"May justice be everlasting, may the Truth endure forever, may civilization continue endlessly."
Colin said these words before the statue at the end of the corridor before pushing open the corridor’s grand doors.
A new day, a new prayer day—Colin, newly promoted and now a helping priest, would host his first prayer ceremony today.
"Yo, Colin, you seem pretty happy today."
Mopping the chapel, Malin greeted him, although not in a very pleasant manner.
Colin shook his head with a smile, "What’s gotten into you, buddy? Did the mentor ask you to come clean up?"
"No, it was my sword dance instructor. She said I still haven’t grasped the true meaning of the sword dance. But what can I do? With a strength of 20, how can I give up such an advantage?" Malin looked unhappy, but the way he cleaned showed seriousness and effort, which made Colin wonder—was this guy in charge of cleaning back at home?
Well, that’s indeed a possibility. As an older brother taking care of his sister, Colin couldn’t help but feel sentimental—despite this guy’s fearsome appearance, he was genuinely good to his sister.
"By the way, the Karna family’s wish to reconcile with you, you’ve heard about it, haven’t you?" Colin was also somewhat troubled by this since the other party was a Duke with private soldiers under his command. Although the Church had nothing to fear, dispatching a team of veteran soldiers to ambush Malin could give Malin enough trouble, regardless of whether the matter could succeed or not.
"I know, I had his lordship the instructor handle it for me. I don’t mind personally discussing it with them, just afraid that their kid might lose it again and throw a glove in my face, then I’ll have no choice but to kill another in front of their family." Malin said with a sigh, "I’ve been thinking about it these past days. Tell me, how could their brother return from the Central Administrative Province to Carterburg on the same night after we killed both his siblings?"
"Someone must have tipped him off. We confirmed that Kay Karna returned to Carterburg at night using the Church’s Teleportation Array," Colin was also curious, but the main characters of the affair were all dead: "Their mother died too, reportedly from a mental breakdown twisted by the loss of her children, killed by her husband."
"...Sigh." Malin let out a heavy sigh.
"Why sigh?" Colin asked curiously.
"...You wouldn’t understand," Malin gave Colin a look—although older, Colin’s experiences really couldn’t compare to Malin’s. The very next day, Malin had thought of a problem—had he inadvertently become the star of a murder mystery, used by someone as a pawn?
Firstly, there were people who pursued Jessica, and Malin knew it, but why didn’t anyone from the Faye faction jump out immediately?
You have to know, the Werewolf from the Faye side, when it came to causing trouble, could absolutely blow those fools from Jessica’s side out of the water. If he heard Malin was missing or dead, would he just sit back and watch?
From Malin’s perspective, that guy must have been afraid Malin wasn’t dead and thus was holding back—after all, if Malin did die, there would be no one who could outmatch him, so he’d dodge a bullet.
As for those two children from the Karna family, why were they so eager to jump into action?
Weren’t they scared? After all, that kid was petrified when he saw Malin show up, so Malin wondered whether someone fed the two with some false information.
Because with Malin’s year and more of insight into the nobles of Carterburg, while these Nobles might be pompous, their self-preservation instinct was formidable, especially when facing death.
Malin had made a name for himself in Carterburg. Even the youngsters of Queen Manli’s family of Mowish would first confirm the situation before making plans. How could those two kids be so rash without even asking?
Originally, these were just thoughts in Malin’s head, with no evidence to back them up. But when he learned that Kay had rushed back to Carterburg overnight and confronted Malin in a duel in extreme anger, knowing well the rule that whoever broke the code of the duel first would lose the protection of their life and that the other party could kill them by any means without accountability.
He should have known this, yet why did he still choose to violate the duel’s rules? Malin noted his demeanor in the last moments—it seemed as if his will had already warped, and if Malin hadn’t killed him immediately, perhaps he would have become a Chaos.
Furthermore, Malin heard that Lady Lisa Karna also died, reportedly twisted insane from frantic anger and losing her mind.
With these two cases, Malin was almost certain there was a problem.
And what nailed the suspicion was confirming that Lady Karna’s... three children died within half a day.
That is to say, Kay was her son, and those previous two were also her children.
The current patriarch of the Karna family had three wives. The legal wife bore the eldest son, eldest daughter, second daughter, and third son, while another lady bore the fourth and fifth children. Lady Lisa bore the second son, third daughter, fourth son, and sixth son.
At first, Malin was puzzled, but when he learned that the sixth son was only four years old, he finally confirmed he was the target.
Someone in the Karna family wanted to clear out this branch of the bloodline. It couldn’t be the patriarch; no matter how ruthless, he would unlikely push his second son, who was already on the fifth rung of the ladder, to his death. And based on his knowledge of these nobles, they sired so many offspring to ensure that in the event of destruction and calamity, there would be enough branches to sustain their lineage.