The Root of All Evil

A limited-edition, fully loaded Santeland drove into the hospital grounds and reversed smoothly into a parking space.

The conscientious night-shift parking attendant came over to collect the parking fee, but when he reached the door and peered inside, he discovered that the car that had just parked was completely empty.

The night-shift guard patted his head, which had gone bald from working so many nights:

"Good heavens, did I just see a ghost?"

At the entrance to the inpatient building, Alfred, dressed in a blue suit, took off his gloves as he walked inside.

The ward was on the ground floor, and Alfred soon reached its door.

He took a deep breath, drumming the five fingers of his right hand rapidly against the back of his left, hoping to calm himself down as quickly as possible.

But before he was ready, the ward door opened from inside.

Standing before Alfred was Kallen, his face deathly pale, much of the upper half of his hospital gown soaked in blood.

Alfred took one look,

then immediately dropped to one knee:

"Great Divine Envoy, your faithful servant, Alfred, has come in answer to your summons."

"Come in."

With that, Kallen turned and walked back inside, sitting down on a chair beside the hospital bed.

Alfred noticed that the ward was now a mess, especially the bed, which was covered in bloodstains.

There were scattered traces of blood on the tiles and walls as well.

A black cat lay weakly on the windowsill. As he entered, she glanced at him.

Puzzled, yet utterly reverent, Alfred asked:

"Great One, were you hospitalized because you were injured?"

Then, feeling that his phrasing was inappropriate, he could only ask again:

"Great One, were you injured while hospitalized?"

After asking the second question, Alfred suddenly found his intelligence tonight rather difficult to contemplate.

Kallen tilted his head, indicating the bathroom to Alfred's left.

"Yes."

Alfred removed the mop wedged against the bathroom handle, pushed away the cabinet below it, then opened the bathroom door.

In front of the toilet, a woman in a nurse's uniform, covered in wounds, lay motionless with her forehead against the tiles and one arm stretched forward.

Alfred's eyes immediately turned red as he activated Succubus Eyes;

this woman was already dead. She had been awakened through the Order God Church's Awakening Art, then placed under a restraint.

Hmm?

No,

there was another consciousness inside this woman's body.

Alfred raised his left hand and covered his left eye;

a moment later,

several drops of blood flowed from his right eye like tears.

He lowered his hand, took a clean handkerchief from his cuff, and wiped his right eye.

There was a bewitching otherworldly demon inside the nurse!

Alfred backed out of the bathroom and looked at Kallen.

Perhaps Dis's stab had done something for him: though his body had yet to recover, his courage certainly had grown.

Meeting Alfred's gaze, Kallen said calmly:

"Take her away."

Alfred dropped to one knee before Kallen and said:

"Great One above, please allow me to offer you my sincerest gratitude on Miss Molly's behalf. I will bring her to Miss Molly and convey your gracious concern."

Hmm?

What did that mean?

Although he had not understood, Kallen still gave a slight nod.

Alfred entered the bathroom again. By now, the restraint seemed to be weakening. The previously motionless nurse suddenly raised her head, her eyes entirely white.

Alfred closed his eyes. Ten seconds later, he opened them again. By then, the white in the nurse's eyes had turned blood-red, and a faint red glow began to surround her body.

A new seal belonging to Alfred had been applied.

Then,

Kallen watched Alfred carry the nurse out of the bathroom over his shoulder.

"Your injury..."

Kallen neither concealed his injury nor tried to hide his weakness. Instead, he said calmly:

"This is my tribulation."

After a pause,

Kallen waved a hand.

"Attend to your duties."

"Yes. Please forgive my impertinence."

Alfred carried the nurse out of the ward.

Once he had left, Kallen turned toward Puer beside him and asked:

"What did he mean just now?"

Though injured and weak, Puer still mocked him out of habit:

"Why would the Great One need to ask a cat?"

Kallen thought for a moment. He remembered that when he had left No. 128 that night, Miss Molly had begged him for something.

"Puer, what is a purified body?"

"Purification is the process of becoming a Divine Servant, and Divine Servants form the foundation of every church's hierarchy. So a purified body means the body of a member of the clergy. To be safe, a fully purified body should at least belong to someone above Divine Servant-a Divine Revelation."

"A Divine Revelation's body? Is that easy to get?"

"No, because members of every rank in a church are registered. After they die, the church reclaims their remains."

"Did you say reclaims?"

"Yes, because their remains are themselves a useful material.

"So it's very difficult to obtain a Divine Revelation's remains outside the church. You can't get them through normal channels. If you kill someone to get them, you'll anger their church and invite terrible retaliation.

"But the body Alfred just carried out actually qualifies as a purified body."

"It qualifies?"

"Because you used your ability to 'awaken' that nurse's corpse, activating the spiritual energy inside it. Unless the remains are of a special kind, that activation is irreversible. It's like burning fuel: once it's all burned up, the fire goes out.

"Removing the body's original spirituality and returning it to the soul is called purification-or half-purification."

"Then couldn't the Order God Church's Inquisitors produce unlimited purified bodies, as long as they had enough corpses?"

"That's why I said half-purification. A clergyman's body hasn't merely undergone baptism; they also use their own soul, imbued with divinity, to permeate that body anew.

"And you sealed that bewitching otherworldly demon inside that body, so it effectively served a similar purpose.

"To obtain a purified body without using a clergyman's corpse,

"you need a corpse that has been 'awakened' and exhausted its original owner's spirituality, then an otherworldly demon that exists primarily as a soul to permeate it.

"It's like when Mary prepares a corpse's makeup. She has to wash the body before applying makeup. You can't skip a single step."

"Oh, so that's how it works."

Puer extended a paw. "You seem to have forgotten something. You should have made him clean this ward before carrying away that corpse."

"I didn't forget." Kallen shook his head and explained, "I was just still a little nervous seeing him. He's mistaken me for some great being. If Dis hadn't been away, and I hadn't been afraid that corpse would suddenly go berserk again, I wouldn't have called him."

"Actually, you don't need to worry at all. I know what he's thinking."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you forgotten what I told you during the day? He either thinks you're a True God descended into this world or an Evil God summoned back. In fact, apart from your own denial, you've already fulfilled every condition for an Evil God's descent.

"No matter how much he investigates or observes you, he won't find a flaw, because there simply isn't one to find, Kallen."

"But I'm very weak right now, aren't I?"

"Whether it's an Evil God or a True God, they need a long time to recover after descending. They're all very weak at first. Everyone knows that.

"Otherwise, Mr. Hoffen wouldn't have kept insisting that Dis kill you. Neither would I."

"You?"

"Yes. I always wanted Dis to kill you, because I know how you descended, and the price Dis paid and the taboos he violated to make you 'awaken.'

"Just as I said before, apart from your own denial, it isn't merely Alfred and Miss Molly. All of us believe you're an Evil God."

"Why tell me all this? Aren't you just giving me more confidence?"

"I don't know either. Perhaps it's for the sake of the fried dried fish and pudding you gave me today."

At the entrance to the inpatient building;

beneath the dim yellow lights in the darkness, Alfred, carrying the corpse, saw Dis standing before him.

In fact, shortly after Kallen finished his call, Dis had returned from Mr. Hoffen's hospital. After Mary passed on the message, Dis had come to this hospital as quickly as possible.

Dis's gaze fell on the corpse slung over Alfred's shoulder;

"Lord Inquisitor, I would like to remind you that, as an attendant to the Divine Envoy, you have been rather remiss in your duties."

With that, Alfred walked around Dis and headed down the steps.

Dis hesitated briefly, but did not stop him. Instead, he entered the inpatient building.

"Meow..."

When she saw Dis enter the ward, Puer let out a weak, mournful cry, like a poor woman on her deathbed lying frailly beneath the covers.

But Dis ignored Puer. He walked over to Kallen, crouched down, and unfastened Kallen's bloodstained gown to examine his wound.

"The wound has opened again," Dis said.

"I'm still alive." Kallen could tell that Dis was genuinely worried.

Dis looked around, seemingly only then noticing the equally badly injured Puer, and asked:

"What happened?"

"Meow~"

"Speak."

"You can ask Kallen," Puer said.

"He's injured. He shouldn't talk too much right now. He needs rest."

"..." Puer was speechless.

After listening to Puer's account, Dis nodded:

"I'll go check the basement."

With that, he left the ward and went straight down the stairs to the first basement level.

There were quite a few bodies in the morgue. Some were involved in disputes, while others were temporarily stored there because no one had yet claimed them.

Just as there would always be people who ignored traffic rules and ran red lights, not every body could quickly find its final resting place.

The corpse of a thin, shriveled old woman sat on a Stretcher Bed, her mouth open.

But she was nothing more than an empty shell now, with not a trace of spirituality left inside.

After leaving the basement, Dis went to the nurses' station and woke the unconscious nurse.

"Did I... fall asleep?" the young nurse murmured, holding the back of her head.

"The patient in ward three has reopened his wound and lost a lot of blood."

"Ah! Yes, understood. I'll contact the doctor right away."

At first light, the doctor arrived at the ward with the nurse. Though they were surprised by the blood all over the bed and floor, they assumed it had spattered there when the wound reopened. They immediately wheeled Kallen back into the operating room to stitch it up again.

Because he had been given anesthesia, Kallen did not wake until the afternoon.

When he woke, he found that he had been moved to another ward. Mina was sitting beside his bed. Seeing him awake, she asked with concern:

"Are you feeling better, Kallen?"

"Much better."

Getting stabbed had originally seemed terrifying, but after what he had experienced last night, it all came down to perspective. The wound in his chest no longer seemed like much.

"It was all because the nurse on duty last night dozed off. But that was because Nasi, who was supposed to take over for the second half of the night, never came to work. The director sent someone to her house this morning, but her family said she hadn't come home yesterday. They're considering whether to call the police now."

Kallen had a feeling that Nasi must have been the poor nurse who had died last night.

The sounds of someone being murdered in the basement that he had heard during the day must have been hers. The reason the hospital's staff check had found everyone at their posts was probably that her shift should already have ended by then.

She was already dead. According to Puer, after he had "awakened" her corpse, even the last spirituality stored in her body had dissipated. So Alfred carrying her back could be considered an organ donation to Miss Molly.

That was how Kallen framed it to himself. Only then could he ease some of the guilt in his heart.

"Oh, right, your grandfather arranged for you to continue treatment at home today," Mina said with a smile.

"Mm."

It seemed Dis no longer felt comfortable letting him stay away from home alone, even with Puer looking after him.

Speaking of which, where was Puer?

Kallen looked around but saw no sign of Puer. She had probably gone home already. She needed to recover from her injuries too.

"So from now on, I'll accompany the doctor to your house every afternoon to give you your IV and change your dressings."

Kallen understood why Mina was happy.

"Thank you for all your hard work."

"It's no trouble. It'll actually be easier for me this way. I can slack off a little."

Of course, such a service required higher medical expenses, such as transportation costs and additional allowances for the medical staff.

"My little Kallen, I've come to take you home."

Uncle Mason entered the ward. As instructed by his father, Dis, he needed to bring his nephew home today.

"Young Master Kallen."

"Young master, we're here to take you home from the hospital."

Paul carried a Stretcher Cart in, then lowered its four wheels once he was inside the ward.

Then,

Paul and Ron stood at opposite ends, one reaching for Kallen's neck and the other for his legs.

At the sight, Uncle Mason immediately snapped:

"Damn it, you're moving my nephew, not a guest! His wound is on his chest. Do you want to tear it open again after it's just been stitched back up?"

Paul and Ron looked at each other, then both laughed.

"Sorry, young master. We're used to moving dead people. We haven't really moved many living ones."

Then, under Mina's direction, Ron and Paul cradled Kallen in their arms, carefully lifting him without jostling him and placing him on the Stretcher Cart.

After that,

Kallen lay on a Stretcher Cart that had carried who knew how many guests and was wheeled out of the inpatient building, getting a taste of the Immerlis Family's guest experience.

Well,

They had come to pick him up in a hearse, too.

Just then, a mother and daughter happened to pass through the parking lot;

"What a shame. Gone so young."

"Yes, he was so handsome. What a shame."

"..." Kallen.

Paul and Ron lifted him again, just as they had in the ward, and carried him into the hearse;

Then something happened that genuinely startled Kallen: they lowered him into a coffin.

"This is..."

Uncle Mason, who had taken the driver's seat and was starting the engine, laughed. "It's a new coffin we ordered for another guest this morning. We deliberately left it in when we came to get you. The ride is bumpy, so you'll be much steadier in the coffin."

Kallen remembered how Mr. Mossan and Jeff had clung to each other in the jolting hearse;

After thinking it over, he accepted the reality of lying in a coffin to cushion the bumps.

Actually, the coffin had soft padding inside, and it was quite comfortable to lie in. Besides, it gave you a direct and profound appreciation of "inner peace."

There was even a pillow in the coffin, as well as a recess along the side containing cigarettes, a lighter, and a deck of cards.

The hearse headed home.

Ron leaned against the coffin, smiling at Kallen as he played with a copper coin and asked:

"Comfortable, young master? I put in an extra layer of padding just for you."

"Thank you." Kallen noticed the copper coin Ron was tossing in his hand and asked, "Ron, what's that you've got?"

"Oh, I found it. It's copper, not worth much, but it feels nice in the hand."

Paul, sitting beside him, scoffed. "Found it? He stole it off another body yesterday while we were picking up our own guest from the hospital morgue."

"Oh, come on, how is that stealing? They're already gone. Aren't their things all for the living to use? I just can't stand waste.

"Besides, isn't it strange? Ever since I started carrying this thing, I've felt so full of energy. I spent half the night drinking yesterday, but I'm not sleepy at all today. I can't bear to put it down anymore. I just keep it in my pocket."

"Ron, could I take a look at that copper coin?"

"Hm?" Ron hesitated, looking reluctant, but still held his coin-clutching hand out in front of Kallen, who reached out and took it.

It felt no different from any other coin. It was indeed made of copper, with an empress's portrait engraved on it, though he couldn't tell whether she was a figure from Ruilan Country's history. After all, it might have been an old copper coin brought in from another country, or even a children's souvenir coin mass-produced for an amusement park.

But as Kallen continued examining the copper coin,

He suddenly felt liquid dripping onto him,

He looked up and saw that it was Ron's drool;

Ron had been leaning over the edge of the coffin,

But now his gaze was vacant, his eyes lifeless, and saliva kept streaming from the corners of his mouth as he began to mumble:

"My money... my money... my money..."