|"You will soon experience your worst despair, villainous scum."|

"Oh, alright," I spoke with a monotonous tone. "Anything else?"

|"Wh- What!?"| The lightbulb widened her eyes in disbelief. |"You're not... scared?"|

"Why would I?" I shrugged. "Panicking wouldn't do me any good."

|"I see..."|

Then, silence ensued. The atmosphere turned awkward. So awkward that I couldn't help but to think about this whole situation.

'I didn't expect staying in the same room with my enemy to be this uncomfortable. It'd be better if she started attacking me.'

As if answering my thoughts, the lightbulb moved. However, she didn't do so to attack me. Instead, she merely laid back down on the mattress with a sigh. |"I'm going back now. Who would have known that you're absurdly bad at maintaining a conversation?"|

"Hey! It's not entirely my fault!"

The lightbulb ignored me and was about to leave Primel's body. Before she could, however, I called out to her.

"Hey lightbulb, what about Primel?"

"...?"

"Is there any particular reason why you chose her?"

|"No. She just so happened to be the closest Saintess to Kerudark at that time... But now that I saw how pathetically she was defeated and how easily she fell for your words, I don't think that the title of Saintess suits her anymore."|

As she said that, the lightbulb used Primel's hand to do a grasping motion right on top of the left side of her chest. Then, something akin to a golden fog came out of her body and dispersed into thin air.

|"Ah, that feels better. Now some of my power has returned to me and this pitifully unqualified girl has regressed to the Priestess title."|

Then, she turned Primel's head toward me and looked at me with disdain. |"Now then, I'll be leaving this dirty place. I hope that the next time I see you, you'll have become a rotting corpse."|

Primel's body then turned limp. 

"...The lightbulb must have exited her body already."

I checked for Primel breathing. Upon seeing that she was still alive, I heaved a sigh of relief. Although I definitely felt lethargic after enduring the lightbulb's oppressive aura, I knew better than to give in to my urges and just sleep.

'...I don't want another Evelyn situation.'

Thus, I waited for Primel to wake up as I sat on the dusty ground. And up she woke. After only a few minutes, she regained consciousness and slowly sat up with a groan.

"Urghhhh... my head..."

Then, she looked around in confusion. Upon laying eyes on me, her face suddenly turned blank. After a while, she recovered from whatever that was and immediately rushed toward me and grabbed my hands.

"Saint Theodore... thank you!"

"...?"

Not noticing my confusion, she continued. "Thank you for showing me the right way. Goddess Lumaria... she descended upon my body to encourage me!"

"Kyahhhhhhh!" She then squealed as she broke contact with my hands and hugged her own body. "G- Goddess Lumaria descended onto me! I still can't believe it!"

Judging by the fact that she was giggling and laughing like a maniac right now, it was safe to assume that she didn't retain any memories of the lightbulb's conversation with me. Staring at Primel with a blank face, I shook my head bitterly.

'If only she knew... if only...'

Unaware of the fact that her own Goddess had just discarded her, Primel continued celebrating wildly. That was, until I decided to walk up to her and place my hand on her shoulder.

"Let's get out of here. This moldy place is making me sick."

...

As we got to the main area of the church again, I saw Evelyn, Maria, and Kevin sitting on the wooden seats, staring at the entrance to the back rooms as if waiting for us. Before I could say anything, Evelyn suddenly spoke up.

"Huh... so you truly dominated her. That was... a bit unexpected."

I raised an eyebrow in confusion and then gave Primel a glance.

'She's still happy?' I frowned as I saw Primel smiling sheepishly. 'She's more of a zealot than I thought.'

Anyway, that didn't matter right now, as I had business with Evelyn. Walking up to her, I spoke.

"Evelyn, you got your sister now so you should leave this city. And—"

"No."

I widened my eyes in shock, baffled that she would shoot down my suggestion almost instantly.

'Wh- What happened? She was so eager to leave in the novel!'

"E- Evelyn, is there any reason why you don't want to leave?"

Patting her sister's head, Evelyn answered. "One of Maria's friends was abducted. I'm not leaving until he's found."

"Jacob?"

Though definitely surprised that I knew her friend's name, Maria still interjected into our conversation to confirm my suspicions. "Y- Yes. He's my friend! P- Please find him! B- Big sis Evelyn said that you can find him!"

'Now that she mentions it...'

I hadn't seen the Jacob kid since I entered the church. I had guessed that he was running some errands outside or something like that but it seemed that I was mistaken. It didn't seem like that Evelyn would make a compromise here, and dragging her out of the city wouldn't work either since I'm fairly certain that the guards would stop me, Saint or not. As such, I could only sigh and accept her request.

"Alright, I'll help."

"Yay!" Maria exclaimed.

Then, Kevin suddenly walked up to me and spoke. "Sir Saint, I'm glad that you agreed to help us but we don't have any clues. The only possible link is the series of abductions of young children happening recently in the city."

"I see..." I muttered and fell into thoughts. 

After a while, I came up with a plan. 'Alright, this should work.'

Then, I turned toward Evelyn again and commanded her.

"Evelyn, try to watch Primel and don't let her go anywhere."

Primel jolted up at the mention of her name.

"Wh- What!? Saint Theodore, why do I have to stay?"

Turning to face her, I answered. "The 'trial' that your Goddess gave you is too dangerous. Wait until I get back and I'll help you."

And with those words, I left the church to carry out my plan.

...

The process of finding information about the kidnappings was harder than I thought it was. The Kerudark times newspaper didn't publish any issues that mentioned the missing children even once, which was definitely suspicious but I didn't have time to look into it right now. Thus, I had to ask the locals to find out more.

"So the kidnappings most commonly happen near the western gate of the novel ring..." I muttered as I complied all the information in my head.

Grinning, I quickly made my way toward the western area. As soon as I got there, I walked into a dark alleyway and activated my Skill.

<[B - Ash veil]>

As a humanoid lump of Ashes that reached my waist appeared in front of me, I grinned and lightly touched the brown grimoire slung on my waist. However... nothing happened.

"Fuck... I forgot that I ran out of spells."

But it wasn't as if my plans had failed. Reaching into [Alternate storage], I took out a grimoire that was much smaller than the one I had on me right now.

"Good thing I stole this from the auction house. It's supposed to be the last record of Grandmaster Elysia's spell... I feel kind of bad."

However, I soon shook my head off such thoughts and still decided to use it.

"Alicia can use the same spells as her anyway. I don't think I'll be any different if she fed her magic into this grimoire." 

And with that thought, I activated the grimoire and gave the humanoid lump of Ashes the appearance of Alicia. Throwing the now-useless grimoire into [Alternate storage], I commanded the lump of Ashes to wander the streets.

...

"Heh, using Alicia's appearance works wonders." I muttered as I watched a shady hooded man slowly approaching the lump of Ashes from behind.

With her cute appearance and rare-colored hair, it was only a matter of time before some shady guys like him showed up.

'But... is he related to Jacob's kidnapping though?'

But whatever the case was, I had to follow this guy as soon as he caught 'Alicia'. Thus, I put on a shady hood of my own and waited.

Before long, the man was now standing behind 'Alicia'. Reaching into his pockets to take out a rag, he quickly used it to cover 'Alicia's mouth'.

'Is that supposed to make children fall asleep?' I thought as I sniffed the air. 'Seems like it is.'

'Alicia' 'struggled'. But of course, a mere 'child' like her couldn't escape the grip of an adult. After a few more seconds, 'Alicia's body' went limp, and 'she' was left defenseless in the man's arms.

"Kehahaha!" The man laughed. "I got a good catch this time. Boss will definitely give me a raise!"

He then slung 'Alicia' over his shoulder and dashed into a dark alleyway.

Seeing this, I followed him suit while hiding my presence as much as possible. 

...

After a few minutes of following him through the complicated twists and turns of the alleyways, I finally saw him stop in front of a certain iron door connected to a normal-looking house. Hiding myself behind the corner, I peeked to see him not opening the door... but running straight into the wall. However, he didn't bounce off the brick wall. Instead, he passed right through it.

"Huh... that's neat." I muttered. 

Then, I made sure that I still had the hood on and similarly ran into the brick wall. As I passed through it, a horrible smell assaulted my nose.

'This smell... it's of rotting corpses.'

And considering the fact that children were presumably taken here, it was safe to say that the smell wasn't produced by some random stray cats lying dead in the house. Pausing my thoughts there, I walked deeper into the house. 

The house... it was bigger than I thought. And luckily for me, there were no one guarding it.

'How sloppy...'

Focusing on my senses, I walked toward where the lump of Ashes was. And my sense led me before a wooden door. Opening it, I looked inside, only to see the the room's interior was full of cages that had children of all races in it. 

'Beastkins, Dark elves, Elves, Dwarves, and there are even some Dragons! How the hell!'

How did they manage to smuggle this many children of different races into this city? As I was groveling in confusion, I suddenly remembered something.

'Ah, that's right, the newspaper!'

Someone in the upper echelons of the city must've forbade the newspaper from publishing news about the missing children. And that someone may have aided in the smuggling of these children too.

Satisfied that I came up with a perfectly reasonable explanation, I hummed as I walked into the room and inspected the cages. The children all huddled together and shook in fear as I came near them, but I paid them no mind. However...

"Jacob's not here..."

...I couldn't find Jacob wherever I looked. 

'Wait wait, calm down now, let's think about it. Maybe he's in another room...?'

As such, I picked a random child, who happened to be an Elf, and asked her. "Do you know where the human with purple hair and blue eyes went?"

"...!" The girl jolted in surprise upon realizing that I was talking to her. She then trembled violently, so paralyzed in fear that she couldn't answer me question.

Noticing this, I sighed and removed my hood. "Hey, don't be afraid. I'm here to rescue you all."

"R- Really?"

"Yes." I said as I glanced over all of the other children other in the cages and spoke loud enough for them to hear me. "Don't make a ruckus. The bad guys will come back if you do."

Surprisingly very uncharacteristic of little kids, the children all nodded and kept silent.

Smiling in satisfaction, I turned my attention toward her again. However, I tilted my head in confusion upon seeing that she was staring at me with shock apparent on her face.

"Y- You... aren't you the big bro that tried to rescue us from the bandits?"

I fell into more confusion at her words. However, I soon realized who she was.

"You're the Elf child that Evelyn failed to k— I mean rescued?"

"I heard you call that cat big sis 'Evelyn' so I guess yes."

Upon hearing her confirmation, however, I fell into even more confusion. Didn't I try to kill her mother? However, this was a good misunderstanding for me, as it meant that the girl would be more obedient.

As such, I knelt down to meet her eyes and asked once more, "I'll ask you again. Have you seen a purple-haired, blue-eyed Human child here?"

The girl tapped her chin as she fell into thoughts for a few seconds before nodding, "Mhm! The bad guys took him down there." She pointed toward the place I was standing on, "Just tap on the floor 10 times in a row and you'll fall through."

Nodding, I did as the girl said. As I made my 9th tap, I turned back toward the children again and spoke. "Wait for me, I have to make sure the other children are safe."

Seeing that all the children nodded in understanding, I finished my 10th tap and fell through the floor.