Chapter 597 : The Location

“After Geoffrey’s death, the Old Faith faction fell into disarray and internal strife flared up again. Without Geoffrey’s leadership, the Wind Rebels began to suspect and even turn on one another. In the ensuing battles, they fought alone or even against each other, completely losing their ability to resist Baldric.

“In the end, Baldric led his army to pacify all of Pritt, bringing the Wind King’s Rebellion to a close and becoming the sole King of Pritt. Most of the Old Faith faction’s lords eventually surrendered and converted; Baldric accepted them. But apart from a few families like the Devonshires, who surrendered early and made outstanding contributions in the later stages of the war, the other Old Faith lords were stripped of their titles, had their mystical inheritances abolished, and only a few who stubbornly resisted were executed.

“Finally, Baldric formally adopted the Despenser name, establishing his lineage as the rightful heirs of the Wind Kings. He was thereafter known as the ‘Rightful Successor.’ Upon his death, his son Edward III ascended the throne, relocated the capital to the mouth of the Moonstream River, and expanded the city of Tivian. Thus he became known as ‘Edward the Builder.’ The Hyacinth Dynasty officially began and continues to this day.”

In the dim room, John continued his historical narrative from the bed, like a lecturer delivering a well-prepared class. Ed sat in the corner, listening intently as John brought the tale to its end. After a moment of reflection, Ed asked.

“So… in the end, most of the Old Faith faction didn’t meet too tragic a fate? They survived? If I recall correctly, the Church’s policies toward heretics back then weren’t nearly as lenient as they are now. Just converting was enough to have all sins wiped away?”

“That’s indeed an interesting point… Typically, the Church’s large-scale policy softening toward heretics happened after the Ivengard Muddy Stream War, which began nearly a century after the Wind King’s Rebellion ended. During Geoffrey’s time, the Church was still very hardline. The fact that they didn’t tie all the surrendering Old Faith followers to the stake is a bit baffling.

“I believe Baldric likely played a mediating role in all this. There are also signs that the Church, throughout the war, never showed the kind of hostility toward the Queen of the Night Sky’s faith that it did toward other cults.

“They did, as usual, destroy or repurpose old-faith sites discovered during the war, confiscated all related texts, and tried to erase their legends. But when it came to the believers and clergy that arose during the war, they were given a chance to convert and live. The Inquisitors didn’t meddle much in Pritt’s internal affairs. Compared to the religious massacres that occurred during the Muddy Stream War in Ivengard, the post-war situation in Pritt was much better.”

After some thought, John replied. Ed listened quietly, then shifted the topic.

“You said earlier that Ampere Devonshire took the secret of the temple into his grave. Do you know where that grave is?”

“No… my research hadn’t progressed that far. If you want to dig deeper, you might try looking into the Devonshire family. Perhaps they hold some clues.”

John answered. Ed immediately followed up.

“One last question: aside from you, does anyone else know about Ampere’s knowledge of the temple’s secret? Did Duke Barrett also participate in translating the letter? Would he have any relevant records?”

“Well… the letter from Ampere was discovered by us, and I was the one doing the translation. It was scrawled and blurry, written in an obscure regional dialect of old Prittish from five centuries ago—deciphering it was a lot of work. Since I was better at linguistics than Richard, the job naturally fell to me. After I translated it and realized how important the information was, I couldn’t reach Richard immediately, so I left that note for him in the library mentioning this matter.”

As John recalled, he spoke slowly. Ed visibly relaxed—until John added something that made his expression shift again.

“However, while I was translating the letter, both of us kept a copy to be safe. I kept the original, and Richard kept a photographic copy, just in case something happened to the original.”

“A photographic copy…”

Ed’s tone grew significantly more serious. Noticing this, John asked curiously.

“It’s our habit to keep photo records of valuable documents. Is there a problem?”

“No, no… not at all. Thank you, Professor Acheson. The intelligence you’ve shared has been extremely helpful to us.”

Ed responded politely as he slowly stood up from his seat in the corner.

“You saved my life. Sharing this is the least I can do.”

John replied evenly. Ed then bowed slightly.

“Well then, it’s about time I took my leave. Professor, please stay here and rest. You’ll be looked after. As far as ‘they’ are concerned, you’re already dead. So as long as you don’t appear publicly for a while, you’ll be safe.

“Farewell.”

With that, Ed waved goodbye and walked calmly to the door. After stepping out and closing it behind him, he looked down the hallway—where he spotted a familiar female figure leaning against the wall.

“Hello, Miss Adele. Are you also here because of an interest in history?”

He smiled as he addressed the tall, striking woman in a red dress, cigarette between her fingers. Adele gave him a sidelong glance and replied.

“Those poisonous and filth-ridden scraps of mystic history? I neither care for them nor am suited to them. I’m only here to meet a certain someone who’s been hiding people on my turf without even showing their face~”

After taking a drag from her cigarette, Adele stepped in front of Ed and placed her hand on his chest. She leaned in close and whispered.

“You’ve been away for over half a year, and the moment you return you ask for favors without even showing your real self. Don’t you think that’s a bit much, Miss Detective?”

Looking into her sultry face, now just inches from his own, Ed merely smiled calmly.

“My apologies, Miss Adele. I got entangled with some troublesome folks the moment I returned to Tivian. I’ve been caught up in urgent matters and haven’t had the time. Once everything is sorted, I’ll visit in person to make it up to you. If you’re still in the mood for a drink, I’ll join you.”

“Your real self, or a puppet?”

“My real self, of course.”

“Now that’s more like it~”

Adele retracted her hand and took two steps back. She gave Ed a once-over and spoke again in a teasing tone.

“I can see it now. Once you put on another skin, you become a completely different person. Calm, confident, wise—all that mature charisma, no need for tricks to charm half the naïve girls in town. You’re very good at being a man. I’ve seen plenty of men in my time… but none quite as alluring as you.”

“So, Miss Adele, does that mean this version of me also interests you?”

“Interested? Sure. But compared to my interest in your adorable real self, it’s nothing~”

“Adorable…”

After tossing out the word, Adele turned away and began walking off, no longer looking at Ed.

“Well then, busy detective, you’d best get going. Be careful out there. The Queen of the Deep Web’s silklings are no joke—don’t get caught in their threads…”

With that, Adele walked away without another word, while Ed stood there, quietly watching her leave.

…

In broad daylight, on a street corner somewhere in Tivian, a carriage was parked by the roadside. Sitting inside the carriage, just as she always did, was Dorothy—wearing a black dress with silk trim, twin ponytails, and polished leather shoes. She sat calmly in the seat, using her mind to remotely control her corpse marionette, Ed, as he finished his conversation with Professor John Acheson from the Royal Crown University archaeology department. Through him, Dorothy had just learned many hidden truths about the Wind King’s Rebellion five hundred years ago.

“So, the Wind King’s Rebellion of the past… had such secrets behind it. The final monarch of the Roaring Lance Dynasty—supposedly the rightful Despenser line—was actually a lunatic tormented by madness, and his suicide caused the succession dispute. That dispute, in turn, led to the extinction of the dynasty… and became the fuse for everything that followed.”

“Was the Mad King’s entire bloodline genetically predisposed to madness? That royal struggle for the throne in the capital escalated into an all-out fight to the death in such a short time… and it even ended in mutual destruction, burying the dynasty entirely.”

So Dorothy mused internally. If everything John had said was true, then the Mad King’s family either had hereditary mental illness, or something else was fishy.

“And then there’s the Wind King’s Rebellion itself. I originally thought it was simply a war sparked by the Old Faith faction in Pritt resisting the Radiance Church’s cultural and religious invasion. But now, it seems far more complex. Sure, there was cultural and spiritual tension between the old traditions and Radiance, but that wasn’t the only cause.”

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“The root cause of the Wind King’s Rebellion was still a power struggle among Pritt’s nobles. The Church tried to expand its influence by backing Baldric, which prompted the other nobles to unite and use the symbols of the old faith to rally the people.”

Dorothy pondered further. From her perspective, the influence of the Queen of the Night Sky—or the Mirror Moon Goddess—might not have been as strong as she initially thought. It probably wasn’t strong enough to spontaneously organize an anti-Church uprising. The lingering belief in the Mirror Moon Goddess may have been used by rebellious nobles as a unifying symbol—at least in the beginning—until the arrival of that so-called Divine Envoy witch.

“Geoffrey the Black Venerator… the man who unified the Old Faith faction and declared himself king. Compared to the other nobles who simply used the old faith as a tool, he seemed to genuinely worship the Mirror Moon Goddess. And all of that stemmed from the appearance of that mysterious witch, who brought him ‘miracles’ and urged him to excavate ruins in search of divine forgiveness—to earn the Queen of the Night Sky’s blessing to resist Radiance.”

“To be honest, that witch seems a little suspicious. According to the information I obtained from the Mirror Moon ruins, the Mirror Moon Goddess’ faith left Pritt voluntarily. It seems that sometime in the early Fourth Epoch, an agreement or contract was made, and the faith abandoned Pritt. Judging by how Radiance began spreading through the Pritt Isles afterward, it’s highly likely the agreement was made with the Church.”

“Which means… it’s very possible that the Church bought Pritt from the Mirror Moon faith via some kind of pact. If Radiance and Mirror Moon were able to come to terms with one another, that would explain why the Church didn’t treat the Mirror Moon Church with the same severity it used on others. It suggests their relationship wasn’t as hostile—not like Radiance vs. the Afterbirth Cult, or Radiance vs. the Savior’s Advent Sect.”

“But then that raises the question: why did a Divine Envoy suddenly appear? If Pritt was willingly handed over to Radiance, and their two faiths weren’t at deadly odds… why would the Queen of the Night Sky send an envoy back to organize rebellion? Did she regret the old deal? Or was there some other hidden reason?”

Seated calmly in the carriage, Dorothy concluded that the war John described likely held even deeper secrets than he himself knew.

The mystical text John had shared was clearly dominated by Shadow spirituality. Dorothy didn’t extract the spirituality or redeem knowledge from it yet—instead, she saved it for later when she might need Shadow spirituality. After analyzing the secrets briefly, she turned her attention to what was perhaps the most important part of the intel: the location of the so-called temple.

Dorothy took out her magic box and retrieved the Literary Sea Logbook. Flipping to Misha Devonshire’s communication page, she began writing.

“Excuse me, do you know of Ampere Devonshire?”

After writing, Dorothy waited patiently. Finally, after half an hour, a reply appeared on the page.

“Of course I do. He’s a very important ancestor of our family. During a war long ago, he led our house in service of the crown and laid the foundation for our family’s prosperity for the centuries that followed.”

“Do you know where Ampere’s tomb is located?”

Dorothy quickly wrote in response. Another answer soon appeared.

“Ampere’s tomb? Naturally, it’s within our family’s crypt, located beneath the Guardian Chapel on the outskirts of Tivian, along with several other distinguished family members.”

“A family tomb beneath a chapel… and right near Tivian?”

Dorothy’s eyes lit up. She immediately wrote again.

“Is your family’s tomb easy to access? I mean, what if we needed to go inside and check something—quietly, without drawing attention, and preferably soon?”

“The Guardian Chapel crypt? That’s not exactly an easy place to enter. Normally, it’s sealed with giant stones and kept closed year-round. The tomb is protected by a blood-rite barrier, and there are caretakers posted nearby. Entering without unlocking the crypt would require digging a tunnel or blasting the gate open—neither of which can be done without making noise.”