Fortunately, Benjamin didn't have to spend long fretting.
About two minutes later, the bishop reopened his eyes and looked at Benjamin with the same cold smile as before.
"W-what happened? Did you find anything? Have you already read my memories?" Benjamin asked, putting on a bewildered expression.
The bishop nodded.
"Then... Your Excellency, did you find any clues?" Benjamin asked again.
But the bishop didn't answer. Instead, he said, "Lord Riser, thank you very much for your cooperation. It's getting late, and we're terribly sorry to have disturbed your rest. I'll have someone escort you back so you can get some sleep."
Hearing this, Benjamin wasn't surprised. If anything, he felt relieved.
The bishop's polite dismissal made his meaning perfectly clear: I didn't find anything, so stop wasting my time and hurry back to bed. I have more important things to do.
That was exactly the response Benjamin had been hoping for.
"I see. Then I'll be going. May God bless you, Your Excellency." Benjamin played his part to the end, making a prayerful gesture before taking his leave.
"May God bless you." The bishop spoke with impeccable solemnity, but Benjamin still detected a trace of impatience in his voice.
It seemed the bishop had completely stopped caring about him. Even the shot that had hit the older mage was being written off as Benjamin getting lucky—like a blind cat stumbling across a dead mouse. The bishop had no intention of looking into it any further.
He hadn't expected things to go this smoothly.
What could he say? The bishop had simply trusted too much in the memories they'd read. Then again, no matter how cautious they were, they'd never have imagined that someone could fake memories.
And so Benjamin left the Meditation Room, escorted all the way back to the Riser Family by the knights waiting outside.
"What method did he use to read my memories? Was it a divine spell?"
On the way, he couldn't help asking the system.
Judging from the whole process, Benjamin didn't think it had been a divine spell. The bishop hadn't chanted anything, and Benjamin hadn't felt any fluctuations in magical power. If it hadn't been a divine spell, then how had the bishop read someone else's memories?
Now that he'd made it through a dangerous ordeal and the pressure had eased, Benjamin's curiosity had immediately resurfaced.
"That wasn't a divine spell. There was no fluctuation of mental power coming from the bishop, and the Holy Light around us showed no sign of gathering. Divine spells don't work like that," the system replied.
"Then what was it?" A fierce thirst for knowledge flared in Benjamin's chest.
"How would I know? A probing force went into your brain, and I gave it the stuff I'd prepared. Why do you have so many weird questions? You're a pain," the system said impatiently.
"..."
The system was still the same old system.
He wanted to complain, but the system had just helped him out of a huge mess, so he decided to let it go.
Even so, the question still lingered in his mind.
If it wasn't a divine spell, did that mean there were other supernatural forces in this world besides magic and divine spells?
Thinking about it carefully, Michelle's bizarre appearances and disappearances in his room probably hadn't been caused by magic either. He hadn't felt any fluctuations in magical power at all. So what had she used? How could anyone simply appear and disappear out of nowhere? There had to be more to it. Could it have been something similar to the bishop's memory-reading technique?
There were too many questions, and he couldn't find any answers.
The more he thought about it, the more mysterious this world seemed.
There were so many things he desperately wanted to understand.
He felt as if he'd suddenly become a middle school student, slumped over his desk every day and thinking about nothing useful—things like "Who am I? Where did I come from? What's the meaning of life? How did the universe come to be?" He could ponder them for ages without reaching any conclusions, leaving himself troubled by pointless questions all day long.
There was no point thinking about them. Could he actually figure any of them out?
He'd be better off thinking about practical things he could get answers to.
"By the way, the memories you faked—what did you replace the part about me studying magic with?" Benjamin suddenly asked. It wasn't particularly important. He was just curious.
"That's easy. I replaced all of it with you jerking off," the system replied casually.
"..."
So the memories the bishop had seen showed Benjamin spending most of his time hiding under the covers and jerking off—and doing it for more than ten hours straight?
Who the hell could jerk off for more than ten hours?
The system really was as unreliable as ever. Still, remembering how the bishop's expression hadn't changed in the slightest, Benjamin couldn't help feeling a surge of admiration.
He hadn't reacted at all to memories like that.
As expected of someone who could become a bishop!
Thinking to himself, Benjamin quietly returned to his bedroom.
After some thought, he turned on the light and took out Introduction to Magic, ready to start reading. But after hesitating for a moment, he changed his mind. He hid the book, switched off the light, and got back into bed.
He'd just returned from The Church. He'd better keep a low profile for now.
If the knights outside "protecting" him saw the light on, they might get suspicious. After all, he'd acted like he was exhausted and desperate to sleep in front of them.
And in truth, he really was tired. He hadn't slept well during the first half of the night because he'd been worried The Church would drag him in and examine his brain. Now that one of his two major worries had been temporarily dealt with, he could finally get some decent rest.
He pulled up the covers and fell into a deep sleep.
The night passed without incident.
Early the next morning, just as he was hoping to sleep in, a maid woke him. After being hurried through breakfast, he was escorted to the military camp for "boot camp."
That was right. Claude's order hadn't been rescinded. He still had to train with the new recruits at the military camp...
So much had happened that day that he'd almost forgotten about it.
Honestly, his schedule was packed. Even a famous celebrity probably couldn't match yesterday's workload. He'd barely had a moment to catch his breath.
And yet, thinking about it, Benjamin felt... happy?
He didn't know why, but it was as if some switch had been flipped. Under all kinds of complicated pressure, the workaholic side of his personality was gradually being forced out.
Life after crossing over had left him exhausted, but it had also made him feel more vividly... alive.
Living without restraint.
At that moment, he suddenly realized that even if he crossed back and had electricity, air conditioning, and video games again—even if he were given an easy, high-paying job—he might never get used to that kind of life again.
This world had changed him completely.
And yet, he felt full of ambition.
When would it finally be his turn to change this world completely?
Before you continue