The next morning, Dank City returned to its usual appearance. People throughout the streets were laughing and chatting about one thing: the "Goddess's kidnapping."
It was said to be either a misunderstanding or a love story. The Goddess had secretly fallen in love with a priest and eloped with him the previous night. The Kodo School had mistakenly thought she'd been kidnapped and mobilized the entire city to search for her.
That morning, unwilling to abandon the Kodo School's years of care, the Goddess had made a difficult choice between love and faith. In the end, she chose faith, bringing the love story to an end.
This fascinating piece of news perfectly concealed another matter.
Several bishops had long since become highly experienced at handling such incidents. They were all old hands at this sort of thing.
As for the priest, because of his mistake, he was demoted and assigned to "Old Royal Capital—Talo," where he would guard the branch there for forty-nine years. During that time, he was forbidden from taking even one step outside the old capital. Does this story feel familiar? Of course it does. The same thing happened over thirty years ago.
Setting aside the love story that had the citizens of Dank City chattering excitedly, Su Xiao was sitting beside a wooden table in a hotel on Gemstone Street. After last night's matter was settled, Merlos and Marcia had both disappeared, leaving only this hotel behind.
Su Xiao wasn't worried that the two of them had gone to find the King of Light first. After Merlos took a small amount of the Goddess's blood, he found an opportunity to leave without participating in the subsequent "negotiations."
The hotel door was pushed open, and an old man in a white robe walked in. He sat down