“Shit! This is bad!” Kaden thought, but kept up the calm appearance. “I’ll have to come up with some excuse that the inquisitor will accept.”

To not worship any god? Was that something that even happened? Everyone would at least worship some, if they wanted to do any magic cultivation. How would an inquisitor react to someone who was not involved with any god? Was it heresy? Probably.

“I do not know whether it is heresy”, Kaden said quickly after he decided the way he was going to deal with this problem. “It is a result after being experimented by a necromancer.”

Push aside blame! Perhaps then the inquisitor would not execute him on the spot?

Weils ignored Kaden’s words and merely started to use his tool. A little bit of light was emited from it at Kaden who felt as if something was penetrating his skin, looking through all his secret. It was uncomfortable.

Kaden cursed his luck that he had to run into an overly curious inquisitor. Perhaps they were all overly curious? It probably came with the job.

“I’ll also say that I have always been afraid of possibly being abandoned by gods”, Kaden thought. “Yet, since I have been able to cultivate, it should be excuse enough that gods have not abandoned me entirely!”

Weils seemed to be done with his examination. Kaden was putting together his lies to answer the questions the inquisitor would sure.

“I see”, Weils said calmly after he looked at the tool. “Despite your appearance, you appear to be very pious indeed! Mainly follower of Jorn, but you have also taken the time to pay your respects to the other gods too. Good. Very good.”

What is this?

What was the inquisitor saying?

*pop*

Around at that time Kaden heard a sound. Like a bubble popped. He felt like he had been covered by some invisible layer of which existence he had not even noticed. Now it broke and he felt more … free. Kaden looked around trying to understand what just happened. Weils was talking with Nelsen and did not seem to have noticed anything. In fact, no one had noticed the sound or anything else.

Then he felt something more familiar. A buzz.

The fragments in his bag? They seemed to have been activated without his notice, but now the buzzing sound was slowly seemingly coming to a stop.

“What was that?” Kaden thought. “The inquisitor got weird readings from me, as if I was devout worshipper of gods. Did the fragments do that?”

Could this be why cultists were hiding the fragments in their hideouts? Were they able to hide them from any external investigations? This was a possibility, but Kaden felt this was not their actual use. The fragments seemed to be rare. He had seen a few cultist hideouts and only one of the pieces he had got from one. Nor did that one seem any higher level altar that would have had some special protection.

“Whatever that was, it is good!” Kaden thought. “They can conceal me from the church! Haha! Also! I finally have some clues of their actual function!”

Kaden was getting increasingly interested in the black fragments. Ability to hide from inquisitors was something he didn’t even know being possible. Church gave them tools to see which gods influence people had. That is to say something was able to interfere with sensing of gods influence entirely and was not a mere obfuscation. Instead was completely fake. Ordinary magic could not do that. Human magic was basically purified to be usable due to gods. There was no way to use magic influenced by gods to remove their influence.

How about beasts then? Were the black fragments made by beasts? It made even less sense. Why would higher ranked beasts toss away something so significant to humans they saw often mostly as food?

The value of the black fragments kept rising in Kaden’s mind. In fact, he felt it would need to be his priority to find more of them, if he could. Yet, they were so difficult to find. Each one he had found had been basically by chance, even if one fragment had led him to the other. Despite such ability, he had found no other reactions anywhere yet. At least ones that he could remember.

“I’ll have to put that aside for now”, Kaden decided. “The inquisitor wanted me for something. Why? If its punishment, it is probably not anything good. Nelsen will likely suffer from his actions too. I probably cannot rely on him.”

Soon the inquisitor handled whatever business he had with Nelsen and returned his attention back to Kaden. While at this Nelsen gave a few nods toward Kaden and left. Kaden was not sure what kind of punishments Nelsen was going to get, but it seemed not too bad. If that was what Nelsen was going to suffer, any lesser punishments he would get would not be problem to Kaden.

What concerned Kaden the most was interest from the inquisitor.

“Now that this business with the cultists has been dealt with, I must continue my job elsewhere”, Weils told Kaden. “Inquisitors such as myself, while often searching for heretics to purge, we also ensure that purity and true path is maintained within the Saint Empire. Another missions regarding the latter has been arranged to me and your… unique appearance may be useful.”

“I do not understand”, Kaden said. He was not going to go against the inquisitor so he might as well seem agreeable.

“There is certain new sect that seems to have appeared after they began worshipping some minor god”, Weils told Kaden. “Until now church has only met their members, but has not yet had time to ascertain whether they are heretics or not. There are some matters related to their appearance that has added another task which moved it to be my job.”

“I see, but I still don’t understand why I’m useful?” Kaden asked. He wasn’t sure how far he could keep asking questions from the inquisitor for details, but he still decided it was okay.

“Mutant like you bears some significance regarding their beliefs that are apparently… unusual”, Weils said after a while. “The minor god they worship seems to include some ties with not only humans, but also beasts. They might let you in further and be more agreeable to talk to you.”

“Isn’t that heresy?” Kaden asked.

“It might be”, Weils said. “It isn’t exactly widely spread knowledge, but church knows of it. The fact that human gods, both true and false, don’t interact with beasts gods nor does the opposite happen. It seems they let us mortals determine who are stronger without interference. Now, if there is a new god that treads on the thin line that the others don’t, it might be important. Hence, it is my job to determine whether there exists heresy or not.”

Kaden had not been aware of what human gods and beast gods thought of each other. He had assumed them to be enemies just like humans and beasts were.

“Bah… more gods”, Kaden thought to himself. “They let us kill each other for no reason at all. Well, I guess it weeds out the weak so I guess it makes both sides stronger. Perhaps thats why they do it.”

“Report tomorrow morning at sunrise at city gates”, Weils told Kaden. “I hear something like this might be useful to you. Do not be late.”

Afterwards Weils simply left. Kaden guessed he didn’t care much about anything to do with Erral anymore. He would get reports of whatever was found, if anything was found.

Kaden himself wasn’t sure what was going to happen with the inquisitor. Clearly, since Nelsen had been very close to Erral, he and anyone related to him had been investigated. The inquisitor probably knew everything about Kaden that was known. Including his problems with some nobles.

“Then again, if he didn’t kill me here, this isn’t an execution”, Kaden thought to himself. “I have nothing useful to do here with Erral dead. I need opportunities and this could have some.”

Kaden didn’t really like having to help church with anything, but this matter with some strange sect was probably not too big of a thing. People worshipping some new minor god appeared occassionally.

“Perhaps the inquisitor will find them to be heretics and I get to kill some people”, Kaden thought with a smile. “I also get something to do. It could be fun!”

During the remaining day, Kaden mainly listened for news. Indeed, with the inquisitor having decided his job was done, everything started to die down quickly. Kaden assumed there might be some people looking into Erral’s death, but if nothing had been found yet, there should be no obvious clues left.

The concern about that particular matter had stressed Kaden slightly, but the more time passed and nothing seemed to happen made him feel safe.

Kaden made his preparation and continued to cultivate. His arragements were far lighter than with Erral. If it came to fighting, he could just butcher everyone and not be sneaky about it.

At morning Kaden made his way to the city gates. It was easy to find Weils and his people. Church and military had their own places around the gates where they could arrange all sorts of matters before leaving for their missions.

There were some church personel waiting and it seemed they had been informed of Kaden so they did nothing as Kaden joined them. As far as Kaden could tell, they were church’s own soldiers and also a priest.

Weils came a bit later and informed everyone of the rest.

“We will be going to a town relatively close to edges of Centralean Forest”, Weils told everyone. “This new sect and the god they worship seems to have started there. We might be able to find something from people in there. The rest of us will then proceed to speak with the members of this sect with some mercenaries that we hired. Church will only take greater role should the sect be a heresy and our current forces and the mercenaries aren’t enough. Be prepared for additional mission paremeters.”

Kaden listened to Weils. It seemed the church didn’t take things too seriously. They even had mercenaries be sent rather than completely their own people. That is to say they had better things to do? Or perhaps it was something else?

“Ha, wasn’t this Weils supposed to have got promotion or something?” Kaden thought to himself. “This doesn’t seem too glamorous job. Well… I don’t know much about him. Perhaps they are having him lead a mission like this to test him or something? Or perhaps church and gods shit on their own people too, which would not be surprising.”

He didn’t think of such matters further. None of it mattered to him. What mattered was that he did his job well and got rid of Weils’s attention afterwards. Then would come time to find a way back to Sacronan and find Juren and the rest, if possible. Perhaps it was even possible to perform well and have military take notice and push aside the suppression.

Doing stuff for the church was always seen as good work.