Having left the man to be handled by Arte, Mael went in search of the missing girls. Mael strode down the long corridor, his eyes scanning for any signs of the boy with teleportation magic. Despite doors lining both sides of the corridor, Mael didn't bother to check each one individually, as he and Arte had done earlier. His focus was on remaining vigilant in case the boy reappeared and used his teleporting tricks on him again. As he neared the end of what appeared to be an endless corridor, Mael noticed someone in a white coat exiting in a hurry from one of these doors. The man was dressed in a white doctor's coat and was holding a large book in his hands.

The man was hurriedly, almost frantically, trying to close the door behind him, only to notice, as he was doing so, Mael and give up on the task, clumsily running away.

This time around, Mael got the confirmation he was seeking. This place, which has been the scene of some sort of experiment run by people like that man, has been specially evacuated of its staff because of them.

Mael considered pursuing the man for a moment, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, he intended to continue on in the direction the man had run. However, as he approached the door the man had left ajar in his haste, Mael paused. The partially closed door and the lit room allowed him to catch a glimpse of what was inside.

Mael deviated from his planned route and entered the room, walking to the center of it. To his dismay, he saw something he had hoped was just an illusion, but unfortunately, it was not.

Although the corpses in the room were not as badly mutilated as the ones in the previous room, Mael still felt sick to his stomach, partly because he recognized some of the bodies as belonging to people who were once full of life.

***

After completing his task, Mael left the long corridor and found himself in another large room similar to the one where he had left Arte. In the center of the hemispherical, pillar-lined room stood a single man, who appeared to have been there waiting for Mael.

"Well, well, well. Where might you be heading dressed like that, Mael Edouard? I don’t think anyone here has asked for a consultation."

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Dressed in Paladin’s outfit, the man wore an old and wrinkled face that Mael recognized. It was a person he was not so surprised to find here.

"...Silas Dolloway. If the senile hound is here, I take it that his grace, Archbishop Whiteley, must be around too."

"Watch your tongue, Boy. Don’t drown yourself more than you already are. I already have a hard time understanding neither where you got the nerve to be at this place nor what exactly it is that you’re trying to accomplish here."

"You, your Archbishop, and his goons have, I have evidence, abducted yesterday afternoon four girls, three of whom were under the protection of the Rose-Blanche, a noble-run establishment recognized by the church, and a girl, a noble and a scholar of the Academia... Spare me the charade, would you? Unless these girls met the same fate as their predecessors, I know they're here, somewhere locked up."

"And so what? Did you really come here expecting to achieve anything?"

Mael didn’t answer; instead, he merely slowly strode toward the man, saying, "Despite your involvement in all of this, Lord Paladin Dolloway, I would appreciate it if you were to move aside. I, today, have no business to settle with you, nor do I have any with the one you serve; stand aside, let me through, or else I'll have to make you. Believe it or not, I am not in the right mood for this game with anyone, and especially not anyone of your kind."

Stopping ten meters or so away from the man, Mael summoned four orbs of blood floating in orbits around him.

"Arrogant… on top of that. None of this should have happened if you had simply accepted the archbishop's offer. Now look at where it has taken you to."

Mael had met the man for the first time two years prior, a few days before he would be approached by the Holy Paladin Freshet about his and the Rose Blanche's offer. The second time was six months earlier, when the man came to Mael on behalf of his lord, Archbishop Whiteley, with a second offer, one that Mael once again refused.

One in which Mael was requested to hand over the girl who had for a long time remained under his and Rose Blanche's protection. In both instances, the request they came with included Mael handing over a person as though they were a product, mostly because that was pretty much all they were in their eyes: products, test subjects for whatever their experiments were.

"I may have many regrets in my life, but rejecting your and your archbishop's offers is not one of them, especially after seeing what you people are doing down here. I always thought I had encountered some of the worst human beings this continent had to offer during my childhood, but now I realize I was wrong. There are even worse people. It's a shame for the humanity you claim to protect."

"The real world isn't as rosy as you wish it to be, young man. At times, life demands a sacrifice. It seems that your father and mother have failed to teach you that. Allow this old man to teach you," he declared, conjuring fire and lightning that engulfed him and the room, with Mael caught in the midst.

During the less than half a minute that the flames engulfed Mael, a red light dissipated them all, revealing Mael unharmed.