< 82. Hell of Disbelief (10) >
***
“Lord Gadwick, another petition has been submitted from dimension #77-102. It is quite strong in tone. They are demanding an explanation as to why the Council is delaying approval, considering that landing clearance has already been issued long ago on the destination dimension #22-189.”
After hearing the subordinate’s report, the Cavite tribe looked at the hologram for a moment and then said.
“Dotes.”
“Yes, Lord Gedwick.”
“Can you guess why we are interfering with the outings of those three-eyed isolationists?”
Dotes rolled his head.
The demanding boss sometimes asks questions like this to test his subordinates’ work ethic. Dotes, knowing that his answers could influence Gedwick’s highly subjective assessment, chooses his words carefully.
“Dimension #22-189… I understand that the prisoners of that dimension, known locally as ‘Earth,’ have recently been given a confidential mission. Although I cannot confirm the details with my authority.”
“continue.”
“But the timing of the mission is exquisite. The day after the religious people of dimension #77-102… the self-proclaimed ‘Heresy Inquisitors’ requested the committee’s approval to jump to Earth, an urgent message was sent to the Earth prisoners.”
“continue.”
“The purpose of the Inquisitor is to punish the priest of that dimension who has been branded a heretic, while also recovering the body of the Patriarch of the Earth Diocese that he is believed to have secured.”
“continue.”
“The fact that the committee delayed the approval of the jump and assigned the task to the Earth prisoners ultimately seems to be an intention to sabotage the work of the Inquisitors. I suspect that while they were grounded on Earth, the prisoners were tasked with intercepting the priest or the body. Is that correct?”
“That’s more or less correct. To be precise, the committee isn’t interested in heretics, they’re interested in corpses.”
Dotes looked relieved, but Gedwick was still not satisfied. This is something anyone with a keen ear could infer. The Cavite tribe decided to delve a little deeper.
“Then why are these heretic inquisitors so obsessed with the corpses of their own people who died in foreign lands?”
Dotes rolled his eyes and said.
“Could it be for religious or cultural reasons?”
It seems you haven’t figured this out yet. Are you not connected to any higher-ups in the committee other than me?
Gedwick kindly explained, inwardly assessing the level of his direct subordinate’s internal network.
“The justifications they give are twofold. They claim that since he was declared an adult, his body should be brought to the main altar of the mother dimension, and since the deceased’s status was quite high, they want to retrieve his ‘seed’. Fortunately, the head of the body is said to be intact and intact.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t quite understand when you explained the second reason.”
What seed can be recovered when it is already dead, and what does that have to do with the head?
Gedwick said, projecting a hologram.
“The average appearance of those three-eyed people is like this.”
“You really do have three eyes.”
“Everyone says that for convenience, but in fact, that thing in the middle is not an eye.”
“Then what is it?”
“reproductive organs.”
Dotes hesitated for a moment at the unexpected answer.
“······That’s it?”
“That species’ skulls are densely packed with various organs, not just the brain. It’s not uncommon for evolutionary mechanisms to cram all the important parts into one place. Anyway, that species’ seeds are inside the skulls. And even after the person dies, the seeds can be recycled. Just like the seeds of plants.”
“Then the heretic inquisitors will take that head and…”
“Before burying the body, we will entrust it to an undertaker to open the bones and extract the seeds. The bereaved family who receives it will then give it to a girl from a prestigious family that has been agreed upon in advance and hold a posthumous wedding ceremony. After all, marriage among the nobles is a procedure to combine the family’s assets, so the will of the person concerned is not important. Sometimes, even the life or death of the person concerned may not matter.”
“It’s bizarre.”
“Again, this is only a superficial reason. The delegates don’t seem to believe this excuse.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t think the grand council ordered the retrieval of the priest’s head to interfere with the marriage of a noble family. There must be some other reason.”
“I see. So you guessed there was another reason and wanted to sabotage it.”
“okay.”
Gedwick added after a moment’s thought.
“And, the fact that dimension #77-102 is such a special case is one of the reasons I guess so.”
Then Dotes asked as if he had been waiting, because there was something he just couldn’t understand.
“Why on earth have the delegates neglected that dimension until now?”
“Please elaborate on your question.”
“It’s strange that they closed the dimension without permission, but the committee is just leaving them alone? They’re not sending immigrants or forcing trade.”
“Didn’t they refuse?”
“But don’t be so obedient….”
“Then what should we do? Should we force them to resume communication by pushing forward with overwhelming firepower?”
Dotes thought for a moment and then shook his head.
“No, that’s not the committee’s way.”
The ancient races that make up the upper ranks of the Council are only a handful in the entire dimension in terms of numbers.
Of course, they have technological prowess that is incomparable to that of other races, but if they suppress all those they don’t like by force without a proper justification, they will suffer enormous losses. Furthermore, it was obvious that they would provoke the dragons, with whom they had barely maintained a peaceful relationship after the declaration of the end of the war.
So instead of waging war, the Council has taken control of other dimensions with money and technology. The process mostly starts with debt wiping. It involves creating external debt using talents, which only the Council knows how to mine properly.
“That dimension also built a terminal and once traded, so don’t they owe the committee a talent? We notify them that we will visit under the pretext of urgent collection or debtor credit evaluation, and if they refuse, we use that as an excuse to use force. That’s our way of doing it…”
“I have no debt.”
“yes?”
Dotes did not understand what his superior was saying.
“Dimension #77-102 paid off all of their external debts to the Commission in a lump sum just before the lockdown was implemented decades ago. Every penny was paid cleanly, with compound interest and even early repayment fees calculated thoroughly.”
“······No way!”
That’s impossible, according to a lending system designed by the commission’s top financial engineers and future planners.
“That too, he paid for it in full with the talent.”
“?!”
There was an explanation of the source of funds.
Before the committee was launched, talents of unknown origin were excavated and sealed in various dimensions. If the skills of those handling them were poor, a significant amount would evaporate during the mining process, but in any case, a very small amount was still circulating.
——————
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The explanation from the residents of #77-102 was that the money collected at that time was used to pay for it on a global scale.
“no way?”
Dotes felt uneasy.
“Yes, the commissioners are suspicious. Could it be that they have discovered another way to mine talent that we don’t know about?”
“······That sounds plausible.”
“The dilemma is that I can’t take action because it’s still just a suspicion. Even if I try to act rough, I have to watch out for that disgusting giant reptile. And in the midst of all that, when they suddenly lift the lockdown and show suspicious movements, shouldn’t I intervene?”
“Of course. It has to do with talent, nothing else.”
“And the timing of their move is so suspicious. Why, right now, when that cycle is approaching···”
“Huh? What cycle are you talking about?”
Gadwick realized he had made a mistake. Dotes was a member of the Council, but he was not an Ancient.
“It’s nothing.”
The Cavite tribe kept the next words buried in their hearts without saying a word.
After a while, the depth of sleep of ‘them’, who are now asleep, begins to decrease. This fact makes Gedwick uneasy.
***
“······Then we will go back now.”
“Take a look.”
Frankfurt police, who were dispatched after receiving the report, searched the inside of the Dreamland building, but could not find anything suspicious. Furthermore, the swarm of rats running along the walls of the building dispersed and disappeared, so there was no reason to search around any longer.
But even after the police left, Minjun, who had been hidden, remained inside.
The expression on the priest’s face as he guided us changed, and he opened a secret door that the police had not noticed. A passage leading to the basement.
The secret chapel that Ha Eun-seong had witnessed while walking through the wall appeared beyond it. Min-jun followed along quietly.
The service, which had been interrupted, resumed after the priest reported that the police had left.
‘Ha Eun-seong was terrified when he saw this scene.’
For Minjun, who had already seen the horrifying scene at Jenkinson Lair, it was disgusting, but not so much that he fainted.
Moreover, the grotesque scene covered in blood and filth, which was a different type of worship from the exorcism, quickly ended and moved on to the next stage.
Minjun was hiding in a corner, watching the priest on the podium.
‘I’m sleeping!’
It was impossible to kidnap them right away. This service was an event attended only by the ‘hardcore’ members of the congregation, and an intense divine power was felt without exception from those gathered. It would not be wise to cause a commotion in this situation.
‘I’ll wait until the service is over and then kidnap her.’
When I thought about that, the bishop on the pulpit said:
“Then, next, everyone, take out your ‘Book of Asif’.”
‘?!’
Minjun flinched for a moment. The words that were so familiar came out of the mouth of someone he had never expected.
They pulled out a scripture with nothing written on the cover. The agent repeated what he had read in the materials that Cash had examined.
‘I heard that the bible of that sect is divided into one for ordinary believers and one for priests who have been certified as having divine powers. The latter is a kind of secret scripture that even believers cannot read unless they are qualified.’
But I was concerned that the word Asif was included in the name of such a scripture.
‘It must be a coincidence.’
Even if we only consider the Earth culture, there are many homonyms. But if we expand the scope to all dimensions? The word Asif would be used with various meanings by various races.
The bishop began to mutter a prayer under the invisible gaze of Minjun.
He is the one who takes the lead.
“Only in your dreams do we dream of you.”
The priests sing.
“Only in your dreams do we dream of you.”
Only then does the bishop open the scriptures without a title and read them.
But it wasn’t the language of Earth.
‘what?’
Minjun unconsciously listened. It wasn’t a language he knew, but something buried inside him responded to the strange sounds and sounds.
The moment he fell into deep concentration.
Beep!
Sharp pain.
A pain ran through his head as if it were piercing through with an awl.
‘What is this?’
I thought it was a mental attack, but the pain gradually subsided.
This is because the bishop began to recite the sentences he had read in a foreign language, translating them back into German.
After listening a little more, Minjun was able to understand the content of the scriptures. What they were reading was the oldest scripture they worshipped, and it was a document written in the early days of the religious order. The bishop was talking about a prophet who was the starting point of the religion.
‘A common repertoire.’
The prophet said he came down from heaven. He performed various miracles in front of the people of the dimension where Dreamland was created. It was the miracle that the natives at the time most wanted. He fed the hungry, cured the sick, and brought the dead back to life.
‘It would have been impossible to raise the dead with divine power. Unless a warlock was also with them.’
Eventually, the natives came to worship the prophet and revere the words of truth he conveyed as religious revelations.
The bishop read and translated the scriptures.
“The villagers said to the prophet, ‘Why have you come to lead us out?’”
“The Prophet answered, ‘Your people have the ability to achieve happiness and ecstasy without help. Therefore, you are a people who can dream while awake, and you do not need a handful of elixirs or insects made of blood to achieve happiness. Therefore, I know that you are the most suitable to welcome in your dreams the primordial race who are sleeping in the happiest dream.”
‘A bug made of blood?’
Among the things listed as conditions for reaching ecstasy, the word “bug” caught Minjun’s attention.
The bishop read the next sentence in an alien language, and again my head started to throbbed, but it was more bearable than before.
“The village chief asked again, ‘Who do you mean by the original race?’”
“The Prophet answered, ‘They are the great ones who lived in Elah-Pragah before history was written down, who have in their hearts the fountain of life that never runs dry, who sleep for an eternity but do not die, and who create everything through dreams.’”
“The village chief asked again, ‘What is Elah-Praga?’”
“The Prophet answered, ‘Just as a piece of glass in the sunlight changes into different colors depending on the light, so these five syllables contain more meanings than the branches of water flowing over the vast earth. I know all their meanings, but you, being unintelligent, cannot understand them.’”
“Then the village chief looked up again and asked, ‘What shall we call the prophet who has spoken all these words of wisdom?’”
“The Prophet answered, ‘My true name has long been forgotten, but the beasts of today call me Asif, the greatest of evildoers.’”
Minjun’s eyes grew wide.
< 82. Hell of Disbelief (10) > End
