The Holy Man of Another Century Gospel

Chapter 3 Anchor Point
Ms. Winnie, who is in her fifties, is the head maid of the City Lord's Mansion. Although she is just an ordinary human, she is quite capable and does things efficiently and effectively. She also commands her maids of mixed races in an orderly manner.

Therefore, cleaning up the two guest rooms was no big deal for her and was completed quickly.

After settling the two envoys from the Holy City, Ms. Winnie went to the room on the other side of the City Lord's Mansion to report the situation to the young master who had washed off the bloodstains.

Just as she finished her report and was about to leave, she heard a murmur behind her.

"…What time is it now?"

"It's almost ten o'clock, Master Eric." Ms. Winnie turned quickly and glanced at the wall clock. "Do you need to arrange lunch in advance?"

"Hmm? ...No need."

Eric came back to his senses in the chair and checked the time. "There's nothing else to do. You first... well, if the head nun wakes up, notify me immediately."

"Yes, Master."

Ms. Winnie closed the door and left. Eric stood up and walked around the room, finally stopping at the window and rolling his eyes at the blue sky outside.

"Oh my god... What time is it now?"

What Eric wanted to know was not the specific time, but his position on the scale of time that had been marked by his past life memories.

He knew that a series of events that would change the situation on the entire continent would occur, and he roughly understood the cause and effect sequence, but the problem was that he didn't remember the specific time when those events would occur.

——Who playing online games would specifically remember the specific time of those background events before the main storyline?

But he was living in this context now, and he desperately wanted to find an anchor to determine his position, so as to confirm how much time he had left to deal with it.

The more he thought about it, the more confused he became. Eric simply found a pen and paper and listed the important events he knew in order.

“It’s more intuitive this way.”

Looking at the clear timeline on the paper, Eric picked up the quill again and put a question mark between [Irene becomes the heir to the Saint] and [Irene becomes the Saint].

The most crucial and ambiguous thing is how long the gap was between these two events.

That is to say, the question is how long this saintly old lady, who is now over eighty years old, can live.

But there is no reference basis for the answer to the question.

As the background of the main storyline, these contents are inherently vague in the game - vague contents make it easier for the game officials to rehash old content when they can't come up with new content in the future.

"Three years? Five years? ...How can I guess that accurately?"

Looking at the timeline, Eric scratched his head in thought, but he couldn't ignore it. After all, the answer to this question plus one year would be the time when the demons would move south again.

The theme of the online game "Crown of Thorns" is the confrontation between humans and demons.

"Demons" is actually a general term used by humans to refer to some humanoid races living in the extreme north of the continent. They have a dark skin color and are very similar to dark elves. The biggest difference is that they have horns on their heads.

——This is what the book says. Eric has seen and fought against them in the game, and knows that the actual difference between the demons and dark elves is much greater.

The demons gathered in tribes and were unified under the iron hoof of the Demon King Digot a thousand years ago. They then conquered most of the Gaia continent and enslaved various races including humans, dwarves and elves for nearly two hundred years, which was known in history as the "Dark Ages".

Until the Demon King died suddenly, the demons fell into civil strife and split again, and were driven back to the far north by the united humans and other races.

The founding war of the German Empire took place during that period.

"It's already this late, the new Demon King must have been in power for quite some time."

Eric recalled the main storyline. Judging from the scale of the demon invasion, the demon tribes in the snowy land might have been unified again. They were expanding rapidly without humans noticing, waiting for the opportunity to move south.

"If it lasts long enough..."

Eric tapped the table, looking at the node of [The Demons Move South] on the timeline. In front of it was [The Fall of the Black Ice Wall].

The Black Ice Wall is the largest and oldest military defense structure that stretches between the Empire and the Northern Demon Realm. It is hundreds of miles long and directly connected to the bay on both sides, completely blocking the land route for the demons to move south.

Eric remembered that he had completed a mission assigned by an old soldier. The old man said that the main reason why the demon army moved south so smoothly was that the Black Ice Wall was destroyed from the inside and the empire had no time to mobilize troops to defend it.

If this is really the case, and if there is still enough time before the demon invasion, he can make preparations in many aspects, and the future situation may change accordingly.

on the contrary……

Eric sighed.

Eric kept staring at the timeline on the paper, and when he looked up again, he found that it was already noon.

Unable to find an anchor point, and with no further guesswork, Eric walked out of the room and saw the maid on standby in the corridor. He casually asked, "Is the head nun awake?"

"Huh? I don't know...I'll go ask now!"

"No need." Eric stopped the maid who was about to leave and decided to go and take a look himself.

"Master, lunch..."

"We'll talk about it later."

The head nun is probably still pretending to be unconscious.

Eric walked towards the guest rooms of the City Lord's Mansion, having already made a judgment in his heart.

He had greeted Ms. Winnie, and if the head nun "woke up", she would definitely notify him.

Still refusing to communicate...

Eric was somewhat helpless, but he also understood: the man came for Irene with the order of the Saint, but when he met him, he suddenly gave him a call, so it was considered polite that he didn't give him a Holy Light Punishment on the spot.

The safest option is to lie down and pretend to be dead, waiting for the reaction from the Holy City.

But Eric still held out a glimmer of hope: the fact that she didn't expose him directly on the platform in the square meant that she didn't want to push things to a point where there was no room for maneuver.

He was unwilling to take on inexplicable responsibilities, but he also didn't want to completely offend the City Lord's Mansion. Eric, who was a worker in his previous life, could understand this mentality too well.

He had no other requests, as long as he could connect with the Saint through her—he was going there now to convey this to her. Eric was thinking as he walked, and as he passed the corridor window, he suddenly noticed a carriage outside the manor about to enter.

That was the carriage of Lord Edgar.

Eric thought about it and decided to go see his uncle first. He must have been quite frightened by his uncle's performance in the square, and he needed to be comforted.

When he went downstairs to the door, a carriage came quickly and stopped in front of him. However, more than one earl got out of the carriage.

"Eric?"

Seeing his nephew waiting here, Edgar had a complicated and surprised expression. He then introduced him to the other person in the carriage: "This is Father Roy from the Lamaire Monastery."

As soon as Eric saw the priest's robe on the man, he thought to himself that something was wrong.

Could it be that the monastery received some news and planned to take the two nuns away?

But when Father Roy opened his mouth, he first asked about the miracle he had caused in the square.

"...Although many people saw it, unfortunately, I wasn't there at the time. If Mr. Eric has time later, I'd like to invite you to the monastery to preach to the monks... It would be even better if you could explain in more detail how the Supreme Yela revealed the oracle to you."

Invite him to preach?
What are you talking about? The priest's PVP skills?
Eric opened his mouth and looked at his uncle, "If there's a chance..."

Even though he had witnessed the so-called miracle with his own eyes, the Earl seemed to think that it was unreliable to let his nephew preach the sermon. He changed the subject and said, "Father Roy is here to see the envoy from the Holy City."

"Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Some undead appeared in Valais."

Father Roy took over and explained, "The local monks couldn't handle the situation, so they sent us for help. However, the combat monks in charge of such matters happened to be away recently... I heard that the Saint's messenger, Sister Alena, was once a combat sister, so I wanted to ask her to come over and take a look."

Eric suddenly froze.

Noticing the change in his nephew's expression, Edgar explained, "The so-called Battle Sister is..."

"I understand that."

Eric nodded, suppressing his excitement, and asked, "I want to know, are you sure that the undead appeared in Valais?"

"That's right." Father Roy nodded.

"Did it appear in the abandoned mine north of Valais?" Eric asked. "It was discovered because the heavy rain a few days ago washed away the fence."

Now Edgar and Father Roy were also stunned.

The two men looked at each other, and the former asked, "How did Eric know?"

Eric didn't answer, but smacked his palm hard.

——The anchor point he had been looking for for a long time finally appeared.

The small town of Valais in Dent County, the tide of the undead in the abandoned mine, isn't this the plot of the last closed beta test when he got into "Crown of Thorns"?
The closed beta test lasts for one week, and only the map of Valle Town in Dent County is open. The main task is to eliminate the large number of undead emerging from the abandoned mine in the town, and finally defeat the culprit deep in the underground mine.

After the game was officially launched, Eric went to take a look. According to local villagers, the undead appeared in the mine seven years ago, and according to the progress of the game plot at that time, the imperial capital had fallen for more than three years.

In other words, there are less than four years left before the demon invasion.

"...Is this also what Goddess Yela told Mr. Eric?"

Eric came to his senses and saw Father Roy looking back and forth between him and his uncle Edgar, his face full of disbelief.

"That's right... The goddess noticed this when she descended and told me."

Eric suppressed his complicated emotions and decided to fool the priest in front of him first.

"It just so happens that I'm about to go find the Holy City Messenger. I'll tell them, leave this matter to me."

Father Roy certainly had no objection, although he now wanted to pull him aside to have a good chat about the oracle.

Edgar also wanted to talk to his nephew, but he knew better than to prioritize things, so he invited the priest to the living room for a cup of tea while he waited for the Holy Lady's reply.

Eric walked alone towards the guest room.

"In less than four years..."

The time was so short that it caught him off guard.

Although he couldn't find any basis before, he still had a very unreliable standard of judgment in his heart:
Even if Irene is gifted, it would take at least five or six years for her to go from a magic beginner to a notorious witch, right?
As a result, in just a few years, Irene grew into a witch who destroyed a quarter of the imperial capital with a single spell?
Too fierce, sister...

Eric didn't know whether he should be proud of his sister or mourn for the empire's dying days.

But he knew that he had to stop this from happening.

Now he is no longer a passing player, but one of the thousands of humans born and raised in this world.

He is Eric, a descendant of the founding knight Kimino, the future heir of this city and this territory. Even after awakening his past life memories, he still remembers the responsibilities he was taught since childhood:
Protect the people of this land.

Eric lowered his eyes and looked at the hand that usually held the sword, and then slowly clenched it into a fist.

"Determination alone is not enough."

Ideals are lofty, but without a realistic basis, everything will be empty talk.

An heir to a remote land in the distant future cannot help him achieve anything in the short term, so he must now obtain the identity of the Saint's heir.

The saint is very special in the Vatican and has a high status, but she lacks the corresponding power and can be said to be in name only.

——And he just happens to have the ability to transform "name" into "reality".

Eric stopped and saw the guest rooms where the two Holy City envoys lived in the front of the corridor.

At the door of one of the guest rooms, the little sister Sophie also stopped and looked at him with a look of bad luck on her face.

In her hand, she held a letter.

(End of this chapter)