The narrow mountain paths lay in a staggered pattern, like brushstrokes the gods had cast down from the sky.
Though they seemed haphazard, looking down from the sky would reveal precisely divided boundaries.
Looking up along the asphalt road at the foot of the mountain, one would find that the woodland, though close at hand, had a misty indistinctness to it, throwing the church in the clearing on the slope into exceptionally sharp relief.
"There are traces of fluctuations in the leyline, and the barrier has activated too. So it actually wasn't a false report..."
"Intelligence is certainly prone to errors, and it has a limited shelf life. But if it reached the level of being reported to the Burial Agency, it must have some degree of reliability, even if the circumstances behind it leave one speechless."
"Your enemies are often the ones who know you best, after all. Even if he wasn't an Executor, he worked for the Church his entire life, so knowing inside information is hardly strange. Still, daring to release news of a Dead Apostle Ancestor as bait... I really don't know whether that fool simply didn't know his limits or was just recklessly bold."
Before the church doors, an old man and a boy studied the blood that had seeped into the entrance, conversing as though nothing were amiss.
The boy had shoulder-length hair, delicate features, and fair skin, looking like the standard pretty young boy from a doujin.
Yet he showed none of the timidity one might expect of his age.
His indifferent gaze carried an innate sense of distance, even without any deliberate effort.
The old man was the complete opposite: tall and thin, with graying temples, but a smile constantly lingered at his lips. He looked very amiable, and the glasses on