Cloud Thinking

"Your Highness, this is the detailed information about Charles Arnold. Please take a look."

Five days later, Ronnie handed in a document about half a finger long, which contained all the information he had obtained from visiting people living near the Duru Orphanage these days and after repeated comparisons and verifications. He used to be a mercenary and was very good at getting information. In addition, when he was in Berman, he often worked with Chico. He was efficient and had high quality in doing these things, and Helia was very satisfied with him.

At this moment, Helia was holding the bow and slowly pulling the bowstring. Her fingertips turned white due to the force, and her eyes were fixed intently on the target in the distance. As soon as Ronnie finished speaking, she loosened her fingers that were holding the tail feathers and hooking the bowstring. With a whoosh, the arrow was firmly inserted into the target, but it was a little off and hit the fifth ring.

She put down her sore arms, put the bow aside, pinched her arm muscles to relax them, and then took the information handed to her by Ronnie, opened it and began to read it carefully.

"Hmm - Brother Charles died unexpectedly twelve years ago, which coincides with the time when Marshal Hawke wiped out the Morrogan followers roaming around in Satted." Helia's fingertips slid across the slightly childish words on the paper. Although she had asked Ronnie to practice writing well before, it seemed that he was lazy.

The Duru Orphanage was built eighteen years ago, just when Lady Iyena gave birth to Blot, but due to an unexpected accident, the child was born prematurely. In order to bless the child to grow up safely, the lady personally visited all the orphanages and charity halls in the city and donated a large sum of money. This is why the lady attended the opening ceremony of the Duru Orphanage.

According to the elderly people living near the orphanage, at the beginning, the orphanage in Duru did not worship the goddess of love Sophialine, but an unnamed god with a murderous aura. No one was willing to get close to him. In addition, the adopted children also said that they always had nightmares. In the dreams, there was a particularly scary ghost playing hide-and-seek with them, and if they were caught, they would be brutally killed.

This situation continued until three years later, when the person in charge of the Duru Orphanage was changed. He was no longer the ferocious-looking man, but a kind-looking middle-aged man, Charles Arnold. He overturned the original statue and replaced it with a statue of the goddess of love, which was said to have been made by a master. Since then, the orphanage has been peaceful.

But the good times did not last long. In the sixth year after the construction of the Duru Orphanage, Charles' eldest brother died unexpectedly, and his third and fourth brothers also left one after another. The business of the orphanage deteriorated day by day, but fortunately, there were help from the surrounding neighbors. They had all benefited from Charles, and this is how they survived the most difficult days.

Nothing major happened after that. The orphanage has been struggling and struggling to survive until now. The children in the orphanage have grown up safely and healthily. Those who are able to do so will occasionally send money back. Otherwise, the orphanage would have closed down long ago just relying on the capital and Charles' connections.

"That is to say, since the establishment of the Duru Orphanage, no child has disappeared or died for no reason, right?" Helia asked.

"According to my investigation, this is the case," Ronnie replied.

"Hmm..." Helia frowned. This was not right. After all, according to her thinking, if Charles was a member of the Morrogan religion, then they would definitely perform some cruel sacrificial rituals after taking over this orphanage, just like what Ronnie had encountered when he was a child. But the reality was completely different from what she imagined. Charles did not do anything to these children at all.

But if you think about it carefully, it's not completely incomprehensible. If there were frequent disappearances or murders in the Dulu Orphanage, it would definitely attract Hawke's attention. However, the Dulu Orphanage has been very peaceful and low-key over the years, with a very low sense of existence. If Helia hadn't discovered that there was something wrong with these books and tracked down the dean, she would definitely not have noticed it.

Is Charles trying to keep it to himself? Or is he really a good guy, and the Morogen doctrine in the book was added by a second-hand bookseller or someone else who handled the book?

Helia unconsciously touched the calluses on her body from archery practice and stared at the information in her hand in deep thought, but she couldn't figure it out after thinking about it for a long time. It was probably because the information she had was too little.

"Ronnie, find a way to contact Hawke's men, especially the group that participated in the campaign against the Morrogan cult twelve years ago. It's been so long, maybe we can get some clues." Helia decided to start with the campaign twelve years ago. After all, she was really curious about Avril's origins. How could there be someone in this world who looked so similar to her mother and yet had no blood connection at all?

She suspected that Hawke or someone else had done something to Avril to turn her into what she was now.

After waking up from her nap, Helia received a communication request from Britney. Elroy had escorted her all the way to Perkinsburg and then immediately returned. Before leaving, he left her the communication magic prop he had lent her so that she could contact him anytime and anywhere if she had any problems.

Britney slept in a coma for nearly half a month before waking up. However, because she had to deal with the matter of the black magician and rehabilitation, she had not had time to contact Helia. Now that she had some time, she and Elroy called Helia to request a communication.

Britney was relieved to see that Helia looked very healthy and energetic. After the two of them briefly greeted each other, she began to explain the next itinerary:

"We plan to head to the western continent the day after tomorrow. I heard that the most powerful fire magician in ancient times, Ayeg, died there. Although he was a human, his strength should not be underestimated. He could even compete with gods, and was later given the title of the God of Fireworks."

"If we can find his corpse and condense it into a divine core, it should be able to replenish the power you need to restore your heart."

During the month that Helia came to Perkinsburg, she read a lot of books and made up for a lot of knowledge, especially about gods and ancient times. She looked up a lot of information for this purpose, and of course she had also heard of the great magician Ayeg.

"I remember that Ayeg's fall was within the territory of the Tulton Dynasty. You two should be careful," she reminded.

"We are infiltrating as archaeologists and the matter will not rise to the level of diplomacy between the two countries. You can rest assured, little princess." Britney replied.

"Well, but I remember that the family that Brahiri came from, Turafa, is in the western continent. Why don't you let them do it, and you go track down the black magician?" Helia asked.

"Brashiri is more familiar with the black magicians than we are. He was noticed by Claude because of his endless battles with the black magicians in the early years. The task of tracking down the black magicians is none other than him." Elroy, who was sitting with his feet crossed in boredom, replied.

"Okay, then I'll wait for your good news." Helia smiled and said with high hopes.

"How are you doing? Are you in any trouble?" Britney asked. She was still worried about whether Hawke would target Helia. Although she knew Hawke for so many years, he would not do it. However, she kept dreaming about what Helia said when they quarreled during her coma, which had subtly influenced her attitude and opinion towards Hawke.

"Hmm...really." Helia did have something she wanted to ask. Britney and Elroy were both high-level magicians, so she might know something. So she asked, "Do you two know anything about Morrogan?"

Britney and Elroy looked at each other, and saw a flash of shock and worry in each other's eyes. Elroy put his legs down, dragged the stool forward, and frowned and said, "Are you a troublemaker? How come you can cause such a big trouble wherever you go?"

It seemed that he subconsciously thought that Helia had done something again to get involved in the Morrogan affairs.

"Have you told Hawke about this?" Britney bumped Elroy's shoulder, signaling him to calm down.

Helia shook her head. She was not angry about Elroy's casual misunderstanding and slander of her. Instead, she said seriously, "I didn't cause any trouble. I just talked about Avril with Brother Blott. She was adopted by Marshal Hawke twelve years ago. At that time, a particularly big thing happened. The Marshal wiped out a group of Morrogan believers active in border towns."

"I think these two things are a bit of a coincidence, but the marshal has blocked the mouths of all the soldiers who participated in the encirclement and suppression. It feels like he is hiding something, so I decided to check it out."

"Don't tip off Hawke. Before I have sufficient evidence, I will not fall out with the marshal, let alone take the initiative to cause trouble."

"You don't seem like the type to settle down," Elroy complained.

"Just consider it as your sixteenth birthday present to me."

Helia's words made Britney and Elroy pause for a moment. Although Britney had given Helia a gift a long time ago, the gift broke before her birthday; although Elroy gave Helia the elf's blessing, it was out of official business. He did not prepare any other gifts for Helia, and he even said that he didn't know Helia's birthday at all.

After a long silence, Britney spoke out of guilt towards Helia: "I don't know much about this evil cult. When they were at their peak, I was already serving as a court magician in the palace, responsible for repairing and reinforcing the palace's defense magic array. At that time, it was at a critical stage of reinforcement and I was unable to spare time, so I did not participate in the extermination of the Morrogan followers."

"I only know that they are a group of cruel and mentally ill people. They are trying to elevate a perverted killer to the altar, calling him the God of Killing and promoting the aesthetics of killing. It's simply sick."

It seems that Brittany doesn't know much... Helia thought.

Just when Helia thought she had nothing to say and was about to say goodbye, Elroy, who had blended into the background, suddenly spoke: "They are a group of inhumane and whimsical lunatics who are trying to create gods."

He raised his eyes and stared at the image of Helia, his expression serious and his tone earnest: "Little Princess, I advise you not to have too much contact with these people. Madmen are madmen, they can do anything. If you meet them, it's best to stay away from them."

"Are they more dangerous than the black magicians?" Helia asked. Elroy had always given her the impression of being powerful and at ease. It was rare to see him so serious. Even the sudden attack by the black magicians did not make him so serious.

"Yes, black magicians still believe in the true God and are subject to God's restrictions, but the Morrogan people are crazy people who will do anything to achieve their own pursuit of the beauty of death."

"Even black magicians would not kill their companions or themselves, but these cultists dare to do so. Never underestimate the evil of human nature. Even the evil goddess cannot control and master it. And these cultists are the ultimate evil."

"I see."

After the call ended, Helia couldn't come back to her senses for a long time, thinking over and over again about what Elroy said.

Creating gods? Can humans create gods? Creating gods and killing gods are not the same thing. Killing gods is not easy, but with the precedent of Turmeyage, it is not completely impossible. But creating gods... I have never heard of it.

Killing gods is already crazy, what is the purpose of those people to create a god? Not to mention that the human race disagrees, the gods of heaven will definitely not allow it. How could the God of Order let humans master the secret of creating gods? If so, the order created by Him will be unstable.

In the afternoon, Helia pushed a cart full of books to the empty bookshelf and put them one by one according to their categories. She had already registered and filed the general information of all the books a few days ago. Now she just needed to put the books in the right categories and report to Hawke.

Elroy's words would pop up in her mind from time to time. She didn't expect that the people of the Morrogan religion would be more troublesome than the black magicians. After all, the black magicians were believers who could use magic and were protected by gods, while the believers of the Morrogan religion were purely human. There was an essential difference in quality between the two, and they didn't feel like they were on the same level.