Chapter 267: The Reward for Honesty

Chapter 267: The Reward for Honesty

Inside the hall where stone pillars had snapped, a group of Nighthawks wearing black trench coats and silk top hats appeared around the remnants of the altar. The one leading them was Saint Anthony Stevenson, archbishop of the Evernight Goddess Church’s Backlund diocese.

“Destroyed by someone?” he muttered softly. Without lingering, he went directly to the stone door leading deeper inside.

Dense darkness emerged, and the stone door silently opened. Saint Anthony led a portion of the Nighthawks through it, heading deeper.

Along the way, they found no guards and no objects of value. It was as though this place had been swept clean by some powerful force.

At last, they reached the innermost room. But there, apart from walls and stone pillars, there was still nothing. The deep-blue door of light through which Klein had emerged had long since vanished.

The lanterns in the hands of several Nighthawks suddenly lost their light. Night shrouded the room.

When everything returned to normal, they discovered that the surrounding walls had somehow melted away. Yet behind them there were no hidden doors, no tunnels, nothing of the sort—only thick soil and stone, or the corridor by which they had come.

Saint Anthony remained silent for more than ten seconds before speaking.

“Attempt divination.

“Search nearby.”

…

Achoo!

Klein made his way through pathless cliffs and woods, sadly discovering that he seemed truly to have fallen ill.

The residual effect of Mr. A’s Beyonder abilities, together with his state of being soaked to the skin in winter, had left him shamefully down with a cold.

Even so, he did not dare stop to gather dead branches, light a fire, bake his clothes dry, or dry his banknotes, because he feared being found by Beyonders from the Churches.

Although he had obtained a semi-official identity with the Machinery Hivemind through Detective Stanton Isengard’s endorsement, this matter involved two cases of the highest level—the Primordial Demoness’s awakening and the True Creator’s descent. He would inevitably undergo strict investigation, such as taking turns drinking black tea with the Machinery Hivemind, the Mandated Punishers, and the Nighthawks, actively or passively recounting the entire process.

Within that lay two great hidden dangers. First, he had acquaintances among the Nighthawks. Although the great detective Sherlock Moriarty’s appearance was already quite different from the deceased Klein Moretti’s, and photographs alone would make them almost impossible to distinguish, Klein had little confidence if they truly met face-to-face. Second, because of neighboring pathways, the Evernight Goddess Church was not especially friendly toward people and objects connected to Death. Going all the way back to the Pale Era at the end of the Fourth Epoch, Death had fallen precisely under the siege of the seven gods. And the helper that Detective Sherlock Moriarty had “summoned” at the critical moment was a powerful descendant of Death. This was a problem he could not wash clean no matter how he tried.

“That extremely high-ranking powerhouse just now might have been in a hurry to handle Ince Zangwill and 0-08, leaving no time to bother with a friendly supporting character like me. But I can’t let my guard down because of that. If I need to run, then I have to run!

“Mm. When there’s a chance, I can write to the Machinery Hivemind and explain the second reason I had no choice but to temporarily leave Backlund. That way, perhaps there will be opportunities to cooperate again in the future. Of course, I must first secretly observe whether the Machinery Hivemind harbors intense hostility toward descendants of Death… I wonder how Mr. Azik is doing…”

“Heh. Perhaps in the official announcement, Sherlock Moriarty died under the meteor fall. That wouldn’t be letting down this identity or this name…”

Enduring the alternating states of fever and cold, Klein wanted to find a town as quickly…