Mm, it really was quite miraculous.
Even Sharron, who was hiding inside the mirror, found the stone dirty and smelly, so she couldn't help kicking it a little farther away.
Hastur suppressed the urge to laugh and said with a solemn expression, "This proves that we're the best destination for this thing."
Cattleya, standing nearby, silently looked away. She also felt a little like laughing.
Ulrich stared blankly for a moment before sighing. "Perhaps."
"Now, can you tell us its origin and purpose?"
Hearing the question, Ulrich glanced uneasily at Cattleya and whispered, "After I tell you, you must promise to safely escort me out of here."
"Mm. This is a transaction."
Seeing Cattleya nod, Ulrich breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at the stone on the table, he began recounting with a complicated expression, "I am a priest who served under Bishop Deli. We had a very good relationship, so when he sensed that he was going to die, he entrusted this thing to me. Before we parted, he told me that this thing was... God's eye."
At this point, Ulrich subconsciously shuddered, a trace of terror appearing in his eyes.
"God's eye. What utterly blasphemous words. I was completely terrified at the time. I only vaguely heard him muttering things like, 'A god is about to fall. A new sun is about to rise, but where is the new sun? Is it Him? Not Him!' all sorts of inexplicable things."
"The day after he gave this thing to me, he was arrested by the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun for blasphemy and burned to death at the stake."
"To be honest, given the horrifying things he said, being convicted of blasphemy was a perfectly normal judgment. But I never expected that even I would be branded a blasphemer and made a wanted criminal."
"To protect myself, I could only flee from place to place. When they found me today, I thought I was going to be sent to the stake too. It was this lady who saved me."
Light flickered in Ulrich's eyes as he stared at Cattleya's beautiful face and said devoutly, "At that moment, I thought you were an angel sent by God to save me."
"I'm not." Cattleya directly interrupted the fantasy Ulrich was about to indulge in.
"I-I know. It was just a metaphor." Ulrich's face flushed red as he lowered his head, not daring to look at Cattleya.
Cattleya had no interest in his little thoughts. She looked toward Hastur, asking for his opinion.
Hastur smiled and said, "How about we just return it directly to the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun?"
"That joke isn't funny." Cattleya thought for a moment. "You can keep this thing for now. It's late. We'll deal with this tomorrow."
"That makes sense. I also want to get some rest first..."
Before Hastur could finish speaking, Cattleya picked up the mirror from the table, returned to her room, and thoughtfully closed the door behind her, leaving only Hastur and Ulrich staring at each other inside the room.
Star-chan, you're getting more and more outrageous! You're clearly the one who rescued this guy, yet you're dumping all the trouble on me?
Is that any way to do things?
And if you're going back to your own room, why did you take Sharron with you?!
Hastur opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing, merely letting out an almost imperceptible sigh.
Cattleya probably didn't believe at all that this ordinary-looking round stone could really be the Eternal Blazing Sun's eye.
She likely thought Ulrich was lying and that there was no value in investigating the matter further, which was why she had left so decisively.
But Hastur had a feeling that Ulrich was telling the truth. This round stone really was an eye of the Eternal Blazing Sun that had fallen into the mortal world.
It should have happened during one of the previous times the Eternal Blazing Sun helped the Supernova Dominator bombard His divine kingdom. The Eternal Blazing Sun had accidentally been injured, causing one of His eyes to fall from His divine kingdom.
As for why the Eternal Blazing Sun's eye had turned into a stone and showed nothing unusual on the surface, Hastur had no idea.
But he understood that this thing was now a hot potato.
Not only did the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun want to recover this divine object, but the Supernova Dominator's egg also desperately needed the nourishment contained within this eye.
There was another possibility, and it worried him the most.
Unless the Eternal Blazing Sun had been injured to the point of being near death, why would He simply allow His eye to fall into the mortal world?
Could there be some scheme behind this?
The Eternal Blazing Sun had once been one of the gods who participated in devouring the Ancient Sun God. He was definitely a thoroughly crafty old schemer.
Every move He made might contain some unknown deeper meaning.
And this thing had just fallen into his hands so easily?
Recently, Hastur had barely even gone outside and had deliberately kept his distance precisely to avoid getting dragged into all this.
Heh. This thing definitely wasn't some fortunate opportunity. It was a source of turmoil.
Hastur already had a rough idea of what to do with this eye of the Eternal Blazing Sun.
Putting aside his miscellaneous thoughts, he looked at Ulrich, who stood nearby with the word "awkward" practically written all over him. "You. Where did that smell on you come from?"
"To avoid the patrolling soldiers, I hid inside a garbage bin," Ulrich answered honestly.
"..." Hastur's eyelid twitched slightly. He pointed toward the corner of the room. "Make do over there for tonight. Tomorrow, we'll find a way to get you out of Trier."
"Thank you."
Ulrich's lips moved a few times before he obediently walked over to the corner and curled up there. It wasn't much of a place, but it was still far better than sleeping outside under the open sky.
"Here."
Hastur opened the wardrobe and tossed Ulrich one of the inn's spare quilts.
Without waiting for him to say anything, Hastur extinguished the light, climbed into bed, and went to sleep.
...
Inside the basement of a luxurious villa in the West District, Suah who was sleeping while merged into the roots of a tree, sensed a summons from the Mother Goddess.
He rose from the roots, thick green sap still flowing over His body. He raised His head and looked at the black tree before Him. In the middle of the trunk, a blurry face struggled to slowly emerge from within the tree.
The surrounding air seemed to freeze at that instant, while the aura of darkness and desire began crawling out from the shadows.
The luxuriant crown was Her hair, the thick and powerful branches were Her body, and the winding, twisted roots sprawling across the ground were Her legs.
The basement was simply too cramped, far less spacious than the island had been. This prevented the Mother Goddess's limbs from extending freely, forcing Her to continuously expand deeper underground through the roots.
"Find... this... object!"
A simple divine oracle was spoken in broken intervals. At the same time, the exact appearance and shape of an object appeared in his mind.
A dull gray, perfectly round stone?
It seemed to be related to the Eternal Blazing Sun and would greatly benefit the new sun still gestating at the top of the tree crown.
"I shall obey the divine oracle." Suah lowered His head and accepted the oracle.
The blurry face that had struggled to emerge sank back into the tree trunk, and everything around Him returned to normal.
"Sigh." Suah stood silently for a while before letting out a sigh.
He felt that His luck had been poor recently. Even the Mother Tree of Desire had mentioned this problem before.
Now that He had received this task, He truly wasn't confident that He could complete it.
Trier was the capital of Intis. Here, the Eternal Blazing Sun's power was the strongest, followed by the God of Steam and Machinery.
Although this place wasn't as terrifying as Backlund, if the Eternal Blazing Sun noticed anything unusual, He might very well carry out a divine descent.
There was no need to worry too much about the God of Steam and Machinery. He generally wouldn't descend personally, and the strongest beings under Him were merely Sequence 2 Angels.
Even if they possessed powerful Sealed Artifacts, Suah wasn't worried. Only a divine descent could truly threaten Him.
After pondering for a long time, Suah finally left the basement and ordered the members of the Rose School of Thought's Indulgence Faction to go out and investigate. At the same time, He ordered them to keep a close watch on the situation with the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun.
As for Himself, He would remain hidden in the shadows and act covertly. Not long after coming out, He vaguely sensed Bernadette's aura.
Back in Backlund, He had targeted Bernadette several times and was very familiar with her aura.
"A believer of the Stars."
Suah no longer had any intention of targeting Bernadette. Although the Mother Goddess had never explicitly stated it, Their relationship with the Stars was not one of enemies.
After learning that Bernadette was a believer of the Stars, the Mother Goddess had also instructed Him to abandon that mission.
"Mm. The pope of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun has also returned. It seems something really has happened within the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun recently."
Suah continued hiding in the shadows, observing everything. As long as no true god descended, there was no one in Trier He feared.
...
Dawn arrived, and the darkness receded, yet a trace of last night's chill still lingered in the morning air.
Hastur woke up and glanced around the room. In the corner, Ulrich was wrapped in the quilt, sleeping soundly. Drool was even running from the corner of his mouth, leaving a wet patch on the new quilt.
Great. He'd have to pay for another quilt later.
Hastur didn't disturb the sleeping Ulrich. He got up, washed, then left the room and knocked on the door of Cattleya's room across the hall.
After a while, the door opened. Cattleya was the one who answered.
Upon entering the room, Hastur saw that Sharron had already emerged from the mirror and was sitting before an exquisite dressing mirror, wearing a new set of clothes.
Although the outfit was still somewhat conservative and classically Gothic, the style was clearly that of Intis.
It should have been one of the new outfits Sharron had bought some time ago.
Hastur cast Sharron a resentful glance. He had clearly asked Sharron to try it on before, only to be mercilessly rejected.
Cattleya had only known her for a few days!
I was clearly here first.
Huh? Why does this situation feel strangely familiar?