97 – Report on the Fall of Kindness (7)
Mary covered the broken leather strap with her hand. Lily was so busy looking for a towel to wipe off her sweat that she didn’t see Maria.
“No. Don’t get up. “I’ll bring you water.”
Lily ran towards her kitchen. Cain opened her mouth.
“Maria.”
“Don’t talk.”
Maria turned her head and put her string deep into her pocket.
“Please.”
Cain could not bear to continue speaking with her.
When Lily brought her a cold towel and a pitcher of water, Mary was back to being her usual Maria. Lily gave her a glass of water and wiped Maria’s forehead and face with a towel.
“I’ll wipe off the sweat!”
“I know. “It’s because I’m so heartbroken.”
Maria forgot what she was going to say for a moment, which allowed Lily to wipe off the sweat without interrupting her. Still, she told in a low voice what had happened while Maria had fainted. Maria, who was listening carefully, looked at Cain.
“Cain. “Do I still smell the sap on her hands?”
Cain smelled her hand. Her smell, which had not gone away no matter how much she cleaned, was completely gone.
“No.”
“… After.” Maria held her head. She chewed her lips and finally let out a deep sigh.
“… Like everything in the world, fire also has contradictory aspects. It emits light to brighten the world, but burns what it wants to hide. Of course, there are some things that must be burned. Things that shouldn’t exist in this world. Demons. Devils. Monsters… They can also be burned with holy fire.”
“What about the black fire I drew on my hand?” Cain asked.
“Black fire? “It’s a witch’s fire.” Maria let out a deep sigh of her own.
“Holy fire is a gift from God to humans, but black fire is a fire of sin created by humans to become gods themselves. It’s kind of symmetrical… Cain. Wait a minute… No. I guess I should go. Because they’re watching outside the door. “Lily, can you hold me?”
Maria, supported by Lily, approached. She spread her palm and placed it on Cain’s forehead. In a low voice she quickly muttered her prayers.
Somehow, the heat and vitality spread from Maria’s hands to every part of her body. Maria stumbled for a moment, and although the startled Cain and Lily were quick to catch her, Maria playfully snapped her finger on Cain’s forehead.
“Don’t worry, you’re perfectly fine. Brother. Because he didn’t have an evil spirit attached to his body. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it. What?”
“Because my beautiful mother burned the unclean sap on you with evil fire. He destroyed evil with evil. Even if a bug catches and eats a bug, it ends up being a bug… Cough. Cough! f*ck… It’s used beautifully on the subject of living in someone else’s body as you please… “
The last words were unclear. Lily and Maria sat down on the bed again.
“Anyway, what did Cain say to you? In the tree…what?”
“‘A person whose hands are covered in the blood of trees.’, ‘A person who has committed an indelible sin against a tree.’ That’s what they said. I know at least that the blood of a tree is sap. “But I don’t know what it is to commit an indelible sin.”
As a child, Cain also grew up hearing things like, ‘You must not treat a tree carelessly,’ or ‘You must not cut down her tree or break her branches if you are not going to use them for firewood.’
It’s not because I grew up as the eldest son of an orchard family. She said, ‘Even small creatures that cannot speak should not be treated arbitrarily.’ Is just a common teaching from adults.
“What are the sins committed against trees? “I don’t know.”
Lily didn’t seem to understand at all.
“That tree trunk from earlier is also strange. When I accidentally sat on it, there was no reaction, but when Cain placed his hand on her and looked inside, didn’t it squirt out sap… “Of course, if it’s sap.”
“Uh… “Mary was fed up with her. But Cain just stands there dumbfounded. She repeated Lily’s words over and over again.
‘Sap squirted out. ‘When did the tree exude sap?’
Of course, when the tree is injured.
‘Then what does it mean that the tree that didn’t move when Lily sat on it spewed out sap when I placed my hand on her?’
Cain laying his hand on her means that she wounded the tree. Now that I think about it, what happened in the forest came to mind vividly. When Edith reached out to wipe her sap-covered hands on another tree, she screamed, “No!”
Cain rolled up her sleeves. She looked at the bruises she had left from fighting the bullies. Perhaps because time had passed, her bruises became bigger than when they first started.
‘Fat and Slim saw this and said, ‘It’s bad.’ Edith also looked at the bruises on my arms with interest.’
Shanghai. We do not describe an injured person as ‘injured.’ The word spoiled is used for food. Food you can’t eat. Unclean food.
Food that trees cannot eat.
“… Maria.”
Cain’s voice had a strange vibration. Maria looked at Cain with some surprise.
“Oh, tell me.”
“I’m really sorry for asking this question… “When do trees eat food?”
Maria closed her eyes. Lily answered cautiously.
“Cain. “Trees grow by eating nutrients from the ground, sunlight, and water, but they don’t eat food like people do, right?”
“Oh my god. You’re even weirder than me. “What are you saying all of a sudden?”
“Sorry. I asked the question wrong. I’ll ask again. “When do we offer food to the tree?”
“It was offered during ancestral rites in ancient primitive religions. Set a table of various things in front of the tree. “Wasn’t there a similar custom among the white blood tribe?”
“Is that so?” Lily opened her eyes wide.
“I know, but you don’t know! Not only the White Bloods, but also ancient warriors and priests made sacrifices to trees, stones, or places that were sacred in their own way. Freshly slaughtered lambs, unblemished animals, or the best things. Well, you might not know it because it is now a knightly order rather than the old tribal system… Cain? What’s the matter?”
Cain pressed himself against the wall. It was because she was suddenly tired. She wiped her sweaty face with her palm. She tried to explain what she realized, but she couldn’t. Through the gap in the door, I saw Brother Henry staggering forward. He had a basket under his arm.
“Brother Henry is coming.”
Cain walked over to her chair and sat down. Maria whispered to Cain and Lily.
“What should I do? Should we push it?”
“No.” Cain shook her head. She then told me the plan she had come up with. She managed to finish her delivery just in the nick of time, before the door opened.
The two women nodded their heads in agreement.
* * * * *
Brother Henry, who had been stumbling just now, smiled brightly and opened the door. He had a basket in his arm, and it looked like he had just picked up fresh herbs from the forest and fields.
“You are here. So, did the story end well?”
“Thanks to you, I enjoyed it.” Maria responded. “You look tired. Would you like me to make room for you?”
“Oh no, no. I’m like this because I’m sleepy. In times like these, you need to move and move around more. “If you haven’t had tea, would you like a cup?”
“Good.”
The tea that Henry brewed was unique. The taste of thoroughly washed mushrooms and herbs soaked in water filled the tip of my tongue. It was the kind of scent you might smell in a forest after it rains.
“Actually, we were a little sleepy too.” Maria put down her teacup and smiled.
“But I’ve been invited to dinner, so if I go to bed now, I guess I’ll eat dinner in my sleep. “I don’t like that, so I’d like you to tell me an interesting story instead.”
“It’s a story.” Henry smiled leisurely, but hesitation and caution could be seen in his eyes and mouth.
“What story do you want to hear?”
“Of course, it’s about the Tree of Life Church.” Maria shrugged her shoulders. “Brother Henry is truly an expert in that field. The reason you came here was for research. “There is a strange longhouse in the village. Could it have something to do with the Tree of Life?”
This was the plan Cain told her two women. They push on quietly, block the escape routes one by one, and eventually trap them in a place from which they cannot escape. Maria is slowly driving Henry into a dead end.
“hehehe, I don’t know. The research on that part is not yet complete. But I can’t just tell you about the research. Moreover, even if you were a priest, this is not a good thing to hear from the two young couples here.”
“But I’m curious.” Lily crossed her arms.
“Could you please tell us just a little bit, that is, just enough so that idiots like us can understand? Actually, I was also very scared of that building. “There are also decorations from the forest where the knights had an accident.”
“Why do you even want to listen to that?”
Henry’s question seemed perplexed. But Lily accepted it too easily.
From Noble mtl dot com
“If you know what it is, it will be less scary. “If you don’t know, you become curious and it stays in your mind, but once you know, you forget, right?”
The old monk let out an unusual laugh. He seemed unable to hold back his laughter. The monk, who was laughing as if he had no choice, sat down.
“Okay… But I’ll just tell you there’s nothing to worry about. Have you ever touched the longhouse?”
“That big, long building made of wood? No, I haven’t touched it. “It was scary to see.”
“Actually, they are all stones.”
The investigation added an explanation for the confused party. He said that as he floats through the world, he can find trees that have turned into stones.
“It’s natural that you don’t know much. It’s a topic that only monks digging in the dirt or academics at universities would enjoy. It’s called petrified wood… To put it simply, it is a tree that has become a fossil.
So, that longhouse is a stone house that people built with petrified wood. In fact, it must have been that much, so it could have endured those harsh times.”
Cain remembered the longhouse. It seems that what she thought was a log wasn’t actually a log. A fossil, that is, a tree that has turned into stone.
“Who built something like that? “Maybe he’s a heretic?”
Mary frowned, but Brother Henry shook her head.
“I don’t know about that. Was it founded by a wealthy king who settled here before the empire was even created, or was it founded by some pagan? “
Cain looked at the monk.
Friar Henry was an old and scared man, not a skilled liar. And the skill required of a Security Service agent like Cain is how to read the signs of lies.
The monk did not turn his eyes, nor did he pause. So, everything the investigation has said so far is probably close to the truth.
But the investigation is being threatened by someone. This means that at times, he has to lie to Cain, Lily, and Maria.
And people who lie tend to leave a signal in some way. Cain asked carefully.
“It’s an unusual building. “Have the patterns on that longhouse been there since it was first built?”
“Pattern?” The monk opened his eyes wide and cupped his cheeks. “What pattern do you mean?”
“The face of a man with a missing chin, carved on a pillar. There was a similar pattern in the forest where the knights were said to have had an accident. People here say, ‘It’s been there since I first came.'”
“Ah. That’s what I mean. Uh-huh, what else can I say?”
The investigation was speechless. She rolled her eyes here and there and didn’t answer right away. He probably means that he needs time to make up an answer.
“Well. As you know, didn’t the people who came here settle down just 10 years ago? So I don’t know when it was drawn, and neither do they.”
“It may be the case that the patterns were carved into the fossilized tree, but it seems like they were only carved into the tree very recently.”
Cain did not lose her politeness. The monk looked up for a moment, but she made an effort to clear her expression.
“Is that so? Could it be that the knights were imitating it? “I don’t know what it is because I haven’t seen it myself.”
“I see.” Cain nodded his head as if he was proud of her. “So, where did you get the herbs from?”
The sudden change caused the monk to lean back. She rolled her eyes, looking truly embarrassed.
“What does that mean all of a sudden?”
“It’s a note. “This is the note you left here.” Cain held out her piece of paper. A poor note imitating Henry’s handwriting.
“Well… Why are you sending me a note while talking about patterns? “This is a bit embarrassing.”
Displeasure appeared on the monk’s face. It was a similar reaction to someone being cornered and getting angry. An instinctive bravado to hide that she was scared. And bravado always crumbles before the facts. Cain tapped the note with her finger.
“Because Brother Henry has ample motivation to lie.”
Lily stood up from her seat. She bolted the door and blocked her window with her body. Brother Henry tried to stand up, but Mary snapped her fingers. Holy fire rose from her fingertips.
“… You!”
Of course Henry knew what it was. Maria declared in her stern tone.
“Article 41 of the Proclamation for Heresy Inquisitors, Heresy Inquisitors may operate while hiding their identities when necessary. However, it must be a means to reveal the truth. These are the words of the Pope.
It is not a lie that I am a nun. Because it’s true. But there’s something I didn’t tell you. I am an inquisitor from Magdeburg. Those two people are the people who help me.
So, I would like to ask you as an Inquisitor. Brother Henry, why are you telling such obvious lies?”
The monk, whose legs were loose, fell to the floor. Covered her face with her palms. It is unclear whether she was trying to hide her shame or because she was embarrassed.
“… You shouldn’t stay in this town for long. “I did it to protect you.”
“No.” Cain tapped her fingers on the table. “That’s not all. “You are being threatened.”
“… “You don’t know.”
“So, please tell me. We are here to make things right, not to leave things to rot. “I want to help you.”
Cain knelt down on one knee in front of the monk. But Detective Noh fired back harshly.
“You can’t help me! “Getting out will help me!”
“Is that so?” Cain did not delay. She stood up and pulled out the imperial sword from her pack.
“What, what are you trying to do?”
“I’m going to catch the guy who wrote this fake message. “If you catch and beat up every person you meet, someone will blow up.”
Cain approached the door.