“I understand. What about you, Mr. Peruda?”
“I’ll look around the vicinity and seal off other entrances that leads to Lower Solia.”
The five people who were standing to Peruda’s right side nodded and headed off to Solia Castle.
‘… These are surprisingly appropriate responses.’
Riley, who was watching the situation from the roof, was impressed by Peruda’s quick responses to the situation. With an impressed look on his face, Riley moved his gaze toward the corpses that were restrained in vines.
‘Plant magic, huh…’
Peruda looked very different from the na?ve man that Riley met before. Peruda looked very dependable. Riley, who mumbled ‘not bad,’ found a familiar face among the people.
‘Ah, he happens to be here.’
It seemed he was here by himself, away from the others. Nara was observing the situation from the Main Plaza alone. Having found Nara, Riley nodded as if he thought it was good that he found Nara at this moment. Riley started to move his legs.
“Ian, it’s about time we moved down. Nara happens to be nearby as well, so let’s join him and listen to his story. Also, it happens my stomach’s skin is about to stick to my back from lack of food, so let’s do that while we eat something.”
“…”
“Ian?”
As if he became a stone statue, Ian stood there on the roof vacantly and stared at the corpses that were restrained by vines. Ian vacantly had his mouth open and was not able to say anything back in response to Riley.
“Ian!”
“… Yes? Ah, yes!”
“What were you thinking so hard about? With a blank look on your face?”
Riley went down from the roof first. Having watched it, Ian shook his head hard to get rid of useless thoughts. Ian followed suit and said,
“No. It’s nothing. My apologies. It is just…” 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
Ian slowly turned his head and looked at the entrance to Lower Solia again. Ian added,
“I just… I just thought it was a little disgusting… I just thought that, so…”
* * *
It was at the Solia Temple.
Rebethra managed to come back only after it became late evening. Having felt his presence, Priesia, who was praying in front of the Goddess statue, opened one of her closed eyes slowly and said,
“… You are late.”
Having heard the priestess talking to him, Rebethra, who was walking carefully to avoid having his steps heard, responded apologetically.
“Oh my… I hope I didn’t interfere with your praying?”
Priesia closed the eye again and restarted her prayer. She skipped responding to his question and tossed him another question.
“It seems you are going out often?”
“Haha. It seems so.”
Rebethra smiled awkwardly and responded as if he was ashamed. He didn’t say why he was going out so often. He just started to walk toward his room.
“…”
With Rebethra gone, Priesia was now alone in the area with the Goddess statue. She started to move her lips as she prayed.
‘Goddess Irenetsa, what should I do?’
Priesia felt she was daring to ask too much, but she thought that the divine message that she received from the Goddess was lacking in detail.
There was a message that said she should be weary of Rebethra, the Archbishop of the Holy Temple. There was a message that said there will be a dragon that will come to Solia soon, and the entire Solia could be placed in danger. There were only two messages.
‘Let alone stopping him from doing suspicious behaviors, I don’t even have any means of finding out what he is up to. I… What could I do?’
Rebethra was a problem, but the divine message about the dragon that was about to wreak havoc in Solia was also a problem.
‘Just what could I do…’
It had been a while since the divine message about the dragon. That meant it would not be odd if a dragon appeared right now and was flying in the Solia’s sky right now as the message foretold.
‘Only if that Young Master was more cooperative…’
Priesia thought about the ‘person who will stop the dragon,’ the one mentioned in the divine message. She cringed, but shook her head to turn her face back to normal and then opened her eyes.
“…?”
She was going to stare at the Goddess statue after the prayer and ask for advice again. However, she blinked her eyes with a question mark floated up on her face.
<… My child.>
‘Ah.’
There was a blindingly beautiful woman who only Priesia could see, the one who was invisible to others in the temple such as priests or holy knights, was looking down at her while floating in front of the Goddess statue.
“…”
Priesia knew that the woman, who had similar appearance as herself, was the Goddess Irenetsa. Priesia lowered her head in silence.
<If you are lost, I think it would be good for you to look for a butterfly. That butterfly will be able to help you.>
Having heard the voice, Priesia lowered her head further. The Goddess smiled lightly with ‘huhu’ sound and added,