Who Dares Misappropriate the Gods' Funds?

Sherlock raised his cane and tapped it lightly on the table where Iver and Yunus were drinking. The crystal goblets vibrated, signaling that the two men should look at him.

"Think about it carefully, Mr. Yunus— "

Sherlock repeated the question with a serious expression.

—An elf girl named Anastasia, grateful to Yunus for saving her life, left him a token and invited him to her home.

—But after her father received the token, he told Yunus directly that she had long been dead and had never been to Avalon.

"Generally speaking, shouldn't the first question be... what exactly happened? 'Why did you get it?' 'Is Anastasia not dead yet?'... even suspecting that her body was desecrated by a necromancer—although normally, Treeification Disease would result in incineration without leaving a corpse. But doesn't he consider the possibility that Anastasia could become a Candlelight Apostle or some other phantom and be summoned in the Material Realm? He said Anastasia completely treeified more than twenty years ago—but didn't he go to Horus to build a house more than twenty years ago? If he was so grief-stricken that he had to throw himself into his work... then why was he so unconcerned about the information you brought?"

Sherlock said meaningfully, "Under what circumstances could a father who loves his daughter be completely indifferent to her information? There's only one truth—he has actually been able to see Anastasia all along. And he knows Anastasia's current situation... That's why he's been so hospitable to you, yet indifferent to your questions and my investigation. Because he knows you did indeed save Anastasia, but he can't explain why he knows and understands this."

"He stayed in Horus for so long, only to go to Iris after returning for a few years, and has only just come back now. Yet how does he know about Anastasia's current situation? And how does he know that she met you in Avalon? That proves one thing—he sees Anastasia wherever he goes."

"—So the situation is quite clear. Anastasia didn't die from the Treeification Disease at all, because she was secretly sent to the Fairy Kingdom ... There's a Fairy Forest nearby, and even a Fairy Hole. And Anastasia had her own surname, 'Moonlight,' at a young age. But according to your description, she was just a child—she never had the chance to receive the complete inheritance, so how could she have a surname? "Then it's simple. The 'Moonlight' inheritance can only come from Maxim or his wife's original surname. They later abandoned their own family traditions and inherited the traditions of others, thus changing their surnames accordingly."

"And their child Anastasia is not yet of age to begin receiving the inheritance, so she can only temporarily use her original surname..."

—Just like how Innelis inherited the surname "Blooming Flowers".

As Iver finished speaking, he silently added to himself.

"Maxim had helped the Stibnite Person build railways two hundred years ago. He was already a 'rock digger' back then."

"Therefore..."

"—It's me."

A sweet, girlish voice suddenly came from the corner of the wall. "My previous name... was Grace Moonlight."

The three of them turned their gazes in that direction.

Grace Dryleaf Butterfly was there, silently standing there.

She wore a pale yellow short dress with white stockings, and a forsythia hair clip in her hair—the color of which was very similar to Neelim's dress. Judging from her appearance alone, she didn't look like a mother at all, but more like a young female student of seventeen or eighteen.

Meanwhile, Neelim was quietly resting on her raised finger, as still as a moth, fast asleep.

Like a butterfly that has turned into a withered leaf. At first glance, she is completely invisible.

Clearly, she had been standing there for a long time. At least she had been quietly there since before Sherlock entered... Neelim's sudden disappearance must have been because she had captured her.

"I guessed it."

Iver nodded slightly. "I had a general idea when that underage fairy appeared. When I touched this headband and confirmed that it was a normal item rather than a supernatural one, I roughly understood."

"The Dryleaf Butterfly inherits the Twilight Path, and also requires a considerable level of dance skills. This means that your level of the Path of Beauty must be very high... and the main path of the 'moonlight' inheritance should be the Path of Beauty."

"... How could you, as a human being, know this?"

Grace looked at Iver with some surprise.

Iver nodded modestly and said, "It's just that I read a lot of books..."

—In a sense, he said that very satisfying thing.

Because this time he genuinely read it in a book, and it was no longer some "mysterious intelligence" whose source he couldn't explain.

"You guessed right... Archbishop Iver. [Moonlight] is about the inheritance of fairies and illusions, the realm of beauty and adaptation, and has a good relationship with the Fairy Queen. I only mastered the inheritance of the Dryleaf Butterfly in the last few years."

Madam Grace sighed softly and bowed slightly to the group, "But please, spare us..."

"... Let them go?"

Yunus murmured.

"It's probably because ' Treeification Disease ' is considered a sacred act in the Theocracy."

Sherlock chimed in, "After all, it's about getting closer to our ancestors."

Not entirely.

Iver shook his head.

Judging from the attitude of this generation's Eternal Saintess, she herself clearly did not think that the Eternal Pope's treeification was a good thing. The other Cardinal felt the same way... almost no one truly regarded this as an honor.

However, in a sense, it is clearly not acceptable to openly say that Treeification Disease are bad.

In the Theocracy, this is a kind of "political correctness": the giant tree created the elves with its own flesh and blood, and then offered its own body to them, becoming the Giant Tree Country that carries the elves. What's wrong or bad about life forms that are close to the giant tree, that repeat the miracle of the giant tree in the past, that enter the Dream Realm, and that come to the giant tree and the candle keeper? "... But both I and Maxim have a more pragmatic attitude."

Grace said softly, "We don't want... Anastasia to be summoned to the Dream Realm before she even had a childhood."

"I want... at least to let her play happily and healthily for decades. Maxim, on the other hand, simply doesn't want his daughter to die."

"Over twenty years ago, a human friend of ours reminded me of this method, which led me to devise this plan—sending Anastasia to the Fairy Kingdom. When we want to see her, we summon fairies and manifest her through True Illusion. As long as we don't return to the Material Realm in our physical bodies, her Treeification Disease won't progress to its final stage. She can still play happily..."

"... In the Theocracy, we claim that Anastasia has become tree-like, and we have burned her tree-like body and her personal belongings to ashes."

However, whether it's falsely claiming death due to the Treeification Disease Treeification Disease or forcibly stopping it through supernatural means... these are taboos that are absolutely forbidden in the Theocracy. Especially the latter... that would be tantamount to allowing fairies on the Path of Beauty to poach people from the Dedication Path, and the Fairy Queen is only at the Celestial Division level.

The giant tree is the apostle of the candle, and can also be considered to be from Subordinate God. Those summoned by the Treeification Disease will directly become "apostles of apostles," that is, at the same level as Sister Sasha.

If this matter were replaced by another path, it would be equivalent to the Fallen Angel using the Great Sin Imprint to abduct Sister Sasha had not yet entered the Dream Realm, into a succubus.

All three of them, Iver, fell silent.

Grace earnestly replied, "The Anastasia that Mr. Yunus saw was not True Illusion; it was the real Anastasia —she suddenly fell out for some reason. It seems she was passing by the Fairy Hole and was sucked out. Thanks to Mr. Yunus rescuing her from the bandits, the fairies were able to find her again, otherwise..."

"—We don't intend to keep Anastasia here forever! We just want her to live happily for a few more decades—our elves are usually not very efficient, so it's not too late for her to come back and re-form into a tree after she's had her fill of fun and ascend to the Dream Realm..."

Iver understood.

Grace and her team wanted to create a time difference.

They risked enormous dangers—even the risk of being punished by the candle magistrates—to keep Anastasia for several more decades.

This isn't very long.

In the elves' sense of time, it's equivalent to a few years in human time.

All this time was simply to ensure Anastasia could have a happy childhood.

Fifty years later, when Anastasia returns and becomes a tree... then the "accounts" on the Theocracy's side will be able to match up.

This could also be considered a form of embezzlement—except that it involves embezzling the apostles of God.

How dare they instigate the Grace to do such a thing...

Who could this be?

What was his purpose?... Wait, instigation?

"Oh, right, that human friend..."

A sudden intuition struck Iver, and he asked somewhat anxiously, "What's your name?"

"... I never actually knew his full name. He called himself 'Spider'."

Grace shook her head. "And the Fairy Queen calls him ' James '."