#053

“What are you talking about….”

“I am aware that there is a necklace beneath those clothes. A Sacred Relic given to you by the Saintess, I presume.”

“…….”

“…I truly only wish to have a conversation.”

‘Shit!’

He figured out about the necklace too?

Just how many times has this been?

No, more importantly….

‘That clumsy-looking acting was actually a high-level psychological war designed to make me think he was bad at acting?’

I wanted to give my past self a hard slap.

You stupid bastard!

Idiot!

Moron!

To think I actually believed I perfectly understood the situation!

Even though I knew that the information I had as a gamer was completely useless!

‘…Even if my arm is grabbed, I can still call out the names of the Saintess or Adna to summon them.’

But if I did that, I’d probably just end up with a gag in my mouth next time.

In front of someone who can turn back time, every response I make is nothing more than revealing the cards in my hand.

‘I have to keep doing stupid things to make him waste his time.’

I don’t know which iteration this is, but if he looks visibly exhausted, he must be reaching his limit.

So, if I can just hold out this one time….

“…Fabio. There is something I am truly curious about.”

‘No matter what he asks, I must not answer.’

“Did Commander Casimir, or that person called Elamin, tell you nothing? About these… obvious things?”

I kept my mouth shut and lowered my head.

I felt that if I met Athanas’s eyes, I might get too scared and blurt out anything.

“Do you know what a Chanter actually does?”

“…….”

“I thought it was strange. You are wearing Commander Casimir’s garter, yet you seem not to know the meaning of the garter….”

“Eh? When did you….”

“If you are left in a state of knowing nothing, problems will inevitably arise. Why would they not tell you? No matter how cautious you are, you make mistakes like this when you don’t even know what you don’t know.”

‘What does the garter even mean?’

And shit, when did he see that?

What reason was there to lift my clothes that far?

‘Did he do some corpse farming after killing me?’

Is that how he found the necklace too?

“I cannot fathom what the Saintess or Casimir want from you. If their only intention was to protect and hide you, they wouldn’t have left you in such ignorance….”

“…….”

“…Perhaps they did it because they also wanted to find out what kind of person you are.”

‘What kind of nonsense is that.’

“Because if it weren’t for these mistakes, I would never know who you truly are.”

“…….”

“Anyway, a date request is out of the question. I will try approaching you with something else. Thank you for the advice.”

‘I didn’t give you advice to use on me!’

* * *

…I continued flipping through the pages.

I had no intention of checking who the person in front of me was.

They were likely a stranger anyway, and it would be troublesome if we made eye contact and started a conversation. Since it was only my second day at the Capital Church, there was too much I didn’t know.

‘Why risk chatting and getting caught as a goblin?’

Before long, I heard the sound of a chair scraping again.

‘Are they moving to another seat?’

After reading about twenty more pages, I heard the thud of several books being placed on the desk.

It seemed they had simply gone to find more books.

Fortunately, the person in front of me didn’t seem particularly interested in talking to me either.

For a long time, only the sound of turning pages filled the space.

‘I guess the atmosphere isn’t one for small talk.’

I felt a bit relieved.

If the people of the Capital Church didn’t talk to each other much, the rumor that the new Chanter was from a ‘serf’ background wouldn’t spread that quickly.

It’s best if I don’t have to use the ‘ignorant serf shield’ at all.

‘By the way, men really have no presence in matrilineal family trees.’

In the case of daughters, their birth and death years were always recorded even if they weren’t the heir, but for sons, they were mostly treated as people who vanished after receiving Ordination.

‘Is it that since they can’t inherit the succession, it doesn’t matter whether they live or die?’

Unless they achieved something truly remarkable, nothing was written about what they did after birth.

Well, that didn’t make being born a daughter look particularly great either.

Having the dates of your first period and menopause recorded in a family tree is a bit creepy.

‘Since they record things like that, it feels less like a family tree and more like a pedigree certificate for breeding.’

In the Dark Realm, noble families usually operate on a matrilineal basis. This is because only fertile women, or women who have already given birth to daughters, can hold succession rights.

The reason for this system is simple.

‘Because Divine traits are only inherited through the maternal line.’

To put it simply, children born to a female apostle possess the Divine trait regardless of their gender, but children produced by a male apostle impregnating another woman do not exhibit the Divine trait.

‘From this, one can infer that when a god descends, significant changes occur in the mitochondrial DNA rather than the nuclear DNA.’

Strictly speaking, I should call it a cellular organelle that performs a role similar to mitochondria.

Regardless, just as martial artists have a non-material organ called a dantian, the inhabitants of the Dark Realm are presumed to be a pseudo-human species with cellular organelles that metabolize divine power.

Therefore, even if two apostles serving different gods marry, the offspring unconditionally follow the mother’s trait, meaning ‘hybrids’ possessing the traits of two gods do not exist.

I was the one who proved this Divine-organelle hypothesis, and it was one of the moments I felt proud of while playing the game.

How did I end up proving something like a Divine-organelle?

It started with a question posted by a player.

‘Would it be possible to create an artificial apostle with the traits of two or more gods?’

It was a very intriguing topic.

Of course, if you simply possess the Sacred Relics of different gods, you can use two types of Divine Power. So, there was absolutely no practical reason to create an ‘artificial apostle.’

But aren’t gamers exactly the kind of people who love pouring time into useless endeavors?

Many players who saw this question began experimenting to create this ‘artificial apostle.’

In that process, much was revealed about divine power.

For example, which organ in the body plays the key role in using divine power?

Before it was revealed through experiments, it was believed that the ‘heart,’ ‘eyes,’ and ‘bones’—parts easy to turn into Sacred Relics—played the most important roles.

However, the actual results were quite interesting. As long as preservation was handled well, ‘internal organ tissue’ or ‘skeletal muscle’ of the same weight could also be made into Sacred Relics with the same divine power.

From there, I came up with the idea: ‘Could the minimum unit of divine power be a cellular organelle?’

Seeing how the Divine Bloodline was passed down through maternal inheritance, it seemed entirely possible.

The ‘artificial apostles’ that people attempted and failed to create were mostly ‘chimeras’ made by stitching together the bodies of two apostles. Those chimeras either breathed their last after enduring horrific pain or survived with only one trait.

I hypothesized that this was a kind of Divine-immune response.

While other players were digging into which organs to transplant to increase the survival rate, I thought that if the minimum unit of body tissue handling divine power was a ‘cell,’ there was no need to transplant a whole ‘body.’

So, what I chose was….

‘Divine-cancer cell transplantation.’

Since malignant tumors have the ability to bypass immunity, the trait would not be easily ‘removed’ even after transplantation.

Of course, growing Divine-cancer cells requires many steps.

First, you have to start with the Plague God.

The Plague God is called that in ‘Die Heretic!’ simply because he spreads plagues, but he is actually an Othergod who governs all diseases.

Since things not related to a ‘Domain’ are not explicitly displayed in the System, you cannot even see a unit’s ‘cancer’ trait unless you start with the [Plague God].

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait for cancer to develop naturally in a unit; you can cause cancer to appear through Divine Power.

However, simply capturing apostles and giving them cancer isn’t enough.

What’s the point if an ‘artificial apostle’ transplanted with various cancer cells dies early from the cancer?

That is why you must capture the Goddess of Healing, Ledeia, and achieve ‘Unification.’

Of course, since ‘disease’ and ‘healing’ are opposing domains, simply unifying can easily lead to a state of madness.

This is where you redefine ‘healing.’

The principle of ‘healing’ that Ledeia uses is ultimately the replication of normal cells.

By twisting this essence slightly and making ‘abnormal cell replication’ a part of Ledeia, surprisingly, Ledeia becomes the God of Cancer.

If you unify with Ledeia after she has been corrupted this way, you can then proliferate divine cancer cells indefinitely and extend the lifespan of an ‘artificial apostle’ transplanted with various cancer cells.

Of course, by the time you’ve unified with Ledeia like this, you’ve practically devoured almost all of the Dark Realm, so there’s no particular place to use the artificial apostle units.

It’s literally just for fun.

‘I got an account-bound trait when I succeeded in making an artificial apostle….’

Unfortunately, since it’s a trait bound to my main account, it has nothing to do with my current self.

Well, even if I knew how to make something like ‘Divine-cancer cells,’ there’d be nowhere to use them….

Closing the genealogy book, I was about to open the next one when I suddenly realized I hadn’t heard the sound of pages turning in front of me for a long time.

Looking up, I saw the person in front of me had fallen fast asleep, slumped over the desk.

‘Reading really does make you sleepy.’

Judging by the attire, I wasn’t sure of the exact affiliation, but they seemed to be a knight.

‘Should I wake them up?’

The thought crossed my mind for a moment, but I decided against it, fearing they might get angry at being woken up while exhausted.

‘It’s not like they asked me for a favor.’

And so, I finished reading my book and stood up when the bell announcing noon rang.

It was the time Elamin was supposed to arrive.

‘I wonder what’s for lunch?’

It was the first lunch I was eating since arriving at the Church of Order!

I was already looking forward to it.

Before descending the stairs, I looked back for a moment.

‘…That person still hasn’t woken up.’

I pondered for a second, but decided that when one is truly exhausted, a moment of sleep might be more important than a meal, so I just let them sleep.

* * *

The lunch menu consisted of roasted pigeon, steamed trout, thick sausages, and white bread.

I didn’t forget to express my gratitude to Elamin.

“The library was truly quiet and wonderful. I see why you said I wouldn’t find it uncomfortable.”

“Is that so? I am glad.”

“Yes. I couldn’t even understand why there were so few people.”

“It is likely because the Main Hall has a collection volume dozens of times larger. Most people visit the Main Hall.”

“Dozens of times? My goodness. Can there really be that many books? I thought the books filling the Branch Office were already more than I could read in a lifetime….”

Elamin smiled softly.

“The Main Hall of the Capital Church is famous for being the largest library in the Empire. Let us go together next time you have the time.”

“I… if you are busy, you could just tell me the way….”

Elamin shook her head.

“I do not recommend going alone. Because there are as many people in the Main Hall as there are books, there are also many people with purposes other than reading.”

“Other purposes?”

“Most commonly… there are people who stop others to proselytize.”

‘Proselytize?’

They do proselytizing within the Church?

‘Why do such cult-like things….’

“Those who serve minor subordinate gods who couldn’t even enter the Pantheon usually preach that way. Since there are few ways to make their god known.”

‘…So it’s the desperate low-tier gods doing that.’

“But a Chanter cannot serve any god other than the Lord, can they? Even if they are proselytized, they wouldn’t be able to attend the services.”

“They may not be able to offer prayers, but donations are still possible.”

Elamin frowned slightly.

“Since Chanters are generally considered to have a lot of money, they tend to be stopped more often. It is a nuisance.”

‘True. Chanters are usually from noble families.’

But doesn’t Fabio look like he’s completely broke just by looking at his face?

I feel like he wouldn’t be stopped even if he just walked around.

“Anyway. Since people don’t listen if they just hold them and explain their god, these days they just start handing out Blessings out of the blue. Once you’ve received a Blessing, they suggest you listen to their doctrine once as a reward.”

‘What the… they’re like scammers forcing products on people.’

“Since there is a rule that they must withdraw the moment proselytizing is rejected, such people are merely annoying and not a great problem. However, Fabio, you….”

Elamin glanced around and lowered her voice.

“…I heard that you must not receive Blessings.”

‘……?’

Blessings related to mental interference don’t work on me, but it’s not like I’m forbidden from receiving them in general.

While I was momentarily puzzled, I soon remembered that the sixth apostle had mistakenly believed I had a ‘divine power allergy.’

‘Casimir must have passed on that warning.’

I simply nodded.

“I see. I must absolutely never think of going there alone.”

Chapter 54