A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 310 The Mystery of the Fellow Villager's Past
Feeling inexplicably annoyed, Misha kicked Sissa again, then rolled up her sleeves and went out to help the believers dry chestnuts. Labor seemed to be a way for her to relax.

Only Quinn and Sysa remained in the church, holding water glasses and staring at each other.

A church typically needs ten to twenty clergy members to maintain its daily operations. In addition to the bishop, priest, or pastor responsible for missionary work, there are nuns and volunteer believers who maintain the church's daily life, as well as extraordinary individuals unknown to the general public who manage the church's territory.

However, for some reason, the only clergy members in the Guishu Church were Xisa and Misha, who had gone out. Even though they were cut off from the Northern Continent, the church staff could be maintained with sufficient supplies from the believers. The other clergy members had disappeared, as if they were on fieldwork.

"Do you know her?" Quinn asked Sysa.

'She' refers to Amamiya Nene, of course.

Sissa calmly replied, "Yes."

"Her mother, Lord Cavendish, is a cardinal of the White Church. I had contact with her in some church-related work, and that's how I got to know your colleague."

Quinn nodded slightly, without suspecting anything.

The cult holds regional meetings from time to time to discuss topics such as the Abyss incident, mysterious events involving superhumans, and various disputes.

It's not surprising that Sissa, the bishop of the Aiswell Church, had met Amamiya Yu and even Amamiya Nene.

"She came here just to donate money?" Quinn asked, somewhat puzzled.

Sissa looked up at him.

Quinn was surprised to find that this guy's eyes were also black.

However, the blackness of Sissa's eyes was not very obvious; it was as if a deep mist covered the pupils. Only from this angle could one discover the pitch-black spot at the deepest part of the pupils.

"You two... are just colleagues?" Sissa asked a strange question.

"if not?"

Quinn answered confidently.

Before confessing to Xia Dai'er, he gave the same answer when asked about his relationship with her, but he couldn't help feeling guilty about being a scumbag. The same was true with Celia; he claimed it was a pure teacher-student relationship, but only the two of them knew what they really thought.

Unlike Amamiya Nene, this is truly a colleague relationship.

Quinn thought with some annoyance.

So Sissa said, “Stand up.”

"?"

Quinn was puzzled, but he still got up to see what kind of abstract thing he was going to do.

“Open your arms,” he continued.

Quinn could only be scrutinized by his appraising gaze, like a model applying for a job.

Finally, Xisa frowned slightly, rested her hand on her chin, and muttered, "So this is the one? What a niche and perverted taste."

"???"

Quinn didn't understand what he was saying, but he had a feeling that the priest was cursing him.

“She came because she was worried about you.” Xisa briefly summarized what had happened, then said cheerfully, “I thought we had a good relationship. But she hasn’t come to Guishu Church even once in the past three years. You have quite a lot of influence.”

Quinn was taken aback. He wasn't stupid; he understood immediately after hearing what Sissa said.

Just as he could sense her through the contract, she could sense him in the same way.

Although he deliberately used the assassin's 'stealth' skill to hide his whereabouts when stalking—or rather, when loitering—he did not do so while eating at the Mirror Lake Restaurant.

Then this woman
Did they know I was following them from the start?

Shouldn't you at least say hello? What a gloomy woman.
Quinn's expression became somewhat complicated. Her deliberate act towards David wasn't exactly intimate, not even as intimate as when she joked and laughed with students at the academy. But given the little witch's personality, her deliberately putting on a quiet front actually meant something.

Is it because they know I'm watching that they want to tell me they have someone pursuing them? Or what does that mean? Tsk, what's it to me?

He thought with some annoyance.

The parrot that's willing to hide in the hat is still the cutest; no wonder Fury fans can't stand seeing humans turn into humans.

Seeing his silent demeanor, Xisa roughly guessed the nature of their relationship. After pondering for a moment, she slapped her forehead:
"Hmm! I remember now!"

"What did you remember?"

“I’m reminded of Mr. Q,” Sysa said with a smile. “Oh dear, such a serious abyss event has occurred in Aishwell City. I must inform the academy, especially a talented young teacher like you, so that we can work together to save Aishwell—”

"?"

His sudden 180-degree turn left Quinn bewildered. Quinn cautiously asked, "Why did you suddenly remember? What do you want?"

“I have only one small request.” Sissa drew a line on his chest, closed his eyes devoutly, and said, “The Heavenly Father once said that only through cooperation and mutual benefit can things be accomplished, done correctly, and achieved great things. As long as humanity has the desire to cooperate and coordinates its actions, the glaciers of the far north can be transformed into a warm home.”

"Speak." Quinn temporarily put aside his feelings about Amamiya Nene's influence.

“I need a drop of Amamiya Nene’s blood,” he said with a smile.

Quinn's eyes instantly turned cold.

Blood is the most direct and mysterious catalyst that can be directed at the individual. Legend has it that there is even an extremely evil witchcraft that can kill people from thousands of miles away by cursing their blood. If someone accidentally bleeds in the academy, there will be special Minions to clean it up, ensuring that not a single drop remains, in order to avoid causing trouble by chance.

In divine magic, blood is also the most precious offering, with countless uses.

Quinn got up and left without saying a word.

No matter how bad a woman is, she's still your colleague.

"Please listen to me first, don't be in such a hurry to report to the school administration office."

As soon as Sissa finished speaking, the church door that was directly in front of Quinn suddenly changed, and the Soviet-style sculpture and oil painting of the Father appeared in Quinn's eyes. The church wall instantly turned upside down, blocking his way.

Quinn slowly turned around and said calmly, "Did you really think the same trick could stop me twice?" The Word of Power 'Illusion' is neither an illusion nor reality. Quinn guessed that it might be some kind of neural invasion. The secret envoy's strangeness is unparalleled among combat classes. Unless he can overpower this Sequence Six in terms of mystery, there is no good way to deal with it.

But he has a magic spell to freeze people in place.

Since the immobilization spell can directly lock onto the entire Word of Power and materialize it to destroy it, then Sissa is just a large-scale arcane mage who can be easily killed by a single blow once she gets close.

But Quinn didn't rush to use the immobilization spell; instead, he slowly raised his hand.

Between his fingers, he held a piece of jet-black snake scale.

"What do you want to do to the faculty at Eswell?" he asked coldly.

Upon seeing the snake scales, a rare flicker of surprise appeared in Sissa's eyes. Then, with a snap of his fingers, the correct door returned to Quinn's presence.

“How could I possibly do anything to her?” Sissa shrugged. “Actually, we’re friends. Should we be? Do we?”

"Then what do you need her blood for?"

"In the Eastern Kingdom, in the Third New Tokyo City, at the Clock Tower Bank," Sissa said unhurriedly. "Underground there is a vault preserved from the Age of Gods. Like the Ancient Dragon Tomb in Britain, it's one of the few remaining secret realms of the Age of Gods, naturally isolated from most supernatural forces. Royal treasures, ancient arcane texts, and even the legacies of some high-sequence supernatural beings are all preserved there."

"Getting into that place is very troublesome. The important figures don't trust those bandit-like arcanists at the Clock Tower, so the vault has security measures in place to ensure the trustworthiness of its clients. The only way for descendants to obtain the corresponding relics is through blood verification."

"So what?" Quinn looked at him with a hint of absurdity. "You want to swindle the fortune of the richest man in the Southern Continent? A bishop doing that?"

“Heh,” Sissa lowered her voice, “Aren’t you curious about who the Duke’s mysterious husband, Amamiya Nene’s deceased father, really is?”

Quinn's expression suddenly changed.

"So you knew all along." Xisa smiled meaningfully. "When he disappeared, he altered the world's perception and even erased all traces. This is incredible, a god-level ability. But fortunately, I am a secret envoy, with a relatively strong ability to preserve my perception, so I can retain some memories."

Quinn slowly retracted the snake scales and sat back down at the table.

“I’ve met him a few times,” Sissa said as she poured herself some water. “However, I’ve almost completely forgotten his appearance, name, age, where I met him, why I met him, and what happened.”

"But unlike others, I am clearly aware that I have 'forgotten' something, like a memory has been erased from my mind and covered by a layer of fog. Can you understand this feeling?"

“Go on,” Quinn said, without answering that he knew all too well.

The memory has been erased. Isn't that just an illusion caused by a loss of control?
“The reason I was so impressed with him is that…” Xisa took out a book, this time not a pamphlet of pornographic photos, but the “Golden Commandments” of the Church of the Holy Tree. He placed his left hand on the book cover and drew a line on his chest with his right hand, a gesture of faith taken by believers of the Holy Tree.

“I know most secret agents are crazy, so you may not believe me. But what I’m about to say is the truth.”

"explain."

“I think that what was erased along with my husband, the Duke, was not just his life story, but also the mess left when an event was erased or hidden. Because Amamiya Nene—he couldn’t bear to erase his own daughter as well, so this ‘disappearance’ still left traces. Amamiya Nene remembers him, and I also vaguely remember that there was such a person.”

Xisa took a sip of water.

He doesn't drink water from a cup, but directly from the kettle, which is extremely abstract.

"However, I believe there is something that has been completely lost to time—that is what he truly erased. Come with me."

Sissa stood up, and Quinn stared at his black divine robes for a moment before taking out a katana from his ring and holding it at his side, and followed him.

Cesar led Quinn to the right-hand corridor of the church, where many oil paintings also hung on the walls. However, unlike the religiously themed paintings behind the statue of God the Father, most of the paintings here were about Eswell, and the style was no longer so realistic, but rather symbolic and exaggerated. The subjects in the paintings included workers, farmers, mothers nursing babies, and craftspeople.
At the end of the corridor is a painting about the Battle of Eswell a thousand years ago.

The floating castle in the sky bears some resemblance to Grindelwald, and the mage flying through the air fighting against lightning is likely the hero Merlin. However, the focus of the painting is not on the sky, but on the people on the ground pushing handcarts to deliver supplies to the front lines.

Sissa pointed to the high point of the screen, to the terrifying phantom standing atop lightning, holding a long spear.

"The Demon King?" Quinn raised an eyebrow.

Sissa nodded, tapping her fingers together. "Do you recognize this gun?"

“Gungnir,” Quinn said, naming the gun.

Whether by coincidence or by the hero's choice of name, this demon king's artifact not only shares the same name as Odin's weapon, the king of the gods in Norse mythology, but also has the exact same power—once Gungnir is fired, it will always hit its target and cannot be defended against by any means; even forbidden arcane spells can only slightly slow down its flight.

This is a spear anchored to destiny, and its name is homophonous with the ancient Terran word for "twilight." The name "Gangnir" alone is considered extremely ominous in folk tradition.

Merlin and the Demon King are not the focus of the painting, so the spear is not painted realistically. However, the Demon King's spear, which has killed countless human warriors, is so famous that Quinn can certainly recognize it.

“Gungnir cannot be destroyed. It will disappear after the Demon King falls, and the next Demon King will still be holding this gun when he appears.” Sissa looked at Quinn: “Even so, there are people who have seen this gun and survived. The academy should have accurate pictures of it.”

Quinn, who had read through all the books related to the demons in Grindelwald's Whale Skeleton Library, replied, "Crimson, the texture of tree branches, the spearhead like thorns?"

Sissa smiled. “That’s right. Exactly the same as the Gungnir I saw.”

"You've met Gungnir?" Quinn laughed. "Then I've met the Demon King."

The Sixth War against Demons has been going on for over two hundred years. Quinn only knows one Hermes who survived that war to this day, and he's so old he's practically a demon.

You call Amamiya Nene "Nene-neechan" and then you make fun of my 15-year-old beautiful colleague, don't you?

"That was the first time I met Amamiya Nene's father. I was assigned to the Aknets Church in Ron at the time, and I don't remember where I met him or what he was doing. I have no recollection of any of that."

Sissa pressed her hand against the half-grown, half-decayed tree on the cover of "The Golden Commandments," lowered her eyes, and said in a devout voice, "But I remember. I remember it very clearly. Gungnir was suspended on the roof by him, with a swing attached below. On the swing sat thirteen-year-old Amamiya Nene, and a blonde maid with a demon halo was pushing her back and forth."

".?"

Before Quinn could question him, he continued, "However, I clearly recognized Gungnir at the time, but I didn't find it strange at all. Now, looking back, it's like having a bizarre dream."

"After he disappeared, when I recalled things about him, all I could remember was that inexplicable swing and a slightly envious feeling. I told many people, but they didn't believe me. I had to find out for myself."

He looked at Quinn and smiled, saying, "The more we investigate, the more problems we find."

"Aren't you curious about what kind of contributions Amamiya Yu made to Ron that made her rise from a mere count to a king who could sit on equal footing with the king, exempt from taxes, have an army, own the most prosperous city in Ron as her territory, and even have legislative power that no noble in the Southern Continent dared to dream of?"

"What contribution?" Quinn asked.

"The answer is that he made no contribution whatsoever. It's as if that brain-dead king, driven by lust, gave the most fertile part of the country to the goddess he couldn't have. Do you think that's possible?"

(End of this chapter)