Chapter 162 Maiden of the Moon

Like the shadows cast by the church's idols, even in the ancient era when Amaunator, the [Guardian of the Eternal Sun], was at His most powerful, He never scattered the sun's blazing brilliance to every corner of the world.

Night would always fall.

And the shadows had never truly melted away under the light.

While nobles in magnificent robes traded toasts at extravagant banquets, there were always those agonizing over how to fill their stomachs.

Even in a massive city like Nym, behind those magnificent churches and manors hid countless filthy corners choked with mud and garbage.

In a way, it was precisely the city's sheer scale and prosperous commerce that allowed this foul place—where the stench made people instinctively hold their breath and frown—to rot even further, sinking so deep into the darkness that it could not break free.

The fluttering fall of sycamore leaves, the pleasant gurgle of bubbling fountains, the strumming of harps drifting from roadside restaurants...

To the wealthy residents walking their pets after dinner on Eagle Emblem Avenue, the autumn evening breeze was always mild, cool, and comfortable.

But when those beneath the veil of night lost the protection of thick autumn clothes and warm houses, exposing their fragile flesh to the bitter wind, that same breeze revealed its true, snobbish colors.

Nym, the Lower District.

Little Snot crossed his arms tightly over his chest, pulling his thin, heavily patched linen shirt a little tighter around himself.

It didn't do much good.

The bone-chilling wind was just like the stingy fat boss at the newspaper office: no matter how much he talked and begged, in the end, he could only exchange all the copper coins on him for a stack of newspapers he couldn't possibly finish selling.

Through his collar and sleeves, the icy chill slipped through the gaps in the linen fibers, clinging to his skin and seeping into his flesh.

It made Little Snot shiver uncontrollably.

At times like this, he could only force his sore, exhausted legs to move faster, hoping to generate a tiny bit of warmth for his body.

The road home was long.

But as a child born and raised in this neighborhood, he naturally wouldn't be so foolish as to take the long way around on the main roads.

Instead, like a little rat hiding from the light in the sewers, he avoided several dangerous spots, weaving through the complex, cramped alleys.

"Cough... cough..."

The shabby hut seemed to blend into the darkness, completely unlit.

Lacking maintenance for a long time, the cracks in the walls were overgrown with moss, and a few clusters of unknown green vines clung to the corners.

It looked as though it had been abandoned for ages.

Only the occasional coughs echoing from inside proved that someone actually lived there.

Struggling, he dug a key out from a deeply hidden pile of rocks that only he knew about.

Tucking the newspapers under his arm, Little Snot gently opened the front door.

"Brother?"

A weak girl's voice came from the inner room.

"It's me!" Little Snot quickly replied, afraid she would worry.

After carefully locking the door, he gently placed the thick stack of newspapers on the already clean table.

There were still two days before the next issue was printed, but more than half the newspapers remained in his hands.

A knot of anxiety tightened in his chest.

He needed to sell at least most of what was left.

Otherwise, by next month, he probably wouldn't even be able to afford the cheapest black bread.

He planned to head out before dawn tomorrow. With any luck, he might be able to sell a few copies near the relay station.

Then, he would find a chance to spare an hour or two in the morning to visit Griffin Department Store...

In the pitch-black darkness, Little Snot lit the oil lamp.

By the swaying, faint firelight, completely unfazed by the scent of blood gradually filling the air, he pulled a bloodstained bundle from his shirt.

When simply staying alive was already a struggle, a boy raised in the Slums had long since buried any so-called "conscience" at the very bottom of his heart, and he would certainly never fear a corpse lying on the street.

Especially when it was an adventurer.

If a gang member from a neighboring street hadn't happened to walk by, he would have even stripped the armor and weapons from that corpse to bring back with him.

Of course, even so, Little Snot's haul was nothing to scoff at.

He gently loosened the tied opening of the bag, revealing a palm-sized statue with a human body and the head of something between a deer and a goat.

It was ugly as sin, and he had no idea how much it could sell for.

But since it came off an adventurer, it definitely wouldn't be cheap.

Little Snot silently made a firm decision.

'When I haggle with the boss of Griffin Department Store tomorrow, I absolutely won't sell it for less than seven... five silver coins!'

Aside from the statue, the dead adventurer also had some loose coins on him. He had already traded a portion of them for food, while the rest were currently pressed warm against his own chest.

Wrapping the statue back up in the bag, Little Snot heard the coughing from the inner room and a flash of urgency crossed his face. He temporarily left the bundle on the table, picked up the oil lamp, and hurried inside.

What met his eyes was an incredibly frail girl whose face was so pale there wasn't a trace of color in it.

"Brother..."

"Eat up." Little Snot smiled, pulling out the coarse nut biscuit he had bought on the way back with the adventurer's coins.

Not waiting for the girl to reply, he feigned a relaxed tone.

"I ran into a rich lord riding in a carriage today, and he gave me a massive tip!"

"Hurry up and eat. Once you're full, you'll recover from your sickness faster."

"Eat. Don't worry about me, I already ate before I came back."

Hearing him say that, the girl could only hide her worried gaze. Gripping the coarse biscuit with both hands, she began to nibble on it in small bites.

Forcibly suppressing the hunger in his stomach, Little Snot stared at the girl on the bed, momentarily lost in thought.

The girl's name was Polly. She was his younger sister.

Two years younger than him.

Yet she had been sick for almost a year.

Truth be told, even though their family lived in the Slums, their days in the past had been nowhere near this difficult.

Both of his parents had jobs. They didn't earn much, but it was more than enough to feed a family of four.

Before the accident, they had even considered sending him to Uncle Rim's carpentry shop to be an apprentice.

Until last year, and that infamous "Sewage" incident.

Some big shot whose name he still didn't know had contaminated the Lower District's water supply.

It claimed his mother's life, and his sister would likely have to spend the rest of her days in a sickbed.

Unable to bear the heavy blow of losing his wife, his taciturn father—the man who had always propped up this family—had devolved into a drunkard who spent his days numbing his brain with alcohol.

Now, his father even had to rely on him to survive.

Every day when he sold newspapers, he had to pass by the church, and he could often hear the hymns echoing from inside.

They sounded nice, but he never saw any hope in them.

"Brother, I'm full."

Her stick-thin arm trembled as she handed back half of the coarse biscuit.

Little Snot froze for a moment. He wanted to refuse, but her resolute gaze and his own shriveled, cramping stomach made him simply smile and accept it.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but a set of unsteady footsteps accompanied by cursing suddenly echoed from outside the door.

Bang!

The door shook violently, shaking loose a cascade of dust.

"Open up! Hic... open the damn door for me!"

The familiar voice, dripping with obvious drunkenness, let Little Snot recognize who it was.

Though a trace of resignation touched his face, he could only hurry to his feet and jog to the door.

He had barely struggled to undo the lock when he felt a massive force slam into him from the front.

The door was kicked wide open, and he crashed to the floor.

His overly exhausted body, having endured starvation for so long, was already on the verge of collapse.

After taking the fall, he only saw stars. His vision went black, and his entire body went limp, leaving him completely unable to stand.

He just lay there on the ground, watching the reeking figure stagger into the house.

"Taking so damn long to open a door... hic, what use are you?"

"A coarse nut biscuit. Strike it rich, did we? Motherfucker, you can't cough up money for my liquor, but you eat this well yourself."

"What's this? A statue?"

"Ugly as fuck. Where did you steal this from?"

"I happen to be tight on cash these last couple of days, you..."

...

...

Soft, tranquil moonlight cascaded down from the church's dome, dusting the towering altar in what looked like a layer of snow-white frost.

Silver specks of light glowing with a faint radiance swirled above the altar, like a veil of mist gently drifting through the air.

Xia Nan sat back on a bench in the grand hall, his eyes scanning the interior of the church.

It was completely different from the interior of the Sun God Amaunator's church, which exuded rules and order from every corner.

The Moon Goddess Church of Selune, [Our Lady of Silver] and the [Maiden of the Moon], was of a completely different style.

In the deep of the night, having arrived in a hurry, he hadn't gotten a detailed look at the church's exterior; he had only roughly felt the grandeur of the architecture.

Now that he was inside the hall, bathed in the gentle lighting reflecting off the smooth walls on both sides, he finally had the chance to take in the decor.

The pristine white pillars mirrored the moonlight, and the ribbed arches curved like half-moons to support the soaring dome. Stained glass windows covering an entire wall refracted a soft, pure light, shrouding the grand hall opposite them in a faint silver glow.

A faint, light fragrance lingered in the air.

It smelled like moonflowers, which only bloomed at night.

As it flowed into his nose with every breath, his entire being seemed to quiet down along with it.

It soothed and calmed the emotions of Daisy and the others beside him, who had been rattled by the sudden, sharp turn of events.

They simply sat on the benches, praying silently, occasionally leaning in close to whisper to one another.

To a large extent, a deity's personality and alignment also influenced the behavior of the clerics and priests who worshipped Them.

The Sun God Amaunator was stubbornly lawful, fiercely just, and treated "Contracts" and "Order" as the most vital parts of His dogma.

Back in Kalanfor, given the social standing of Xia Nan and the others, it would be absolutely impossible for them to enter the church outside of regular visiting hours like this, let alone receive a cleric's purification.

But it was different in the Moon Goddess Church.

The personality of the [Maiden of the Moon], Selune, was indeed fickle, at times coming across as unpredictable and entirely capricious.

But in terms of alignment, She leaned toward the side of good.

She was calm and gentle, never stingy with Her mercy. Even as She hung high in the sky like a bright moon, She revealed Her maternal nature and an almost poetic serenity to all living things.

Guided by Her dogma, this deity's believers—especially the zealots among them—grew to emulate the goddess Herself.

Selune's divine domains included the [Moon] and the [Stars], so the Moon Goddess Church always had nuns on duty at night.

Xia Nan and the others had arrived in a frantic rush, yet the nun had been incredibly kind.

She hadn't blamed them for interrupting her meditation. Instead, she had greeted them with a smile, asked why they were there, and gone straight into the inner hall to consult the cleric.

Such a gentle and friendly attitude was quite beyond Xia Nan's expectations.

The way he saw it, the clergy serving the gods on this continent possessed a status nearly equal to that of the local nobility.

Even if they weren't outright arrogant toward untitled commoners like them, a certain level of distance and aloofness should have been inevitable.

But whether it was the kindly faced presiding cleric in the Sun God Church that was now reduced to ruins, or the nun of the Moon Goddess just now, both had been exceptionally peaceful and approachable.

He didn't know if that was just their natural disposition, if it was mandated by their dogmas, or if it was purely a ploy to harvest the faith of commoners.

It wasn't that Xia Nan was a conspiracy theorist; he was simply struck by the sight of Daisy and the others beside him. They had gone from being restless when they first entered, to gradually calming down after the nun's comfort, and were now praying to the altar in a picture of pure devotion.

"Mr. Xia Nan, we're going to be okay, right?"

The same question Jeff had asked earlier was now being posed to Xia Nan once again by his daughter, Lilina.

The girl, who had only recently graduated from the academy, pinched the hem of her shirt between her fingertips. Her eyes stared out into the deep darkness beyond the church doors, her face fraught with irrepressible worry.

He didn't feel impatient, but he also didn't dare make any guarantees.

Xia Nan just deliberately flashed a relaxed smile and replied in a joking tone, "Now that you mention it, I'm the only one who actually experienced the statue's influence. None of you, not even your dad, felt any obvious effects."

"If something really is going to go wrong, I should be the first one to take the hit."

"But... look, I'm alive and well, aren't I? I'm sitting right here chatting with you."

Comforted by Xia Nan's words, the girl's tense face finally relaxed a little.

She nodded. She was just about to say something else to him when a flurry of footsteps approached from behind.

Turning her head to look, she could faintly make out a familiar silhouette drawing closer through the pitch-black night.

He was panting heavily, his coat looking somewhat disheveled, and thick exhaustion clung to his weathered face. But the cloth bag that had originally held the statue was gone from his hands.

"Dad!" Lilina let out a cry of pleasant surprise and threw herself straight into his arms.

Beside them, his wife Daisy, who had been constantly praying for her family ever since they entered the church, immediately heaved a sigh of relief as well.

After a brief, tender moment.

Jeff gave Xia Nan a grateful nod.

Even though the public security on their street was decent, it was late at night, and it was a long walk from their home to the church. He truly couldn't bear the thought of letting his family make the trek alone.

Having this adventurer he deeply trusted escort them was the only reason he could go out and take care of business with peace of mind.

Then, his gaze turned to his son Jamie on the bench nearby.

"I've personally returned that wooden statue to your mentor."

"I also explained the potential problems with the statue itself."

"But..."

A strange expression twisted Jeff's face.

"He didn't seem to take it seriously."

"He just said you need to finish your assignment properly and hand it in on time tomorrow."