CHAPTER 95: CHAPTER 93: THE DRAINED SAINTESS

The Saintess opened her eyes, filled with confusion, her face full of the triple-whammy: Who am I, where am I, and what have I just done.

In the instant the Saintess awakened, Wu Chang’s true self reacted and turned to look at her.

It wasn’t that he had been staring at the Saintess, waiting for her to awaken; rather, the moment she woke up, a notification popped up in front of him indicating the completion of a hidden quest line.

"Player has completed the hidden quest line: Find the missing Saintess or retrieve the Holy Mark."

"Player has received hidden quest line reward: Holy Light Reforged Talisman."

With the completion of the hidden quest line, the letter handwritten by the Archbishop in Wu Chang’s personal space transformed into a slender silver necklace, with a silver protective talisman symbolizing the sun hanging from it.

"Item Name: Holy Light Reforged Talisman."

"Artifact Level: C"

"Item Skills: Holy Light Talisman"

"Skill Description: Equipping the Holy Light Reforged Talisman increases the will attribute limit by 5 points and grants a layer of Holy Light Shield. The Holy Light Shield can block a single negative status effect."

"Item Skills: Holy Light Reforge."

"Skill Description: Use this item to merge a special Holy Light attribute item into a designated artifact, reforging the designated artifact into a brand-new one. The new artifact will inherit the original artifact’s attributes and skills and gain additional Holy Light enhancement capabilities."

"Note: If the original artifact level is below C-Level, the fused artifact level will rise to C-Level; if it is C-Level, there is a small probability it will rise to B-Level; if it is above C-Level, the original artifact level remains unchanged."

Regarding the reward for the hidden quest line, Wu Chang was very satisfied. What he lacked at the moment wasn’t the quantity of items, but the quality.

Especially with the Silver Dawn he had been using all along.

As a "founding elder," he felt a strong connection to this gun, but unfortunately, it was soon about to become obsolete.

After clearing Peaceful Town, given the Abyssal Game’s attitude towards him, he was likely facing a B-Level dungeon.

D-Level items would struggle to perform in a B-Level dungeon.

At Moonlight Sanatorium, dealing with a defenseless target like a certain Mr. Kington, even a close-range headshot couldn’t kill with one blow.

When confronting Mr. Charles, who was about to break free from his doctor’s uniform, relying solely on the base performance of Silver Dawn, apart from giving the opponent more pleasure, it was difficult to really hurt the core of the opponent.

The emergence of the Holy Light Reforged Talisman came just in time to solve this problem.

All that was needed was to find a suitable special Holy Light attribute item, and Silver Dawn could be reforged.

There should be quite a few such special items in the Great Cathedral or Count’s Manor. Scraping around before leaving would certainly yield some gains.

He put away the talisman and, looking at the half-awake, half-dreaming Saintess, said, "You’re awake?"

"Who are you?" The Saintess tilted her head slightly, looking at the stranger cloaked entirely in a black robe in front of her, and asked in confusion.

Faced with the adorable Saintess, Wu Chang couldn’t help but give a thumbs up and said her cuteness level was off the charts!

"Have you ever heard of an obscure organization within the Church, called the Secret Magic Knight Order?"

The Saintess shook her head, "No."

That’s just right; if you had heard of it, I’d have to make up a new story.

Wu Chang nodded and said, "The Secret Magic Knight Order is an organization specifically set up to deal with heresies. Whenever the Church faces troubles it cannot handle or is inconvenient to deal with, it requests the Secret Magic Knight Order to take action."

This was true—even facing a lie detector, it wouldn’t detect a trace of falsehood.

After all, he didn’t specify which plane or which Church.

The Saintess, somewhat understanding, said, "Are you a member of the Secret Magic Knight Order?"

Wu Chang nodded.

He liked this, the sense of realism brought by letting the character fill in the blanks themselves always surpassed the description he could give.

"Not long ago, I received a request from Archbishop Gelman to come to Briff Island to find the missing Saintess."

Wu Chang pointed to the "Blessing of the Great Saint Mother" on the Saintess’s chest. "He also gave me this necklace as a guide to find the Saintess."

The Saintess fondled the Blessing of the Great Saint Mother on her chest. This necklace was a divine gift requested by the Pope through a miracle for her coming-of-age ceremony.

The aura on it was very familiar to her—it couldn’t be faked.

This necklace was left at the Church before her departure, entrusted to the Church’s upper echelons. The stranger in front of her being able to bring out this necklace made his identity more credible.

"Sir Knight, how should I address you?"

"You can call me Sekos."

"What a strange name."

"If you find it difficult, I have a shorter name, Six."

"That name is quite nice."

Wu Chang asked in return, "And your name? I can’t keep calling you Your Highness the Saintess, can I?"

The Saintess didn’t feel offended by Wu Chang’s request and graciously responded, "Erin Dena, but you can call me Erin."

Wu Chang steered the conversation back, asking, "Erin, do you remember what happened on the island before?"

Erin gazed at the ceiling for a moment, shook her head, and said, "I don’t remember. It feels like something bad happened, but it’s all in the past now."

Although Erin’s innocent demeanor was rather delightful, in order to explore the storyline, Wu Chang had to break this pleasantness.

"The necklace guided me to find you when you were already overcooked; I dug you out from a piece of human-shaped charcoal."

Erin suddenly realized, "So, I really have died once, haven’t I?"

"You’re not surprised by your own resurrection?" Wu Chang was a bit astonished.

"Because I’m just a spirit body now," Erin said as her whole body lightly floated up into the air. She reached out towards the wall, and half of her arm directly sank into it.

This time Wu Chang fell into silence. He asked, puzzled, "Then why don’t you ask me what happened? Don’t you care that someone killed you?"

"Death is merely an extension of life. While alive, I can spread the light of the Lord; after death, my spirit will return to the Celestial Kingdom to bless the believers on earth. Life and death are arrangements made by the Lord, so why should I worry about it?"

Erin’s tone was extremely calm, and in her lake-like clear light blue eyes, not a single ripple could be seen.

It was as if she was talking about what to eat tonight, rather than discussing her own life and death.

Wu Chang approached Erin, examining her carefully.

This woman was not right.

Even an ascetic like the bishop at Briff Cathedral could not be so indifferent to life and death.

Even fervent believers use their intense faith to weigh against the fear of death, rather than being so indifferent.

Erin’s indifference seemed more like she inherently could not generate negative emotions.

Wu Chang bent his finger and flicked Erin’s forehead.

Erin held her head, puzzlingly asking, "What are you doing?"

Wu Chang could clearly see that Erin didn’t even generate a feeling of dissatisfaction.

Further testing was necessary.

He took a Golden Flying Fish out of his personal space and gently tapped Erin’s face with its tail.

The fish scales on Erin proved she had eaten Golden Flying Fish before; moreover, she hadn’t eaten just one, and theoretically, she would have developed a craving for it. Upon seeing the Golden Flying Fish, her reaction should be similar to Matty’s.

If the fish craving arose, she’d even tell her bank card password if asked.

But Erin barely reacted to the Golden Flying Fish, merely moving back disdainfully to avoid it.

"This joke isn’t funny. Although I don’t get angry, if you continue, I will retaliate."

As expected, Erin didn’t get angry; even her aversion was full of restraint.

Wu Chang immediately changed his expression and said righteously, "I’m not joking; I’m seriously testing whether you’ll react to this fish."

"You should have noticed you’ve developed some scales. The Golden Flying Fish is a specialty of Briff Island. Those who have eaten it will grow special scales on their body. You had eaten this fish when you were alive, and not just one."

Erin was momentarily stunned, and upon hearing Wu Chang’s mention, she realized the changes in her body.

She turned around to check briefly, then turned back and said, "Sir Knight, I’m truly sorry. I misunderstood you."

Wu Chang snorted lightly, "Good that you know."

He put away the Golden Flying Fish, but his expression turned grim.

He could now be certain that there was indeed something wrong with Erin: it wasn’t just that she had no negative emotions; she didn’t even possess the seven deadly sins inherent to humans.

If the faceless nun perched on the main house of Count’s Manor was an empty shell, then Erin was like the wrapping paper around the shell.

All the luxurious external things remained, while everything inside that could be extracted had been completely hollowed out.

He took out the Proof of Lust from his hand, contemplating whether filling Erin with the special items representing the seven deadly sins would help her regain the emotions belonging to the original sins.

But after considering it, he chose not to do so.

The mission item was singular. If Erin truly merged with the proof of sin, what would he use to fill the colossal faceless nun upon entering Count’s Manor?

Using Erin?

It was not impossible.

Wu Chang shook his head, discarding this tempting thought.

The Peaceful Town scenario seemed to reveal more mysteries as more secrets were unraveled.

If one set aside the overpowered Chi Yuan, he felt that the nearly out-of-control ’Age of Safety’ was not necessarily more challenging than this scenario of ordinary level difficulty.

Wu Chang’s true self continued to converse with Erin, gathering more information about the Church and Count Jermaine.

Meanwhile, Wu Chang’s main self returned to the post office and did not continue waiting for Morena to return home.

The night passed quickly, and just as dawn broke, Wu Chang heard a rapid knocking at the door, even before getting out of bed.

Upon opening the door, he found a girl in a nurse’s uniform standing there.

"Congressman Sean, please come with me quickly. Professor Ebert is on the verge of passing and wishes to see you one last time."