C157: Handling the aftermath
“C-Captain.”
Gregory opened his blurry eyes, the world swimming in and out of focus, his ears still ringing with a high-pitched whine from the shockwave. He could hear someone calling out to him, and his strength slowly returned.
The revolver in his hand slowly dimmed, its glow fading to nothing as his arm fell limply to the ground. He let his body relax against the stone, surrendering to the exhaustion.
'Lucky, that man bought the bluff.'
It was a trick to make the revolver glow. He had no more spiritual energy left to offer the prayer.
'To think I must resort to employing the tricks of those rascals.'
He had learned this from a playful acquaintance, who used such glowing contests as a sort of game to test their endurance. Whoever could make the revolver glow longer would win. It also served as a practical test to determine whether the revolver could withstand the intensity of channeled spiritual energy without fracturing.
He had never paid much attention to this silly pastime. But to think he had to use this sort of trick to deceive his enemy now, how ironic.
The church vibrated. Flames engulfed his vision, casting dancing orange shadows across the ruined sanctuary.
He could feel someone trying to lift his body up, hands hooking under his arms.
He did not resist, allowing the person to wrap his arm around their shoulder as they walked slowly amid the encroaching fire.
The heat pressing against his skin. Smoke rolled above them, thick and choking, while broken wood cracked and burned.
His coat and the frayed edges of his collar caught fire, but he couldn't care less about it in his current state.
A warm, soothing sensation emerged on his back. Without looking back, he had already identified the source.
‘Naomi’s healing power. This girl…’
Even in her depleted state, she still poured her remaining spiritual energy into healing him instead of herself.
Gregory turned his head slightly, his blurry vision fixed on the girl’s pale, dust-covered face. Blood and soot stained her cheeks, her breathing was shallow, but she still dragged him forward step by step.
“Naomi,” he coughed, spitting up dark blood. “Attend to Hazel.”
If his memory served him right, that girl had sustained far more grievous injuries than he.
“Troy has already conveyed her outside, Captain,” the girl said straightforwardly. Her usual shyness had vanished.
“I see,” Gregory sighed in relief, allowing his body to be dragged toward the shattered doorway of the church.
The blood-soaked church had disappeared. Now, only a charred church remained.
The fire was not large enough to swallow the entire building, but the interior had caught flame because of the many wooden furnishings inside. Victor must have done this to hide the blood spread throughout the church, to erase any evidence of his nature.
The most damage should have been in the underground study. Judging from the sound of the explosion, it had likely already collapsed.
As Gregory moved out of the church and into the cold, clean air of the churchyard, both Naomi and Gregory collapsed onto the grass of the front ground, their bodies finally surrendering to exhaustion.
The smoke and explosion had caught the attention of the village. People from all kinds of places slowly gathered around, their voices overlapping in faint murmurs.
Gregory could hear the villagers whispering, gasping, and calling to one another. Curious and terrified gaze swept over them, but he did not have enough strength left to care about any of it.
Of the four Inspectors, only Troy remained capable of movement and coherent speech. With his persuasive abilities and his natural eloquence, he swiftly fabricated a believable cover story. He managed to secure the cooperation of several villagers, directing them to transport the wounded Inspectors back to the Baroness's estate for proper medical attention.
Naomi moved to Hazel’s side to tend to her injuries. That girl had been hurt the most and remained the most vulnerable of their team. She had taken a direct blow from Victor, and her bones had been fractured in several places, the shattered ribs and cracked sternum requiring extensive treatment. It would take some time to heal her properly.
As the situation calmed down and stabilized, Gregory finally allowed his eyelids to drift closed, the darkness welcoming him like an old friend.
—
“Hey, come and lend a hand!”
After the fire gradually subsided, the villagers rushed into the church.
Most of them were middle-aged and elderly folk who had spent their entire lives within the village, and thus many of their fondest memories had been forged within it: prayers beneath the statue, weddings, rites, funerals, blessings for newborns, and mornings spent listening to sermons. To them, the destruction was a loss of property and memories.
Barely any youngsters came forward to help. They had all scurried back to their homes to seek out their families, either frightened by the explosion or ordered away by their parents.
Many villagers ran to the well to fetch water, grabbing buckets and hurrying back into the church to splash it over the floor. Some carried undamaged furniture outside so it would not catch stray fire.
The church was a sacred place, so it was rare for anyone to want to harbor thoughts of theft. Furthermore, the fact that no one would even buy these old church belongings discouraged them further. A bench, cracked lamp, or stained cross was not worth much in a poor village like this.
“Our parish has been reduced to such a state... how can we commence the rite?”
A middle-aged man covered in sweat and face smeared with soot, asked himself as he moved around the ruined church, searching for precious items, notebooks, crosses, candleholders, and anything else that could still be saved. He did not look particularly healthy.
His face was angular, his beard covered in rough stubble, and his back hunched slightly as he moved through the smoke. He wore a faded shirt, trousers, and a waistcoat, signifying himself as a man of somewhat greater means than the other villagers in this village.
“Aren’t we commencing it under the Maiden’s watch?”
A young voice reverberated beside his ear. The middle-aged man did not think much of it. He pressed a wet cloth against his nose and looked around the church ruins, his eyes scanning the floor.
“That’s true. But we still need to move from here.” The middle-aged man sighed, rubbing his eyes with the back of his soot-stained hand. “Alas, fire again. This dismal affair reminds me of the tragedy that befell us eight years past.”
“Mind if you tell me about it?” the young voice replied casually.
The middle-aged man looked up. He saw a thin young man wearing a tattered shirt and black trousers. His eyes were permanently narrowed like a snake’s, giving his face a sly and unsettling look.
“That is no trouble at all, but,” the middle-aged man looked down at the heavy pew between them, “assist me in carrying this bench outside first.”
“Alright.” The young man nodded. He came closer, and both of them lifted the undamaged bench and carried it out through the ruined doorway into the cold afternoon air.
“Eight years ago, a fire broke out in one of the cottages upon the outskirts of the village. The wife died in the blaze, but miraculously, the small girl who had been inside with her left unscathed. The husband arrived late, he pulled her from the inferno,” the middle-aged man recounted, his back hunched under the weight of the bench, his voice heavy with old grief.
“How did the kid survive?” the young man frowned. “If the house was on fire, then even if the mother shielded the child with her own body, technically the child should still have been burned, right?”
The middle-aged man shook his head.
“No one knows for certain. That is why it was deemed a miracle. The husband returned only later, after the fire had already taken hold, and snatched the child from within the perimeter of the flames. Yet to this day, no one has been able to explain how the fire began, nor how the child survived without a single burn upon her skin.”
“How did you know?” As they lowered the bench onto the grass alongside the other salvaged items, the young man turned his narrow gaze toward the middle-aged man. There was a hint of suspicion in his voice.
“I was also present at the time, one of those who first noticed the blaze from the road,” the middle-aged man said, casting a weary glance around the ruin as they trudged back inside. “But owing to my own indecision and cowardice, I did not leap into the flames as the husband did. I only threw water from the outside, uselessly.” He looked around at the smoldering shell of the church, his fist tightening. “Like today.”
His voice dropped into a whisper. “Although I did not see it clearly, only a glimpse through the smoke and flame, I also saw... a figure with violet eyes standing in the room with the wife at the time. It happened so briefly that I did not have the time to study it properly before the flames swallowed everything.”
The young man said nothing in response. Both of them returned to the ruined interior of the church in silence and resumed their search through the charred debris.
"I felt sorry for the husband. Were I in his position, I don’t believe I could have the courage to do what he did, to leap into the raging fire and search for his wife amid the flames," the middle-aged man sighed, pausing in his work to press his dirt-streaked hand against his lower back.
"It is said that the blaze was a punishment from the Monarch, visited upon the household because the woman had declined the honor of becoming the Moon Elf. From that moment onward, stricken with grief beyond measure, Madam shut herself away and refused to interact with the outside world."
The young man narrowed his already narrow eyes. The two separated and continued their search through the ruined church, moving through the debris in different directions.
The middle-aged man and several other villagers gathered what unburned documents and teaching materials they could salvage from the partially charred desk in the far corner, carefully stacking undamaged blackboards and bundles of chalk. Their surfaces were covered in soot, but the wooden frames were still intact.
He glanced toward the young man at the periphery of his vision. He caught a glimpse of the thin figure bending down to pluck something from the burning floor, some small object that glinted with a metallic sheen, before it slipped inside the pocket of his black trousers. The middle-aged man observed the motion but said nothing of it.
He knew the young man was a thief in the past, a destitute laborer driven to petty theft by poverty.
"Wait a moment. I believe I have seen your face before. What is your name?" After some internal struggle over whether he should expose the young man or not, the middle-aged man asked in a probing tone.
“I’m Jack.” The young man did not seem to think much of it and answered fluidly, as if there were nothing to hide. “How may I address you, sir?”
The effortlessness of the response gave the middle-aged man pause.
Jack had answered so naturally and smoothly that it seemed as though nothing whatsoever was amiss. His tone even carried a strange kind of trustworthiness and righteousness, making the suspicion feel almost misplaced.
The middle-aged man smiled tenderly.
“You can call me…” Glancing at his watch, The middle-aged man answered, “a kind neighbor, or Mr. K for short.”