CH 19

Chapter 19- Helos, The City of Sun (4)

“Is that true, Aris?”

Arje was the first one to be surprised.

“Yes.”

When I nodded confidently, Arje dropped a weird sound like ‘uhhhh…’

“How dare a dual specimen like you pretend to know?”

At that moment, priest Becks fired at me saying that it made no sense. In such cases, you have to stand firmly in your position.

“I do know. It is a common story among us Rabbit men.”

“What?”

The eyes of priest Becks grew bigger.

“You over there should know, being older than I am.”

“You over there?”

The face of priest Becks became red and blue from furiousness. From his pathetic reaction, I shrugged and shook my head. 

“You have learned nothing in life. Why did you even become a priest?”

“Learned nothing? You…”

Priest Becks wobbled in place a little bit as he realized how angry he had gotten, and the other priests had to support him. 

“Well, as you have heard, apparently Rabbit men know the prophecy well. What will you do now?”

Banu, after staring at me for a while and realizing that I was bluffing, took my side immediately.

“Yes, we are here to affirm the prophecy here with this bunny.”

Arje immediately supported my bluffing as well. The priests had no reason to go against us, with two people from the empire already supporting me.

“Priest Becks, aren’t you a little curious, to be honest?”

“Yes. We would like to know what the path of the Sun is.” 

The other priests were already neck-deep into my bluffing and wanted to find out quickly.

“Fine. Since that dual specimen is saying so, and you two are supporting her, I have no reason to stop you any longer.”

Priest Becks looked at me.

“So, what is the meaning of the prophecy that you are talking about?”

I pointed to the end of the temple.

“Since it’s a little complicated, I will show you over there.”

For a moment, priests Becks seemed dubious, but be turned around, thinking that he should try to first see what happens.

“Please follow me.”

And so, we followed the priests into the temple.

“Impressive. Using only words to seize those priests.”

Banu whispered.

“This level of talking is a basic requirement of a swordsman.”

“Yes, I must accept that you are better at talking than I am.”

I smiled at those words.

“What are you saying? I should be better at swordery more than you, too.”

Then Banu showed his annoying smile again.

“Haha, when you get your sword later, we must battle.”

A battle with the greatest swordsman of humanity from a novel. Since I was told to be the best in my world, would it be too much to call that the battle of the greats? Who cares? It was only true.

“Okay, I will look forward to it.”

As I was promising to have a battle with Banu, I got goosebumps from a stabbing sensation on my sides.

“Heeek?!”

When I screamed softly, everyone looked at me.

“What is going on?”

Because the priests all glared at me, I just scratched my face, blushing.

“It’s nothing important. I guess I was stuck on something while walking.”

Then I looked at Arje. The only person who could have done that was Arje. I could not read her face because of the mask, but she was probably laughing silently. A mask is useful at times.

“I cannot believe that ruthless dual specimen is the one who knows the prophecy.”

While complaining, priest Becks resumed leading the priests and walked on.

“Arje, you could have just called me. Why did you poke?”

When I pierced at Arje, she placed her hand on her mouth as if she was laughing. 

“Because you guys were having too much fun talking without me.”

Still, to poke my side like that.

“Just because of that?”

At my question, Arje stopped laughing and then gently grabbed the end of my ears and whispered.

“Anyways, what are you going to do now? You are only pretending to know. We will get caught soon.”

From her whisper, I shook her fingers off by shaking my head.

“It’s okay, we will see when we get there. We can think about it then.”

Arje sighed, since I did not seem worried, but she stopped questioning me as if she were trying to put belief in me.

“This is the place.”

There was a giant metal door blocking the entry at the place the priests stopped.

“The path of the sun is what is on these doors.”

And there was that great sword that Banu mentioned waiting for us there.

“So, now all we have to do is just open these doors, then.”

From Arje’s comment, the priests made a frustrated face.

“Well, we don’t have the key to open these doors.”

“No key?”

Arje spoke with an uneasy voice. 

“Yes, we tried all kinds of ways to open these doors, but they were all useless.”

So, does the process require a dual specimen with big, long ears? Why would that be?

“It’s an interesting door.”

As Banu’s comment, the sturdy steel doors had various symbols drawn on them, but there were no keyholes or handles. As if it was meant only to be closed, never to be opened.

“So, dual specimen. You know how to open these doors, right?” 

All the priests looked at me. There was no time for me to observe the door any longer. Priest Becks brought me to see what I would do, not trusting me in the first place. I had no idea what the priests would do after they find out that I was bluffing. I had to act natural.

“Of course, I know!”

I looked over at priest Becks with a voice full of confidence and an expression looking down at his lack of knowledge.

“Good, then give it a try.”

“All right! Watch closely!”

Then I moved towards the gate as slow as I could. 

“What are you doing? Hurry!”

“Give me a moment. This is one of the rituals that is required to open the doors.”

“Walking so slowly?”

“You guys didn’t know, right?”

The priests clicked their tongue or laughed awkwardly. Of course, they would not know. I had just made it up.

“All right. Slowly, carefully…”

I tried my best to stall to discover the secret of the doors. Why would they mention a dual specimen with long ears out of all things? Ears….ears…. ears…EARS!

Then, I could see it. There was a pattern that was hard to see without paying attention to the doors. 

“That must be it.”

I approached the door. The pattern that I saw was long and vertically shaped, and there was a pair of them. They appeared to be bunny ears. No, they must be. Inside the outline of the shapes were ridges that made them appear even more like ears.

“What is it that you found?”

The priests were also surprised that I found something and rushed over. Now, it was time to trust my guts. If it were true, my bluffing would become the truth.

“Like this.”

I grabbed my ears and brought them over slowly towards the gates. The moment that the ears touched the doors, the cold sensation crawled all over my body and made me quiver.

“Aris?”

“What are you doing?”

Even Arje and Banu who were giving me trust seemed to be taken back. Even they would not have predicted me to act like this, since I had just come up with this, too.

“How dare you shame us priests!”

It was in that moment when the priests started to get angry.

Krrrrrooooom!

The steel doors, that were so tightly shut, finally opened slowly.

Woah, I did not really think that it would work. How was something like this even possible?

“See? I told you that I know! You stupid humans.”

Hiding my own surprise, I pointed towards the doors proudly.

“Priest Becks! This is the prophecy!”

“It can’t be!”

“I cannot believe that the proud bunny had the keys to these doors. What kind of nonsense is this?”

The priests who were neck-deep into my bluffing were now all in panic mode.

“Banu, had you not brought Aris knowing all of this?”

I could hear Arje whispering to Banu.

“No, I brought Aris since the prophecy was so haphazardly made but didn’t think that it would actually be true.”

Banu was in shock.

“Wouldn’t Aris have known, then?”

“I doubt it. She would have already told us by now if she knew. I think that she…. just got lucky.”

Banu was true. If I had not found those patterns, I would be in big trouble.

“But priest Becks, what does the god of Sun have to do anything with Rabbit men?”

Arje asked the priest in a confused voice.

“We do not know, either my lady! We just feel that all the things that we have learned so far are being….denied!”

The priests let out moans that were close to tragedy.

“Since it already happened, why don’t you guys change up the god you worship. Maybe a bunny god? Or Aris-tology. How about Waferology, after my last name?

I threw jokes at them, looking at their funny reactions, but the priests were too out of their minds to show any comebacks.

“Well, now I will head inside.”

I had the chance to broil the priests out with jokes, but since that was not my original goal, I walked inside the doors.

“Wait! We will go with you!”

Arje tried to follow.

“No, Lady Arberaj. I think it is better for us to stay here and calm these priests down.”

Banu stopped Arberaj.

“Does that mean that Aris should go in there alone?”

Yup. That’s exactly what Banu meant.

“If we were to all go inside, what would happen if the priests were to close the doors to hide the truth from being uncovered?”

Banu did have a point. It would be nice to be able to open these doors again, but there was a possibility that it would not.

“Banu is right. I will be back. You guys wouldn’t shut the door on me, right? Right, Arje?”

I looked over at Arje for an answer.

“Of course not! That would never happen!”

“Well, then Banu. Just wait there with Arje for me.”

Banu nodded.

“If it gets dangerous, just scream. I will run right over.”

“Pshhh, would anything dangerous happen?”

I walked inside the path to the Sun confidently.