Chapter 213 – Deception

Despair Island Lake

Cathedral

“Hehe, I didn’t think you would even build a church by the lake, the scenery must be great, right? The air is also fresh, I also want to live here!” A small girl wearing white robes was slowly walking outside the church with her maid, and a woman with a deathly pale complexion followed next to her like a guide.

That woman’s name was Selina, the Bishop for Despair Island Lake dioceses. She was currently taking Saintess Snow who came from Winterless city on a stroll around her church.

During the day, by Snow’s request, she took her around the dioceses then after arriving at Despair Island Lake Anderson passed over the cavalcade of carriages to Selina, it was an official transfer, even Snow couldn’t pick out any problems with it.

She came up empty-handed after a whole day, it was already dusk and Snow couldn’t do anything but watch the scenery in a bored manner.

“Elona, how’s the scenery?” She held her hand, and ‘watched’ the scenery in that manner.

“The surface of the lake is very flat and I can see the distant islands. Master, Despair Island Lake is really big.” Elona excitedly stood on her tiptoes, looking left and right and was deeply captivated by the beautiful scenery.

“Is that so? Sigh, it’s a pity I can’t see it…” Snow pouted in dissatisfaction, turned and and spoke to Selina, “Alright, I admit defeat, can you tell me what you and that damn fatty are planning?”

“Damn fatty?”

“That damn fatty, Anderson!”

“Oh, you were talking about Archbishop Anderson… Saintess Snow, I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Alright, I confess, I thought that you guys would send banned materials while using this trip as a guise, but I carefully investigated with Elona the whole day and couldn’t find anything.”

She had thought that she had missed something, but after careful investigation, Anderson’s cavalcade didn’t have any problematic items. So in the end it felt like she was just suspicious for nothing.

“Saintess, isn’t that normal?”

“Wu… okay, stop keeping me guessing. We can’t do anything anymore, so just tell me, what are you plotting?”

“Saintess, please don’t say something so absurd. Although our dioceses is lacking power, we’re faithful believers of the Goddess, that is even more the case for Archbishop Anderson, so we would never do anything to besmirch the Goddess’s name.”

“Ahhhh! How annoying, you suck, you suck!” Snow angrily scratched her head.

Seeing that, Elona quickly hugged her, afraid she would so something compulsive.

“Master, don’t get mad, perhaps you really misjudged them.” The naive Elona smiled and consoled her, “Their dioceses is not like Winterless City’s, they don’t have as many believers, so it’s already difficult enough to operate here, you should praise Bishop Selina instead.”

“Hmph, a mere maid dare lecture me? Do you want me to strip you naked and toss you into the lake?”

“Eh? M-master, d-don’t… I was wrong!”

She disregarded Elona’s struggling and shifted her hand up, grabbed her breasts and started forcefully kneading them! She didn’t let go even as she cried out.

“Elona, I feed you and raise you, and you take someone else’s side? That shouldn’t be what a maid does! Who cares if they have a lack of people? Isn’t that why… wait, wait a second?”

Snow was intimately bantering Elona, but suddenly stopped.

“Lack of people?”

“Wuuuu… I won’t do it anymore… master… master?”

Before Elona had a chance to thank her master for letting her off, she noticed that Snow looked strange.

“Ah, I finally get it! No wonder we couldn’t find anything when investigating the cavalcade, you guys are really crafty.” Snow bitterly scoffed and turned to speak to Selina.

“Snow, what are you saying? It’s already late, let me take you to your resting quarters.” Selina was still remained firm, and turned to lead the way, seemingly towards the church.

Snow hesitated for a bit, but didn’t reject her and ordered Elona to lead her. She started telling her of her deductions as they walked.

“Elona, I was actually suspecting that Anderson was sending you goods then purposely interfering with the Academy Tournament.”

“Saintess Snow, why would we do that?”

“How would I know? It was just a guess! … But I was puzzled to why I couldn’t find anything no matter how much I investigated, now I finally understand. The entire cavalcade was just a front! I was wrong from the beginning!”

“A front?”

“That’s right, you guys weren’t shipping goods, you were shipping people, right!”

Now she understood everything!

No wonder Anderson purposely made the cavalcade so grand, his real purpose wasn’t to transport materials needed for missionaries, but to openly bring his reliable subordinates to Despair Island Lake.

A mobilization of this many people would surely be questioned without a proper reason, but if he made use of transporting materials as an excuse, the materials would be what was focused on and the large amount of personnel wouldn’t be suspected!

“Hehe, Saintess, you really have a vivid imagination.”

Perhaps it was because it was already late, but the spacious church was completely empty. The row of lights on the wall gave off a dim yellow glow, as their footsteps echoed down the long corridor.

Selina continued walking while feigning ignorance and continued to bring Snow deeper in.

“Saintess, if it was really as you said, then why did I have to transfer people from Archbishop Anderson? What, am I gathering people for apostasy?”

“Apostasy? Hehe, that’s not even possible for trash like you.” Snow rudely spoke, “Don’t think I don’t know… your real purpose is the Lesser Devils, right?”

With those words, Selina came to a halt.

“Oh? You also know about Lesser Devils?” Selina’s tone wavered, then became as silent as someone dead and continued walking.

Elona didn’t understand what they were talking about, but she could feel the atmosphere become more dangerous and didn’t want to continue bringing Snow forwards. But Snow clenched her hand, telling her not to be scared and continue walking.

“I only heard of it recently, and it was from my perverted brother. I just used it to draw you out, so it’s true…” Snow held onto Elona’s small hands and told of her story, “The Pope said that there were people secretly conducting human experimentation within the church and suspected people from the Winterless city dioceses so he sent me here to partner with Anderson, while secretly investigating.”

“Un, as expected of the Pope, although it looks like he doesn’t care about anything on the surface, but it seems like he grasps all the developments within each dioceses, impressive.”

“Of course, do you think Pope St. George is really just an old man that knows how to sleep? How could he sit so steadily as the Pope without any capability?” Snow smugly bragged a bit, like she was showing off her old man, then began speaking seriously again, “Selina, you guys want to use those fanatical believers as materials to produce Lesser Devils, am I right?”

“Saintess, you really are smart.”

As she said that, Selina finally brought Snow in front of a strange wall within the Church.

When she approached the wall, she placed her hand on one of the lights and gently turned it and the wall suddenly sank. Soon, a staircase leading downwards appeared.

“Please come with me.” Selina stood at the side of the stairs and gestured at her.

“Master, shouldn’t we…”

“Bring me there.” Snow ordered the hesitant Elona.

Now that it’s come to this, what choice did she have? It’s not like she could run, where could someone blind run to in foreign lands?

Even if it was Hongmen Banquet she would go.

“Watch your feet.”

Selina didn’t forget to carefully remind them as she walked in front.

“Sigh, sister Selina, I’m guessing that the assassinations in Winterless City had something to do with you guys?” Snow carefully walked down the stairs while chatting with her.

“Why do you say that?”

“That’s because they all had something to do with smuggling. I’m guessing that other than humans, you need a lot of other materials, and since the Holy Light Church’s influence is limited in Heino Kingdom, Anderson had to think of ways to transport materials from Winterless City so he had to smuggle them.”

“Go on.” Selina nodded and seemed to acquiesce.

“Perhaps you got into a disagreement, or they got a hold of your weakness and threatened you, so you chose to finish them off.” Snow was able to deduct the real reason behind the assassinations, though she didn’t know the perpetrator was Shen DaiYing, she was able to guess the truth.

“That’s right, those people with incorrigible greed wanted even more money from Archbishop Anderson, so we had no choice but to entrust someone to finish them off.”

“But there’s something I still don’t know… what is a Lesser Devil? Is it powerful? Also… what is your goal? What do you get out of bringing down the Academy Tournament?”

“Saintess, I’m unable to answer your questions.”

“Hah? If you can’t, then who can?”

Selina didn’t respond to her question and continued walking down the stairs.

After a while, they finally reached their destination. Even if she couldn’t see, Snow could feel the space opening up, like they came to a secret underground plaza.

“Master, there’s some there!”

Elona noticed the faint bloated figure of a man in the dim basement, as they spoke, all the surrounding wall lights suddenly lit up and that man that was hiding in the darkness turned around.

“Saintess, you came? Heehee.”

“Anderson? As expected, you damn fatty!”