<h4>Chapter 184: – The Demon’s Temptation (Long Chapter)</h4>


    Is this the so-called Demon’s Temptation? N..no,paring the Saintess with a demon was a reprehensible thing to do.


    But, there was no reason for the adjutant to refuse the Saintess Herolia’s request.


    He began to tell Herolia all that he had witnessed and experienced in Nond. Some of those things were stuff that will put him to death should the archbishops learn of them.


    “A magic that could connect everyone’s consciousness together?”


    The only thing the adjutant talked about that caught the Saintess’s interest was that ‘miraculous magic.’


    “That’s... that’s right. Lady Saintess, a new sort of magic has emerged in Nond recently. Practically everyone around me is using that magic,” said the adjutant.


    “To connect people’s consciousness, that sounds like an advisory magic. I want to know more details about this.”


    The Saintess Herolia searched through her knowledge of over a hundred years. She was only able to find two or three magics that could allow others to enjoy one’s consciousness. But, all those magics were far different from the one described by the adjutant.


    After all, ‘connecting everyone’s consciousness’ was a description enough toprehend as being a work of gods — a miracle.


    “It’s a magic called ‘magicwork.’ It is constructed using runes from the Order system of magic. One only needs to purchase a very small originium crystal in Nond’s Weissenasche Theater and crush it in one’s hand to use the magicwork.”


    The miraculousness of the magicwork was not something the adjutant could exin with words.


    Faint white colored magic power appeared on his hand. He used his magic to materialize the magicwork’s interface he was seeing in his mind.


    Finally, Herolia saw the interface of pure-white light . Arge amount of characters and images appeared there.


    “What is this?”


    Herolia was standing right across from the adjutant. Because of that, the images and characters she saw were all reversed. She circled around the adjutant and ended up standing behind him to read what was on the interface.


    The contents were an utter mess. There were things like ‘Damn it! Who soaked my lizard in alcohol again this morning?!”Question for the mages of the Fire system. Which rune should I start learning first?”Working out one’s muscles is the first step to bing a qualified mage!’


    Therge amount of information, so much that one could feel dazzled by them, made Herolia uncertain as to where to start reading.


    “Mage Forum.”


    The adjutant took a nce at the lower right corner which showed the current time. There was a post in the Mage Forum that outlined the functions of the magicwork. One of the things that post mentioned was the concept ofwork connection andwork speed.


    When the adjutant was staying in Nond’s little chapel, his signal strength would barely reach three bars. But now that he came to the Holy City, the signal strength had turned gray and red, two colors signaling warning.


    Those two colors called to his attention that... he had lost connection.


    Recently, he acquired a habit to post on the mage forum after he finished his prayers. To him, losing connection to the mage forum was a disaster.


    Fortunately, the Mage Forum utilized local storage. That is, the contents of the Mage Forum will be stored in the users”mind.’ The posts will only be updated once a user connects back with thework.


    As the human mind was a ‘drive’ of super ultra high capacity, Joshua would naturally have to utilize it to its fullest.


    Of course, the users were able to clear the history of the useless contents on the forum.


    “Mage... Forum? So it’s a conference, one where people interact using words?”


    Herolia soon found out the pattern to which the forum’s texts were arranged. Once she found the pattern, the chaotic-ness instantly disappeared.


    “That’s right, Lady Saintess. The mages of Nond are issuing their various opinions and questions onto this forum. Then, other users will quickly be able to see them. Furthermore, they could issue replies to them too.”


    The adjutant extended his finger and tapped one of the posts to show to Herolia.


    “The people on this forum are all anonymous?”


    Herolia discovered that the Poster and the Repliers were all not using their actual name. Instead, their names seemed to be some sort of code names.


    “They’re all anonymous. Very rarely do people know others’ identity.”


    That was also one of the reasons why the adjutant liked the Mage Forum so much. As long as he doesn’t vite the ‘User Agreement,’ he would be able to discuss with everyone on the forum as an equal.


    He very much enjoyed the feeling ofmunicating with others on the forum and expressing his true thoughts and opinions. And... sending those amusing dwarf expressions. Oh, a new sort of expression, one much simpler than the dwarves, has been added recently — yellow faces.


    Among them, the ‘funny’ expression was the most popr one on the forum.


    “Truly...ughable.”


    Once the Saintess Herolia finished listening to the adjutant’s descriptions, she suddenly revealed a self-mocking smile.


    “Lady... Lady Saintess, I... I’m not certain...”


    The adjutant suddenly realized that he seemed to have lost himself to the joy of using the Mage Forum. Even though no one in Nond had stood out to im themselves to be the creator of the Mage Forum, the adjutant could guess that it was most likely the creation of that demon.


    “You don’t have to be so flustered. I only feel this to be quite ironic.”


    “Ironic?”


    “The canons left by God always expressed his desire for his followers to show forgiveness to one another and create a world where everyone’s equal. The Holy Church had spent a millennium but still didn’t aplish that. Yet, a demon managed to fulfill God’s wish before us. Albeit, it is only in the state of one’s consciousness right now. But... say... don’t you think this is ironic?”


    Herolia took a nce at the adjutant. The adjutant lowered his head uncertain as to how to answer her. Or perhaps, it would be better stated that he was afraid of answering her.


    The Saintess was the only person in the entire Holy Church who dared to criticize the Holy Church and God like so. If he was the one who spoke those words, he would be charged with sphemy and be condemned to death.


    “Don’t lower your head. I wouldn’t be able to see the content on the Mage Forum when you do that.”


    “Yes... Lady Saintess.”


    Herolia skimmed through the contents discussed by the users on the forum.


    She was amused by a lot of the replies. She felt the urge to join them and submit replies of her own.


    “How do I respond to them?” asked Herolia.


    “About that... the range of the magicwork is currently only limited to covering Nond. The Holy City is unable to receive information from the magicwork. What Lady Saintess saw were contents stored from a couple hours ago.”


    The adjutant exined to the Saintess Herolia per his memories of what he read on the ‘Magic Network Usage Instructions.’


    “One can only view the stuff from the past and not be able to join the forum in the Holy City? Are there any posts that have things to do with the Holy Church on this forum?”


    Herolia was able to vaguely guess the reason why Cheryl defected.


    After being ordered by the Saintess, the adjutant immediately found a post he was extremely familiar with — ‘Diary of an Inquisitor.’ There were already over a thousand replies to the diary. It was on the top of the ‘Motionless Library.’


    “Skotan Nun, that’s a name from the far far past. Is this the reason why you betrayed us, Cheryl?”


    Herolia had gained the information she wanted. Her line of sight shifted away from the magicwork. At this moment, a sphere of light floated wobbly over to Herolia’s shoulder.


    That sphere of light seemed to be some sort of living organism. It whispered some words to Herolia’s ears before disappearing into specks of light.


    “You will be returning to Nond in three days. You shall be the guide in our crusade against that demon.”


    “Three... three days?”


    The adjutant was pleasantly surprised by what he heard. The teleportation gate to Nond had closed shut. If he wanted to return to Nond by foot, it would take him at least three months. Furthermore, that was on the condition that nothing unforeseen would appear in his journey.


    “There seemed to be a special teleportation formation located beneath Nond’s chapel. Upon your return, I have a mission for you. I want you to bring back an originium crystal that contained the ‘magicwork’ and check whether there’s a way to connect to the magicwork past Nond.”


    Herolia was certain ‘Skotan Nun’ was the defected Cheryl.


    As she was the Saintess, it would be impossible for her to leave the Holy City unless its due to special circumstances. Because of that, she would have no choice but to ce her hope on the miraculous magicwork to get in touch with Cheryl.


    “This here is the funds for you to use. If you wanted to stay in Nond, you’d do your utmost toplete my mission.”


    Golden runes appeared on Herolia’s fingertips. She waved her hand and a pile of gold coins and precious gems floated over to the adjutant. The adjutant immediately extended both hands to catch the gold coins and gems.


    “Else, I might rmend you to be an ascetic.”


    “Ascetic ... Lady Saintess... I... understand.”


    Even though the adjutant was holding a pile of gold coins and gems, his heart was filled with unspeakable sufferings. Those so-called ascetics were people that consecrated their bodies to God. Even though they held very high positions, they lived miserable and difficult lives...


    But, the adjutant simply had no authority to refuse the Saintess’ mission for he had already epted her ‘bribery.’


    He saw the smile on the Saintess’ face. To her believers, seeing that smile would be like being basked in God’s brilliant light.


    But, to the adjutant, that smile was no different from a demon’s smile!


    Sure enough... it was the demon’s temptation!


    .........


    Hearthstone Tavern. Noiseless Room.


    “This shall be your work. Are there any other questions?”


    Joshua took a couple minutes to exin ‘Voice of Nond’ to Pluk. He also informed him of what his work consisted of.


    This Faceless Demon had a good voice. Perhaps it has something to do with his race. If a Faceless Demon, a race known as the Deceivers, possess an unpleasant voice, likely no one would be ‘incited’ by them.


    Pluk had portrayed Léon in ‘Léon: The Demon’ with his original voice. That slightly hoarse sounding voice had charmed a lot of thedy film-goers.


    “N...News?


    Pluk slowly read this unfamiliar word.


    He had encountered a lot of unfamiliar vocabries ever since he stepped into the Hearthstone Tavern. Joshua had already informed him what his job would be.


    He was to arrive at the Hearthstone Tavern at 9 in the morning, sit inside the Noiseroom Room and narrate the written news content.


    Pluk knew of the human writings. Spending a dozen minutes to read out a script everyday was not difficult of a task for him to do.


    But, Joshua was not only employing him. He was employing the entirety of the ck Dove.


    “You canprehend news as ‘valuable information.’ In other words, it’s the same as what the members of the ck Dove have been doing the entire time. You are to inform the people of Nond all the important or interesting things that urred in Nond through the Voice of Nond immediately.”


    Joshua provided the Deceiver an exnation that he could understand.


    “You mean, you want to provide the information to the residents of Nond free of charge?”


    Pluk’sprehension ability wasn’t bad. However, what Joshua wanted to do would be a business of enormous loss to them, information dealers.


    “Your Highness Joshua, you wouldn’t be able to gain anything from doing this... Many of the information gathered by the ck Dove could cause certain mages to pay arge sum of money to purchase them. If you are to do this, you will cause all information to lose their value.”


    Pluk held even greater seniority in the ck Dove than their current leader the dark elf Thousand Faces. He knew very well that the ck Dove was a low-level organization that belonged to the dark and shadowy side of Nond.


    But, that was also the reason why there were merchants in Nond that would spend arge sum of money to purchase information on theirpetitors from the ck Dove.


    To ck Dove, information was theirmodity. What Joshua wanted to do waspletely equivalent to giving out themodity for free.


    “Pluk, doing this would allow me to gain over ten thousand... or even over a hundred thousand listeners for the Voice of Nond.”


    It was only at this moment that Joshua disyed his ‘ambition’ to the Deceiver.


    “Imagine it. They will open up the Voice of Nond and be able to learn about thetest happenings in Nond by listening to your morning broadcast. Whether it might be some freakish major event or some interesting small news, they will learn about all thetest developments in Nond. To all the residents of Nond, that would be something well worth for them to sit down and spend a couple minutes listening to the news.”


    Joshua believed the aspect of broadcasting that truly attracts people was not music or night-time stories. Instead, it was the news. After all, everyone would be concerned about what was happening around them.


    “Your Highness Joshua... is there a significance to doing something like this?”


    Pluk was still unable to understand what significance or value there was in doing this sort of thing. The ck Dove would be able to, at the very least, gain some gold coins by selling their information. But, should they change their information to ‘news,’ there would be no profit to be seen at all.


    “The significance lies in how there’ll be over ten thousand people sitting down to listen to your voice. It is equivalent to the Holy Church’s missionaries. In a city, missionaries were able to gain over a hundred listeners to their speeches...”


    “...”


    After Pluk finished hearing Joshua’s simpleparison, he wiped away the cold sweat on his forehead. This Deceiver finally understood what Joshua was nning; he finally understood what sort of influence the Voice of Nond will bring to this world.


    “But, if you wanted to employ the members of the ck Dove, you would need to wait for Thousand Faces to return to Nond. It will likely take her a week to return to the human world.”


    Pluk does not hold a very high position in the ck Dove. After all, ck Dove was once very scattered. Only the current leader of the ck Dove, the dark elf Thousand Faces, was able to make those members act obediently.


    “In that case, we can talk about the actual employment details when she returns. You can also return to your hotel now.”


    Joshua did not try to detain the Deceiver. Ever since the movie ‘Léon: The Demon,’ Squirrel Street has, starting from hotel ck Dove, began to develop toward a tourist center.


    If Joshua decided to shoot another movie there in the future, he might really be able to develop it into a Hollywood.


    Pluk expressed a slightly awkward bow toward Joshua and then left the Hearthstone Tavern.