Chapter 57: Another Holy Knight

After a somewhat difficult one-sided conversation, the slow-on-the-uptake Miss Edwina finally learned from the woman who called herself Natalie about the situation here.

This place is an organization called the “Throne of Immortality,” secretly established as a laboratory in the City of Courage.

It seems they are utilizing the abundant resources of this metropolis to test and research all kinds of bizarre and malicious drugs and forbidden magic. Naturally, the citizens of the capital city have become the best experimental subjects without their knowledge.

Natalie, twenty-seven, is a resident Sky-level Adventurer from the City of Courage. Although she isn’t on the same level as the legendary adventurers, she is quite famous locally.

Due to her youth, beauty, bravery in battle, and her role as a Holy Knight devoted to the Goddess, she often wears full white knight armor on her quests, leading people to nickname her the “Pure White Lion.”

About a month ago, Natalie and her adventuring party received a somewhat strange request to help the Adventurer Guild find a missing child.

While this request was rated only C-level in terms of reward and difficulty, it caught the attention of this Sky-level adventurer. As a local, Natalie had recently noticed many similar requests in the guild, their frequency was rather alarming.

Child abductions aren’t rare in the vast City of Courage, which has a population of millions. Miss Pure White Lion has captured more than one trafficker already.

But this time… it feels a bit different.

The descriptions of the missing cases are too similar, and the methods clearly indicate they were all done by the same group. With such a high frequency of disappearances, someone should have reported it, and the Law Enforcement should have started an investigation by now.

But they haven’t. Natalie, who has been quietly observing, found that the Law Enforcement in the capital seems blind to these disappearances, ignoring them completely. Even the search requests posted were soon canceled by the people involved due to some external forces.

Natalie went to investigate but found that the families of the missing children either remained tight-lipped, knowing nothing, or outright vanished from the City of Courage.

When she inquired with their neighbors, she was shocked to hear explanations like “They moved away.”

A child goes missing and instead of searching, they just up and leave the capital?

As she delved deeper, the more Natalie felt the undercurrents of something deeply sinister, as if some power had noticed her movements, began to interfere with her investigation, and even directly threatened her to mind her own business.

But who is Miss Natalie? A Holy Knight! It’s a well-known trait of Holy Knights to be headstrong and never bow to evil forces, even if she is just an external member of the temple without direct ties to the temple in the City of Courage.

After much consideration, Natalie decided to accept this request with her party and officially investigate.

To be safe, she wrote a letter to the Archbishop of the City of Courage, informing him of the abnormalities she had recently discovered.

In her letter, Natalie candidly stated that if she also went missing during the investigation, it would mean that the situation involved someone of high status or powerful existence. She requested the matter be disclosed to the royal family and sought the assistance of the reputable and virtuous Princess Liliya Meikailande.

Though she did not know Princess Liliya personally, Natalie’s friend, the legendary adventurer Fiery Blossom, had close ties with her. Fiery Blossom, being an honest person, wouldn’t steer her wrong.

Originally, Natalie had wanted to tell Fiery Blossom directly about the situation, but ever since Fiery Blossom returned from the western region, not only had her strength noticeably increased, but she also became very busy, often disappearing for several days at a time.

Thus, Natalie had to settle for informally contacting the pious Holy Knight, Archbishop Vied Haywood.

After making her preparations, Natalie officially began to dive into the darkness and uncover the secrets behind this matter.

The investigation went surprisingly smoothly; the previous obstacles had inexplicably vanished. After some time of discreetly observing and investigating, she finally found the Iris Flower Orphanage in the western part of the city, which was likely the final location of the hideout.

The name “Throne of Immortality” was also something Natalie discovered during her investigation.

After writing another letter to inform the Archbishop of the upcoming action and specific plans, she brought along two teammates, who were also Sky-level adventurers, and infiltrated the location.

However, they were ambushed.

The enemy clearly had prior knowledge, and Natalie and her team encountered a full six Sky-level attackers and one legendary powerhouse. Two of her teammates fell in battle, and she herself was captured and severely injured, ending up imprisoned here.

It was precisely because of this that Natalie could access more of the secrets and darkness of this place—but only as an experimental subject.

After being captured, the exceptionally strong Holy Knight was forced to participate in experiments seemingly designed to develop combat puppet potions.

She didn’t quite understand the specifics, but like the previous female adventurer who had been dragged in here for investigating the missing persons, she was injected with drugs that caused excruciating headaches and a spinning sensation, and after enduring a long torment, she ultimately lost consciousness.

When she woke up, she would find herself back in her cell.

After participating in several experiments, Natalie recently discovered that she occasionally experienced disorientation and an inability to concentrate, clearly indicating that the drugs were beginning to take effect.

Fortunately, as a powerful Holy Knight, she seemed to have a relatively strong resistance to such things, allowing her to endure until now.

Those Black Cloaks were originally adventurers captured here; they are said to be “failed products” who have lost their self-awareness due to the continuous experiments and now act like zombies following fixed commands.

Thus, no matter how loudly Edwina shouts, it is meaningless.

All of them with a degree of strength were used for similar experiments, transformed into combat puppets, while ordinary people seemed to serve a different purpose.

After a long time, Natalie was about to resign herself to her fate and give up hope, which is why she found it unnecessary to pay attention to the seemingly clueless Miss Edwina. But when she later discovered that Edwina was also a Holy Knight, she became inclined to converse.

Hearing this, Edwina expressed her confusion and called out to the other female adventurer through the thick wall.

“Wait a minute, didn’t Miss Natalie send a letter to Archbishop Vied beforehand? If she has been missing for so long, he should have noticed something was wrong and taken action by now, right?”

“Archbishop… Hmph…”

Miss Pure White Lion scoffed, her voice somewhat low as she gave the naïve young Holy Knight a lesson about the world’s dangers.

“I was extremely cautious during my investigation. The time I came here was completely random—how did the enemy know we were coming to the Iris Flower Orphanage? Do you think all those skilled fighters just sit around waiting at their lair every day? Really?”

“Eh?! Are you saying…?”

A look of disbelief crossed her face, and even Edwina’s usually slow reaction finally started to piece together what Natalie was implying.

“Yes, it’s highly likely that that bastard Vied sold me out!”

“It’s because I felt this matter should involve many powerful figures that I was careful only to disclose it to Vied, who belongs to the same faith. I never expected that old bastard would dare betray the Goddess’s teachings and secretly collude with cultists. He’s gone mad!”

“How is that even possible? Archbishop Vied has been serving the Goddess for over thirty years and is a senior priest, the leader of thousands of clergy in the City of Courage. How could he…?”

Bang!

A heavy knocking sound came from the other side of the wall that seemed to express irritation, and even Edwina could feel Natalie’s anger and frustration.

“You ask me? Who the hell do I ask!”

After a moment, Natalie seemed to calm down a bit and said in a low voice.

“Anyway, you can’t count on anything from that side. Even if Vied isn’t a traitor, he’s surely hindered by something and unable to assist. Otherwise, there would have been some action by now.”

“You’re Edwina, right? I have an idea. We might be able to escape, but I can’t do it alone. Rather than waiting here to die, let’s take a chance and gamble.”

After pondering, the Pure White Lion extended an invitation to the young Holy Knight.

“We’re all Sky-level Holy Knights, so some things don’t need to be said. It comes down to one thing: do we do it or not?”

   

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