Partner from the Church of Principles

The old woman's expression softened. She took a seat by the bedside of her own accord, reached out to hold the old man's hand, and the two gazed into each other's eyes. Karen felt there was no reason to linger any longer. Lowering his voice, he said, "Get plenty of rest, sir, and take care of yourself." They were barely acquainted anyway; observing the basic courtesies was enough. Karen opened the ward door and stepped outside. "Your soul is already fragile. If you keep smoking that kind of tobacco, it could dissipate at any second." "If I'm in a foul mood and my soul finds life meaningless, I reckon it's just as likely to collapse." "If you must smoke, there will be a daily limit from now on, and I'll light every single one for you myself." "Deal. By the way, that young man just now..." "Where did you dig him up?" "Subordinate of a fellow patient next door." "A man or a woman?" "A man." "You truly are something else. Stabbed half to death and laid up in a hospital bed, yet you still find time to make friends." "Can't help it. Some people are just born with that charm. Which only proves your eye for men wasn't half bad back in the day, wouldn't you say?" "You really are shameless. Next time I ought to just stick a blade between your legs. Not like I have any use for it anymore." "Doesn't matter whether you cut it off or not—it won't stop me from indulging in spiritual romance." "Then I'll just torch your soul directly. In this life, your body and your soul will belong only to me." "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Cutting off my downstairs is an internal domestic dispute between husband and wife, but snuffing out my soul? That would be deliberately inciting a conflict between our two churches!" "Don't flatter yourself. With your standing in the church, even if I actually murdered you, the Church of Principles wouldn't bother questioning me—they'd probably send me condolence money instead." "Darling, you're getting sidetracked. I was talking about that lad." "What about him?" "Don't you read your Church's Order Weekly?" "We subscribe to plenty of papers at home, but aren't you usually the only one reading them?" "His name is Karen. He was one of the trial participants who entered the Gate of Samsara recently—and as a captain, no less." "A promising young man. Are you planning to introduce him to Sinyali?" "Precisely." "Sinyali is too earnest, and that boy is far too handsome. I don't want her walking down the same path I did." "Darling, ours is the unusual case. Most people keep it purely as partners. Besides, the lad already has a fiancée. His captain said he's deeply devoted." "When your mentor introduced you to me back then, he claimed you were deeply devoted too. Didn't stop you from chasing other women, did it?" "Sigh, if you can't trust him, can't you at least trust Sinyali?" "Mm... suddenly that sounds quite reasonable." "Sinyali is about to finish her internship under me. In keeping with our Church of Principles tradition, an individual's development resources must match their partner's standing." "Right, and look how many benefits you've mooched off me over the years." "And you've possessed me for all these years. You haven't lost out." "Heh, that shameless cheek of yours—must be tough keeping it up from eighteen to sixty-eight. Where's Sinyali?" "Outside the door. I told her to wait out there. We'll see how things go. Oh, right, aren't you on duty today?" "I'm off today. I put in a request with higher-ups for flexible leave from now on—just to stop you from figuring out my schedule and fooling around while I'm at work." "Then we can coordinate our days off and travel together. How wonderful." "I also stewed some nourishing tonic for you. It had gone a bit cold when I brought it over, so I asked the nurses at the station to heat it up. It should be here shortly—drake lizard bladder soup." At those words, the old man's face paled. "Darling, I haven't recovered from my wounds yet!" "Your downstairs wasn't wounded." "But I can't get up!" "You lie down. I'll be on top." "I mean that can't get up!" A mischievous smirk appeared on the old woman's face. Reaching through the bedsheet, she gave it a flick. "Which is precisely why it needs saving." *** Stepping out of the ward, Karen wore a faint smile. That old man was quite a character. As he turned to head back to his captain's room to say goodbye, Karen spotted a girl standing outside the door. She had a bob haircut, a slightly chubby build, and black-rimmed glasses with lenses as thick as a finger. Petite and wearing a black dress, she had a face dotted with freckles and showed a pair of dental braces when she opened her mouth. "Are you his subordinate?" The girl pointed toward the captain's ward door. "Yes, I am. And you are?" "My name is Sinyali. What's yours?" "Karen. Karen Silva." "Do we need full names?" "Up to you." "All right, I'm Sinyali Lan Neuren." The girl held out a hand to Karen. He shook it politely, only for her to maintain her grip and pump his arm vigorously up and down several times. "Great. Starting now, you're my partner. I'll enter your identity details into my church memorandum. Hand over your church credentials in a moment so I can record them." "Partner?" "Mm-hmm, me." "Wait, you're a believer of the Church of Principles?" "Naturally." "Just like that, we're partners?" "Yeah." "Well, while I don't have a partner from the Church of Principles yet, I..." "Are you saying I'm ugly?" "No, of course not. You're actually quite cute." "Well, you are truly handsome, so you do have the right to call me ugly." "You misunderstand. What I mean is..." "Or do you doubt my professional competence?" "I think we ought to communicate more first, don't you?" "Do you want to marry your partner like my teacher did?" "No. I already have a fiancée." "Then what is there to communicate?" "Even for a professional working relationship, partners surely need to get acquainted and understand each other first, right?" "No need for such fuss. Whenever you need materials or matters investigated, send a letter to ask me, and I'll track down the information for you. Whenever I need research materials, have specific objectives, or run into other difficulties, I'll come to you. That's all it takes. "We could go ten years without seeing each other in person without affecting our work and coordination. For many partners, the only time they see each other in a decade is at the other's funeral." "Could you give me some time to think it over?" "Of course." "Good." Sinyali lifted a bag in her hand and said, "Inside this is the second-round detailed report on the Congers family's background, belief characteristics, tomb design style, and danger factors. Once you've thought it through, come find me, and I'll hand it over." "A second-round detailed report?" "Yes. My own investigation. You don't suspect my teacher ghostwrote it, do you? After all, look at the state he's in." Karen phrased his inquiry differently. "Aren't you worried that my abilities might fall short and drag you down? Even if a partnership can be dissolved at any time, doing so is bound to be a hassle. Besides, I've heard there's a saying that a partnership is best on the 'first marriage.'" Because someone who had broken off a partnership before often carried the implication of being difficult to work with. While the fault might well lie with the other party, genuinely outstanding individuals were never short of prospective partners and wouldn't bother taking the risk on trial and error. "Karen Silva, I traced you through your captain long ago. You're the most outstanding under him, so his recommendation was bound to be you. I'm very satisfied with your dossier—to the point where I'm out of your league, actually. So as things stand, I'm the one getting the better end of the deal." "Tsk..." Karen drew in a breath. "I have a good habit: I dislike changing partners, and I value those who can help me. So may I read the report first before deciding whether to form a partnership with you?" "You're even better than my teacher." "Huh?" "At sweet-talking women." "Heh." "Come on, let's head to the balcony over there." "All right." There was a bench on the balcony. Karen and Sinyali sat down, and she opened the dossier pouch. Rather than rushing to read through it, she sorted the stack of documents by category and placed them section by section into Karen's hands. "These you can take back to read and digest on your own time. These others, however, are points I need to formally caution and highlight for you." "All right, go ahead." "First off, the hallmark of the Congers family's belief system is... enchantment." "Enchantment?" "A very obscure ability. It allows them to nourish objects and imbue them with special traits. Naturally, there is an inevitable price to pay, which is why throughout a long stretch of history, members of the Congers family were treated as consumables by more powerful families and even the churches." Hearing this, Karen couldn't help recalling the history of his maternal grandmother's family, the Arte family. Throughout the river of history, members of the Arte family had been treated by dignitaries in church circles as 'consumables' to bear witness to love. In that sense, the Allen family was truly fortunate in some ways. The reason they had managed to survive after their decline was twofold: first, the old family head's painstaking 'facade,' and second, the fact that Ancestor Allen's family belief system of fire and water didn't hold any real appeal for high-level factions. Recruit them as muscle? How redundant and underwhelming. "However, starting five hundred years ago, the Congers family's belief system entered a decline. High-ranking believers in their system became rare, and they eroded step by step, ultimately forcing the entire family to shrink. "To give you an idea: at their peak, they were even commissioned by Orthodox Churches to enchant divine artifacts, granting those artifacts opportunities for new traits. "By the end, they degenerated to the point where they could only enchant rag dolls so they might suddenly twitch or sing a song. "I don't know if you've seen a movie called Dead Silence?" "No." Karen shook his head. While he had often advised Muri to go watch movies at the cinema, he hadn't actually gone himself yet. "It's a horror film adapted from a horror novel of the same name. It tells the story of a family and a collection of ventriloquist puppets. The protagonist was modeled after the last descendant of the Congers family from over a century ago." "Oh? I'll be sure to watch it when I get back." "The Congers family didn't just suffer a decline in their belief system—their bloodline degraded right along with it." "What do you think was the cause?" Karen asked. Even if the Allen family had completely fallen from grace, ordinary people bearing the Allen name were still quite numerous. "I suspect their family must have been struck by a curse—perhaps from enchanting some untouchable existence—and the entire bloodline paid a catastrophic price for it. "Therefore, the tomb you're heading to might very well be a cursed ground, as it inters the greatest number of Congers ancestors, and tombs are the ultimate dividing line between the family's high-caliber and low-caliber members. "You need to be mentally prepared for this. I haven't been able to unearth the source of the curse yet—that information is bound to be classified—but the cursed aura there will certainly be at its thickest, and any mutation or anomaly could occur." "Understood." "Second: the ancestral tomb of the Congers family was built with the assistance of someone from the Church of Craftsmen. I tracked down his name: Malif. "The Church of Craftsmen used to be a major church, but now it's a minor one—much like the Church of Pamires. Churches possessing unique, specialized abilities often face absorption and plundering by the Orthodox Churches, because the Orthodox Churches have an ingrained habit: by instinct, they want everything. "Malif was a celebrated priest in the history of the Church of Craftsmen who forged many wondrous implements. Believers of the Church of Craftsmen generally prefer smithing rather than architecture, so in his entire life, Malif only ever designed and constructed that single tomb for the Congers ancestors—I couldn't find records of any other architectural works by him. Judging by his forging style, he leaned heavily toward implements with devastating lethality, severe side effects, and strong negative attributes. "Barring any surprises, the danger factor inside the Congers ancestral tomb will be extraordinarily high. The materials I just gave you include an overview of Malif's forged works. Either memorize them or carry them inside with you; I'm certain you'll run into some 'familiar faces' in there. "Aside from Malif, the Congers family was also close to the Voss family for a period in history, because many of the Voss family's carving tools required enchantment. Legend has it that the Yilmaz carving knife of the Voss family had its final special trait added through enchantment by the Congers family. "Because of that, it wouldn't be surprising in the least if Voss family puppets turn up inside the tomb. I compiled several cost-effective combat puppet models from the Voss family of that era, which are also in the documents in your hands. In short, study the materials carefully." "All right, I will." "Finally, after reviewing extensive related materials, a hypothesis formed in my mind. As your collaborating partner, I believe it's my duty to warn you." "Those points just now and what's in my hands didn't count as warnings?" "Those are backed by verifiable records and have direct clues pointing to them. What I'm about to share is my own speculation." "I'm listening." "The tomb's grade is too high, its geographic location is too close, the family is too prominent, and more importantly: the initial version of the tomb dossier handed to me showed obvious signs of being deliberately incomplete. "Like artificially aging a fake to look like an antique—it was far too contrived. "The initial records were fragmented, yet perfectly preserved just enough valuable information to ignite excitement. Therefore, I suspect this is bait." "Bait?" "Would your captain harm you?" Sinyali asked. "No." "I didn't think so either. Your captain's information channel is likely legitimate too. People who can get along well with my teacher are usually shrewd." "Yeah, true." "So the person selling the intel was probably the first fish to take the bait." "You mean someone likely dangled bait so we would clear the path for them?" "Yes. You need to be prepared against being backstabbed and robbed. So I suggest you lay some groundwork first: have the Whip of Order squad in Sangpu City request backup under some minor pretext. It doesn't need to be routed through official channels; an informal report will do, just to preserve the procedure and paper trail. "Once you set out with your squad, your captain can decide whether to escalate an emergency report to higher-ups based on how things unfold. Many members of your squad come from prominent families, so they should be able to summon reinforcements at a moment's notice." "Understood. So you think whoever set the bait isn't higher-ups in the Church of Order?" "Impossible. If it were higher-ups, they would just assign you a mission directly. There would be no need for such convoluted trouble." "Very true." Karen nodded. Reaching out, he rested a hand on Sinyali's shoulder and gave it a friendly shake, much like treating a younger sister, and smiled. "Thank you, partner." A smile touched the corners of Sinyali's lips. She reminded him, "Remember to read through the materials thoroughly." "I will." With that, Karen handed his credentials over to Sinyali. Sinyali took out a pen and paper, opened the credential booklet, and prepared to record the details. "God's Servant?" "I wanted to update it last time, but the staff in that department were dragged off for team building, so I couldn't get it changed." "That's fine. I'm a God's Servant too. But yours is fake, while mine is genuine." "Not considering raising your realm? Or do you need my help on that front?" "No need. In the Church of Principles, God's Servant is more than enough. The only practical benefit of advancing your realm is being able to fly instead of using a ladder when looking up records, and that's pointless." "You're quite right. The God's Servants of the Church of Principles are not to be underestimated." "There's one more thing I need to point out." "What is it? Go on." "Your identity record... is completely spotless." "Naturally. I am a devoted believer of the God of Order." "Yet I feel there's water in it—like pork pumped full of water. It looks identical on the surface, but problems appear once you actually cook and eat it. Right now, you're an outstanding talent among the youth in the Church of Order. Higher-ups are interested in you, but they still only view you as a youngster. Once they stop treating you as merely a youngster, there will inevitably be a much deeper background check. That is completely different from higher-ups or other families simply lifting a finger to pull a file. "So I suggest finding an opportunity to get a 'physical checkup' at certain special departments. If you have the connections, you could arrange to take your entire squad for a checkup. "That way, any future investigations or evaluations of you will treat this checkup as their baseline. As long as it proves you are a genuine, pure believer of Order, it won't matter even if your previous identity background had inflated parts—just like how many scions from prominent families forge identities to experience ordinary life or toughen themselves at the grassroots. "Generally speaking, special departments dealing with core arrays, monster beast research institutes, and knight order garrisons can all perform this sort of 'physical checkup.' "Oh, assuming you really have no issues—or rather, that any issues you have aren't carried on your person." "You've even investigated my squad members?" "Yes." "Understood. Thank you. Though I'm curious: if I hadn't chosen to be your partner in the end, would you have withheld this warning?" Sinyali pushed up her thick glasses frames and said, "Heh-heh. I'd have reported you too."