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Without any further obstacles, Benjamin successfully returned to the Lithur family manor.

He washed up after some meditation, and fell back on his bed into a deep slumber.

Though he was curious about the happenings at the royal ball, he could only hear news of it by tomorrow no matter what, further speculation on his part would be useless, so he decided to just sleep.

The night was silent.

Morning arrived quickly the next morning. He woke up wanting to send Jeremy to go out to ask around, but he quickly realized that there was no need for that.

News of what happened last night had spread like wildfire throughout the city.

The Pope, who had not shown his face in the past eight years, suddenly appeared yesterday at the royal ball.

Early in the morning, Jeremy came by, and while preparing the water for him to wash his face, told Benjamin all the news.

"The Pope?" Benjamin was taken aback, and nearly forgot to take the towel that Jeremy passed him.

The news of of the assassination attempt on the Pope came up to him, and he suddenly had a strange feeling.

"That’s right, the Pope made an appearance. He even brought news from God!" Jeremy was excited, and nearly splashed the whole basin of water onto Benjamin.

News from God?

"And what kind of news might that be?" Benjamin asked, after lingering on Jeremy’s words for a moment.

"If all the mages are cleansed from the land, the curse of Cain will be lifted, and God will appear once more." Jeremy’s words were filled with anticipation, "Last night, the Pope said these words. This morning, the Church started giving out bulletins about it."

"...."

Cleansing all of the mages?

Benjamin almost laughed out loud.

It was doubtful that this piece of news came from their so-called God, even if it was real, could the Church do it? Plus, ‘cleansing mages’, hasn’t the Church been trying to do that all this while? Calling it an prophesy was a waste of effort, just like taking off your pants to fart.

He knew, the reason the pope rarely showed himself was on the pretense of communicating with God; to help rid this land of the curse which made it a "God Forsaken Land." To this, Benjamin felt that it was mostly just an excuse to appease the people, however looking at the situation now, it was becoming a rather far-fetched excuse to use.

What for? The Church’s desire to purge the world of all its mages was known by everyone. The Pope appearing at the royal ball and repeating this, what change would it bring?

After some thought, Benjamin felt that there was no need to escape the royal ball early last night after all. There wasn’t any important event, and if he stayed behind, he might have at least seen how the legendary, nearly mythical Pope looked like.

But, this train of thought quickly derailed.

"Because of that, when the Pope appeared at Ross’ last night, he gave everyone who was present a small cross." Jeremy’s voice reduced to a whisper and continued, "I heard, the atmosphere there was terrifying. It was said that the crosses possess divine power; once you wear it, it would be hard to take off, and everything you see and hear would be known by the Pope, making everyone there a little unwilling to wear it."

....everything you see and hear, the pope would know?

Hearing this, Benjamin frowned.

Was this......a covert listening device amalgamated with a spy camera?

Who knew the Church could be so capable, to manufacture a "high-end" magical tool en masse...

This news was indeed shocking.

From this, it seemed like the spell-blocking cross that the bishop gave him was probably some junk like that. Their ability to read people’s memories was likely derived from magic. At this rate, with that kind of magic ability, could they, maybe in a few years, send holy homing missiles at people?

On top of that, they used these crosses on noblemen.

A sense of dread came over Benjamin.

The Church.....they are trying to control the whole noblemen society!

Ever since he caught wind of the call for discretion between the Church and the noblemen, Benjamin came back and did some of his own research. When they first established the kingdom, the Church had already made plenty of contracts with the noblemen. The noblemen would support the Church, and in turn the Church had to keep their distance from them, giving them enough respect.

After a few hundred years of development, the Church grew in size and power, but they have yet to break any of the old contracts.

Until now.

Looks like the Church could no longer resist.

After asking Jeremy for a few more questions to better piece together the events of the night, Benjamin made him leave with the basin. He sat beside the window feeling slightly lucky, and meanwhile his mind wandered.

Jeremy had told him that this covert listening cross was distributed forcefully only to those at royal ball at Ross’. And all that time, at the royal ball within the palace, the elders of from own noble houses were busy cutting the cake for the Princess, being none the wiser.

In the end, no one was able to stop it from happening.

Hearing this, Benjamin sighed inwardly

He knew well, why the Church did this.

To control the noblemen, they had to do it one step at a time, and thus they start from the children. The people in Ross’ were all young, inexperienced men and women, who, facing this, even if they had been unwilling to wear those crosses, would not have had a choice. Plus, they were in the presence of royalty, all they could do was to obey, no?

After wearing those crosses, even if those old foxes did find out, there was nothing they could have done at that point.

No wonder. No wonder the royal family had their knights stop people from leaving the royal ball. It looks like the royal family had been planning to offer the whole kingdom’s nobles to present to the Church as a gift, thus obtaining their trust once more. If the Church wanted to breach the contract between them and the nobles, they could not have done so without the help of the royal family.

For this performance, the royal family were the directors and the people behind the curtains, the Church merely supplied the main and supporting characters.

The Church monitoring all of the noble’s children were their first step to monitoring all of the noblemen. After making the first step, the following steps would be quicker and quicker. In a short while, the dirty and deceptive Church would have the noblemen in their grasp, and all of the power of the Kingdom of Helius’ would be theirs.

The royal family has presented the Church with a great gift!

After some thought, Benjamin started feeling strange.

How afraid of the Church was the royal family, daring to do something like this? The Church as well, using this, were they not afraid of making too huge of a step?

All the heads of the nobles in the kingdom, other than Claude, none of them were the submissive kind.

Looks like something is bound to happen.

"Lucky for me, I escaped fast." After thinking, Benjamin only looked the window at the scenery, nodded, and comforted himself with this.

Very quickly, Jeremy came to call him to breakfast. He answered and went down to the living. All the family members came one by one as well, sat down, and started eating.

Other than Grant, everyone else looked normal, as if nothing had happened.

Erasing the thought of that nightmarish scene he saw last night, Benjamin ate while secretly observing Grant. But, he did not see the cross that Jeremy mentioned on Grant’s body.

This.....

Grant was there right? Benjamin remembered, last night, Grant came home really late ----- at least after Benjamin was done meditating and prepared to go to sleep, Grant was still not yet home.

He was not forced to wear the cross?

Could it be, him doing those acts in the storage area made him dodge this bullet?

But judging from Grant’s face, the stuff that happened at the royal ball last night, he probably experienced.

What is this all about?

Benjamin was suspicious, but did not dare to question. The other people that sat at the table seemed normal, they ate, chatted, but all of them avoided the topic of the royal ball, and only made conversation out of things like the price of wheat being risen.

This made Benjamin feel speechless.

They pretended as if nothing happened, but why? The loyalty and support of the Lithur family to the Church was famous.

Even at the dining table in his own house, he did not dare to discuss about it openly.

Benjamin helplessly sighed in his heart.

It looks like, he had to go somewhere else to inquire about news of what happened last night.