[Vol. 9] Chapter 9: There’s Only One Answer!
After a short episode, with the help of the Hero, everyone soon escaped the [Lost Domain] and returned to the little tavern in the real world. Although the research on the [Chaos Being] was suddenly stopped, this didn’t affect the main purpose of the meeting too much. Now that the enemy’s situation had been revealed, the next step was to discuss how to fight back, as well as matters about creating a new organization.
The reason for building a new group to resist the invasion of the [Lord of Restraint] was mainly because of the protective charms made by the Hero using the power of his artifact. Although those charms only carried a very small trace of the power of the [Saint’s Cross], they could not be produced without limit. So, they had to be distributed wisely to make the best use of them.
The plan was to use the strong fighters gathered here as the core. After they returned to their own regions, they would each select some trusted elites and give them charms, making them the main force for future battles inside the [Lost Domain]. In a way, this sounded just like one of those “special investigation bureaus” in supernatural stories.
Of course, most of the design of this new group was still very incomplete. Once it was set up, it would surely take a long time to improve and adjust. But that had little to do with a certain priestess.
After all, she had only returned to the Human United Kingdom not long ago together with the Immortal Magician, and by chance ran into this whole mess. But Violet still had many other things to do, she could not stay here for long. The problems of the Human United Kingdom would have to be solved mostly by themselves.
While Menna and the others were busy discussing the details of the new group with local leaders and sect chiefs, Violet didn’t care about those things. She seemed a bit idle, and could only pick up the kingdom’s official disaster reports to flip through casually.
From what the report showed, just as the Princess had said, the hidden damage over the past month had already been very serious. The number of people directly or indirectly affected was in the hundreds of thousands. In some extreme cases, whole villages and towns had been dragged into the [Lost Domain] and never returned.
No wonder that little girl was in such a hurry. But… something still felt strange.
As a [Revelator], Menna had already dealt with the World Sustainers before. With her ability, getting information about them should have been much faster and easier. If even her Revelation couldn’t see it, could those scholars really uncover the truth just by catching and studying a few followers?
If that was the case, then why did she take such a dangerous approach?
The black-haired girl quietly thought about these small signs of strangeness. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps came closer. Violet put down the papers, and with some doubt looked at the white figure now standing beside the table where she and the dragon girl sat.
“Something wrong?”
The young man in shining white armor, holding a holy sword, nodded slightly. His manner was still polite and gentle. But compared to his dazzling, radiant presence when standing before everyone earlier, now Bowen looked rather lonely, with no sign of where his teammates had gone.
“Praise the Goddess, Miss Violet. May I have a talk with you?”
“Well, well, the chance to have a private talk with the great Hero, many people dream of that. Of course you can~”
She gave a glance at Xiao Guang across from her. Understanding right away, Xiao Guang gave Bowen a slightly odd look, then stood up and walked over to the counter, leaving space for the conversation.
“Ah… thank you.”
Looking heavy-hearted, the young Hero sat down. Facing the black-haired girl who leaned lazily in her chair with arms crossed, as if waiting for him to speak first, he hesitated for a moment. Then, gathering his courage, he finally spoke.
“Miss Violet, you are one of the three hidden Heroes, right?”
“?”
It took her quite a while to understand what those words really meant. Then Violet couldn’t help but feel both amused and helpless as she asked back:
“Why would you think that? I clearly never even took part in that divine trial, you know?”
Strictly speaking, this wasn’t the first time the two of them had spoken face-to-face. In the uncorrected version of history, Bowen had died three years ago in the streets of Sacred Star City. Back then, Violet had appeared before his soul in her true form and exchanged a few words with him, and he had even mistaken her for the Goddess herself.
After the two timelines merged, the Brightlight Saintess, Yuna, no longer using her own plan to save the Holy Empire, and Bowen Bernard naturally came back to life as history was rewritten. He was just a mortal, so it wasn’t certain he could remember everything from that other timeline. Still, it made sense that fragments of important memories might leave a deep impression on him.
Violet had originally thought that the young man in front of her just felt she looked familiar, so he came to test her and see what information he could gather. She had even already prepared her excuses. But… why was he asking something completely outside of what she expected?
Bowen nodded, speaking sincerely.
“Because my mentor once hinted to me that in the Courage City, besides me, there was actually another chosen hero. Among the six chosen in total, I’ve only met Heaven Hero and Asura Hero. I know nothing about the remaining three.”
“After discussing with my companions about why the Goddess would hide the identities of three Heroes, we reached a guess, maybe those three weren’t truly born from the candidates back then. Their existence might only be meant to cover for the real Heroes.”
“I cannot easily guess the thoughts of the Gods, but if this guess is true, then the identities of those three hidden chosen could be anyone. Later, when I met Miss Elunie and Miss Hongyan, I also realized the six artifacts can resonate with each other. As long as they are close, they can sense one another.”
As he spoke, Bowen pulled out the [Saint’s Cross] from inside his chest armor. Sure enough, even without channeling any power into it, the strange holy emblem pulsed faintly like it was breathing, glowing softly. Without any hesitation, he showed it openly and added.
“This reaction had already appeared earlier, but back in the tavern there were just too many people. I couldn’t tell who exactly the [Saint’s Cross] was resonating with, so I could only wait.”
“Later, when you, Miss Violet, stood up and questioned the cause of the [Lost Domain], I felt you seemed to know a lot about the six artifacts. But these are holy gifts from the Goddess. Except for the Goddess herself, how could any outsider know their details so clearly?”
“There’s only one explanation, you are also one of the chosen Heroes. One of the three hidden, mysterious Heroes whose identity is unknown, right?”
“Uh… All that effort, and it was completely incorrect.”