Chapter 366

"Could you please let me know if you have any information on ‘The Chosen Ones' and why the Parter Church decided to eliminate them? Please be as detailed as possible."

Oliver made the request, and to his surprise, Edith appeared prepared for it. He produced two files and placed them in front of Oliver.

With a solid thud, both files contained extensive details about ‘The Chosen Ones' and the official as well as unofficial motives behind the Parter Church's actions in eliminating them.

Oliver carefully perused the contents of the files, finding them to contain rather intriguing narratives.

"Quite... interesting."

"I would say it's disgusting. Well, tastes vary, so I'll give you that."

"Thank you... If it's okay, may I take these files?"

"Do I look like a sucker for information? And my stuff is quite expensive. Can you handle it?"

"Um... While I may not be as wealthy as you, Mr. Edith, I do have some money. Could you sell it to me?"

Edith chuckled knowingly.

"Heh heh heh. You say you have some money. Maybe that's a lot for a solver, but unfortunately, your offer isn't compelling. Even all your assets combined can't match the loose change in my pocket."

He wasn't boasting; he meant it.

"Um... Then how can I get hold of these files?"

"Simple. You owe me a favor, and you can repay that debt later. Easy, right?"

"Yes, understood."

Without hesitation, Oliver accepted, despite the vague nature of the debt and the uncertain method of repayment.

A rather audacious choice, but for some reason, Edith didn't dislike this side of Oliver. Normally, he detested fools.

"The deal is set. Now it's yours."

With these words, Edith rose from his seat and extended his hand towards Oliver.

Instinctively, Oliver shook his hand.

He hadn't expected Edith to offer a handshake.

"Mr. Edith, if it's alright, may I take my leave?"

"Well, we're done eating, so why not. What are you going to do now?"

Filled with curiosity and interest, Edith inquired. Oliver replied,

"First, I'm going to finish writing my paper."

That wasn't a lie.

After parting ways with Edith, Oliver promptly returned to his residence. He reviewed the incomplete paper and the information he had gathered thus far, then began rewriting the paper from scratch.

And he did so rapidly.

His writing flowed effortlessly. Before meeting Edith, he had struggled, but now Oliver was swiftly putting his thoughts onto paper.

Not merely filling space with words, but crafting each word and sentence with satisfaction.

Perhaps it was because the jumbled thoughts in his mind had been neatly organized.

"The end."

Several hours after he had sat down, Oliver declared the paper's completion.

The finished work was nearly the length of a book. An ordinary person might have felt a mixture of great satisfaction and exhaustion, but Oliver, instead, felt more invigorated.

First, he took a refreshing shower, dressed in fresh, neatly arranged clothes, grabbed his paper, and retrieved a sheet of paper from his bag.

It was paper infused with portal magic.

Whee...!!

When Oliver activated the stored spell by channeling his magic into the paper, a soft, distinct sound, reminiscent of fluttering insect wings, resonated, and a purple portal materialized in midair.

Oliver gazed at the portal, finding it truly fascinating.

He had prepared it recently, just in case it might come in handy, and now it was proving its worth.Điscover new chapters at novelhall.com

Oliver stepped through the portal, marveling at his good fortune, and adjusted his attire.

As he entered the portal, he beheld the interior landscape of Merlin's mansion and a gathering of wooden doll golems surrounding him.

Remarkably, each of these wooden doll golems possessed master-level mana.

"May I meet the elder?"

Oliver inquired in his usual manner.

***

Merlin was within the mansion.

It was indeed fortunate; otherwise, a considerable amount of time would have been wasted.

Merlin spoke as he saw Oliver, who had been escorted in by the wooden doll golems.

"When I was a young fella, I used to give the adults a surprise or two, but I never went trespassing... When did you stick a portal magic paper in my house?"

Oliver, who had been bound and forcibly escorted by the wooden doll golems, replied,

"I planted it the last time I was gathering research material. I did it in case I urgently needed to meet you. I apologize for doing it without asking for permission... and also, thank you."

"What are you thankful for?"

"For pretending not to know when I secretly planted it."

Merlin raised a single eyebrow slightly.

"So now you can read my emotions?"

"No. But I thought it's unlikely you didn't notice. So, you must have pretended not to know."

"Hmm... You've become quite clever. Untie him."

At Merlin's gesture and command, the wooden doll golems magically untied Oliver and exited the room.

Left alone, Merlin and Oliver shared a moment of silence, during which Merlin swiftly skimmed through the paper Oliver had brought.

After turning the final page, Oliver inquired, "What do you think, Elder?"

"Excellent," Merlin replied succinctly but with a gravity that carried more weight than extensive praise.

Mattel was a colossal organization under the banner of Life School. Its power and influence were incomparable to that of an individual.

Even if people knew that an innocent child had been unjustly taken and had perished as a result of a wretched experiment, most would simply turn a blind eye. Who dared to challenge it?

Ignoring it was the norm and the accepted wisdom, particularly in Landa.

"But you still went to help?"

"I felt that if I just ignored it, it would keep haunting me. While eating, before sleep, sometimes when I'm researching or studying. It would be... annoying."

"So you're sayin' you'll go help those who worship you against your will?"

"Yes."

Merlin gazed intently at Oliver and began to speak.

"Honestly, I'm tempted to argue. The situation now's different from Rosbane. What Parter Church is doin' is technically right, legally and morally."

"According to the data I received, there weren't any significant illegal activities among ‘The Chosen Ones'."

"That doesn't matter. Parter Church is the shield that protects humanity. Crushing suspicious cults is both a duty and a right."

"I have thought about a negotiation plan regarding that."

"I don't know what your negotiation plan is, but it won't work. The moment you help, it will be hard for you to be unscathed. Although the Parter Church has lost some of its influence, it is the shield that protects humanity. The moment you confront them, you'll be branded as evil. Do you know what that means?"

"Maybe?"

"Means you'll lose everything you've built in Landa, all the perks you had. Your reputation, trust, connections, and heaps of chances to learn magic... Sounds like a shame, don't it?"

"What's there to pity? I built all these thanks to the talent I was lucky to have."

"Oliver-"

"-No, Elder. I'm not being humble, nor am I saying this without thinking. I'm really just a mediocre person who was lucky to receive the blessing of talent."

Oliver's voice carried a gravity that even Merlin couldn't ignore.

"On what grounds do you say that?"

"Uh... When I was working in the mines, a child starved to death. His eyes and cheeks were sunken, his face pale, ribs showing, and his wrists and arms were thin like sticks. He was about my age then."

"What's the reason?"

"Nothing much. He got injured and couldn't work."

"......"

"He couldn't work, so he couldn't eat, and without eating, he couldn't recover, so he couldn't work and eventually starved to death... No one shared their food with him. The potato soup we were given was too watery to even be enough for oneself. And I was the same. I saw him starving beside me because our beds were near, but I didn't share a spoonful. I was hungry and wanted to live."

Merlin focused intently on Oliver's narrative.

Indeed, Oliver maintained his trademark stoicism, but there was a subtle change, something very, very...

"I had forgotten about that child who starved to death. I was powerless and hungry back then, and I wanted to live. But the words from the director of the Ark orphanage made me remember recently."

"What did you hear?"

"She said that I exude a sense of disappointment in myself, and I can't forgive myself... I'm not sure, but was it a sin that I didn't share my soup?"

"Callin' that a sin, isn't that a bit harsh?"

"I think so too. But it keeps bothering me. The feeling is strange."

Oliver once again made a gesture as if he were a child struggling to convey his true emotions.

He looked vulnerable.

"So I'm trying to help. Because it seems like it will continue to bother me if I don't help now."

"I wish you wouldn't go, though."

"Why is that?"

"As I told ya last time, there's a reason I took you in and I'm lookin' out for you. It's also connected to the entities beyond this world, it's about controllin' variables for the impending apocalypse."

"I understand."

"But what you're doin' now is shakin' that choice of mine. You're tryin' to become a variable."

"Don't worry about that. I'm just me, after all."

"...? What do you mean by that?"

"I was bothered too. That I am an entity beyond this world, and that I initiated the first chapter of the apocalypse... To be honest, I was dumbfounded. The idea that I am such a special existence didn't feel real, and it was hard to grasp. I was confused... I even struggled with my paper."

"You wrote it faster and better than expected, though?"

"That's because I scrapped what I had been struggling with for days and rewrote it in a few hours. Thanks to my thoughts being neatly sorted out."

"How did you sort 'em out?"

"I am just me. An orphan who became a mine worker, ate potato soup alone, learned black magic, and later became a solver... Of course, it's hard to admit that I can't make jokes, but anyway, I am just me. I am not an entity beyond this outside this world, or the one who initiated the first chapter of the apocalypse. I am just Oliver, Dave, and Zenon. That's me."

Oliver's voice exuded a refreshing aura, as if he were thoroughly content.

"And wanting to help Marie is also me."

"...You really wanna go and help, it seems."

"Yes."

"So, what will you do if I say I'll stop ya? The Archiver is there to stop the apocalypse too. If you're intent on bein' a variable, I won't have a choice."

"First, I would respectfully ask you to let me go. I assure you, there will be no cause for concern."

Merlin conjured a book out of thin air and held it firmly in one hand. Simultaneously, an immense surge of mana gripped the space where Merlin and Oliver were located.

A perfect combat stance.

"What if I still say no?"

Reading Merlin's intentions through the state of mana, Oliver responded, as he typically did.

"Then we have to fight."

"You reckon you can beat me?"

"No, winning or losing is the second issue."

"What's the first issue?"

"My choice."