After choosing to leave, they regretted it.

When I was just a few steps away from reaching the destination, the side door behind me suddenly opened.

Several figures dressed in church attire were let in after being searched by the guards.

Judging from his attire, he is not a proper clergyman, but a more devout believer.

Judging from the time, someone in the castle should have attended an event held in the church, and after it ended, they returned and had to start work again.

This was not surprising. After all, Rosaline had just helped the Marquis last night, and the people below said they wanted to go and support her, so the Marquis would not object.

if only--

"……Um?"

At the last moment before looking away, a familiar figure among the group of people attracted Aize's attention.

The young and quite lovely woman's hair was covered by the see-through clothing similar to that of a nun's uniform, and since it was far away, it was not very clear.

But it should be the maid who accidentally splashed water on Aize's head last night.

"Is this guy also a believer? No, come to think of it—tsk, I should have thought of it earlier!"

A large amount of fragmented information was connected together in an instant. Aize pulled himself up and rushed to the servants' dormitory not far ahead at the fastest speed.

After asking a guard for directions, he went straight to the head maid's bedroom.

Although this bedroom is simply decorated, it is fully functional, large in size and relatively clean. It is much better than the large bunk beds where the servants at the bottom of the society live.

Villian, who pretended to be the head maid under Aize, has recently settled here. The head maid of this castle generously gave her her bed and slept on the floor herself.

Since she was busy with work in the castle during the day and would not be back, Villian brought the out-of-control puppet here for research without worrying about being discovered.

Aize was so anxious that he didn't even bother to knock on the door. He just bumped into it and almost fell into the room.

"who is it--"

Villian, who was working by the bed, was frightened by the noise. She jumped up and subconsciously raised her hand to gather magic power.

Fortunately, I quickly saw his face and felt relieved.

"Aize? Don't scare me. I was just thinking about something. You almost gave me a heart attack... What happened? Why are you so anxious?"

The puppet maid was currently lying motionless on the bed, with magic circles all over her body and many parts of her body opened, revealing the earth and stone structure beneath the human appearance.

At this time, Aize also realized that he was too excited.

After taking a short breath, he pointed at the puppet on the bed:

"Well, do you know why it got out of control?"

"Unfortunately, I don't know."

The witch spread her hands out tiredly.

"I've spent ages examining every part of this thing's body, but I still can't find anything. There's no malfunction, and no signs of external interference. Seriously..."

"What kind of character did you create for this guy?"

"……ah?"

"When you were creating these puppet maids, didn't you create a character design for each one, and adapt the personality and behavior patterns to match that character design? So what is the character design of this maid?"

Creating character designs for puppets is purely Villian's personal interest and hobby. In essence, it is not much different from playing house with dolls, except that it is more advanced.

Aize had no interest in this before, and now that he suddenly asked about it, Villian was a little confused.

But after a moment's reflection, she quickly replied:

"Her name is Celia. She's from a rural village in the northwest of the kingdom. Her parents are farmers. She's kind and gentle, a bit of an older sister. Because her parents died young, she was raised by the village nuns, so she's a devout believer. Her hobbies are..."

It was overly detailed, to the point where it was unnecessary.

But Aize did find what he wanted to hear.

"That's right, Weir, it's faith. That guy's ability is based on faith!"

"...Faith? What are you talking about?"

The witch lady, who was still talking about her OC, hadn't come to her senses yet.

Aize started the introduction from the beginning.

So far, in all incidents related to Rosaline, the individuals who have exhibited inexplicable strange behaviors are all believers.

Moreover, the irrationality of their behavior is directly related to the sincerity of their faith.

For example, from Villian's perspective, the first "supernatural" event she experienced was the assassination carried out by the Crusade Knights in Tafia.

During that incident, several Crusader Knights entered a state of abnormal fanaticism, and even chose to commit suicide after being captured alive to prevent the leakage of information.

At that time, in order to defeat the witch army, in addition to the knights that originally belonged to the Goddess' Blade, the church also temporarily allocated other holy war knights as reinforcements.

Unlike the team organized by Aize himself, a considerable number of these temporarily transferred knights are fanatics. Subsequent investigations proved that those people were indeed from this group of troops. They said that they had firm beliefs and were completely trustworthy.

The same goes for members of the Pure White Saint Sect.

As mentioned earlier, those who can go on pilgrimage must be from a wealthy family and must have strong faith.

After the pilgrimage, those who are willing to give up their original lives and stay in the holy city to live a hard life are so devout that most church members cannot even dream of it.

That's why they became what they are now.

The opposite of this is the maid in the house.

Although she participated in church activities and was a believer, she was not a full clergyman after all. It would be a stretch to say that her faith was firm.

Therefore, Rosaline's influence on her was neither strong nor long-lasting, and it was likely to last only for the moment when she splashed water on Aize.

From the maid's subjective perspective, she was probably distracted for a moment, and the water poured on Aize's head. Naturally, she would think it was her own mistake, and she had no idea that her mind was interfered with at that moment.

Applying this logic, even the riots that occurred in the Holy City before can be explained.

Why was it that Leah was able to follow the schedule and precisely seize the coincidental moments of the guards' mistakes to sneak in unhindered?

Because it is not a coincidence at all. It only requires the guard to perform a so-called coincidental behavior at a specific time - such as yawning or turning around.

Anyway, the guards and knights of the Holy City must have some faith.

If one can use faith to influence the maid for a moment, then it will naturally not be difficult to influence them.

This was also the source of Aize's previous inspiration.

Why can you memorize the board in the game? Because everything in the game is coded and designed.

Why can it be carried on the back in reality? That is because anything that can be carried on the back in reality must have been designed.

Of course, there is also the experience of the Mujahideen.

"Do you remember what the Mujahideen told us when we went to the camp to deliver food today?"

"They said that when they first left the Holy City, every village or town they passed through was packed with people bringing them food, so they never had to worry about going hungry. But later on, the numbers became fewer and fewer, to the point where a whole group of people were almost starving to death. Why do you think that happened?"

"Because the faith of the Supreme God Realm grows stronger the closer one is to the Holy City. Farther away from the Holy City, the number of believers decreases, and the number of people she can influence through faith also decreases. Naturally, there won't be as many great enemies coming to deliver food."

"And your puppet maid too. Why didn't the other maids lose control, but this one, who was supposed to have faith, did? She must have been affected by her faith!"

All the fragmented information was strung together at this moment.

The more Aize spoke, the more excited and certain he became.

It's a bit funny to say that he is a materialist and has no good feelings towards faith. Therefore, he ignored its existence and never thought that it could play an objective role.

Otherwise, I would have thought of this a long time ago.

Aize's inference made Villian's eyes light up.

Without saying anything more, she immediately turned around and began to examine the puppet maid again.

This time, the goal was clear, and they went straight to the relevant spells that controlled the behavior patterns of the puppets.

Chapter 47 Belief Network

As Villian gathered her magic power again and manipulated a bunch of spells whose effects were completely incomprehensible, Aize's mood gradually became nervous.

The claim that Rosalyn's abilities are based on faith is, after all, just a hypothesis arrived at after brainstorming, and there is no actual evidence to support this idea.

But this is indeed the only answer that can be found at the moment.

If it was really rejected, then Aize wouldn't know how to investigate next.

Therefore, when facing the aggressive orc army, Aize, who had remained calm, now had his heart beating abnormally fast, and felt like it was about to explode.

The suffocating yet expectant silence lasted for several minutes.

With a snap of the witch's fingers, the magic circle covering the puppet's body quickly turned into light particles and dissipated in the already dim air.

"call--"

She let out a long breath and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead with a feeling of relief.

Aize couldn't wait to get closer:

"What are the test results?"

"The technique involved in simulating personality has deteriorated, affecting the central control unit and rendering the entire puppet inoperable... Well, while I can't be 100% certain, your guess is likely correct."

"Really? Ah! Great! I got it—tsk~"

Before Aize could cheer, the feeling of relief turned into fatigue and dizziness, causing his body to sway and he almost fell to the ground.

"Hey, hey, calm down!"

Villian quickly stepped forward to help him and put him on a chair nearby.

"Is it really that exaggerated? Even if we know it's related to faith, it doesn't mean the problem is solved, right?"

Villian was right.

Rosaline used faith as a medium to interfere with the behavior patterns of believers and thus accomplish those nearly impossible miracles - this inference can only be regarded as just touching the threshold of the entire incident.

There is still no progress on Rosaline's motives, behavioral logic, ultimate goal, etc.

And he had no idea how to counter her mental interference.

But for Aize, this was the first time in several years that he had found a way to target Rosaline.

This alone is enough to excite him.

"The problem hasn't been solved, but at least we see the possibility of a solution. We're no longer in the dark as before."

As he spoke, Aize put away his smile:

"So, what are your thoughts on interfering with the spirits of believers through faith?"

"Theoretically, it's possible. After all, there are techniques for interfering with emotions and thoughts. I don't think interfering with beliefs is any more difficult than interfering with those..."

Miss Witch said, leaning against the wall and smiling:

"In fact, succubi often do this—using their own spiritual techniques to pollute the minds of church members, such as priests, nuns, or holy war knights, and watch them abandon their faith."

"Uh……"

Aize imagined it for a moment.

Isn't this just brainwashing? Those exhibitionists are really showing off. How exactly do they do it? No, now isn't the time to waste brain capacity pondering pornographic nonsense.

After shaking his head to dispel the spam, he added:

"It's not just simple brainwashing. Rosaline's influence on the believers spans the entire continent, affecting every human nation from south to north. Furthermore, this influence cannot be detected by conventional means. Based on this, what are your thoughts?"

Neither Villian nor the professional anti-brainwashing investigators within the church could find any clues from the people being interfered with.

This is also the most troublesome thing for Aize.

And the unreasonably large range has reached the point where it violates the basic operating rules of this world's magic.

"Um……"

The witch closed her eyes and began to mutter to herself:

"If mental interference is to go undetected, it would have to be extremely precise, but that doesn't fit the concept of large-scale. Are they using some sort of cover-up? Using some sort of normal flow of magical energy to mask it? No, that doesn't seem likely... Using the Chernorum effect? No, that would cause the subject to become mentally depressed. I haven't discovered anything like that..."

The mumbling, which included various professional terms, lasted for a full quarter of an hour.

At first, Aize could barely follow along and think, but later on, he couldn't understand more and more, so he could only give up thinking and wait for her to come to a conclusion.

It's so helpless to be incompatible with magic.