The Final Protectors

Chapter 3: A Cleric with an Unknown Name

In that instant, no one in the room spoke. Only John and Jel were staring wide-eyed at each other.

When John was young, he once left the Temple for a period of time and spent many years roaming and wandering about. During this time, he had countless experiences, and met people of various types and characters. With his judgement skills, he felt that the other party’s shock was probably… not feigned.

His brain which was still feverish nearly turned into a mess of goo again. What in the world was going on?

The Rebellion of the Black Robes turned the whole land into chaos. No one would be unaware of this. Could it be that he strangely drifted to another land? Was it because of the storm that started from the black scepter’s explosion? Or… did something else happen? But the emblem on that person’s sleeve was legitimate. He was certainly the healer of the Temple’s. Could it be that there was a second Temple in the world?

It took a very long time before he asked in a soft voice, “May I ask… where this place is?”

“State of Salla, Delk Region, Mid Mountains area…” Jel was noting the expression of the youth in front of him and found that his initial expression was shock. Then, his brows slightly knitted together. Confusion flashed across his eyes. So Jel added as though he was possessed by something. “A.D. 2012.”

John’s face was momentarily a blank white.

God knew how long had passed before he felt that the hand he supported himself with beside him had already stiffened. Then, he swiftly blinked with the eyelids that were already turning sore. He asked weakly, “A.D. …what?”

“2012,” Jel said. He picked up the State of Salla newspaper that Amy threw in his home and gave it to John. “Today is the 17th of November⁠—oh this is yesterday’s newspaper.”

John stretched out a hand to receive it. He confirmed that the item in his hands was not made of parchment. The texture was completely different. It was a little crisp and not that firm. But it was, without a doubt, much more thin.

On it, there was a “portrait” as detailed as a real person and words that were written with the exact same size, a pattern so strange that he did not know what it represented, typesetting that filled the entire paper, as well as a date, “Friday, 16 November, 2012”.

“What is this?” John’s pupils constricted. He raised his head, a pale white finger still on one of the pages. There, a person was hugging a wad of cash paper that was pressed down by him.

Jel surveyed him in silence and felt his forehead with a hand. Then, he pulled up the blankets around him. “Your temperature hasn’t gone down yet. Right now, you shouldn’t think. I think it’s best if you rest first. We’ll talk after your fever has completely gone down.”

John’s finger swiftly moved. It looked like he wanted to stop him. Yet, he controlled himself very quickly. “Alright… No matter what, thank you, you guys.”

“It’s my honor.” Jel pulled Amy and the two left the room together.

John fell back onto the bed completely and gazed at the exquisite false ceiling and the ancient-styled chandelier that was currently in fashion. In the eyes of this “real ancient person”, they were extremely strange. Because there was not even one-half of a candle up there!

But so what if that was the case? His eyes shifted around stiffly and looked at that “mushroom” still glowing at his bedside. If mushrooms could be lit up now, candles certainly weren’t a necessity.

Time travel… He knew that it was possible. There were some secret files in the Temple’s Records that once recorded this concept down and it was known as one of the Ten Forbidden Spells.

Even if he only recently used one of these ten not long ago, he did not understand “time”. All of the records concerning time were vague without much detail. Other than it truly existing, it was very difficult to find any real examples and theories.

Then, how did he leap directly from beside Satan’s corpse to over a thousand years later ?

John pressed on his forehead in pain. Oh God, to complete two Forbidden Spells within a single day, he felt that he can already write his name and achievements in history now.

“The problem is,” he asked weakly. “How the fuck did I manage to do it?”

Jel dragged Amy out and came straight to the study. He picked up a bundle from the table⁠—it was the robe that that pretty youth wore and was taken off previously. “Look at this.”

Amy moved closer and stared at it for a long time. Finally, with his sharp sense of time, he reached a conclusion . “Mn… this looks very old-school. But if you ask me, it looks like it was directly cut out from the tablecloth and put on his body.”

Jel ignored him, crouching over to take out a magnifying glass from the drawer. “I inspected it for a long time yesterday and found this. Look⁠—”

The chest area of the robe was torn and practically cut into two pieces. But you can still identify the outline of the pattern that was embroidered with silver threads. He put it under the magnifying glass as he flashed a light. Amy was stunned for a moment. There was an instant where he felt that those patterns looked like they were flowing.

“This is…”

“Aro’s Thread⁠—it’s taken from a Decay called ‘Dark Elf’. Apparently, it was their blood vessels.” Jel said, “These ‘Dark Elves’ loved beautiful voices, and consumed human’s throats as food. But being their blood vessels, the Aro’s Thread had unbelievable defensive abilities. Legend said that they gained beautiful voices from eating human’s throats. Those voices flowed into the blood and caused these dirty things’s blood vessels to turn into a bright silver item that had beautiful strength.”

Amy shrugged his shoulders. “You mean to say that this guy wore an old costume that is worth a city and even made it seem like a tablecloth? You got to know that there were no instances of Dark Elves transgressing the Barrier. They haven’t appeared for one thousand, two hundred years.”

Jel lifted his head to look at him. The two looked at each other for a moment before Amy widened his eyes. “Wait! You’re implying that… he might be a time traveller?”

“I’m not certain.” Jel said, “I have to go to the Temple and find Roy to let him take a look at this robe while at it. Regarding these things, he’s much more knowledgeable than me… When I’m not around, take care of this person for me.”

Amy looked at him with a burning gaze.

Jel pressed on his forehead. “Alright then, I’ll pass on your greetings to Roy.”

Amy fished out a pink letter from god knows where with a “swish” sound. Eyes shining, he stuffed it at Jel’s face.

“Damn you…” Jel made a pained sound. “I’m not going to help you send a love letter like a boy in middle school!”

Amy used a little finger to dig into his ear. “What?”

Jel’s face was green.

“Oh⁠—” Amy dragged his voice. “Tsk tsk, what did I hear? The adorable Mr. Shelton, you actually rejected a healer. One that will uncloth you, exposing your fresh, young flesh, and do anything at will to you, a… ‘Lady’ Healer like me?”

Jel shivered.

Amy, “Hmm?”

The man who was known as the Best Hunter in these ten years was silent for a while. Vexed but timidly, he received that pink letter and stuffed it in his pocket. Then, he turned around to sneeze⁠—the hell, did you spray two liters of mosquito repellent?

Jel rolled up the robe that John changed out of and stuffed it into his bag. Taking his jacket, he headed out while thinking in indigance, “I pray Roy won’t paste this thing on my face.”

In the eyes of the public, Roy Margarett was a young scholar. Of course, people said that he was one of the extremely powerful hunters, but right now, his most arduous task was to stay in the Temple and train the new hunters and to enjoy the pain of the suffering scholars too. It had already been a very long time since he personally headed out for an assignment.

He had a shocking memory, and loved to engage with those tattered documents which should have been long tossed out for recycling. This caused him to become an ancient being before he even turned old. Those pair of blue eyes as mesmerizing as the ocean always focused on those things buried beneath the soil.

Jel took the robe that he removed from his mysterious guest and gave it to Roy. This scholar who thought highly of himself only gave a glance before his expression turned serious. He said shortly, “Where did you get it from?”

“Tell me this first, is that the Aro’s Thread in it?”

Roy arched an eyebrow. “Golden Emblem Hunter, you should believe your judgement on this.”

Jel dragged a chair over to sit down in front of Roy, and described the strange man that he picked up the previous day.

“John Smith…” Roy’s slender and long finger tapped lightly at the tabletop a few times. “Strange.”

Jel’s eyes brightened. “If he’s really a time traveller, do you think he’s possibly…”

“No, if you want to say Karlos Fraruitt, he probably isn’t.” Roy thought for a while and shook his head. He bent down and pulled out a book from under his desk that was approximately tens of centimeters thick and slammed it on the table.

Jel noticed that that book was very aged, made of parchment. There was a light blue mark on the book, which signified that it was an ancient book from the Temple’s Secret Treasury kept under protection. He couldn’t resist twitching his mouth, feeling like it was a little sore.

“Look at this.”

Jel moved closer. On the yellowed parchment page that was flipped open, there was a robe drawn there. Even if the drawing skill was not great and made it look like a giant sack, he still recognized the embroidered pattern on the robe. This drawing was the same as the one in Roy’s hands right now.

At the side, there was an annotation. “The ceremonial robes of a Cleric Knight.”

“Was a Cleric Knight’s ceremonial robes a thousand years ago like this?” Jel asked.

“No. It wasn’t any different from the current ceremonial robes. This isn’t the ceremonial robes of a cleric in a normal situation.” Roy said, “I suppose you know that Aro’s Thread is a powerful defensive item. So when these ceremonial robes are on a cleric, it will definitely be in a warring situation. And there’s a very high possibility that the director-general Archbishop of the Temple had already died in battle. Or because of a certain reason, they lost their ability to fight⁠—of course, since Dark Elves have already vanished for a few hundreds of years, we’re using ordinary defensive arrays as a substitute for the Aro’s Thread even for the clerics’ battle robes.”

Jel startled. “You mean, I picked up a Cleric Knight of the Temple from the ancient times?”

“That’s why I said that it’s impossible for him to be Karlos. Although Karlos was a legend throughout his life, he had been roaming outside for the majority of the time and he did not take any jobs from the Temple. The names of the past archbishops and cleric knights have all been recorded. The ceremonial robes were uniquely made, and the sleeve would usually be embroidered with its owner’s name and the Temple’s symbol⁠—look.”

The sleeve of the robe had been torn off. Only one side is left. Roy’s finger pressed against the sleeve. Following his fingertip, the white light flashed. On the originally empty sleeve, a tiny, tiny mark of a sword suddenly appeared. It burned, emitting a golden light. “An authentic symbol of the Temple, but there’s no name of its owner at the side.”

“Jel.” He said, “If possible, I want to see this mysterious guest of yours.”