"She's hiding outside the building again?"
Wait, why did I say 'again'? But true enough, after we found where Cyrae was, we discovered she wasn't properly inside the palace. Instead, like us before, she was hiding outside the roof skylight, trying to listen to what was happening inside the building.
"What's going on here?"
Adrian was also confused seeing this. Reider had already lost, so why was she still sneaking around like this? Cyrae's actions were really puzzling.
"You're back!"
Cyrae didn't seem surprised by our appearance. She waved at us while gesturing for us to land beside her.
"What's happening? There are soldiers almost everywhere - aren't you afraid of being discovered?"
As soon as I landed, I quickly folded my wings and warned her. The current situation was very different from our first time here. Back then, Reider was extremely short on manpower and this palace was just for show, there weren't any light magicians nearby who could sense our presence. But things were different now that the rebels had taken the city. Although their mages were still only at the lowest level with weak element sensing abilities, there was still a chance of being discovered. If that happened, we probably couldn't talk our way out.
"You'll understand when you see for yourself! Not long after the city fell, some strange people appeared from the adventurer guild's transfer formation in the imperial capital. They said they were envoys from the True Church, coming to visit the rebel s. But I felt something wasn't quite right, so I followed them here."
Sure enough, Cyrae hadn't done this without reason. She pointed downward, and following her direction, we could see several figures standing inside the palace below.
This great hall in the center of the Kyndrill imperial palace had several transparent skylights in the roof for lighting, so it was easy to see what was happening inside just by looking down from the roof.
"Isn't it just them having a meeting to celebrate their victory?"
I didn't pay much attention at first. Though almost all the rebel leaders were gathered inside, seemingly discussing something important with the visitors, I suddenly noticed something strange about one of the bald envoys' clothes.
No! More accurately, they looked oddly familiar, because this guy looked exactly like a Buddhist monk!
"No way? Does this world really have Amitabha Buddhism?"
I asked in surprise. After all, there had never been any concept of Amitabha Buddhism spreading on the Eldoria Continent. Even in the easternmost countries of the continent that shared similar culture with Earth, nothing like this had ever existed!
Of course, the root cause of this situation had to be traced back to the True Church. Perhaps similar religions existed hundreds or thousands of years ago, but ever since the True Church's previous Pope Cysper forcefully unified all religious beliefs on the continent, other religions had barely any room to survive.
Come to think of it, the True Church's way of doing things had always been quite strange. Although they never forced humans to follow their god, they never held back in suppressing other religions. Especially those with similar light element worship - they were all considered cults and would be mercilessly eliminated as soon as they showed up!
Because of this, when I saw someone wearing a kasaya and holding a vajra appear before my eyes, you can imagine how strange it felt, especially since they claimed to be True Church envoys, which made even less sense.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"At least there's definitely nothing like this in what I know!"
After searching through all memories including those left by Elara, Cyrae shook her head firmly in denial, but quickly thought of another possibility. "But could these two guys possibly be those 'System' carriers you mentioned before?"
"But shouldn't they be on Reider's side? How did they end up working with the True Church and rebels?"
Adrian blurted out immediately, but I remembered the clue Nicola revealed before leaving - apparently there was more than one "System" team that had entered our world?
If my guess wasn't wrong, different teams might hold different or even opposing positions, which wasn't completely unreasonable.
However, I still couldn't quite understand why "System" carriers would be willing to work for the True Church. After all, judging from the performance of that muscular captain and Mamos, the strength of "System" teams were quite impressive, not inferior to any single force in this world, and maybe even superior!
"What do you mean by that? Your church's Star Glory knights have always been known for their strong fighting skills. I'm afraid we don't have anyone who can match them?"
But just as I was lost in thought, the conversation below seemed to take an unexpected turn. A high-ranking official in the rebel camp, wearing heavy armor, raised his voice and questioned one of the envoys somewhat unhappily.
One of the envoys dressed like a priest in the group couldn't hold back and quietly suggested that the rebels might have killed the church's knights.
"If you hadn't mentioned it, we really didn't know beforehand that Reider was hiding in the royal villa! Although we did sign an assistance agreement with your church, your promised troops never arrived, and we had already successfully captured the imperial capital while they were still on the way! If we must investigate this matter, perhaps we should ask why you knew about Reider's whereabouts in advance but chose not to tell us, which delayed the rescue of the two knights?"
Another rebel commander spoke more politely but his words carried hidden meaning.
"That's ridiculous! Not to mention anything else, just your army's pathetic strength probably wouldn't have been enough!"
These words were spoken righteously and justly, but unexpectedly drew mockery from the bald envoy dressed in Buddhist attire.
Although he was wearing a kasaya, this guy's words had absolutely no trace of Buddhist teachings. It was only then that I noticed his clothes were actually dark yellow overall, seemingly belonging to an eastern branch sect.
"We can't say that! After all, the purpose of this visit is to ask if the rebels knows anything about the whereabouts of several Star Glory knights. From the looks of it, they more likely met with misfortune due to a direct confrontation with Reider at the villa. Perhaps we need to investigate the scene to reach a conclusion!"
Seeing the rebel lords' faces showing some embarrassment, another envoy covered in a robe quickly raised his hand to signal his companion not to speak so harshly, but actually made no attempt to clarify anything.
"There's no need for such trouble! Even before you arrived, we had already sent an elite unit to investigate Sebastian family's villa. We should get results soon!"
The rebel leaders seemed to want to save some face by showing their quick decision-making, but the church envoys didn't want to bother with them. Seeing they couldn't get any useful information, they simply waved goodbye and turned to leave the palace hall.
"What should we do? Should we follow them?"
Seeing them walk away, Cyrae immediately gave me a look. After all, if those two really had "System" as suspected, wouldn't this be like finding what we wanted without even trying?
But although Nicola had always been persistent in tracking "System" carriers, after dealing with Reider, Adrian and I didn't seem to have much motivation to keep chasing these people anymore. The "System" sounded amazing but still didn't have much connection with us. Moreover, experience told us these guys usually had some unexpected tricks up their sleeves, so it probably wouldn't be easy to catch them.
"...Forget it! The issues involved are complicated, and we've actually had some contact with some of them before. Maybe it's better not to get too involved."
After thinking for a moment, I chose to ignore them - after all, we weren't looking for trouble. I reminded Cyrae, "Haven't you always wanted to meet our world's Elara? Why don't we head to Norvale soon? She won't stay long in the Astralrealm kingdom!"
"Indeed, there's no need to cause more trouble at this point!"
This time Adrian shared my thoughts, nodding in agreement. However, mentioning our next destination Norvale, he suddenly came up with a great idea.
"Now that the war is over, the adventurer guild's transfer magic formation in the imperial capital seems to be working again. We can skip all the traveling and just teleport there - wouldn't that be much easier!"
I almost forgot! Both Norvale and Kyndrill's adventurer guilds had transfer networks connecting all major cities. Wasn't that how those True Church envoys came? Moreover, I had high-ranking adventurer guild member privileges and could bring companions to use it freely, so why not?