Four Split Personalities

"Let you..."

Motan looked at Cordova with some surprise and repeated, "Guard here for a whole day?"

The latter grinned and nodded vigorously, "Yeah, this guard brother here is a bit chicken, and since I don’t have anything else to do, why not stay here for the day? If anything changes, I can contact you guys immediately."

"Uh, although I don’t know why you suddenly decided to help..."

Motan gave Cordova a suspicious glance, then turned and asked the Moore monk, who also seemed a bit stunned, "Is that allowed by the rules?"

The place was still a public facility of the Holy Church Union, and he was using the names of Yu Chen and the Church of the Dawn. Even if Cordova suddenly offered to help, it was better to avoid breaking rules as much as possible. After all, nobody liked a privileged class that acted recklessly. Even if they didn’t say anything to your face, they might curse you behind your back. A wrong move could easily cause a public opinion issue. It didn’t matter much to him or Cordova, but it would be bad if Yu Chen got involved.

However, the Moore monk nodded generously and laughed, "Haha, you don’t need to worry about that. If it were places like the High Court, it would be different since they detain heretics and notorious scumbags, but here it’s not so strict. Although it’s not a place you can enter and leave at will, there’s no problem with that gentleman staying for a day as long as Her Highness the Saintess vouches for him. It’s actually good to have more people around here."

He spoke in a quite grounded way and sincerely at that, far from the religious inquisitors Motan had imagined — those cloak-wearing, somber, reticent, brooding, mentally disturbed, powerful, and fanatically devout figures — which indeed was a bit far from reality.

"I can vouch for Mr. Cordova’s character."

Yu Chen immediately nodded and solemnly said to the Moore monk, "He is my friend."

The latter clapped his hands energetically and bowed to Cordova, "Then there’s no problem. Mr. Cordova, I’ll prepare a temporary pass for you. Valid until this time tomorrow, you can enter and exit the smaller adjudication rooms freely. Oh, right, if I may ask, which deity’s believer are you?"

"Uh, well..."

Cordova scratched his neck, feeling a bit embarrassed, and shrugged, "I believe in fate."

Moore misunderstood immediately and chuckled, "Ah, the Goddess of Fate, right? Haha, who doesn’t want a bit of good luck?"

"I seriously doubt that."

Cordova muttered quietly but didn’t rush to correct the misunderstanding; instead, he asked tentatively, "Is there a problem?"

"Of course not, it’s just that since the Goddess of Fate is a Neutral God and not among our union’s faiths, I’m afraid we can’t allow you to use the prayer room."

The Moore monk shook his head and apologetically shrugged, "Please understand."

"Uncle, don’t be so polite, there’s nothing to apologize for."

Cordova smacked his lips and casually waved it off, "I was planning to stay here all along anyway."

The dwarf nodded slightly with a smile, "Good, then I’ll go prepare your temporary pass."

He turned to go upstairs, but...

"Please wait a moment."

Motan called out to him from behind, saying apologetically to the somewhat bewildered Moore, "Sorry, I actually have another question, not about this monster, though."

Moore nodded without hesitation, "Sure, ask away."

"Thanks, actually I noticed it as soon as I came in..."

Motan turned his body to look at the empty cell across from him, "Over there, it seems someone died not long ago, right?"

As soon as he finished, Yu Chen, Cordova, and Tero all turned to look at the dim cell and, without any coordination, noticed the anomaly.

In the shadow of the stone wall, there was a small patch of spreading dark red bloodstains, several large footprints of the same color, and some rotten ’remains’...

"Amazing that you noticed."

The Moore monk bowed his head slightly, carefully maintaining his expression and sighed with a bitter smile, "Yes, someone did die there, just last midnight."

Yu Chen frowned slightly, then whispered a few prayers and sighed, turning to the Moore monk, "What... happened?"

"That cell formerly held a female assassin who believed in an Evil God and attempted to murder a High-order Archbishop of the Sun Sect half a month ago," Moore drew a God’s Badge in the air solemnly, "She failed, but she wasn’t killed on the spot. Instead, she was captured up until the day before yesterday. The High-order Archbishop was trying to rid the assassin of the Evil God’s influence, but it was unsuccessful. The corruption had taken deep root, and that poor person’s mind and soul no longer belonged to themselves. With no other choice, the Archbishop sent her here to perform Purification before the Evil God could further ravage her."

Cordova curled his lip and chuckled dryly, "So basically, you planned to kill her, huh?"

"Strictly speaking... yes."

Moore didn’t show any displeasure but simply nodded and continued, "But the ’Purification’ wasn’t scheduled for yesterday. That heretic’s death was completely accidental."