Banquet and Afar, an Unexpected Winter Journey Through Southeast Asia

The burly middle-aged man knelt in the rain, muttering the same three words over and over:

"Balaian."

And in the language of East Timor, it meant only one thing:

An apostle of the True God.

This burly man, who had not shed a tear even when facing execution, raised his head now as uncontrollable tears streamed down his face amid the torrential rain.

Then, he prostrated himself on the ground.

His muscular figure vanished in an instant alongside the half-dead leader of the motorcycle fanatics lying on the ground.

All that remained were corpses scattered across the ground and their blood mixing into the downpour.

Ten minutes passed like that.

Once Pedro Joao had somewhat recovered from the horrifying spatial vertigo,

he looked around

and discovered that he was in an underground lounge built from bricks and tiles.

He was lying on a battered sofa.

As he woke up, a little girl cried out:

"Uncle Perode is awake! Uncle Perode is awake!"

The middle-aged man looked toward the voice, his face filled with disbelief:

"Little Leila?

You're alive... You're really alive. That's... that's wonderful!"

But the next second, he sank into even deeper self-reproach:

"But your father... I failed to save him! I am guilty."

Just as he was about to say more, the man known as the watchdog of the Resistors Organization heard another, calmer voice.

"Those matters are certainly important.

But for now,

tell me about your organization's structure. And exactly what do you know?"

It was a mysterious man in a black overcoat, wearing half a silver mask and carrying the air of a scholar.

That was right.

To conceal his whereabouts, Su Wen had not contacted them under Rhine's identity.

And every time he entered the game,

as a Scholar and one of the world's top