Shepherd's Secret Covenant

Avalon Kingdom, Glass Island, White Queen District Bureau of Supervision.

The Bureau of Supervision was still exceptionally busy that morning.

Men and women clad in light armor or leather armor hurried past with vigorous strides. The imposing silver-white dragon head statue—the Silver Crowned Dragon—still hung on the wall of Director Kent's office, watching them without pause.

Director Kent, now in his forties yet still powerfully built, sat in his leather chair.

His back was straight, while his broad shoulders and massive upper arms stretched the loose clothing over them. His bronze-colored skin and the thick flesh on his face gave him the air of a fierce, tough man. A deep scar ran from above his left eye all the way to the corner of his mouth. With a black eye mask over one eye, he looked like a one-eyed pirate.

As a matter of ceremony and etiquette, even though Director Kent had not taken part in frontline combat for over a decade, he still had to work in armor. His posture had to be impeccable, and his bearing could not waver in the slightest. His upper arms, abdomen, and calves—areas that did not bear much weight—were covered in silver-white metal armor. Shining plates hung over the rest of his body.

If he had not also been a high-level transcendent, he would probably have been exhausted just from sitting here all day.

Four hundred and twenty years ago, Lancelot I, the founding monarch of the Avalon Kingdom, established the three great legal institutions.

The Bureau of Supervision was responsible for "protecting the people through oversight"; the Inspectorate was responsible for "supervising knightly officials"; and the Arbitration Hall was responsible for "judging right and wrong, good and evil." When they were first established, the three institutions held equal status. Their important duties were all handled by Round Table Knights who could enter the Senate.

The national emblem of the Avalon Kingdom was a green eye set within a silver-white triangle symbolizing power.

The eye represented the royal family, symbolizing their current monarch, the nearly eighty-year-old yet still healthy Queen Sophia I.

The silver triangle protecting the royal family represented the Bureau of Supervision, the Inspectorate, and the Arbitration Hall.

But as the times developed, the Bureau of Supervision had more and more responsibilities. Taxation, security, sanitation, firefighting, public order, inspections, imprisonment... Its internal structure gradually split into numerous subsidiary departments. Branch offices had to be established everywhere, and large numbers of Trainee Inspectors, inspectors, and Chief Inspectors had to be recruited to handle local affairs. Its authority was divided as a result.

The Inspectorate and the Arbitration Hall, on the other hand, had to deal with more difficult and specific matters, so their scale did not expand. The former became an organization somewhat resembling a secret service. It was responsible for examining whether officials of all ranks were loyal, whether hereditary knightly families had moral failings, whether local inspectors had violated discipline and regulations, as well as monitoring foreign spies and gathering intelligence abroad independently. The latter, meanwhile, became what was now the court system.

Their common point was that both were now one level higher than the Bureau of Supervision.

Thus, all personnel in the Bureau of Supervision who reached the Fourth Level were transferred upward to the Inspectorate and the Arbitration Hall. The official explanation was, "You have no use for talents of this caliber anyway." Even in a core region such as White Queen District, which bordered the Glass Staircase, its director, Kent, was only at the Third Level.

The young girl named Hai Na who had recently been transferred in was only a little over twenty, yet her strength was already comparable to that of Director Kent, who was now rapidly approaching fifty.

Kent knew without even thinking that the Inspectorate would definitely come to poach her.

This was an age that produced geniuses in abundance. Hai Na, Sherlock... These new-generation prodigies were far stronger than old men like them who had grown up in an era of peace.

This is not a good sign, Kent thought.

It might be a premonition that troubled times were approaching...

He picked up the telephone on the desk and turned the dial. 0-1-2. The call connected.

"Tell Hai Na to come to my office."

Director Kent instructed, "Also, find someone to bring our consultant here."

After hanging up, he tossed the Glass Staircase Newspaper in his hand onto the desk. Then he rose and walked to the bookshelf.

The newspaper's front-page headline was a photograph of Hai Na with the young master of the Moriarty Family.

The handsome boy with the gentle smile sat calmly in an elven-art-style wheelchair, a blanket covering his knees and his hands folded over his abdomen. With a mild, natural, and generous demeanor, he seemed to be explaining something. Behind him, Hai Na stood ramrod straight, one hand gripping the hilt of the sword at her waist, every muscle in her body taut.

It was as though he had noticed the photographer—or perhaps he was greeting some acquaintance near the photographer.

Halfway through speaking, the boy's gaze suddenly shifted away from the reporter toward the camera.

He revealed a gentle smile as bright as the sun, then slightly raised his hand and waved toward the viewer. Yet it gave the impression that he was smiling and waving at the reader looking at the newspaper.

The next moment, the scene jumped back to the beginning. Iver continued sitting in his wheelchair, earnestly saying something to the reporter.

—This was the "Moving Painting" ability of the Path of Beauty.

Strictly speaking, the Path of Beauty was a path prohibited by law in Avalon, but Master Agnes was an exception. The Glass Daily News she had founded, led by this world-famous elven painter, was Avalon's largest newspaper and the only one that could be called official.

The Glass Daily News was responsible for compiling Avalon Kingdom's most important daily intelligence and summarizing it for the royal family and the ministers of the Round Table Hall. The three great legal institutions also provided their employees with free copies of the Glass Staircase Newspaper.

Perhaps it was simple imitation, perhaps it was to keep up with the policies of those above, or perhaps it was merely to express concern for the kingdom's political situation. Some wealthy people who neither participated in politics nor served in public office also joined in and bought the Glass Staircase Newspaper. Soon afterward, some university students began buying it as well, using it as a topic of conversation among young people.

Although each issue contained a "Moving Painting" with a total runtime of fifteen seconds, and the material cost alone came to one Red Coin per newspaper, its price was surprisingly low. Master Agnes did not need to profit from it. Each issue of the Glass Staircase Newspaper retailed for only two Red Coins and five Copper Coins—the five Copper Coins were left as profit for distributors, and sometimes it was even sold at a discount. Anyone with a modest degree of means could afford it.

A newspaper that could display animation was an extremely novel experience. It had no sound and was in black and white, but at least the pictures could move. This was essentially the cheapest way ordinary people could truly experience supernatural power.

And in this issue of the Glass Staircase Newspaper, Iver Moriarty alone occupied a full twelve seconds of the front-page animation. Only three seconds remained for a bicycle advertisement.

Director Kent strongly suspected that Master Agnes had given him twelve seconds because Iver was far too handsome and his smile was so charming.

"That smile is so good-looking... He clearly isn't a good person."

With his beastlike instincts, Director Kent curled his lip and muttered, "I wonder whose daughter he's planning to ruin..."

...Still, he had seen it clearly.

To be able to solve such a major case single-handedly at that age, the boy would certainly become a far more important figure than Kent himself in the future.

They had obtained a great accomplishment for nothing this time, so they had to give him a sufficient reward. An assignment of this scale should originally have gone to the Inspectorate; under no circumstances should it have fallen to them.

Moreover, this was an opportunity to establish a connection with Professor Moriarty.

Thus, the chosen reward had to be good enough. Otherwise, to the Moriarty Family, it would be nothing but trash. Giving someone a gift they looked down on would only cause the Bureau of Supervision to lose face.

...What a nuisance.

"A priest of the Path of Dedication... A student from the theological academy..."

Director Kent muttered under his breath as he searched the bookshelf.

Suddenly, his movements stopped. He looked toward a corner.

A book with a pitch-black cover sat there, its spine bearing no title.

The director picked it up with one hand and lightly tapped the cover with the other. Sparks burst from the pages, like a hammer striking an anvil.

"This one might work."

He muttered under his breath as he read the title: "Shepherd's Secret Covenant... Judging by the name, it should be related to 'priests.'"

This entire bookshelf was filled with valuable items confiscated and brought in by his subordinates when they seized forbidden books.

The Avalon Kingdom strictly prohibited accepting bribes in any form, because that was an act capable of destabilizing "authority." Conversely, appropriate profit within the scope of one's official powers was tacitly permitted. This was also meant to prevent officials and ministers short of money from being bought by foreign spies—especially spies from the Stibium Kingdom—or from selling important intelligence and internal resources to the public. Those actions would likewise destabilize "authority."

One of the tacitly permitted methods of profit involved selling confiscated forbidden books to knightly families. From that perspective, this bookshelf could also be considered Director Kent's personal property.

Kent was not a practitioner of the Path of Dedication, so he definitely could not open this book.

But judging by its name and the sparks it emitted, it was clearly a mysterious scripture belonging to the Path of Dedication.

After transcendent beings died, their souls fell into the Nine-Forked River of the Dream Realm and flowed toward the path they had traveled the farthest along. Their power became the "Path Trait" obtained by later practitioners during advancement rituals, while their memories and knowledge scattered everywhere, chaotically falling into the natural entities of the Dream Realm—its flowers, fruits, sea of clouds, and tides—becoming part of the materials that made up the Dream Realm.

The Dream Wandering Monks of the Path of Wisdom could capture and gather those fragmented secret teachings from the Dream Realm.

They collected and organized them into books. These mysterious scriptures containing magical knowledge were called "Original Codices."

The text of an "Original Codex" was written in Gupta Script, a language that had died out long ago and that ordinary people could not understand. Usually, a translator of the local Path of Wisdom had to use mystical techniques to forcibly translate it before anyone could read it.

According to the conventions of the translation world, Original Codices recording knowledge from the Dream Realm in Gupta Script were uniformly translated as "[something] Secret Covenant." The prefix mainly depended on the translator's understanding of the Original Codex's contents.

An Original Codex usually contained one complete mystical technique. Although people in later generations might have reproduced it as well, there was also a significant chance that it was a lost technique.

It might not be useful, but it was still lost.

In other words, it was something that could not be obtained through normal means...

"Then as a prize and 'gift,' it has enough prestige."

Director Kent muttered to himself.

Finally got a recommendation! Another update of over seven thousand words today. Please keep reading!

This book seems to have gotten off to a smooth start. It already has twelve thousand favorites even before being recommended! If its results are good, I feel like I might be able to write more!