“No, you cannot do that, Marcus,” Natalia’s stern voice was heard as they were standing in front of the fort’s gates.

“Come on! You heard what that old cunt said. Pretty ominous if you ask me, so I want to go check out what they’re all about,” Marcus responded, trying to take a sidestep to go around Natalia, but she followed along and stood in his path, making him frown as he looked down at her.

“There’s no need to involve ourselves into their business, especially when we’ve not been invited or asked to be,” she continued, her eyes unwavering to Marcus’ glare.

Standing behind them were their usual group of people, with Marie standing close to an elegant carriage, looking confusedly at both people arguing with each other. Eden was standing somewhere closer to the both of them wearing a simple dress and a hat that hid her cat-like features, looking with curiosity at Marcus and preparing herself to run after him in case that he did rushed ahead of Natalia.

Kent and Thomas were watching, with Thomas holding on to his staff and having his eyebrows furrowed, and Kent holding his hands behind his back; an expressionless face as he watched the people argue.

“Wasn’t the mission to establish contact with the people and get to know them and shit? Wouldn’t doing this be considered to be in line with the mission?” Marcus argued back with a smirk.

“To establish a friendly relationship was the mission, and jumping into one of their places uninvited like that—especially of someone with such a high status—is not going to help us achieve that,” Natalia responded with a shake of her head.

They both looked at each other for a few seconds. The people behind were waiting for this argument to turn into a fight with a bit of tension, since they didn’t know if it was going to turn to blows.

“Couldn’t you just walk straight in and talk to Her Eminence Gregoria directly?” Thomas interjected, making both Marcus and Natalia turn to look at him.

He was taken aback as the two of them were just glaring at each other, and they directed that glare at him, so he lifted his staff slightly before putting it back down again.

Natalia hummed for a second as she considered the suggestion before turning to look at Marcus with the same thoughtful look. “Okay, we can do that, and once we’re done talking with her, we go back on to our mission.”

Marcus clicked his tongue, but eventually nodded. “Okay fine, let's do it the boring way then.”

Having said that, he brushed past Natalia and started walking deeper into the city. She started following him with Eden quickly catching up, and Kent and Thomas one step behind her. Marie was left stunned as she was expecting them to pick everything up and go to the capital right away.

“Should we follow them as well, my lady?” asked Joy from the side.

Marie snapped out of her daze with a shake of her head. “No, no, let's… go back to the fort and wait for them…”

“What about the things that we’ve loaded into the carriage?” Lyra asked this time as she pointed at a few things.

“Leave them, I don’t think they’ll take more than a few hours before we set off,” Marie responded, turning then to look at the other people’s backs. “I’ll be waiting here!” she shouted at them.

Natalia simply nodded without turning back to look at her, while everyone else kept on walking down the road.

* * *

They were now standing in front of a relatively small church. It was not bigger than the average town church they would find back on Earth—in America. There was a small plaza of people coming and going, who would occasionally stop to murmur to themselves as they excitedly looked at the group, recognizing that these were the knights from the other day.

Marcus didn’t really know where he could find Gregoria, but thanks to Thomas’ guidance they were able to easily find the place where she was most likely working—if she was here at all.

“Come on. All these people looking at me are annoying me already,” Marcus said as he started walking into the church.

Everyone else also followed, leaving behind the few people that were looking at them as well as the few that felt like walking over to them.

The entrance of the church was relatively simple, having just a large wooden door—as any church would—revealing the simple inside of the church. There weren't any golden engravings on the walls, no intricate painting on the ceiling, and the wooden long chairs were of simple design, created as such to allow people to come and pray as they wished.

Marcus and Natalia carefreely walked into the place, not bothering with looking at any of the few paintings on the walls or the small details on the altars at the back of the church. Thomas was taken aback when he saw them simply walked in, so he rushed ahead to catch up with them, only to stop half way as he hastily returned, did a few signs on his head with his hand and his eyes closed, bowed a couple of times, and then turned again to catch up with them.

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“You can’t just walk into the Gods’ temple without greeting them first!” he said to the two of them.

Both of them turned around to look back at Thomas. Natalia had one eyebrow raised while Marcus had a mocking smile on his face.

“I don’t believe in any gods,” Natalia responded with a shake of her head.

“And I don’t give a fuck,” Marcus followed up with his arms crossed.

Thomas opened and closed his mouth a couple of times as he looked incredulously at the two of them, and just as he was about to chastise them about what they said, Kent placed a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look back at the man.

“It’s okay, I believe the Gods will forgive them since they’re not from this place,” Kent said with a nod of his head before moving ahead of Thomas, with Eden walking by as well as she dragged the hem of her hat slightly lower to hide her face.

Natalia and Marcus both ignored what they had said and kept on walking into the church. There were a few people sitting by the chairs of the church, quietly praying with their eyes closed and their heads down, not realizing that people had walked into the church and were going ever deeper into it.

Once they were only a few steps away from the church’s altar, a man dressed in red robes with a hood that covered his face down to his nose, walked out from the side of the church and quickly approached the couple of people, who in turn stopped to look back at this man.

“What can this humble servant of the Gods do for the noble knights?” he asked, the few facial features that could be seen making it seem as if the man was expressionless.

Eden, Kent and Thomas quickly approached as well, but they didn’t say anything as Marcus was turning his head in the direction that the man had walked out of. “I want to see the big honcho of this place.”

“I’m afraid that I do not quite understand what that is,” the robed man responded in a monotone voice.

“He’s talking about Her Eminence Gregoria,” Thomas quickly added from behind.

“I see,” the man responded, with the same monotone from before, “I’m afraid that Her Eminence is currently busy and cannot entertain guests. If you would like to receive the Gods’ blessings, then this humble servant will happily give them in her stead.”

“When would we be able to meet her?” Natalia asked, giving a side look to Marcus who was now furrowing his eyebrows.

“I do not know. What Her Eminence does—and the time that she has for the people—depends solely on the will of the Gods,” he responded. “If you do not want to receive the Gods’ blessing from this humble servant, then you are welcome to stay in the house of the Gods and pray on your own until your soul is satisfied.”

“Man, I don’t want no shit like that. Would she come out if I threatened to beat your shit in?” Marcus asked, an evil smile floating on his lips as he approached the hooded man’s face.

“Marcus! You can’t—”

“Threats of violence in the house of the Gods would be retaliated via divine retribution, so I suggest that you refrain from such actions,” the man interrupted Natalia when she tried to pull Marcus back. The man’s tone of voice and expressionless face were the same as before.

Both Marcus and Natalia were somewhat taken aback by the man’s answer and attitude, as they both carried similar expressions of confusion and looked closer at the man.

“What’s up with this dude?” Marcus asked, Natalia slightly and slowly shaking along at the side as she also looked at the man with suspicion.

“If there’s nothing that I can do for you, then I shall take my leave. And please remember not to perform violent acts within the Gods’ house,” the man responded with the same monotone-like voice and expressionless face as he did a quick bow their way and left the same way he had come from, going into a slightly large wooden door that he closed behind him.

“Let's go now, Marcus. We don’t have time for this,” Natalia said to Marcus, who just kept staring at the closed door the robed man had gone into.

“There’s something fishy here, Natty. We can’t just leave like that. I’mma go find out what that guy is about and what that old cunt is doing,” he responded, looking around the church before settling his eyes on the door again.

Natalia grabbed him by the arm, prompting an angry glare from Marcus at her, which she ignored. “You can’t.”

The angry glare on Marcus’ face didn’t fade as she kept her hand on him. “Come on, you can’t just ignore this, Natty, these are the ‘allies’ we’re supposed to be making friends with,” he turned to look at the closed door before aggressively pointing at it, “and that shit doesn’t look normal to me. I think we have to investigate this.”

Once Marcus pointed that out, the expression on Natalia’s face faltered and her grip on him lessened. Eden, Kent and Thomas looked at them expectantly, waiting to see if they were going to turn into a fight, leave or go further.

Natalia turned to look at the door for a moment, considering what Marcus said, but as she was thinking about it, Marcus quickly brushed her hand away and started quietly and swiftly making his way to the closed door. She decided to go after him and just as quickly caught up with him, stopping him when he was about to open the door by placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Natty, come on we—”

“I’ll go with you. There’s some… truth to what you said,” she interrupted as she looked at the closed door.

Marcus’ eyebrows rose in surprise before letting out a high pitched but quiet chuckle. “It’s nice to know we’re on the same page!”

Eden excitedly followed them, her steps just as swift and quiet like Marcus’ and Natalia’s, but her movements were more like that of a cat than like that of a soldier like the other two. Right behind her, Kent was also following, his movements just as quiet as everyone else, leaving a flabbergasted Thomas behind.

“Are you two going to follow us?” Natalia asked with furrowed eyebrows as she looked at the excited girl and the serious-looking Kent.

“Absolutely! I want to see how you’re going to do this!” Eden responded with a few nods, looking afterwards at Kent, “But I don’t know why you’re coming.”

Kent cleared his throat. “I’m here to make sure that if anything goes wrong, we can get away from it without bloodshed…”

A look of caution was thrown by him at Marcus, who only shrugged. “Whatever.”

Marcus quickly opened the wooden door and swiftly went in, followed almost instantly by Natalia, whose movements were almost the same as his. Behind them, Eden sprung in like a cat, moving just as silently as one, while Kent’s figure unnaturally obscured into the shadows of the hall that was behind the wooden door.

In front of the altar stood Thomas, his mouth agape as he looked at how these people intruded into the deeper parts of the church. He felt inclined to stop them, but when he saw the way that everyone was moving, he realized that his magic wouldn’t allow him to move quietly like that.

He shook his head in regret once the door closed, whispering to himself as he looked at it. “I just hope Her Eminence doesn’t lump me in with them…”