
"How did you even find this place?"
Felix turned to the two women. Due to their identities, they rarely set foot in Kazdel, spending most of their time in Lungmen working with Emperor. They would occasionally go on extended journeys, their sole objective being to search for Andoain.
"We got intel from some adventurers," Lemuen replied. "They described Andoain's appearance and demeanor. So we came."
She stared at Felix. Her eyes glistened slightly as she ran her hands over him, checking for injuries from head to toe. Finding nothing, she exhaled in relief and buried her face against his chest.
Mostima raised a brow at the scene, but when Felix met her gaze, her heart skipped. It seemed that after some time apart, his presence had grown even more irresistible. She felt her composure beginning to falter.
Still, she forced herself to stay calm. "Felix, what were you and Andoain talking about?"
"Matters concerning heresy."
Felix gently stroked Lemuen's ears, now flushed red, and turned to Mostima. "He discovered a church in a town conducting heretical rituals under the name of the Laterano Church. He wants me to join him and investigate."
Lemuen let out a soft sigh. Mostima opened her mouth slightly, and only said, "Good thing Fiammetta isn't here…"
The three returned to the Tomorrow's Development branch. Once inside Felix's bedroom, Lemuen had cooled down somewhat. She looked at him with a hint of grievance.
"You and Andoain… what exactly is going on?"
"We chose different paths, but we're both Sankta who share the same ideals."
Felix didn't hide anything. "He chose the path of granting redemption to others. I chose to give the chance for self-redemption to others. We are simply striving in different ways toward a similar goal."
"We're not enemies. Just two wanderers walking parallel lines."
Lemuen let out a quiet sigh. Her hand brushed against Felix's cheek. "You almost died that time."
"If I hadn't gotten hurt, it would've been the two of you."
Felix didn't dwell on it. "That was Andoain's foolishness. He chose a path that no one will forgive him for. If you want to punch him, I fully support it."
Lemuen withdrew her hand. She exchanged a look with Mostima, then stepped into the bathroom.
Mostima let out a small laugh as she shrugged off her coat and set it aside. She entered the bathroom as well. Before closing the door, she made a small beckoning gesture toward Felix.
So he followed.
Later, the three of them leaned against the pillows. Lemuen was the first to speak. "Are you planning to work with Andoain alone?"
"At first I thought so. Until I saw you two."
Felix replied, "Even if Andoain and I could handle everything alone, you wouldn't just let me walk off by myself, would you?"
Mostima giggled softly. "Naturally. It's rare for us to meet up like this. Of course we'll stick together."
After lingering together a little longer, Mostima and Lemuen reluctantly left to repair their equipment and restock supplies. Though they still wanted to give Andoain a well-deserved punch, they were far more excited about joining Felix on a mission.
Such chances had become exceedingly rare ever since Felix took over Kazdel. Which was exactly why they treasured the opportunity so deeply.
That night, after dinner, Senomi, Mandragora, and Sussie came to Felix's room. They reported their day's work, and the results were substantial. Everything they once imagined during university now seemed like castles in the air. The moment they truly stepped into real work, all those fantasies collapsed effortlessly.
Senomi and Mandragora dragged Sussie into the bathroom. Mandragora, halfway through undressing, grabbed Felix's hand and pulled him in as well.
The next day, Felix began preparing the weapons and equipment needed for the upcoming mission. To be honest, at this point he wasn't very worried. He even suspected that the Deep Sea Church's Originium Arts or any of their attacks wouldn't be able to pierce the mech armor he wore.
During this time, he also prepared one drone for both Lemuen and Mostima. Lemuen still used the bombing drones made by Spuria the most, but upon seeing the new toy, her curiosity was piqued, and she quickly became attached to it.
Andoain appeared in the same cleric robes as always, looking like a wandering priest. He stood at the gate of Brisamar City, watching the three approach with a gentle, patient smile.
It almost felt as if time had rewound several years. Back then, he would watch his team in the same way as they headed out to carry out notarial missions across the land.
Years later, everything had changed.
Andoain would eventually regret harming his teammates and trampling on their trust, but that day had not yet arrived. For now, he simply acted as though nothing had ever happened and greeted Lemuen and Mostima.
The two women barely nodded in return.
Sankta shared empathic senses. Their feelings toward Andoain were complicated, mixed with resentment over how he had hurt Felix. As for Fiammetta…
If the little birb were here, the moment she saw him she would have drawn her gun and opened fire.
'Andoain! Killing you a hundred times wouldn't be enough!'
Without empathy, she would absolutely have done it.
The four boarded the vehicle. Felix drove, Andoain sat in the front passenger seat, and Lemuen sat behind him to ensure that if he made any sudden wrong move, the first thing he would receive was a sniper round through his skull.
Sal Viento lay further south from Brisamar City, about half a day's journey. Felix didn't know much about it, so he relied on Andoain, who had spent much of his life in Iberia. Sal Viento was once one of Iberia's oceanic nomadic city and major coastal centers, but after the Profound Silence it had declined severely, its buildings falling deeper into decay year after year.
The Inquisition had long abandoned the area. In fact, no currency circulated there anymore. Bartering was the only form of trade. As for the coastline… in Andoain's words, those shores were filled with things worshiped by heretical cults.
A hotspot for seaborn. Felix didn't need him to say it aloud to know. As for the church's faith in this city… what a waste. If the Deep Sea Church were more active, he could have posted extermination missions on Tomorrow's Development's bulletin board.
The Deep Sea Church had plenty of members, but their base locations were too well hidden. For players, cracking mysteries was never as satisfying as simply fighting.
The vehicle halted outside Sal Viento. From there, they approached on foot.
Their "strange" clothing drew many stares. Most were numb or hostile. The residents wore ragged garments. Even though it was daytime, most people wandered the streets like jobless drifters, thin-faced and squatting along the roadside.
"There don't seem to be any outsiders here," Mostima said. Her lock and key hung behind her as she surveyed the area with her usual smile. "The Inquisition rarely comes here either. A place cut off from the world often becomes a cradle for criminals."
"Felix, how do you plan to proceed?" Andoain asked, fingers brushing over his staff.
"Break straight into the church."
Andoain paused, then gave a faint smile. "You might need a rather impressive explosion."
Lemuen had already slipped away without them noticing. The three understood immediately. On the battlefield, the sniper known as Lemuen the Silent always struck with a single lethal shot. Now that they had the location, she was clearly finding a vantage point.
"Halt. Outsiders are not allowed here."
Two pale-faced church members wearing clerical robes blocked the entrance. They instinctively reacted to the halos above Felix and the others, stepping forward to obstruct them.
Felix cast a detection spell on the two.
Given the overwhelming level difference, Felix only needed a glance to reveal their identities: [Deep Sea Church Cultists].
"Felix?"
"Break through."
The moment Felix finished speaking, time around them seemed to slow. A heartbeat later, the two cultists collapsed to the ground, knocked out cold.
The three pushed open the church doors. Compared to the desolate streets outside, the interior still held several cultists in church uniforms. They stood scattered around the hall, heads lowered toward the statue at the front. They appeared to be praying, or perhaps muttering something under their breath.
At the far end of the hall, beneath the statue, stood a priest with long hair. A satisfied, gentle smile rested on his face as he watched the congregation. But once he saw the three Sankta entering, that smile shifted into something darker, though the expression vanished just as quickly.
Andoain tightened his grip on his staff. Rings of magical art shields expanded around him.
Before the priest could even speak, Andoain launched his attack. The sudden strike surprised Felix. For someone as composed as Andoain, practically a boss-level antagonist, Felix expected him to at least wait until the villain finished talking.
A thought occurred to Felix. Perhaps their roles overlapped too much—priest against priest—prompting Andoain to attack without hesitation.
Since both sides had already moved, Felix had no reason to hold back. He raised a hand and mimicked the gesture of firing a gun at the surrounding cultists.
"bang."
A second later, gunfire erupted. Felix directed the drones that had already encircled the church, unleashing a full, no-blind-spot barrage of art bullets into the interior.
Andoain's expression twitched slightly. Felix had clearly expected him to raise his shields; otherwise, those bullets would have torn into him as well.
When the smoke finally cleared, Lemuen's voice came through the earpiece.
"The priest fled toward the coast. I hit his arm. He won't get far."
The Deep Sea cultists around them were already dead or dying. Their presence alone had been enough to drag the already ruined Sal Viento even further into despair. Andoain did not pursue immediately. Instead, he walked to where the priest had been standing, glanced through the "scripture," and frowned. The writing was not Terra's language, but some jumbled, indecipherable script.
Several cultists still twitched on the floor. Felix noticed that some of their blood was no longer red but tinged purple, and in some cases even pale green-blue.
Mostima nudged a corpse with her boot. Only then did she notice that one cultist's arm had sprouted octopus-like tentacles where flesh should have been. She gagged.
"Truly heretical."
"It's obvious their faith is with the Seaborn."
Lemuen's steady voice came through again.
"From my vantage point I saw multiple Seaborn along the coastline. But compared to the accounts of the Profound Silence Era recorded in the Laterano Library, this is nothing. Their numbers and size are well within what we can handle."
"I think burning this entire place is the best option."
Andoain's expression twisted with disgust. He had briefly checked the storeroom and discovered what these cultists had been eating.
They consumed Seaborn flesh raw. Leading the others into the kitchen, he pointed at the cutting board. Chunks of blue meat lay scattered across it. Some pieces even bore bite marks. It was clear what these people had been feeding on.
"I'll preserve these as evidence and submit them to the Pontiff."
Mostima's tone grew uncharacteristically serious.
"Iberia isn't far from Laterano. The Profound Silence Era is well documented on our side too. If the Seaborn rise again, Laterano won't escape unscathed."
Andoain said nothing. Instead, he turned toward Felix.
"Let's go kill that priest."