Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 685: Is his background really that important?
The room that old man Pancras prepared for the guests was on the fourth floor of the clock tower. Although it was called a clock tower, the interior space and structure were no different from those of ordinary houses. There were two corridors and six rooms. At the intersection of the corridors was a small living room. The simple and tidy furnishings included tables, chairs, cabinets, candlesticks, sofas and fireplaces. It looked like an ordinary living room. The only thing that reflected a bit of religious atmosphere was the niches embedded in the stone walls, which often housed wooden carvings of saints, whose faces looked solemn and dignified in the firelight.

Leaving the corridor is a spiral staircase that runs through the entire bell tower. Each step is made of heavy and solemn square stones, leading directly to the top of the tower. It is said that there is a bronze bell with a long history hanging there, which has existed since the day the Gospel Convent was completed. Every morning, the aliens living in the bell tower take turns to ring the bronze bell to wake up their companions in the shelter to start a new day. It is worth mentioning that the three sisters of the photon elves are not within the scope of this "rotating responsibility". This is not because of any privilege, but simply because they are too weak to ring the bell.

Because it was really late, the three sisters went to sleep in their rooms as soon as they returned to the clock tower. Before leaving, the eldest sister Best emphasized the previous agreement several times (although no one knew what the agreement was), until she was gently dragged away by her younger sister Belphie.

After personally escorting the guests to their temporary residence and fulfilling his duties as a host, old man Pancras also said goodbye to them. However, before he left, Ling suddenly asked the elder a question.

"You are also a believer in animism, right? Then, do you agree with the idea of ​​the saint's return? Or... do you hope that Saint Tumi can return to this world as a god?"

The young man stared into the old man's single eye, trying to discern his true thoughts from the cloudy shadow, rather than just the verbal responses.

To be honest, this question was inevitably sharp and abrupt, especially when Lingge asked it as a victim - although the young man never deliberately boasted about this identity, but after listening to the causes and consequences of the promulgation of the "Religious Decree", everyone knew that if there was a completely innocent victim in this incident, it could only be this brother and sister.

So old man Pancras couldn't refuse to answer this question. He gently stroked his dull beard, and after pondering for a while, he slowly replied: "If that's the case, you can indeed regard me as a believer in animism; but to be complete, I am different from those who expect the return of the Holy Spirit. I am a believer in the True Spirit School."

"True Spiritualism?" Linger frowned. "Is this also a branch of animism?"

"Yes." The old man nodded. "The followers of the True Spirit School do not regard the spirits of all things in the world as some specific objects to worship. For them, animism is more like a set of tools to guide them in understanding the world. All things have spirituality, and spirituality is the budding of the soul and the starting point of transcendence. Through the understanding, contact and analysis of the spirituality of all things, it can feed back to the spirituality of human beings themselves, and finally make the originally dormant and weak spirits gradually become active and powerful. In this system, the spirit of all things is closer to an abstract concept. It reminds us all the time to have awe for the world we live in, because intelligence, spirituality and soul have never been the privileges of human beings. Naturally, creating gods, refining believers, and even dragging innocent people into turmoil are also not a manifestation of awe, so they are also resisted by us, the followers of the True Spirit School."

Linger listened patiently, and then showed a thoughtful expression: "It sounds like it has a lot in common with the spiritual self theory originally proposed by Saint Tumi."

"Indeed, from this perspective, the True Spirit Sect has undoubtedly inherited the original intention of the Saint and is the purest and most staunch supporter of animism. However, it is denounced as heresy by those believers who support the concept of 'Holy Spirit Return Day'. This is a very ironic thing." At this point, the ugly but peaceful face of old man Pancras could not help but reveal a helpless bitter smile: "Although the deer-headed elder Wendigo who proposed the concept of Holy Spirit Return Day was gentle and did not like fighting, with the invention of the steam engine and the advancement of the industrial age, his consistent concept of maintaining a balance between nature and civilization was artificially broken. He believed that this was a wrong path that was destined to lead mankind to a future of destruction, so he longed for the advent of the Saint to guide mankind back to the right track. Perhaps it was because he was dissatisfied with the current world and longed for change that the believers who followed his ideas often appeared fanatical and extreme."

The most mentally tough people in this world are fanatics, who will never give up their devotion to their faith; but the most mentally fragile people are also fanatics, because they are only willing to accept the baptism of faith, but not to accept the changes in reality. Insisting on oneself is a kind of tenacity, escaping from reality is a kind of fragility, and those who insist on the wrong self and escape from the destined reality become so-called religious lunatics.

To guide humanity onto the right track?
But what is the right path? If you want to get the answer, you probably have to ask everyone's opinion. But people with such lofty beliefs always act on their own and never ask others' feelings, as if the humble and weak have naturally lost the right to speak. But the future of mankind itself is made up of the wishes of these tiny individuals. Those who ignore these wishes and indulge in self-touching often do not end well.

Animists will not succeed, and so will the cultists. This includes the secret organization, the Witch Society, which has always been hiding behind the scenes and manipulating history. Linger also believes that they will never succeed, because what these people want is never the answer of mankind, but only their own answer. Old man Pancras said goodbye and left. This time Linger did not try to stop him, but silently watched his back disappear at the end of the candlelight in the corridor.

There were scattered footsteps behind me. My companions who had gone in to tidy up the room came out again. They were now gathered in the small living room, chatting casually before going to bed. Alice lay down on the sofa in boredom, muttering, "It's so shabby. The pillow is not flannel, the quilt is not feather, and the bed is a bit hard. It's not comfortable to play games on. It will definitely affect my performance. What should I do? I suddenly want to go back to the hotel to sleep."

That's enough. Are you a princess from somewhere? Why are you so delicate? A real princess didn't complain.

Of course, the reason she didn't complain might be because she didn't need to sleep at all.

Seeing that no one paid attention to her, Alice felt deeply the indifference of human nature and the fickleness of the world. She sighed and lamented in an exaggerated tone for a while. If you didn't know, you would think that this guy was about to die and was making his last words.

Even so, no one paid any attention to her.

The golden-haired maid rolled her eyes and looked at the countess by the fireplace. She changed the subject naturally, "By the way, didn't Nevile say before we came here that this Lord Pancras has a great background? How come I didn't see that? He's just an ordinary old man, but he's a little ugly... Ah, I didn't say that. It was Shaymi who said that. It has nothing to do with me, okay?"

Taking advantage of the fact that Xie Mi couldn't stay up late and went back to sleep, you start throwing dirty water on him openly, right?
Olvera secretly gave her a look of contempt. The Countess, who was leisurely doing her nails, smiled slightly and threw the topic to Lingge: "Lord Pancras is indeed a prominent figure, but you just didn't see it. Lingge, I think you should have recognized his background, right?"

"Oh? Really?" Alice looked unconvinced. How could someone be smarter than me? "Then Lingge, tell me, what is his background? There is no reward if you can tell, but there will be a punishment if you can't."

"..."

The young man was silent for a moment because of the shamelessness of the golden-haired maid. He didn't want to pay attention to her, but when he saw that Olvera and Saint Xia Liya were looking at him with interest, he had to explain: "In the Old Lunweiting language family, the name Pancras means'righteous'. This name has appeared in some church scriptures, so many believers have been baptized with this name. It is widely spread and very common. But if the name Pancras is associated with the Spiritual Prayer Meeting and St. Annville Cross Church, then I can only think of one person-"

"Pancras, the bell-ringer of St. Anvil's Cross."

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)