"It seems our Mr. Karen truly knows nothing about this matter."
"Indeed. My rank is still too low; I have no access to the church's upper echelons."
Ophelia glanced with faint curiosity at Karen standing behind her, catching his reflection in the elevator doors.
She found him intriguing. Quite apart from everything else, his candid admission of low status—delivered without the slightest trace of emotion—felt strangely comfortable.
It was not resignation or self-deprecation, but something entirely natural, carrying the sense that he stood apart from the shackles of status altogether.
Earlier at the banquet, the grandson of the Chief Bishop had invited her to dance, prattling on the whole time about his grandfather's grand arrangements—a completely different style.
The latter felt conventional yet slightly greasy, reminiscent of Wien cuisine as she knew it.
The former, Karen, consistently offered a refreshing impression; conversing with him was remarkably pleasant.
Ophelia had already moved beyond traditional class circles. For one, she had never known the pressures of mere survival; for another, due to Dark Moon Island's special standing, though she was aware of marriage alliances and her family and island did have outside alliance needs, the matter was neither dire nor urgent.
When people were free from immediate, pressing burdens, their sensibilities tended to sharpen.
Thus, rather than Karen giving her a refreshing impression, it was more that she sensed in him a temperament akin to her own.
Yet Ophelia could not linger on such thoughts, for she could hardly believe a mere member of the Whip of Order could possess a state of mind suited to her own station.
And even less could she imagine that the man who had blown up the Temple of Order was the grandfather of the young man behind her.
The elevator doors opened. After escorting Ophelia into her suite, Karen returned to the guest room across the hall. He picked up the telephone and dialed the funeral parlor. Sure enough, the loyal contractor Alfred remained faithfully at his post on the construction site.
Karen briefed Alfred on the recent developments and the arrangements for the Allen family—most importantly, the task of building and artificially aging a tomb for Purr. After exchanging and finalizing a few suitably sorrowful poetic lines for the headstone, he hung up.
He was not worried about his call being wiretapped; strictly speaking, he was the one doing the monitoring now.
Pouring himself a glass of ice water, Karen sat down on the sofa.
He truly hadn't expected that his grandfather blowing up the Temple of Order would have such far-reaching consequences, stirring up waves that rippled even to this day.
Rumors could sometimes bring down a towering colossus.
The rumor circulating outside that the God of Order had abandoned the Church of Order had indeed triggered a chain reaction. It was equivalent to stripping a divine church of its ultimate trump card.
Powerful though the Church of Order was, it could not stand alone against the entire ecclesiastical sphere.
Especially after the Church of Light fell in this era, the Church of Order, which had held sway ever since with overbearing dominance, had long taken the former's place.
So if Light could fall, why couldn't Order perish as well?
Karen took a sip of ice water, spun the glass between his fingers, and an unbidden smile crept across the corners of his lips.
The fallout from Grandfather's explosion had reached the point of eroding the Church of Order's "soft power." Compounded by the prevailing tide of "the gods awakening soon," the damage and devastation to the Church of Order's cultural soft power was all the more acute.
"Invincible" meant no one dared step into the ring with you.
"Extremely powerful" meant people began weighing their odds against you. Even with only a twenty or thirty percent chance of victory, they finally had the nerve to challenge you.
Those were entirely different concepts.
So, were the Church of Order's recent moves made in response to a crisis, or were they taking the initiative, seeking an opportunity to flex their muscle and restore their influence?
The door opened, and Peige walked in. Karen hadn't turned on the lights, so the room was dim, but Peige still saw him sitting on the sofa with a deep, contemplative gaze.
"Mind if I turn on the light?" Peige asked.
"Not at all. Go ahead."
Click.
Peige flicked on the light, walked over to sit on the sofa opposite Karen, lit a cigarette, and said, "When I walked in just now and saw you sitting there lost in thought, you looked quite charming."
"Heh, really?" Karen smiled. "Would you like something to drink?"
"No thanks, I'm stuffed." Peige waved her hand. "What did you think of the spread tonight?"
"Terrific."
It had brought back the feeling of attending village feast banquets in Karen's childhood.
"Opportunities like this don't come often. Back in Sangpu City, we didn't get many chances like that, and the quality was nowhere near York City's. But we'll probably have plenty of security details coming up."
Peige winked at him.
"That's great to hear."
"Oh, right. The maid serving the young lady across the hall seemed to look at you with displeasure."
"Oh, really?" Karen shrugged. "I didn't notice."
"Yeah, no need to pay mind to people like that. The closer servants are to important figures, the easier it is for them to delude themselves into thinking they're important too."
"Acting like a snobbish dog looking down on people?"
"I love that comparison. I'm keeping that one. Hahaha!"
Peige laughed, then pointed toward the bed. "Go to sleep. I'll take the first watch, Fanny takes the second."
"No shift for me?" Karen asked.
Either way, having two women stand watch while he slept felt inappropriate.
"Unless you think the young lady across the hall will summon you in the dead of night for some romantic drama..."
"I don't think so," Karen said immediately.
"Then get some sleep and recharge so you can handle her daytime summons. Come on, don't be polite. Be decisive, don't be coy—show the same resolve you had this afternoon when you called us old."
"You really are very charming, honestly."
"Trying to make amends now? Ha, too late."
Karen took off his coat, lay down on the bed, and went to sleep.
Though his close-protection detail had spent the day bantering and the squad as a whole seemed somewhat unreliable, in truth their professional capabilities were top-notch.
Perhaps it was precisely because of their competence that they could afford to remain playful beneath the seriousness.
Time to sleep and rest.
Karen drifted off quickly. In a haze, he faintly heard the door open as Fanny returned, but he didn't wake. Soon after, he felt Fanny lie down directly beside him to sleep.
After that, there was only the crisp ticking of the wall clock.
Karen thought his light slumber would carry him through until morning, but to his surprise, as he slept, he began to feel hot.
Deep within, it felt as though a fire was being kindled.
It wasn't lust... but a certain attribute of energy, or perhaps a mental imprint or inertia.
Karen subconsciously searched for the source of this sensation and finally realized that the Dark Moon Blade within him was slowly circulating on its own.
Once he identified the root cause, Karen immediately halted the technique's circulation and sat up. He saw that the person sleeping beside him wasn't Fanny, but Peige—and she was lying very close.
That was close. If his Dark Moon Blade had completed its spontaneous activation just now, it might well have sliced into Peige right beside him.
Because she was sleeping beside her teammate with someone standing watch outside, and Karen harbored no killing intent whatsoever, even the most vigilant person would find it hard to guard against an unexpected strike under such conditions.
Meanwhile, in the room across the hall, Ophelia—holding a reddish longsword as she conducted her daily meditation—opened her eyes in slight confusion.
"What is it, Miss?" the female warrior guarding her meditation asked with concern.
"I seemed... to have sensed something."
"This is the Ankara Hotel, filled with guests from church circles. Perhaps someone else is using the night to cultivate just like you, Miss, causing a resonance in aura."
"Mm, that must be it."
Ophelia nodded. Her palm gently caressed the longsword, and a bloody glow instantly welled from the blade. The aura of the Dark Moon Blade grew remarkably dense as she closed her eyes once more to resume her interrupted meditation.
...
"Had a dream?"
It was Fanny speaking. She sat on the sofa, feet propped on the coffee table, clipping her toenails.
"Yeah," Karen nodded. "First day on a mission, feeling a bit restless."
"You don't need to explain yourself to me," Fanny chuckled. "It's not like I'd assume you couldn't sleep from agitation just because Peige is sleeping naked next to you."
Hearing this, Karen glanced deliberately at the bed and discovered that Peige was indeed completely unclothed. Strangely, he hadn't even noticed earlier; likely because she had already walked around unclothed around him during the day, so his subconscious took it as normal.
"Isn't she worried that if something suddenly happens in the night, she won't have time to dress?"
"So what if she isn't dressed?" Fanny dismissed casually. "Being looked at won't cost her a pound of flesh. As long as she stays alive, that's what counts."
"All right, fair enough."
"Was your life before this very peaceful?" Fanny asked.
"Yeah, it was."
"No wonder then. You'll get used to it in time."
"I will."
Karen felt that Neo's squad was like a band of mercenaries. What Peige and Fanny displayed wasn't promiscuity, but indifference.
Sleeping naked was nothing in their eyes; even if they lost an arm or a leg, they would still grit their teeth and keep fighting.
Those who constantly hovered on the brink of life and death tended to shed far more needless burdens and hang-ups than ordinary people.
Karen got out of bed, poured himself a glass of ice water, and refilled Fanny's coffee.
Then he sat down across from her.
Sleeping was out of the question now, but it was already four-thirty in the morning; dawn wasn't far off anyway.
Fanny continued clipping her toenails, blowing on them from time to time.
"How did you meet your girlfriend?"
"A blind date arranged by our parents."
"Ha, how cliché."
Karen nodded.
After a moment, Fanny said, "Why aren't you asking about my romantic history? After all, I just asked about yours. Proper etiquette says you ought to return the favor."
"Because I don't think it had a happy ending."
Fanny's hand holding the nail clippers froze.
She said, "I used to be like you—an auxiliary member at first. I met a guy in the squad. He wasn't handsome; in fact, he was kind of ugly. But he said he liked me. Well, since he liked me, I dated him. We were in the same squad anyway, and I was younger back then..."
"You're not old now either. Truly, very charming."
"Do you know what's most disgusting? Happily stabbing someone and then pretending to care by sprinkling sugar on the wound. What bloody good does that do?"
"Mm, fair enough."
"Anyway, I figured back then that since we were in the same squad, why let some outsider get the better of me? So I closed my eyes and got together with him. When we were in bed, I closed my eyes too."
Karen listened in silence.
After a while, Fanny asked again, "Why don't you ask which one he was? Didn't you meet all of them during the day? Did you remember everyone's name?"
"I remembered."
"Aren't you curious who it was?" Fanny asked.
Karen replied, "You're no longer an auxiliary member."
"Damn it!"
Fanny threw the nail clippers straight onto the carpet, staring at Karen in utter defeat.
"Talking to you is so boring. Zero suspense—well, zero suspense for me."
"I'm sorry..."
"Yeah, you guessed right. He died. He died protecting me on a mission, and I got promoted from auxiliary to full member to fill the vacancy."
Karen nodded.
"Do you know what his last two sentences were to me as he lay critically wounded in my arms before dying?"
Last... two sentences?
Karen looked at Fanny, a conflicted expression on his face.
"Give it a guess?" Fanny urged.
"'Next time I sleep with you, could you please not close your eyes?'"
"Fuck!" Fanny cursed.
Evidently, Karen had guessed one correctly.
"What about the second one? Hurry up and guess!"
"I can't guess that," Karen said.
"Guess!"
Karen shifted his gaze toward the floor-to-ceiling window. "'I don't want to always be pushing from behind.'"
"Fuck!!!"
Fanny completely lost it.
"Did you fuck or not?!" Peige was jolted awake. Lying on the bed on her side with her head propped on one hand, she looked over. "Should I give up the bed for you two?"
"If I didn't know he'd been certified as a God's Servant, I'd seriously suspect this bastard is a beguiling aberrant demon lurking in the Church of Order's ranks!"
Karen licked his lips, feeling helpless. He hadn't wanted to pursue this topic in the first place.
"Hehe," Peige chuckled. "A very amusing rookie, honestly."
"Why don't you share your love life with him?" Fanny suggested. "Trust me, you're in for a surprise."
"Ha, I'm not stupid. I've been awake for a while, watching you drag him into a chat only to have your panties stripped off in a few words—no, pulled right over your head. Hilarious."
"Do you know how the captain described him at first? The captain said Mr. Pavaro recommended him, so he'd definitely bring a different kind of shine to our squad. Now I see he's actually darker than any of us."
"Hehe." Peige got out of bed, draped a piece of clothing over herself, walked over, lit a cigarette, and looked at Karen. "Isn't that great? Did you really expect a little white rabbit to join our pack of hunting dogs? Having someone die just to protect him—now that would be agonizing."
Karen asked, "Today's schedule..."
Fanny spoke up, "Today's itinerary has been approved. We depart for Allen Manor at ten in the morning. The higher-ups asked if we needed additional security assets, but I declined in the captain's name. Well, the captain himself would have refused anyway."
"Of course we had to decline. Mission rewards are tallied at the end; if another squad sticks their nose in—even just showing their faces—there'll be endless bickering over shares," Peige said.
"Also, one more thing: our mission itinerary will be extended," Fanny said. "According to the superiors, if the talks go smoothly, the church will establish a missionary outpost on Dark Moon Island, and the Dark Moon clan will allow a small number of islanders and clan members to take faith in our church. Our squad will be responsible for escorting Miss Ophelia's delegation back, as well as the missionaries and staff assigned to Dark Moon Island."
Karen asked, "Doesn't that mean we'll get more rewards for this mission?"
"It's basically getting rewards for two missions in one go," Peige said.
Fanny smiled. "Best of all, according to custom, when we depart Dark Moon Island, the Dark Moon family will definitely give us an extra tip for our trouble, and that tip won't be small. It's practically doing three missions at once."
Peige sighed wistfully. "Oh, I love York City. Now this is what I call a mission—no, this is what I call a real vacation!"
...
In the morning, the doorbell chimed.
"Go on," Fanny said.
"Go on," Peige echoed.
Karen stood up and opened the door. The maid was standing outside, saying to Karen, "Miss Ophelia wishes to invite Mr. Karen to join her for breakfast."
"Very well."
Karen walked over to the suite across the hall. A dining cart had already been wheeled inside, laden with an extraordinary spread of food. Some items were dishes he had tasted at last night's banquet, while others were new to him—all clearly high-end ingredients purchasable only with point coupons.
The food budget was outrageously lavish; even breakfast was this extravagant. What they served across the hall in his room couldn't compare in the slightest.
Karen took a plate, piled it high with food from the cart, sat down, and began to eat.
After finishing one plate, he stood up, returned to the cart, heaped another plate, and sat down to continue feasting.
He reckoned this single breakfast had consumed more than three months of Mr. Pavaro's salary.
From beginning to end, Ophelia merely sampled a few bites, spending most of her time sipping milk while smiling as she watched Karen eat.
Karen thought to himself: What a spendthrift. Can't milk be bought in any regular shop?
Finally, Karen ate his fill.
"Wien's food isn't as terrifying as I'd imagined before coming here," Ophelia said with a smile.
"Because what you are eating, Miss, is not food ordinary people in Wien can eat."
"Oh? Are you saying it's a pity I haven't tasted it?"
"No, it is a blessing."
"Hehe, you always manage to amuse me, Mr. Karen."
At that moment, the maid Xinla spoke up to remind her, "Miss, it is time to prepare for today's itinerary." Then she glanced toward Karen, indicating he should excuse himself.
"Mm," Ophelia nodded.
"Miss, I will wait outside for you." Karen stood up and naturally walked over to the food cart. "Allow me to wheel the cart out for you, Miss."
"All right, thank... you."
"There is no need to trouble Mr. Karen with this," Xinla stepped forward and said.
"It's no trouble at all. I am happy to be of service to Miss Ophelia. Don't mention it." Karen smiled and insisted on pushing the cart out of the room. After shutting the door, he wheeled it straight into the suite across the hall. Peige and Fanny immediately rose and walked over.
"Come on, come on, eat the good stuff!"
"Haha, awesome! This is way above the standard VIP breakfast at the Ankara Hotel. They must have ordered extra on their own dime. As expected of Dark Moon Island tycoons—even breakfast is ordered so lavishly."
"There's so much here! Let's dig in first, and we can bag up the leftovers to take to the captain and the guys later. The captain loves roasted lizard dragon meat the most."
Karen smiled. "You two eat first. I'll find some bags for the leftovers."
Across the hall, in her suite,
Ophelia stared at the empty spot where the food cart had just been, both hands clutching her stomach.
She was a martial practitioner. One defining trait of martial practitioners was their enormous appetite; each meal required vast amounts of food. At last night's banquet, she had barely eaten anything, occupied entirely with socializing.
And just now, in front of Karen, she had been too embarrassed to truly dig in and reveal her massive appetite, merely sipping a little milk to pad her hunger, intending to feast to her heart's content after Karen left. And yet...
"He... actually wheeled the cart away."
Miss Ophelia bit her lip with pearly teeth, murmuring with a touch of aggrieved helplessness:
"I'm so hungry..."
Chapter 174