When Pides left the room, Sang-je called for the knight who was guarding the entrance to the stairs which connects to his prayer room. Although there was a distance-wise limit in his ability to send out his voice, there was no corner in this very palace that his voice couldn’t reach.

The knight entered the room in an instant.

“I am at your command, Your Holiness.”

– I forbid everyone from entering the prayer room from now on until my further order. I will not meet anyone, and my prayer shall not be disturbed until I open the door.

Every once in a while, Sang-je would shut himself in the prayer room for a day or two cutting himself off from all outside contact. The knight replied to Sang-je’s usual command and left the room. The only entrance to the prayer room will now be placed under strict surveillance by the knights.

Sang-je opened his eyes when he was finally left alone in his prayer room. His vivid red pupils were glinting viciously as they were giving off a ferocious air instead of a sacred aura.

‘Still in search?’

Sang-je muttered Anika Jin’s reply to his letter, as Pides delivered.

‘It can’t be true.’

[Your Holiness, I will retrieve my Ramita back no matter what. So please help me in acquiring something I need to do so.]

Anika Jin had asked for his permission for her to marry a king, as a treasure of a kingdom was needed to retrieve her lostRamita. As both Jin’s and his wish coincided, he gave his permission for Jin, who was one of the noble Anikas born for the first time in ten years, to leave for a faraway kingdom that stood in the middle of a desert.

He’d taken his chance when he allowed her to do whatever she wished. He knew how much Jin had suffered, as she regarded herself as an Anika in name only when her Ramita was lost. There was no way Jin could have transformed the lark into a tree if she still had not found what she needed.

‘There were some doubtful aspects in the king’s correspondence as well.’

Both Pides’s and King’s correspondence had arrived almost around the same time. In principle, the King was supposed to take an immediate action and inform the Holy City about the Lark tree incident using the fastest method.

Although he did not find faults with the King as his responsibility was now fulfilled, but to think that the other kings of different kingdoms would have taken rather active steps under the same circumstances, he was not fully satisfied.

‘Although he never falls into my clutches easily, he is still a perfect watchdog to keep watch on the desert.’

He was just the man Sang-je needed to stand guard for Mara, lurking somewhere in the far desert.

‘Mara.’

Sang-je’s face contorted like a growling animal. It was clearly his fault, his own miscalculation as he did not see it coming at all.

‘It had never crossed my mind that he would ever become such a big threat, broadening his influence sneakily behind my back all these years.’

It was Mara, who had caused Jin to lose her Ramita in the first place. Although it was the fault of the followers to be exact, but as everything happened due to Mara’s existence, it seemed only right to put the blame on Mara.

‘Anika Jin. Why did you lie to me? Living as a queen seemed like your cup of tea? So, you wanted to stick around in that kingdom forever?’

That simply won’t do. Sang-je perversely grumbled to himself.

‘I’ll need to go see him for verification before I meet with Anika Jin.’

Sang-je’s face slowly turned pale and almost translucent after a while, enough to see the surroundings of the room through his skin. He tutted as he looked down to his almost transparent hands.

‘What a waste of my strength just to maintain this helpless body which I can’t even feel anything from.’

Later, he vanished into thin air as his body turned completely transparent. All there was left in the prayer room was his classical cassock, flopped down onto the floor.

***

Somewhere at the farthest point on the outskirts of the Holy City, there stood an outer wall which was built so high that the surroundings were kept hidden completely from men’s sight.historical

And with all the cracks and damages visible in places, the high wall of stone seemed of considerable antiquity while the closely spaced rusty bars on top of the wall were looking terrifying enough to give someone an eerie sensation on sight. The full extent of the estate approximated along its walls was almost as large as a district in the street of Holy City.

Once a public land but after being turned over to a private ownership, there were abundant speculations flying about concerning its new owner. Soon, the word spread from mouth to mouth about the owner’s distress in finding a new use for the land due to its poor accessibility has become an established fact.

The land went bleak and desolate without anyone hardly ever setting foot onto it ever since the place was ominously stigmatized, as the rumor about the place being haunted has been bruited about for years.

The petition for demolition was often drawn up by the local residents but somehow the plan always fizzled out in the end since it was a private property placed somewhere off the beaten track where its existence would never come to known unless someone took the trouble to find the way to it.

Although the place was mostly unknown to the people of Holy City, it was a well-known fact to the residents nearby that the estate surrounded by its high walls had once served as a prison although it has been long since it was last used for its purpose.

The exact structure of the prison remains a mystery to this day, but the general speculation was that the place would now consist of a dilapidated prison building which were about to topple, surrounded thick with overgrown weeds taller than a grown man’s height. But in contrast to all conjectures, nothing behind the walls looked even remotely close to any of the wild expectations.

The very first thing that came into sight from the front gate was the building standing in the centre of the open field which was fully paved with cobblestones. The sparsely visible weeds which had grown through the little cracks between the pavings were the only greens noticeable throughout.

Furthermore, the grovels underfoot all across the stone paving made a loud creaking noise every time one crunched across. The measure seemed to be one of the prison’s preventive efforts to refrain the prisoners from escaping.

The whole place was in a remarkably fine state of preservation and even the grovels looked their freshest, evenly scattered to every corner of the field as if it was recently tended by human hand. No sign of long periodic neglect was found despite the rumors that its use as a prison had already ceased a very long time ago.

The old prison which was set in the middle of the open land was no more than a building of one story high. However, the building was much bigger than how it looked from the outside as it was an underground prison with hidden dungeons underneath the ground.

Through the heavily steeled iron gate on the front, two men-at-arms were guarding by the one and only entrance that connects to the underground prison. One of the guardsmen who was standing straight as a ramrod jerked his head around as if he sensed a movement in the air whilst the other reflexively drew his crossbow.

In a moment, a grotesque looking figure appeared in front of them out of nowhere. And despite being in the shape of a man, the figure hardly seemed like a real human due to its translucent body. Also, it almost seemed like it was floating in the midair as its lower body was nowhere to be found.

But the guardsmen weren’t frightened at the sight of the ghostlike figure in the least. Instead, they eased their vigilance and lowered their heads before the floating figure.

A pair of vivid red pupils contemplated them in silence when its blonde hair shone dimly in exposure to the sunlight.

“Anything unusual?” The man made a grating sound as if he were straining his vocal cord to make a sound by force. But the blonde man’s lips hardly parted as the sound was made.