Chapter 52: Fernandes’s Admonition

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Cherry Chloe did not stay long.

Only after she had left did Fernandes come in, trailing the smell of smoke.

“I thought I was going to spend the whole night out there getting blasted by the wind.”

“Don’t joke around, Fernandes.”

The big man picked up a stool and set it beneath himself, then sat on it like a bear settling onto a nail.

“I think you’re the one who likes joking, Roland.” Fernandes pointed at him several times, his gaze hostile. “Do you know who you killed?”

Roland looked surprised. “I didn’t get a chance to ask his name.”

Fernandes: “...”

You little bastard.

The priest swallowed back the words lodged in his throat and glared fiercely at him. “...That was a true Ritualist.”

With no outsiders in the room, the man no longer bothered to conceal the anger in his voice. “Any Ritualist is stronger than you, with several times your experience. How did you dare expose a cultist on the spot and attack him instead of seeking help from the Tribunal or the Bureau of Supervision?”

“You wouldn’t have been injured this badly if you’d sent even a servant.”

Fernandes was stating facts, not trying to frighten him. “Your spine was broken. Your intestines were like cooked noodles, ready to be twirled around a fork. The bones in your shoulder and upper arm were shattered, and your metacarpals and lower legs suffered fractures of varying severity.”

Roland clicked his tongue.

He seemed...

He seemed not to feel that it was quite so serious.

His back was indeed somewhat difficult to straighten, but the pain in his arms and hands did not seem as “terrifying” as Fernandes described.

“It was Lady Enid who contacted Bishop Kratofer. Then I and the Bureau’s Ritualists arrived in time. You should be even more grateful that the Death Season has not begun. Otherwise, it would be hard to say whether you’d have survived.”

It was not a question of whether they could save him. Given the state Roland had been in, he could hardly have held on until a high-circle Ritualist had prepared the ritual.

“The Death Season?”

Fernandes was furious, and thoroughly frightened as well.

There were already too few enforcers to begin with.

He jabbed Roland in the forehead with his thick finger, much harder than Chloe had earlier. He pressed so forcefully that Roland’s head sank into the pillow.

“Every winter, when all things wither and die. That is what we call the Death Season.”

“Because the Church’s Ritualists can perform certain costly but effective rituals—for example, minor disease exorcisms, special rituals for external injuries, or rituals that can extend a person’s life for a short period.”

“Those are genuine rituals that borrow the power of the gods, with the gods themselves taking part.”

“Except in winter.”

“Winter belongs to the White-Crowned Lord of the Wastes. Our special rituals cannot take effect during that season.”

It was the first time Roland had heard of the Death Season.

So rituals had restrictions like this.

Fernandes waved a hand. “Only a few—only a few particularly special rituals... Are you changing the subject?”

Roland shook his head with an innocent expression.

“They call us Burners, saying we’re all reckless extremists who never use our heads. But I’ve never seen anyone as reckless as you. You’ve broken a record, Roland. An apprentice daring to attack a full-fledged Ritualist.”

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“Thank you, Fernandes.” Roland nudged Fernandes’s finger with his forehead. “Mrs. Chloe’s shooting is remarkably accurate. It’s a shame she never became a detective.”

“I wasn’t praising you.”

Fernandes retorted, then rubbed his face vigorously with both huge hands. “I’m partly to blame. I’d meant to explain everything to you gradually...”

He then gave Roland a deeply suspicious look. “How do you keep running into things like this?”

Roland knew at once that Fernandes had suffered for it.

He flashed a row of white teeth, taking malicious delight in the other man’s misfortune without the slightest trace of conscience. “Got chewed out?”

Fernandes snorted twice and glanced sideways at him.

Of course he had.

Lady Enid had given him quite a tongue-lashing.

“Can’t you even teach a reservist? The methods for dealing with aberrants, wraiths, and cultists are the most basic knowledge there is... What exactly do you keep in that head of yours all day?”

“Are you planning to remain an enforcer for several more years?”

“Fernandes, advancement isn’t what you want, is it?”

“Perhaps I should pull a few strings and transfer you to the Bureau of Supervision? Compared with being an enforcer, you might be better suited to helping some nobleman raise horses.”

A yesterday best left unremembered.

Not only had Lady Enid refused to look kindly upon him; some of the old hands in the Tribunal had begun looking at him strangely as well.

To be fair, it was not that he had failed to teach Roland. He simply had not had the time.

If he had followed the proper sequence, Roland would still have needed some time to learn all this. Besides, judging by Roland’s daily routine—when he was not at home, he was either with Fernandes or at the Tribunal—Fernandes could never have imagined that the boy would run into one incident after another.

How had he managed to catch them all?

An apprentice?

“So, when you get down to it, this is still Fernandes’s—”

Fernandes raised his head and glared at him.

Roland pressed his lips together, but his face was covered in laughter.

“Ah.”

Seeing him like that, the priest could not maintain his sternness either.

He scratched his scalp and muttered irritably, “Actually, what you did was pretty impressive... Cough. I mean, we do that quite often. When the other side isn’t prepared...”

“Just strike hard and without warning!”

“Enforcers aren’t like those ‘ladies’ at the Bureau of Supervision.” He clenched a fist and gave it a small swing. “...But I’ve never seen an apprentice dare to pull something like that. You really are something.”

Roland said, “I had no choice, Fernandes. He had already attacked Mrs. Chloe. I had no idea how serious the consequences would be if I let him continue setting up the Field. To save her, I could only interrupt him.”

“I didn’t have time to send for help.”

Fernandes raised an eyebrow, his words carrying an unspoken warning. “Don’t think I’m easy to fool.”

“Every woman and girl in that room except the young lady from the Taylor family and Chloe was injured... Did you know that? If Lady Enid hadn’t intervened, you would absolutely have ended up in court. Some people claim you ‘bumped into’ her and then ignored her pleas for help.”

“To be precise, I kicked her aside.”

Roland was perfectly untroubled by this.

“I didn’t know any of those women. They had to rely on themselves to survive.”

“After all, I’m blind.”

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The corner of Fernandes’s mouth twitched. He remained silent for a long while.

“...I’m beginning to think it’s a good thing you never set foot upon the Path of Holy Flame.” He muttered, “You wouldn’t get far on that path.”

“Fernandes?”

“Your ‘qualifications’ aren’t sufficient.”

The man seemed to be seeing Roland for the first time.

Once that warm outer skin had been torn away, the handsome, ordinarily gentle young man revealed nothing in his eyes but frozen indifference.

Fernandes looked away and no longer met Roland’s gaze.

He brought up the attack that had taken place three days earlier.

There was another coincidence involved.

“Do you remember the walking corpse on Follett Street?”

“The one summoned by the Ritualist you and Cherry Chloe killed.”

At this point, Fernandes could not help asking curiously, “How did you determine that he was a cultist? How did you dare attack him directly? Do you realize that if you had guessed wrong—”

Roland pointed to his nose. “The smell of the walking corpse that attacked me, the smell on him, and the smell of the chest beneath the table were all too familiar.”

Fernandes’s eyes widened at once, disbelief written across his face. “Smell?”

“Yes, smell, Fernandes. People with poor eyesight generally have very keen ears and noses.”

In truth, what had made Roland act was that familiar flash of red in the man’s eyes.

The smell had only come second.

But there was no way he could explain that to Fernandes.

“...A traitor from the Ring of Eternal Silence! And he actually joined forces with the Cradle of Flesh. That organization is like a whore who welcomes anyone who comes along...”

Fernandes swore. “There were three Ritualists at the banquet that night. One was a traitor from the Ring of Eternal Silence, a first-circle Ritualist. The other two were Ritualists from the Cradle of Flesh, one second-circle and one first-circle.”

“Only those lunatics would send three low-circle pieces of trash swaggering into a banquet to provoke people...”

“What would be the point?”

“Trash is still trash...”

But still.

Roland did not understand.

“Killing wealthy people and nobles at a banquet... Whom were they provoking?”

“And besides, Fernandes, that cultist seemed to be targeting the Tribunal... No, the Church...”

Roland recalled the man’s tone and expression. He had the distinct feeling that this was not merely a rat’s hatred of a cat.

Moreover, three low-circle Ritualists...

Was that not too few?

The question extinguished the fury on the priest’s face.

He turned his face slightly aside and gave no answer.

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