Chapter 49: Church of Agatha

The book that William is reading is about the history of the Church of Agatha. I forgot that I placed that on my table for quite a while now. I mean I have no time to clean this place so my room is now full of different books.

Because even though the housemaid clean my room daily it would still look the same after a day as I would skim to countless books every day.

It's also hard for me to get all this book from the library as I need to find them one by one on their shelves so I just demanded from the maid to leave all of this books in my room.

And now, there are mountains of books inside my private room as the maids have stop cleaning all this books.

This is supposedly my resting place after my training but now it has become my private office.

Although I have read that book a few months ago I still forgot to return them back on their shelves as I have been busy with a lot of things.

"Master Lucas, why do you have this book about the history of the church of Agatha?" William curiously asks as he quickly flips the book to read its cover.

"My uncle said that it's not good to involve ourselves with the Church since our ancestors have forbid us from doing so." William said as he flip the pages of the book.

"But why though?" He asks as he stares at me.

"Hmmm I'm not really sure since it was your ancestors that have forbid your family from associating yourself with the church, but I can tell you that the church of Agatha is not as good as we all know. They have a lot of dark secrets behind their bright facade." I replied back to him.

"But now that we have talked about them don't you guys have a small church for them?" I ask as he stopped reading and turns his attention toward me.

"Yes, Yes indeed we have one near the center of Kingstown city. It was built after the Burnham family have take over the management of the Ignit mine and even though their church is small compared to others it was still very luxurious inside." William enthusiastically said as he approaches my table.

" talking about them It's just weird that we haven't seen or found any of their spies within the city a few weeks before the fog shows up." I said suddenly as William shows a surprised look on his young face.

"Master Lucas, you also found a spy from the church inside your city? My uncle said before that a lot of them actually roam the Kingstown territory and even near our ancestral mansion that he needs to double the security over our home." William said as he stares at my face.

"Of course, even at your young age, your family should have taught you how huge is the influence of the church right?" I said as he tilted his head to think about it for a moment.

"Yeah, they have given me lessons about the different noble families and huge organizations that we all should be careful about. That is also one of the boring class that I must endure listening but my uncle always give me an exam about it after that and I need to get a perfect score in order for me to have a permission to go out of our house." William said with a little bit of annoyance in his tone.

"Well, I guess we all experience the same thing as a kid but for me, those lessons are not boring since knowledge can be a sharp weapon too, once you use it properly." I said with a small smile on my lips.

"Yeah, my uncle said the same thing but it's too much, they're teaching me a lot of things that I need to spend most of my day memorizing it." He said while sulking.

"Trust me, William, those lessons might be useless for now but once you stepped into the world of transcended you will realize the importance of it." I said as I began browsing the book about the Church of Agatha.

It's been a month since the last time I open and read this book and there's really nothing new with it since I already learned most of the things about them.

The church of Agatha was founded at the same time as the Great Fortress fall under the control of Helios empire and they were once considered as a superpower organization in this continent that no kingdom or empire could rival but as the age of the nobility began to rise it is also the time of their decline.

A long time ago a huge war have erupted when the church attempted to regain back all of its control over the entire continent but they have miscalculated as countless kingdoms have begun to disobey their order and started a fight with them instead.

That war have continued for hundreds of years before the church concedes in defeat in exchange for letting them retain their status and churches all over the continent and that is also the start of the nobility's rise and the fall of the church's influence over the continent.

But now that the world of nobility is in chaos the church of Agatha is starting to rise in power once again.

They started to corrupt the huge part of the lower nobility that was the very foundation of the kingdom and this was happening for a while now.

With huge corruption running rampant in the entire continent it won't be long before a civil war broke out all over the place starting from the surfs as they have been suppressed for too long.

Even with the kingdom's powerful army of knights and Wizards, it won't be enough to quench the anger of the people in this corrupted world.

The title of the nobility is now the glory of the past as most people in the continent view us as their number one enemy instead of the Demonic Creatures.

I'm sure that the church have planned this entire thing for a long time, and now it's too late for us to stop it.

Even the kings have become complacent on their throne as they have become confident that a normal citizen is not a treath to them.

But what they don't realize is the adverse effect of this on their economy and wealth. If people started siding in with the church instead of the nobility that they now view in a bad light.

Though it is also true that the church is not a saint either but their doctrine about a world of equal status is a powerful tool that is starting to spread its fire all over the land.

Whoever the heck comes up with this idea from the church is a genius and a patient person they even sacrifice hundreds of years just for this day to come.

"But master Lucas, what do you think is the reason for this fog and the sudden appearance of this wall of giant vines? this thing have never happened before, right?" William suddenly ask as he took a bite of one of the cookies that I keep in a jar.

"I don't know it either, every one of us is clueless on why it happens. The only thing we know is that something terrible have happened before that started all of this trouble." I said as I lean back in my chair.

"Maybe it's the church my uncle told me to always be wary of them. Whether they are here or not." William said as he continues to devour the cookies.

Now that I think about it when our territory is starting to prosper due to my initiative we actually found a lot of spies littering in the city.

It's very easy for us to identify if someone is from the church or not due to the unique ring they always wear on their finger.

I know its sounds dumb to carry something as obvious as that but their member is very proud of their church and they all have the freedom to go anywhere as they don't really interfere with anything.

It's also not a good idea to arrest them either as the church already have a strong influence not just on the people but also on a lot of noble families.

They have also infiltrated the castle of every small kingdom as they started to assign their nun to assist the king's court with their everyday lives.

"Besides we don't really have any proof that the church have something to do with all of this problems." I said as I denied his claim.

"Master Lucas!" Suddenly said by Michael as he barged into my room.

"Michael, What's the matter?" I said as I looked at him with confusion.

"Master Lucas our soldiers have found something inside the cave in the forest." He hurriedly said as he approaches my table holding a small emblem from the church of Agatha.

Michael is pertaining to a report that our soldiers have made a few days ago as they saw a cave while they are searching the area for a missing soldier. It was an area that wasn't visited by people as it is previously known as a place of gathering for giant snakes.

But now that the fog have shown up and every animal suddenly banished. Our soldiers have the ultimate freedom to explore the place it's just that because of the limitations of the cotton mask they can't stay inside of that fog for too long.

"Is this the emblem of the church of Agatha?" I ask in surprise as I ask for confirmation.

"It is Master Lucas and this isn't just what they found inside the cave they also discovered several dried bodies of the templar of knights from the church of Agatha." Michael solemnly said as he reported the grim situation.

"I told you, Master Lucas, the church does indeed have something to do with this fog. I got it right this time." excitedly said by William as he approaches Michael with a big smile on his face.

"Well it seems like whatever happened in that place isn't good at all or else they wouldn't find any corpse at that place." I said with a serious tone as I get up from my sit.

"Then I should take a look maybe we could find something in that place that could help us solve this situation." I said as I exited my room.

"And for you William you can't come with me I'm sure that your uncle Callisto won't be happy to see you outside the wall of our city it's not safe there." I said as I warn him from following me.

"Okay, but you should get back Immediately master Lucas I would be waiting for you over here I still have a lot of questions." He happily said before running back towards my office.

"Sigh~ that kid is always full of energy." I said to Michael as we walked towards the exit of the mansion.

"But did they find anything else aside from those?" I said to Michael as we run towards the location.

Since the fog can affect animals we don't have a choice but to abandon the use of our carriage since our steed can't enter the fog.

All of our soldiers need to run fast every time they survey the surroundings inside the fog. Although it was a tiring thing to do this routine have greatly helped out our soldiers to acclimate in this new environment quickly.

You also need to know that all of them wears their full body armor made of steel as they run, so it was not as easy as it sounds at the same time, they also carry their sword and heavy shield while doing it making their task more difficult to finished.

On the first day, they conducted this exercise almost half of them immediately drop to their knees as they enter the city and immediately remove the dirty mask from their face to breathe more air their entire body also reeks with sweat due to heavy activity.

Every time they go inside the fog they must always be on alert as they need to quickly dodge the debris from time to time since they can't really see what's in front of them due to their limited vision brought by the thick fog.

Unlike the plain open land where they can just run in a straight line continuously without any obstacles but they can't do the same thing here inside the fog as there are a lot of trees and fallen trunks that they must avoid.

It also didn't help that the fog have limited our vision as it's easy to get lost inside of it if you are not familiar with the path.