Aldo seemed to remember something. After fumbling inside his tattered clothes for a long time, he pulled out a blood-soaked metal insignia with damaged edges and handed it to Douglas with difficulty.
"This... I tore it off one of the knights... their insignia... it's very blurred..."
Douglas took the insignia.
The feel of it made him frown slightly.
It was a crude cross, its surface pitted, with what seemed to be a relief of some animal carved into it.
But years of wear and a covering of congealed, dark red blood made its precise shape difficult to distinguish.
It gave off a smell of rust mingled with stale blood.
More importantly, the material of this insignia... was far too old. The Church had not fallen into such poverty.
"They weren't trying to wipe you all out."
Douglas looked at the insignia, his tone certain.
"If they were truly the Church's Templar Order or the Inquisition, you would never have had a chance to organize an effective retreat."
Lupin felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"It was more like they were... staging an attack."
Douglas's words seemed to freeze the very air in the mine.
Lupin asked incredulously.
"Staging it? For whom?"
Douglas's gaze was as deep as an abyss.
"For us. Or rather, for me."
He turned the insignia over in his hand.
"To make sure that when I arrived, I would see a tribe destroyed by the 'Church' and a survivor who had 'barely escaped with his life.'"
Aldo stared blankly at Douglas, his cloudy remaining eye full of confusion.
He did not understand the meaning behind those words. The savagery of those knights and priests, the searing pain of that Holy Light and those flames-all of it was a nightmare he had experienced himself.
How could it