What Purgatory Really Is

"I do know a little about your past."

Because Klayya had suddenly begun studying The Book of the Vishanti, Evenson had, out of caution, begun looking into the deeds of others throughout history who had possessed the book. As the saying went, history was a mirror. He wanted to see whether there was anything Klayya needed to watch out for.

And as the most recent previous owner of The Book of the Vishanti, the famed Marshal Bluebeard, Gildres, was someone he absolutely could not overlook. Evenson would not claim to know every detail of the man's life, but he knew the general outline.

So when he learned that Gildres had been sentenced to death by hanging through a joint decision by the king and the Church for studying black magic and committing a series of blasphemous, evil acts, Evenson had been deeply surprised and highly suspicious of that record.

It was not as though the churches of this world possessed no mysterious power at all. Like the hidden church they had encountered while capturing Locke, there had been a trace of Holy Light there. But after that God departed, those powers of Holy Light had become virtually useless.

For a thousand years, their leaders had been forced to submit themselves to devils, barely maintaining so-called minimal casualties through appeasement. Even ascetics who cultivated themselves and endured hardship had ended up like that. As for the Roman Orthodox Papacy, which mingled with ordinary people, was insatiably greedy, and morally corrupt—even if it had possessed the power of Holy Light at the beginning, it must have long since vanished.

And according to speculation, Gildres had studied the forbidden matters in The Book of the Vishanti for eight years. How could he possibly have been captured and executed by ordinary mortals? Unless he