Deep within the tunnel, there was a faint glow. Edrick walked toward the light and discovered that it led to two rows of dilapidated, filthy cells. The cells on the left were filled with young girls, all around ten years old, while the cells on the right held several disheveled adult women.
"A thief? What a surprise."The young woman speaking was curled up in the farthest corner of the right-hand cells. Her messy hair revealed a palm-sized patch of clean skin, but her features were indistinguishable. Only the sharp curve of her eyebrows was visible beneath the soot on her nose.
"To have made it this far, you really are a remarkable thief."
Her coarse skirt was patched seventeen or eighteen times, but it had been washed until it was white, unlike the other prisoners' clothes, which reeked of filth.
She clutched a moldy piece of bread, her knuckles white from the pressure. Beneath her torn apron, half of a woven basket was visible, reinforced with the stems of poisonous fly agaric mushrooms. Among the vine-like patterns, three dried cornflowers were hidden—a common folk charm for praying for rain, not forbidden but oddly out of place.
"You smell like smoked meat." She took two steps toward the light, revealing her bare feet stained with grass juice. Her toenails were painted with peeling indigo, and a silver-white metal chain adorned her slender ankles. The chain resembled a finely crafted piece of jewelry, engraved with intricate runes. "Those white-clad demons usually come at midnight to deliver rotten porridge."
"She's not an ordinary person," the Wealth-Scattering Lad reminded Edrick. "She has... ah, traces of Ethercraft in this world."
Edrick knew very well that the people imprisoned here were not simple.
"What crime did you commit?" He tapped the iron bars with his knuckles and lowered his voice.
"Too beautiful." She lowered her head to fiddle with her skirt, and Edrick noticed the iron chains on her ankles were engraved with vine patterns instead of the usual sacred symbols. "The nun said our eyelashes can steal men's souls—they're thorns planted by the devil."
A witch!
Edrick was all too familiar with this rhetoric. Over the centuries, the Church had slaughtered countless women under the guise of witch hunts.
In this world, perhaps there truly were witches who wielded mystical powers, but whether they were servants of the devil remained uncertain.
"What about them?" Edrick pointed to the other side, where the little girls stood with vacant expressions, staring blankly like drug addicts.
"You came through that bronze door, so you should already know." As she spoke, terrifying roars echoed from the direction Edrick had come, followed by screams and explosions.
The final battle between the mechanical demon and the priests had begun.
Hearing the commotion, the witch suddenly lunged toward the railing. The stench of rotten grass mingled with a faint hint of mint wafted toward him. "Save us, and I'll grant you one wish. You know what I can do—we're witches."
He noticed a tear tattoo at the corner of her left eye, shadowed by a faint bluish hue.
"Except for this woman, the rest are ordinary people," reminded the Wealth-Scattering Lad.
Edric nodded. Whether out of morality or self-preservation, letting these women out was his best option.
"What should I do?" asked Edric.
"Find the keys to these three chains! Once you unlock them, I can use my powers!But the keys are usually kept by the high priest," the witch pointed to the silver-white chain around her ankle. Edrick noticed that she had the same chains around her neck and lower abdomen, seemingly some kind of seal. "If all else fails, find the key to the cell and open the door!"
At this point, going to find the patriarch would be tantamount to suicide. In comparison, the cell door key would be easier to find. It was heavy and large, so it would usually be kept near the cell.
Just as Edrick was about to go look for the cell key, the Flower Maiden suddenly reminded him, "Those chains are... what did they call them, sacred energy? That stuff can be converted into Faith Essence Points."
Edrick's eyes lit up. He turned abruptly to look at the witch: "Let me see that chain."
The witch didn't think this thief had any way to deal with the church's seal, but he was her last hope, so she obediently moved closer and let Edrick grasp the chain around her waist.
A wisp of invisible white mist flashed by, and immediately after, the chains around the witch's waist flashed twice, then dimmed and turned into ordinary metal.
[Faith Essence Points gained: 1000]
It worked!
Edrick and the witch were both excited. Edrick was excited because he discovered that this thing was worth 1,000 Faith Essence Points, while the witch was excited because she could be saved and regain her powers!
Edrick converted the chains around the witch's neck and ankles.
[Faith Essence Points gained: 1,000]
[Faith Essence Points gained: 1,000]
After all three chains lost their magical power, the witch suddenly pulled something out of her lower abdomen in front of Edrick. Only those very close could see it clearly—it was a needle as thin as a strand of hair, which had been piercing her lower abdomen all along!
Discarding the needle, the witch murmured incantations Edrick had never heard before. A transparent, invisible disk then appeared between her hands.
The disk looked unremarkable but was incredibly sharp, easily severing the three chains. She then swung the disk, opening all the cell doors.
Edrick watched the witch stretching lazily and smiled, "You're not going to get rid of someone just because you no longer need them, are you?"
"Depends," the witch replied with a playful smile, her first in a long time. "Let's leave this place first."
Edric glanced at the escaped prisoners: two or three dozen numb, dazed young girls and a dozen or so disheveled, terrified women. It would be difficult for them to leave the cathedral unnoticed.
"Follow me," the witch said, waving her hand to release a silver-white ribbon. Edric didn't even see where she had pulled it from.
The ribbon moved through the crowd like a living thing, binding all the young girls' hands together and pulling them along behind the witch.
Edrick was about to follow, but before leaving, he quickly put away the three chains and needles. Thanks to his keen sense of smell, he had managed to locate the needles by the faint scent of blood; otherwise, he never would have found them.
The witch naturally noticed Edrick's actions, but she didn't bother to confront the thief. Escaping the dungeon was her top priority at the moment.
This trip to the cathedral had been very fruitful. Not to mention that the items stolen from the sacristy were worth two or thirty pounds, he also gained more than 4,000 Faith Essence Points. Although he had already used 1,000 of them to cast the Mind Cleansing Spell before entering the bronze door, he still had more than 3,600 left.
After leaving the cell, she did not head toward the bronze door but instead walked deeper into the dungeon. Edrick had already checked that area—it was a dead end.
However, the witch seemed very familiar with the area. She walked to the end of the cell, tapped a few bricks on the wall with her slender fingers, and the wall cracked open, revealing a passageway. Beyond the passageway was a staircase leading upward, and at the end of the staircase, there was a loud rumbling sound, as if a heavy stone door was being opened.
"Let's go." The witch, despite being a prisoner, seemed so familiar with the place that Edrick immediately began to speculate about her identity.
"Madam... are you perhaps a high-ranking member of the Church who was imprisoned here due to internal strife?" Edrick asked boldly.
The witch didn't seem to mind. She glanced back at Edrick without anger and laughed lightly, "Your guess isn't entirely wrong."
The answer was ambiguous, but the witch didn't seem inclined to explain further.
The staircase leading upward was steep, and the group moved slowly, dragging the unconscious girls along. Edrick couldn't help but feel anxious, but the witch leading the way remained calm, seemingly unconcerned about being caught.
Ten minutes later, they finally exited the secret passage and found themselves in a place Edrick recognized immediately—he had been here just an hour ago.
This was the Holy Relic Chamber. He remembered discovering that the wine he had poured earlier had seeped into the cracks in the floor. It seemed the stone door he had been unable to open was the exit.
Before leaving, Edrick decided to take a chance and grabbed a few candlesticks and trays that looked expensive.
After wandering around the church, he found himself back where he started. Edrick had to admit that he was a bit of a failure as a thief. When he saw the witch and the others come out and skillfully find the mechanism that he had been unable to find before to close the floor, he was even more certain of his guess.
As they left the sacristy, the witch glanced at the damaged door hinge and cast a meaningful look at Edrick, the culprit. The latter felt a bit ashamed and lowered his head.
"Let's leave the church and find a place to settle down. Do you have any recommendations?" The witch led the group out of the sacristy with a confident stride, taking the time to turn back and ask Edrick.
The latter was puzzled: "Can't these people go back to their own homes?"
But Edrick immediately realized he had said the wrong thing.
"These children have no homes, and the older girls... have all been judged as witches," the witch explained. "If the church catches them, they will surely die."
At that moment, the church was bustling with the sounds of alarm bells, shouts, and footsteps. Priests were running around inside the church, so it was impossible for such a large group of people to leave unnoticed. They had only been outside for a short while when they were spotted by the monks.
"Stop! Who are you?"Five monks approached the group with grim expressions. Out of trust for the witch, Edrick did not move, but of course, he would have been powerless if a fight broke out.
The witch calmly turned her head and stared at the five monks. Edrick thought that the monks would recognize the witch, but they did not react and continued to approach, clutching their croziers tightly as if ready to attack at any moment.
However, as the witch silently chanted, "Lux mea, signum meum, in Domino firmum," she stretched out a finger and drew a complex silver-white Luminous Sigil in the air. The five monks' expressions changed drastically, and they shouted in unison, "Bishop Lacus!"
"You... Your Excellency... How did you get... Bishop Lacus's... Luminous Sigil!"