Chapter 10: Good Eyesight

Every muscle in Zong Mi’s body tensed in an instant.

His reaction speed was astonishingly fast. He drove his elbow backward and tried to turn around within the cramped space.

“Don’t move.”

“—Unless you want to be discovered.”

The man’s reaction was even faster.

With a slight movement of his hand, his palm came straight up beneath Zong Mi’s mouth, blocking him.

Only then did Zong Mi get a clear look at the person behind him.

The Pope’s study was not particularly large. Bookshelves lined every wall.

Cold moonlight streamed through the window, divided into small patches by the lattice. It fell lightly across the crimson carpet, resembling pieces of white jade scattered across the floor.

It happened to illuminate the man’s face.

Who else could it be but the Church’s collaborator?

Most of the Crimson Bishop’s face was concealed in shadow. The contrast between light and darkness was sharp, revealing only a pair of frost-blue eyes.

When he noticed Zong Mi looking at him, the curve of his lips deepened.

His fingers brushed lightly against Zong Mi’s lips twice, the meaning obvious without words.

The other hand was even more excessive—it rested directly over Zong Mi’s carotid artery.

If this spellcaster wished it, a single surge of mana through his fingertips would be enough to send Zong Mi straight back to the resurrection fountain for another cheerful cycle of reincarnation.

That old fox.

Zong Mi cursed inwardly and quietly raised his guard.

It wasn’t hard to guess. Although Cyril had entered a cooperative relationship with him, the man clearly didn’t trust him completely. That was why he had personally come to the Pope’s study.

If Zong Mi had done anything contrary to the mission requirements just now, anything involving secret schemes behind his back, Cyril would probably have disposed of him the moment he stepped out.

…It was truly a depressing thought.

“I didn’t expect the Church’s restrictions to be useless against Your Excellency. Impressive.”

Pinned against a bookshelf, Zong Mi tilted his head back and smiled faintly.

“Just taking precautions.”

Cyril chuckled softly.

The warm breath he exhaled made Zong Mi instinctively shrink his neck slightly. The reaction caused the bishop’s gaze to darken even further.

His smile was elegant and refined, exactly like the bishop who listened to the prayers of Starlight City’s faithful every day and guided them through their confusion.

No one would ever imagine that the compassionate Crimson Bishop possessed such a hidden side.

Hmph. A beast in human skin. A refined scoundrel.

Zong Mi curled his lips silently.

Still, this outcome was within his expectations.

“Quiet.”

The bishop’s long fingers remained against Zong Mi’s lips.

Only after confirming that this portion of the mission had truly been completed did he remove the hand resting on Zong Mi’s artery.

“Sharp eyes.”

Cyril leisurely adjusted his collar.

Yet instead of stepping back, he suddenly leaned closer, pressing their foreheads together as he spoke in an overly familiar tone.

This time, Zong Mi finally felt irritated.

He shot the Crimson Bishop a cold look.

“Please conduct yourself with dignity, Your Excellency.”

The interior of the Temple of Dawn was nowhere near as pure as people imagined.

In fact, it was practically a cesspool of hidden corruption.

Zong Mi had once completed a side quest involving clergy members of the Temple of Dawn who indulged their desires without restraint and the scandals they had committed over the years.

The Church’s central authority had later suppressed the matter with swift and ruthless measures in order to preserve its prestige.

Money, power, and beauty were interchangeable currencies in certain circumstances.

And within the Church, there was never a shortage of people willing to make deals.

“Just a joke. No need to look so shocked.”

The smile on Cyril’s face deepened further.

He took the initiative to retreat slightly, allowing Zong Mi’s back to leave the bookshelf, though his expression remained unreadable.

In truth, for a brief moment just now, a storm had arisen within Cyril’s heart.

Although he was undeniably ambitious, the irony was that Cyril remained genuinely devout in matters of faith.

Otherwise, he could never have achieved such accomplishments in divine magic at such a young age. Divine arts were closely tied to the strength of one’s faith.

He followed the Temple of Dawn’s commandments strictly.

Among them was celibacy.

On the Descending Continent, this was an astonishing thing.

Perhaps because people here did not understand the concept of “love,” relationships were extremely casual.

There was no concept of lifelong partners.

If two people found each other pleasing, they could spend a night together. Ideas such as restraint and loyalty were largely absent.

As for the birth of new life, elves emerged from the Tree of Life, while humans were born from the Fountain of Life.

The arrival of life fell under the authority of the Goddess of Life.

Even when gods perished, their divine authorities continued to circulate throughout the continent.

Cyril’s standards for himself were extraordinarily strict, almost reaching the level of an ascetic monk.

Precisely because his heart had remained as calm as an ancient well for so long, the ripples now felt all the more incomprehensible.

For reasons he could not understand, whenever Cyril looked at Zong Mi, his soul trembled uncontrollably.

From the very first glance.

Becoming Pope was never a secret that could be allowed to leak.

Given Cyril’s cautious and suspicious nature, he should have killed him.

Just as he had secretly dealt with countless priests and nuns before, burying their bones behind the cathedral—a final resting place fitting for their devotion.

Yet the instant he truly saw him, that thought vanished as though scattered by the wind.

He didn’t understand this feeling.

The burning, unsettling pounding of his heart.

Whenever he thought about this person, he experienced a sensation resembling hunger.

The unknown was always frightening.

The feeling of events slipping beyond his control irritated Cyril immensely, causing him to do everything possible to conceal his inner turmoil.

The Crimson Bishop spoke with perfect hypocrisy.

“So—for the sake of celebrating our victory, I hope you will honor us with your presence at the Pope’s coronation ceremony three days from now, my most loyal collaborator.”

“Praise be to the Goddess of Dawn. The honor is mine.”

Zong Mi returned an equally fake smile.

Once again, he sincerely thanked himself for having the Player System installed.

Otherwise, the instant he completed this mission would also have been the moment his soul departed for the afterlife.

The next morning, Zong Mi rose early and headed toward the gates of the Holy City of Dawn, arriving just as the bells for morning prayer rang.

By this hour, a number of priests and priestesses had already gathered there to receive arriving guests.

Dressed in white clerical robes, they stood quietly on either side.

“Good morning. Praise be to the Goddess of Dawn.”

Zong Mi greeted them with practiced ease, looking every bit like a genuine believer.

“If I may ask, why has the Skaman Empire requested a state visit to the Holy City this time?”

Generally speaking, when an empire came to the Holy City—especially when the king arrived personally—it represented far more than a simple diplomatic courtesy.

“You don’t know?”

One of the nuns covered her mouth in surprise.

“We were just discussing it.”

“Then would this beautiful lady be willing to satisfy my curiosity?”

The blond man immediately adopted an attentive expression.

Several of the nuns blushed slightly.

“It is said to be related to that major incident that recently occurred within the Skaman Empire. It may even be a sign that the Black Wizard has reappeared.”

At the mention of the words Black Wizard, Zong Mi’s eyelid twitched.

There were many schools of magic.

However, among them, only the strongest practitioner of a particular branch could be referred to simply as the Black Wizard.

Coincidentally, this Black Wizard happened to be the very first unfortunate victim Zong Mi had tricked.

Still, the man’s strength was genuinely terrifying.

He could casually unleash forbidden spells one after another and cast magic almost at the speed of thought.

Zong Mi was genuinely afraid of him.

His greatest fear was eventually capsizing his own boat.

Fortunately, after inheriting the legacy of the God of Darkness, the Black Wizard had bound himself with an oath never to leave the Black Forest.

Otherwise, Zong Mi could never have gotten away with scamming him and running off afterward.

His confidence rested entirely on the assumption that the Black Wizard would never come looking for revenge.

“The Skaman Empire encountered trouble? What exactly happened? I don’t recall hearing anything.”

“It’s normal that you haven’t heard.”

The nun sighed.

“The matter was suppressed internally by the Empire at first. It only became public because they could no longer hide it.”

“It began when ordinary citizens contracted a strange illness. They coughed blood, suffered from chest tightness and shortness of breath, developed black spots across their bodies, and then died silently.”

“The most terrifying part is that even ordinary Dawn divine arts have little effect on it. The disease is spreading incredibly fast, originating near the borders of the Undead Domain and continuing to expand across the continent.”

“That’s probably why the King of Skaman chose to seek help from the Church personally.”

A strange disease?!

Zong Mi’s vigilance immediately rose.

The symptoms might be unfamiliar to most people on the Descending Continent.

But Zong Mi had seen descriptions of a similar plague in Earth’s history.

—The Black Death.

The plague that swept across medieval Europe and killed roughly a third of the population, becoming synonymous with terror itself.

But how could that be?

The continent’s mystical development far surpassed Earth’s.

Divine arts could solve nearly every medical problem imaginable.

If it truly were a plague, there was no way it should have reached such a catastrophic scale under the Temple of Dawn’s supervision.

There was almost no problem that couldn’t be solved by divine magic.

And if one spell wasn’t enough, then two surely would be.

There had to be another hidden factor behind all this.

Once again, warmth began spreading through Zong Mi’s eyes.

He mentally marked the matter as extremely important and buried it deep in his thoughts.

For some reason, his intuition told him that this incident was closely connected to the continent’s main storyline.

The royal lion-drawn carriage of the Skaman Empire soon arrived.

As officials knelt respectfully to welcome their king, Zong Mi stood nearby.

His seven-stringed harp hung from his hand as he diligently played the role of a court musician.

Occasionally, he brushed a few notes across the strings, appearing entirely relaxed.

This mission was actually quite easy.

All he had to do was stand around and collect a respectable reward.

—At least, that was what Zong Mi thought when he first saw the king.

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