In the dead silence of the forest, the two holy knights' horses ran quickly. At the end of their road, the horses slowed their speed and came to a stop.
"Something definitely happened here," said the male holy knight, looking at the tavern that seemed abandoned. He got down from his horse. In the same way, the female knight also got down from her horse. Silently, she first tied her horse to a nearby tree before making her way into the tavern.
Clank!
Opening the door to the tavern, the two entered and saw people inside the tavern. But all of them lay where they were, like in a deep sleep.
"Did they piss off a magician or something?"
Getting close to one of them, the holy knight turned the body around. Looking at the eyes that showed no life, he took a step back.
While observing the sleeping figures, the female holy knight noticed dark liquid-like stains on the floor, leading to the upper floor of the tavern. Following the trail, she climbed the stairs.
"Be careful," warned the male holy knight.
The trail led the female holy knight to one of the rooms on the floor. Its door was slightly opened, so the woman pushed it and opened it.
"Uh..."
Inside the room, she saw body parts of humans everywhere. The bed was soaked with deep red color, and on the floor, the blood was still flowing.
"Same scene. Let's report to the Saintess; she should know something about this."
After looking at other rooms and finding the same pieces of decapitated humans, the two knights arrived at the lower floor with tension and anxiety in their minds. However, before they left, they made sure to take out their holy water and purify the place first.
However, the moment the holy water fell onto the lifeless bodies, they instantly began to wriggle like worms.
"Whoa..."
The two knights took a step back as the body's movements became more intense. Suddenly, its lifeless eyes turned dark as it jumped directly at the female knight who stood closer to it.
Swish!
With an extremely fast swing, even before the body got closer to her, it was sliced apart by her sword. The two parts of the body fell to the ground with a thud. However, no blood flowed out from the body.
Instead, from the sliced body, dark mist rushed out, and before the two knights could react, they were swallowed by the darkness, losing sight of each other.
As moments passed in the dark, they began to hear a deep and terrifying voice in their heads.
"…This feels... familiar, although not as much as the light that shines above us, defeats us, seals us. The light that fades us. You're… definitely pawns of some kind of light."
"But your light is not enough to fade my darkness."
The more they heard that voice, the more the two knights fell into insanity.
"Arghhh!" "Ayhhhh!"
From the tavern filled with a deathly aura, the screams of the two knights echoed out. Outside, their horses lay on the ground, their eyes are lifeless.
. . . . . . . .
As the afternoon came, a carriage carrying Mordred parked closer to the experimental factory. The crowd, always eyeing the area, scattered as he stepped out of the carriage.
At that moment, he saw a few knights in the distance coming from the factory. They noticed Mordred but couldn't see his face as he was covering it with a mask.
"Did they accept?" he asked, looking at Charlotte, who came to greet him.
"Gladly. We retrieved all the evidence gathered against us... and also, we caught a spy."
"Oh...Typical."
Entering the factory, Mordred and Charlotte arrived at the underground experimental lab, where a man was tied to a pillar. The man was heavily beaten, with blood oozing out from every injury.
Standing closer to him was another man with bloodstains on his hands. Most of the injuries on the spy's body came from his beatings.
When Mordred stood in front of the spy, the man forcefully showed the spy's face to Mordred.
"Is he someone from the chemical lab, not from the research lab?"
"Yes. He has been trying to get into the research lab a few times but did not succeed. In the end, he tried to buy information from someone inside and failed. As a last resort, he reported us to the guards. Fortunately, he chose the wrong guards."
Examining the spy's face, Mordred confirmed that he had no memory of this man.
"So, did you figure out where he's from?"
"Currently, we have no suspects."
"Wait... is there a possibility that they still don't know that this guy got caught?"
"Very likely. Only a few trusted people know about this case."
"Then I believe you know what to do."
Turning back, Mordred walked to Charlotte's office. After a moment, Charlotte brought a suitcase and opened it, revealing its contents.
"Are those the new results after experimenting with hell creatures?"
After Mordred regained access to the Spirit Realm, the plan he had prepared with the warlocks became useless, so he simply agreed to Charlotte's request. However, he didn't expect that she would get results this quickly.
"Yes, these are all the ones we have, except for one, which is with me," Charlotte
look at Mordred with puppy-dog eyes, as if asking to keep her favorite toy.
"What's the use of them?"
"Well... for now, it only enchants one item, but it only requires a drop. Using more than that has... disturbing aftereffects for some." Not revealing the complete truth, Charlotte provided just the necessary information for Mordred, and he got the gist of what she was saying.
"But I'm surprised, boss. I thought you would rip that guy's face off," getting comfortable with the atmosphere Charlotte pulled a chair and sat where the guests sit.
"Did I not? Then how are you thinking of doing what I ordered?"
Charlotte fell silent upon hearing him. It was then that she realized what Mordred actually meant when he asked whether others knew the spy had been caught or not.
"Do you think they took the bait?"
"Only time will tell."
From the suitcase, Mordred took a red, blood-like liquid vial into his hand. After examining it for a bit, he placed it back in the case. Then he closed his eyes, appearing to be in deep thought. Charlotte waited silently until Mordred spoke again.
Nope. Not a clue about anything. I'm just a regular office worker. I don't know anything about science, man. Let's just give Charlotte the lead to guide whatever project she wants to do.
Opening his eyes, Mordred looked at Charlotte for a few seconds. Although confused, Charlotte didn't feel uncomfortable or complain about facing his gaze.
With his thoughts, the item catalog appeared in his vision. Browsing through it, he retrieved a somewhat large vial containing a deep, dark, and thick substance. Charlotte curiously looked at it as Mordred handed it to her.
"I want you to examine this, see what's inside of it and what kind of result it'll have on the human body."
The moment before the item was given to Charlotte, its appraisal result appeared.
< Appraisal complete >
Item Name: Essence of None
Grade: Honour
Description: Source of power with vast amounts of usefulness.
Current Owner: Mordred Verthian Arclore
It's actually an item I bought from the store. The only reason I bought it was because of its cool name; other than that, I had no knowledge about it. Neither did the game provide any information related to it. With her knowledge, Charlotte should be able to figure out a way to use this thing.
"What is it?" Charlotte observed the vial in her hand very curiously.
"If I had known that, I wouldn't have given it to you, would I now?"
"Well, if we look at it that way..." After taking another glance at it, she safely kept it in her pocket.
Mordred was still looking at the two vials in the suitcase, but his shadow suddenly wriggled, and a part of it separated and jumped into Charlotte's shadow.
"You can go now. I believe you have work to do."
Obeying his words, Charlotte stepped out of the room.
. . . . . .
Within a deep darkness, a woman was meditating with her eyes closed. Surrounding her were lit candles, burning within the darkness.
Phew!
In the silence of the room, the breathing sound of the woman resounded sharply.
Suddenly, two of the candles' flames faded, and the woman's eyes opened a moment later.
Looking at the two candles for a moment, she slowly stood up from her position.
She took a step forward, and in the next moment, she appeared somewhere outside of a door in a corridor.
Tok! Tok!
After softly knocking on the door, she heard the voice of a female from inside—a fair and pleasant one.
"Wait a moment, please."
Within seconds, the door opened, and a woman dressed in a glorious gown appeared in the woman's vision.
"Saintess, did you already expect me?"
The woman knelt as soon as she saw the Saintess, showing the respect in her heart.
"Well... not really. Before that, come inside."
With her order, the woman stepped into the room, where she saw another person with the same appearance as the Saintess sitting beside a giant window. Through the window, sunlight poured directly onto her, brightening her and her surroundings with an ethereal glow.
"Saintess, your body double is near perfect."
"Thank you, Synthia. Is there any reason why you stepped out of the Guardian Globe? It's your task to observe it," the Saintess beside the table inquired of the woman.
"Actually, there is. Two lights faded off, and those two belong to..."
"The two I sent to the Forbidden Forest," the Saintess finished Synthia's words.
She was reading a book and never took her eyes off it, even when speaking.
"Did you know about this, Saintess?"
"No, but the fact that you're here means something's wrong with the Guardian Globe, and currently, to my knowledge, I only knew two people were assigned to an unknown threat task... Connect the dots, and you get a guess."
"Your mind is brilliant as ever, Saintess. But what could possibly take out two Morph Knights at once? The continent is at peace, and we've faced no danger for a long time."
Kneeling in front of the Saintess, Synthia showed her worries.
"Change is an aspect of the world, and nothing lasts forever. I've been feeling bad omens lately. The reason must be because of the changing tides between peace and war, since the Trinity Gathering is closing in. Write this as a problem we need to talk about."
"As you wish, Saintess." With a bow, Synthia stepped out of the room and disappeared from the corridor with another step.
After she left, the Saintess closed her book and gazed out of the window.
Lately, she'd been feeling too many bad omens, and she couldn't really pinpoint which one she needed to prioritize. According to one of her knights, there was also a new kind of monster that had resistance against holy energy.
Slowly standing up, she walked out of her room. Followed by a group of nuns, she arrived at a place where countless candles burned across a beautiful landscape filled with blooming flowers.
With her bare feet, she stepped onto the land and buried two seeds in the ground. Afterward, she wrote the names of the two lost knights beneath them.
Almost in the same way, beneath every blooming flower in this field was the name of a fallen soldier, written as their memorial.
"I'm sorry, I should have been more careful," tiny, gem-like tears flowed from the Saintess's eyes as she looked at the newly blooming flowers in the field.
It had been so long since she had planted a memorial flower in this field. And she had a bad feeling that she would be coming here very often in the future.
On her way back, the Saintess suddenly stopped in her tracks. At that moment, she was on an upper floor area and could see, a bit farther away, newly training soldiers for the Holy Knights.
She stopped because she saw something surprising. A very strict Holy Knight she knew very well was personally training two candidates.
Letting her curiosity get the better of her, she arrived at the place where the holy candidates were training.