Stray

“Mr. White, this way, please.” Seeing Nemo’s posture as if he was about to sit down and listen to the sermon, Virgil whispered quickly. He controlled his volume politely, but it still was loud enough for the people closest to them to hear clearly.

The preacher with only a mouth on his face had a very beautiful voice. His tone seemed to have magic powers that could make people believe everything he said. Nemo was stunned for a few seconds and bit fiercely into the sandpoint plum that was in his mouth. Accompanied by the sour taste that almost choked people into tears, he instantly recalled his current situation.

“What is the origin of magic? We have reason to think…” The demon warlock who was preaching completely ignored them.

Nemo pulled the top edge of his hood up with one hand and strived to show only half his face. He then straightened his back and followed Virgil out of the hall as calmly as possible. Virgil seemed to be familiar with the area. He stuck to the wall on the left side of the nave and went directly into a long corridor. Nemo held back a belly of questions he wanted to ask as the other party continue to walk in front of him without any hesitation. He could only obediently remain quiet.

After passing by dozens of incense lamps, doors finally started appearing on both sides of the corridor. The dark thick wooden doors were carved with two symmetrical arc that intersected up and down. The middle was neatly separated by a vertical line. Virgil stopped in front of one of the doors. Unlike the same mark on the other doors, the mark of this door was flashing coldly in the dim shadows. “You can stay here. As your ‘assistant’, I’ll stay in the servant room on the side.”

The visitor room of Abyssal Church felt equally cold. There were no odd decorations in it. Rather, the cramped room was almost empty. There was only a long wooden table with books and a stone bed. From the suffocatingly narrow side door, he could catch a glimpse of the servant’s room. There wasn’t even a bed in it. Only a withered patch of piled yellow straw was in the corner.

Fortunately, it was clean enough and there was no dust.

After they both entered their respective room, Virgil carefully locked the door. He took out his paintbrush and brushed it casually in the air a few times. The stone interior, which originally lacked color, instantly became darker. Then he took out a small cloth bag from his shoulder, reached in and dug into it for a good half a minute before finally taking out a yellow and white candle that had almost been burnt up and threw it on the wooden table.

It wasn’t until it was lit that the slender candle became half a meter high causing Nemo to realized that it wasn’t an ordinary candle.