Solar Mage

Chapter 14: Task Board

As we walk to the task room, we walk past many priests and holy knights.

It seems that all the commotion caused by the appearance of the Apostle ended, or that they are being suppressed and forced to get back to work. The latter seems much more plausible.

When we get to the task room, I am in complete disbelief as to the amount of people in it. The room is full of conversation and arguments.

Wow, I did not expect a place in the Church would be so rowdy, it's so similar to that of the Adventurer's Guild. There are multiple boards with different danger/clearance levels. With requests ranging from escort/guarding missions, subjugating monsters, requesting priest/healing assistance, and exorcism. All of the tasks must be completed by the day for maximum efficiency. If the tasks are not complete, higher ranked members of the church will be summoned to complete them.

We walk past all the smaller task boards in a straight line to the giant announcement board that has all the major announcements for the month.

"Executive Announcement Board"

While all the Holy Knights immediately salute and bows to Dustin the moment he walks past them.

"Good morning, Commander Dustin!" or "Greetings, Commander Dustin!"

Followed by,

"May the light of Pyro be with you!"

When we get to the executive announcement board, Dustin with one sword slash, cuts all the prior announcements on the board.

I stare in awe.

Amazing!

With another, carves words onto the board.

"ALL CHURCH MEMBERS MUST SHOW UP TO TRAINING GROUNDS TOMORROW AT NOON"

Unbelievable, it is impossible to make slashes in multiple angles in just one cut! My eyes must have been unable to see all the cuts he was making. Or perhaps it was a skill...

My thought was suddenly interrupted by a shout from across the room behind me, at the entrance.

"DUSTIN! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

I turn around and see a bald middle aged man around 50 red and full of rage stomping toward us.

To speak to Dustin that way, he must be a corrupt executive of the church. Lets see, his clothes look more decorated than a priest, but less decorated than a cardinal. He must be a bishop, but a bishop cannot speak to a member of the church's council that way. There must be something else to him, hmm...

Wait! he kind of looks like Cardinal Agon, the one that looked like a pig from earlier. It's all coming together now, he probably got his position through unjust means as well. There's only one way to figure it out!

I turn to Dustin who has a calm face as he looks at the bishop. But I notice his mouth grin and his eyebrows frown for a split second.

Ah, he must really hate him.

"Dustin."

He turns to face me.

"What exactly is the relationship between that man,"

I point at the bishop

"and cardinal Agon?"

"That man was a bishop of the church, and the son of former Cardinal Agon."

"Was?"

I smirk.

"Haha, was is the right term, indeed.

The son of Agon approached Dustin.

"Did you not hear me Dustin? What do you think you're doing? If you don't have a good reason, I will report this to the high priest."

He says with a dirty smirk on his face.

Dustin turns to me, before turning back to the son of Agon.

"I have no obligation to answer you, Agon II.

Hahaha, he named his own son after himself? Agon must love himself a lot.

Agon II turns even redder and his face expresses even more rage.

"How dare you!"

Agon II looks around, trying to find something else to use against Dustin . And then he sees me.

"Look at you, disobeying Church Law by bringing in unaffiliated civilians and destroying church documents. I've had just about enough of you. I'll let you in on a little secret, the council, MY FATHER, has been thinking of firing you for a while now, consider this your termination notice. Now leave."

The whole room goes silent as they stare at us before they start quietly whispering.

"What's going on?" "Who said that?" "Who got fired?" "I knew it was going to happen eventually."

Me and Dustin stare at each other for a few seconds, before we burst out laughing.

Agon II is confused.

"W-what's so funny? Why are you two laughing?" Get ou-"

Dustin stops laughing and shouts with a stern and loud voice.

"All of you, heed my words. Our church is undergoing reformation. The High Priest of the Church as well as Cardinal Agon were the cause for corruption have been removed. There will be inspections tomorrow held at noon by the Apostle we have been waiting for, for three hundred years, to determine whether you are corrupt or not.

There are whispers among the crowd.

"Is that really the Apostle?" "Why should we let some kid decide whether we are corrupt or not?"

Dustin hears the complaints and gestures to me, to prove them wrong.

I hope activating the Eye of Truth had no drawback.

I walk to the front, as Dustin moves back. The crowd, with much anticipation silently waits for me as I close my eyes and concentrate. A second later, I can hear the crowd gasp as a great light shines out of my eyes from the engraving of the orange sun.

When I look down, I see everyone, even Agon II on the floor, bowing down to me. I clear my throat and speak in my loudest voice.

"My name is Arthur Ventrike. For those of you that didn't believe me to be the Apostle, this much should be sufficient. For those of you who do not wish to be judged by a child, know this. This eye is not just for decoration, but executes the will of Pyro herself. Therefore, it is not me who is judging you, but your goddess, Pyro. If you have a problem with my judgment, then take it out with Pyro after you meet her in the afterlife. Pyro's will is my will, and my will is Pyro's will."

Dustin walks up and stands next to me.

"All members of the Church must be present at the inspections, priest and knight alike. If you choose to desert and run away, you will be tracked down and killed without trial. If you are late, you will be treated as a deserter and be killed. The only reason for missing inspections is if you are already on a mission."

That's quite harsh, it seems that Dustin had a lot of rage he had been hiding for a while.

"One last thing, you will be judged on two bases, corruption, and evilness. Punishments for Corruption will differ depending on if you hold a position of power or not but if you are found guilty of being Evil, you will be killed."

Dustin continues.

"Spread this message to all. And gatekeepers, keep a record of those returning from missions. Failure to do so will result in punishment.

He makes a fist and raises his arm

"May The Light Of Pyro Shine Forever!"

Then everyone else does the same.

"May The Light Of Pyro Shine Forever!"

The crowd makes way for us as Dustin leads me out of the room.

As we walk out, I see Lansius Solan, the kind Knight from the entrance to the room of prayer, smiling warmly at me. I smile back as I wave to him.

We walk in silence as I follow Dustin without knowing the destination.

Oh that's right, there was something I wanted to ask him.

"Dustin, this might be rude of me, but surely you must have known that the two masked cardinals weren't the real cardinals and that the church was corrupt, so why didn't you do anything?"

He stops but doesn't turn around to face me.

"What you said is true, I was aware of the fact that the two masked Cardinals stationed at the capitol had been replaced. I may be old, but I'm not senile. "

"As to why I allowed them to continue, the Church was at an all time low. There had not been a High Priest for five years at the time, a decade now. I was only an Imperial Ranked Swordsman, There were only four cardinals and our biggest sponsor was Agon. We couldn't treat him with disrespect otherwise no one would sponsor us after seeing how we treated our biggest sponsor. "

"Eventually, he bought out the church and sent the two strongest and most influential Cardinals, Leon and Michael to distant posts under the pretense of helping the residents of the countryside but actually just didn't want competition."

"As much as I hate to admit it, they spread the influence of Pyro much further than it has ever been and have given hope to countless. If those countless people were to suddenly find out that the church of the god that they believe in was evil, how do you think they would react?"

He finally turned around to face me.

"So I had to keep it a secret."

I confronted him.

"How long would you have kept it a secret and continue to stand still as the church's greed hurt countless others?"

He looked away from mr

"I don't know, I reached a moral dilemma, to free countless but to hurt countless as a result? Or to support Agon and give hope to countless but to hurt countless? How could I choose the lesser of two evils when both options were evil?"

"I did nothing, I had to wait for someone to save me."

He grabbed my arms.

"And there you were! The Apostle that we had been waiting three hundred years for! With you, there would be no need to keep the old hope, while we had a new one!"

"I pray for those that I might have condemned everyday. I know I have sinned and I cannot be the exception. I hope that you can at least delay my punishment so that I may see the Church of Pyro clean and flourishing once more."

I nod.

What is he saying? He is an important asset, not only due to his strength, but due to his loyalty. But I must act like I am just towards all, so that he continues to respect me.

We continue walking.

"Thank you, Lord Arthur. Well you must be wondering where I'm leading you."

"I am a little curious."

"My shadows have just reported to me that Agon has just woken up."