The Thought Reader

Diana felt a little uneasy. She didn't dare keep reading, so she closed her eyes and prayed silently.

"Great Lord of All Spirits, please protect Your knight and keep her safe from the interference of creatures from the Spirit Realm."

Hearing the girl before him pray, Ivan finally came back to his senses. He quickly withdrew his probing gaze, paused for a moment, then replied:

"I have heard your plea."

Diana let out a breath of relief when she received the Lord's reply. At the same time, she realized that feeling of being watched had indeed vanished.

Her eyes shone with excitement and emotion, and her heart brimmed with gratitude:

"The Lord has answered me once again. Even as a revived Old God, He can still pay attention to each person amid the prayers of countless believers."

She couldn't help murmuring softly, "The Lord's mercy is truly awe-inspiring. Praise the great Lord of All Spirits!"

Ivan didn't respond further to the girl, although he had neither countless believers nor the ability to listen to thousands of prayers all at once.

Still, none of that stopped him from putting on the appearance of someone who had taken time out of answering the prayers of thousands of believers to respond to Diana.

"Good grief. Even the simplest task has to be done slowly and with great difficulty, or people will think you're free..."

With the Lord's protection, Diana continued to focus on her translation.

"[Whisperer]: Through tone and rhetoric, you can lightly hypnotize a target and alter their basic understanding of things they have little impression of. The more deeply they remember something, the lower the chance of successfully hypnotizing them.

As your rank increases, hypnosis becomes easier and the range of perceptions you can alter expands.

You can quickly identify contradictions in a target's understanding and apply pressure until they begin to doubt themselves. This effect grows stronger as your rank increases.

You can enter a target's dreams and construct scenarios that guide them toward new perceptions. At higher ranks, you can even pull people into dreams of your own accord.

Secret Rite: Target a group of at least 20 people. Through hypnosis and altered perceptions, implant a temporary consensus that defies common sense but remains logically consistent.

The people must then take real-world action based on this consensus. Finally, collect the Spirituality released during the group's actions and merge it into a Beyonder characteristic.

Code of Conduct: Record your emotional changes regularly to maintain your sense of self and avoid being assimilated by other people's emotions."

Looking at the Whisperer's abilities, Ivan immediately realized that this was the source of the Church of Divine Grace bishop's hypnotic powers.

"Going by the description alone, it's hard to imagine just how powerful someone would need to be to influence the beliefs of the entire Rhine Kingdom. Ninth rank?"

He pondered this to himself, growing suspicious that the Church of Divine Grace might have something to do with the disappearance of the Church of Creation that Old Harvey had mentioned.

Diana put down the Book of Rituals. There was no more content on the page, and the other pages were still stuck together as before.

"This is amazing. Just touching it with an eyeball brought up so much information..."

"According to what Bishop Tarik said today, these must be the ingredients for brewing the Heart-Dream Aspect potion."

"This Book of Rituals can actually reveal such detailed information."

She couldn't help getting excited, her little mouth forming an oval.

She hadn't expected this ancient book to have such a wondrous use, in addition to leading her to believe in the great Lord of All Spirits.

"I just don't know what the rituals and secret rites in here mean... Should I pray to the great Lord and ask?"

"No, no. The Lord has thousands upon thousands of believers. I'm not the only one."

"The Lord has spent too much energy on me lately. He can't keep answering questions for me alone..."

She lowered her head and muttered to herself:

"Since the bishop of the Church of Divine Grace wants me to join the Heart-Dream Aspect, maybe I can find a chance to ask him about the mysteries of this world."

"Diana, you can't rely on the great Lord of All Spirits forever. You need to make your own way in the mysterious world, too."

Suppressing her excitement, Diana took Myth of the Era from the bookshelf.

She touched the ancient book she'd just "borrowed" from the library archives with the eyeball. But nothing unusual happened as she'd imagined. Myth of the Era was just as it had been in the library; she could only read that one story.

She glanced at the two ancient symbols she didn't recognize. Remembering the Lord's warning, she quickly closed the book and pushed the image out of her mind.

"Hmm... Don't think about it. There's still a few days until the Day of Worship. I can go back to the school library archives and look for other ancient books."

Ivan also decided to keep following Diana over the next few days. He wanted to learn the ancient language and continue looking for clues about the Lord of All Spirits and the Spirit Realm.

Diana tidied her desk, slipped off her white socks, and hopped back onto the bed barefoot.

After tossing and turning for a while, the girl finally ran out of energy.

As the knob by the bed was turned, the gas lamps in the room gradually dimmed, and darkness and silence filled it once more.

St. Peter's Cathedral.

Abel dragged his tired body back into the church after finishing his patrol for the night.

He hadn't found anyone suspicious today, either, and still hadn't uncovered the traces of the cult that the bishop had mentioned.

Reports about the cult received by the church and the City Hall had also grown fewer lately. Even the bloody incidents rumored about town seemed to have stopped being discussed.

It was as if the cult had vanished from Trino City altogether.

But his instincts as a Night Watchman—or, more precisely, as someone who possessed the Order Aspect—told him that this was far from over.

Over the past month, he'd followed up on countless leads, from brawls in the slums to smuggling dens at the docks, from a chapel late at night to the mysteriously damaged gate of the Poorhouse.

Every time he felt he was about to get to the heart of the matter, the trail would inexplicably go cold.

He took the dried, dark green leaf from his pocket. Its edges had already turned black. It was the only worthwhile clue he'd found lately.

"I wonder if that Beyonder with the unusual Aspect is still in Trino City..."

"Attending the gathering, damaging the Poorhouse gate... Having someone like that around is a liability."

In fact, on the morning he'd arrived at the Poorhouse, he'd already determined from the Spirituality traces left nearby that the culprit was the same Beyonder who'd been at the Small Chapel.

A spark flew from the steel strip in his hand and lit the cigarette between his lips.

Smoke gradually curled around him and drifted slowly upward.

"Heh. Looks like I'll have to start with the paupers who might have seen that person." Standing in the open space outside the Clock Tower, he gazed at the night sky, lost in thought.

"But they aren't exactly eager to deal with someone like me. They might not tell me the truth.

"'Restrain yourself and don't abuse the rules.' Looks like I'll have to break this Code of Conduct of the Hand of Arbitration again.

"If I do, who knows when I'll be able to perform the ritual and advance to the fourth rank, [Overseer]..."

The cigarette burned quietly between his fingers. He brought it to his lips and took a deep drag, leaving only a short stub. A hazy cloud of smoke escaped his mouth and blurred the view ahead.

He tossed the cigarette butt into the metal trash can beside the church, turned, and entered the Clock Tower. He passed room after room before returning to the interrogation room alone.

Abel took off his Night Watchman uniform and casually set the silver medal on the table.

His weary yet sharp eyes fixed on the empty interrogation chair across from him. Then he turned to look at the rows of "God Blood" behind him.

He rubbed his aching eyes and sighed with feeling:

"I wonder why the church put so many empty rooms in the Night Watchmen's Clock Tower.

"This interrogation room and my quarters are all I need. It's an enormous waste of resources."

Ever since becoming a Night Watchman for the church, Abel had spent every night keeping the peace. During the day, he rested in one of the small rooms in the Clock Tower.

Oh, right. Sometimes he also had to make time during the day to face the bishop's irritating mug. As for how the church was managed, he'd never asked.

Abel reached into his pocket for another cigarette, only to find that he'd already used up his daily quota.

He rubbed his temples, which ached faintly from overthinking, and sighed at the thought of having to patrol again tomorrow.

"Can't be helped. I'm the only Night Watchman in the whole church."