Chapter 48: An Information Broker’s Logic

“Master, those bastards dared to test us.”

“Oh my, oh my.”

Lightsage, feigning surprise, pointed to Gerard standing next to him.

“The reason I sent this friend, Gerard, with him was to catch the culprit in the act. Since you caught him in one go, it’s actually us who should be giving you a reward.”

“…”

Lema looked at him suspiciously.

It was still hard to believe.

“It sounds like you’re just making excuses. The dead can’t speak.”

“What kind of courage would I have to lie? I want to live a long, long life.”

When Lema didn’t easily let go of his suspicion, he sighed.

“To be honest, it’s true that there was another purpose. Everyone was curious about what had happened at that slaver’s den. I just found out now. I have no intention of hiding my purpose anymore, nor do I have any intention of telling anyone else. Hahaha.”

The smile that had filled his face slightly faded.

By the time the amethyst-like eyes within could be faintly seen, he had folded his eyes like a cat again and, smiling, moved on to the next topic.

“And now that we’re here, that doesn’t seem to be an important matter. First, please accept this. Gerard, if you would.”

Lightsage, who had been chattering, showed Gerard four fingers.

Gerard, who had been standing next to him like a silent statue, went somewhere and brought something.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

Gerard cheerfully placed four bags of gold coins in front of where Belmias was sitting and then returned to his original position.

And Lightsage explained about the gold coins.

“Please accept one bag as my apology for not managing my guild members properly. Please accept another bag as a token of my gratitude for restoring my half-crippled body. And another bag… I would be grateful if you would consider it as a fee for answering the information I wish to obtain.”

“Information?”

“Yes, wouldn’t you naturally be curious? If you don’t feel any curiosity even after experiencing a miracle like that, are you even human…?”

“…”

He had a point.

Instead of answering himself, Lema looked at Bel’s intention.

Bel asked, as if it were nothing.

“What is it?”

Lightsage swallowed dryly.

And after choosing his question carefully, he opened his mouth.

“Can you tell me where you originated from as a god? Or are you not a god? An apostle? A phenomenon? Are you perhaps the moon that is said to have fallen in the past, Belmias herself?”

In the end, he couldn’t organize it all and ended up pouring it out like his usual habit.

“…”

Bel did not answer at once.

She just crossed her arms as if she needed to think and leaned back comfortably in her chair.

As if he understood, Lightsage nodded.

“You can take your time to think and answer.”

While Bel was silent, Lema asked from the side.

“Are there… other gods?”

For Lema, who was currently serving Belmias, he was not asking about the existence of other gods.

What he was asking about was the concept of other gods.

As everyone knew, in this era, the monotheistic Luxlon was the most widespread.

It felt peculiar to him that a human outside of Luxlon’s order was not claiming to be an atheist, but was asking such a question while acknowledging the existence of a god.

Lightsage stared at Lema’s face and then let out a short exclamation, “Aha.”

“Oh my. I suppose those from the orthodox faith can only think that way?”

Lightsage particularly emphasized the word orthodox.

So it sounded as if he were being sarcastic.

When Lema glared at him coldly, Lightsage pointed to his own mouth and feigned a mistake.

“Oops, you’re not a holy knight of Lucilonia now, are you? What I mean is, the priests of Lucilonia always think of all miracles as the will of some god.”

Although it was a sarcastic attitude, Lema had no way of knowing what exactly he was being sarcastic about.

“…”

In fact, in the past, Lema had only followed Luxlon and trained, believing that he was the only truth.

Without even knowing the word Belmias or the legend that there were two moons in the past.

For a human who was born in a neighboring country of Lucilonia and had lived enjoying its prosperity, goodwill, and justice, it was a natural thing.

He had thought he had barely escaped that situation recently, but he couldn’t deny that he was still trapped in that way of thinking.

“If you don’t call it the will of a god… I can accept it too. I’m not that narrow-minded.”

In fact, the way of thinking that everything was the will of Luxlon had already begun to crumble when he was branded a heretic.

After meeting Belmias, he couldn’t get his bearings, but as much as he was denying his past, he was relatively open to a new perspective.

However, Lightsage here did not seem to believe him.

This human, he had felt it since before, was strangely hostile to those of holy knight origin.

“Hmm. But no matter how much we on our side insist that it’s not divine power but a different power, that damn Holy Empire of Lucilonia just dismisses it as another name for Luxlon. We’re just putting up with it because we don’t have the power, but it’s incredibly insulting, you know? What’s more, even atheists say that it’s an ideology that the merciful Luxlon has allowed, so how absurd is that?”

Lightsage brought a hand to his mouth and cleared his throat.

“For example, I am a descendant of the administrator of the Magic Tower’s library, the repository of all information, and the last remaining bloodline of a mage. The power I use is not divine power, but magic.”

It was also the power that had created the maze-like underground headquarters of the information guild.

A slight sense of pride could be seen in his appearance as he placed a hand on his chest and slightly lifted his chin.

“If I say this in this day and age, those old-fashioned guys from Lucilonia won’t believe me. Even if I say this, the only response I get is, ‘=You mean, you had an apostle of Luxlon among your ancestors, is that what you mean!“

Lema was silent, as words like Magic Tower and magic were unfamiliar to him.

Lightsage shrugged and acted as if he had expected it.

“But in fact… because they try to embrace everything, even if other countries insist that they believe in other religions, it rarely goes as far as a direct branding of heretic. Valkite is a special case. Why was that?”

Lightsage looked at Bel fervently.

Whether a real god existed or not.

At the very least, it seemed that a question he had harbored for a long time would be resolved now.

So, he was asking with his eyes if it was because of the foreign god Belmias, or something he believed in that was not explained here.

He seemed to be looking for something he could feel a sense of kinship with.

Bel answered briefly.

“There is no god. I am not the second moon.”

Bel, who had seemed to be thinking for a long time, had given a very concise answer, contrary to his expectations.

Lightsage, at the unexpected answer, erased his smile and opened his closed eyes.

He had a thoughtful expression, but he didn’t say anything.

“Was that not an answer?”

“Hmm. Well… no, I understand.”

Lightsage seemed to think for a moment, and then, surprisingly, moved on to the next story.

“Then, regarding the next bag.”

“You’re not taking it back?”

“Pardon? Ahaha, ah, oh my, you are a merciful person. No. Please take the gold coins. Just as silence can be a kind of answer, interpreting fragmented information is also the role of a proper seeker. What you just gave me is enough.”

Contrary to his attitude of saying that it was a sufficient explanation, Lightsage quietly opened his eyes and tapped the desk a few times with one finger.

“…Before I explain about the last bag, it would be right to give you the information you requested. Regarding the being that recently crossed a certain region, a heretic purged for human sacrifice, or a fanatic, whom you, the client, call a summoner.”

Lightsage thought for a moment and then said, “First, if it’s a heretic, there have been no recent cases where Lucilonia has officially branded someone like Valkite here. As I said, it’s a very rare occurrence.”

Lightsage explained to the tilting Bel.

“That’s because the act of human sacrifice is now almost… no, it has disappeared completely.”

But Lightsage seemed to rather welcome such a thing.

Perhaps because he was originally a talkative person, as the explanation grew longer, he acted like a fish in water.

“Actually, before Lucilonia grew so big, there was another religion with similar power.”