This day is an extraordinary day for the outer city of Havenlet, for the Royal Capital, and even for the entire Kingdom of Hori.
"Hey, have you heard? Something happened at the theater! Many mages were causing trouble there, many people died, and many others were arrested."
"How could I not have heard? My child's father went to the blacksmith shop across the street from the theater to buy a hammer, but he was also arrested. He doesn't know when he will be released. You said he went to buy it? A hammer!"
"That's right, where did so many mages come from in this fine royal capital?"
"Shh, keep your voice down. I heard that this matter has something to do with the Foer family..."
All kinds of rumors spread from the streets to the alleys. Some said that the magistrate had attacked the city, some said that the nobles of the kingdom had rebelled, some said that the king had been assassinated, and some said that the Pope had lost his mind and gone crazy... For a time, the entire capital was panicked, and even the price of wheat went up. Ichiban.
The people of the royal capital may not know what happened, but thousands of paladins surrounded the theater, and the blood stains on the ground were visible to them as onlookers.
This provided a lot of material for the brewing of rumors.
As witnesses of the entire event, thousands of spectators sitting in the theater were also taken to an unknown place by the Paladin. It is said that they were being interrogated and have not yet been released. Therefore, there are no witnesses who can spread the truth.
At the same time, as the leader of the entire incident, the church has remained silent.
It was not until the afternoon of the next day, towards evening, that the church issued a notice explaining the whole incident and sent the thousands of spectators who were present home.
The church described the incident this way:
The activities of mages in the royal capital became more and more frequent. In order to combat the increasingly rampant evil forces, the church, together with Count Aix Foer, set up this trap.
First, Count Aix contacted a certain mage organization and deceived their trust. Then, in the name of the Foer family and the mage organization, he gradually recruited the mages hidden in the royal capital.
Finally, on this night, the Foer family brought these mages together in the name of a performance. So, the church sent out a brigade of paladins to kill all the mages in one fell swoop!
Because mages have always been good at using weird spells and hiding themselves, the church, based on the principle of preferring to kill the wrong ones rather than let them go, designated the entire theater staff as mages and killed them all on the spot. Of course, the church will not write this down in the announcement.
What else was written in the notice? Of course, it's the various "crimes" of mages: colluding with demons, killing people, inciting evil... Then, at the end of the notice, there is a justified addition - kidnapping nobles.
It reads:
"Benjamin Reese, the son of Duke Claude Reese, was found in a box backstage in the theater. He was injured in the head and was unconscious. His clothes were torn and scarred. He was rescued by the Paladin and returned to the church. By The Church confirmed that Benjamin Reese was kidnapped by this group of mages, tortured, knocked unconscious, locked in a box, and taken to the backstage of the theater. Fortunately, he was discovered by the Church and was able to return home."
Ordinary people would either never see this place at all, or if they saw it, they would sigh that mages are so scary that even nobles would dare to kidnap them. These are far away from their lives, and not many people care about the content of this paragraph.
As for the nobles, after seeing this paragraph, they will only feel that the loser of the Rise family has another laughing stock, and they will have more things to talk about after dinner. Of course, some people think that this is the Foer family's revenge on the Reese family, and they are just thinking about conspiracy theories.
However, in the inner city…
As the protagonist of a description, Benjamin, he stared at this paragraph and read it over and over many times.
At this moment, he was lying on the big bed in his bedroom, looking at the replica of the notice that Jeremy had brought him leisurely, thoughtfully.
Yes, he returned to the Reese family.
Not only him, but Jeremy was also rescued by people from the church. Although he was deducted a lot of wages, he is still alive and well - at least for now.
Benjamin felt a little lucky and a little sad.
He was lucky because this was a narrow escape.
At that time, before the show started, he was climbing out of the box backstage. However, the moment after he came out, he suddenly woke up and realized that something was wrong with the whole thing.
A group of mages were gathered together without any knowledge.
Isn't this just catching a turtle in a jar
In addition, this is the theater of the Foer family, and the owner of the Foer family, Aix, happened to be invited to tea by the church at that time. Thinking with your toes, you already know what will happen next.
The church people are coming to kill you soon!
Needless to say, the church must have been offended by the purges. Therefore, they want to fight back against the mage.
In that brief period of time, Benjamin made a snap decision. He first hid in the box and ordered the system to prepare the memory for the church to read. Then, he suddenly got mad and banged his head against the board of the box!
That's right, after realizing the church's conspiracy, he did not choose to escape. Instead, he chose to use this opportunity to clear himself of the suspicion and return to the Rise family with a clean conscience.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As long as he pretends to be a kidnapped person and forges memories, he can blame the purge's death entirely on the backstage mage, and the church will not suspect it at all.
Of course, in order to conform to the forged memory, he had to be in a fainted state when he was discovered by the church.
So he bumped his head against the box and knocked himself unconscious.
And what happened after that was a matter of course.
The Paladin showed up and killed everyone, mage or not, no one was spared. Benjamin escaped this disaster because he hid in the box. Soon, after everyone was killed, the Paladin began to search the entire theater and found an unconscious Benjamin.
They brought Benjamin back to the church, and the bishop recognized Benjamin's identity. Because everyone who had seen Benjamin in the theater was dead, and the church could not interrogate Dick because of the agreement. In this way, the bishop extracted the memory forged by the system, and the whitewashing plan was successfully completed. Benjamin was considered innocent and returned to the Reese family safe and sound.
The whole process is indeed extremely dangerous.
Fortunately, Benjamin realized the church's trap in time and took effective action. If he hadn't thought so much and escaped backstage, he would have been intercepted by the Paladin ambushing outside the theater. If this is true, he must be too dead at this moment.
Therefore, Benjamin felt extremely lucky.
He is really walking a tightrope!
After being happy, he couldn't help but feel sad.
At that time, there were hundreds of people and more than thirty mages in the backstage, but in the end he was the only one who survived.
Although he didn't know them, as they were both mage, he still couldn't help but sigh.
Michelle's insistence on overthrowing the church and establishing a kingdom of mages does have her reasons.
At this time, the mage in the royal capital suffered a fatal blow. Benjamin estimated that apart from him and Michelle, there were no more than three surviving mages in the entire royal capital.
Moreover, looking at the "certain mage organization" mentioned in the notice, no need to ask, it must be the Silent Academy.
Thinking about it, it is definitely not enough for Aix alone to bring more than thirty mages together. There must be help from the Silent Academy.
To be honest, Benjamin doubted whether this situation had been planned by the church.
If the church had really planned all this, why did it call Aix over for tea that day? Moreover, their move to summon the Paladins clearly started after the Cleaners were destroyed.
There are various signs that the church is more like a sudden attack in a short period of time, rather than a long-term approach to fishing for big fish. To be honest, if the church wants to take a long-term approach, the fish caught in the end will definitely be more than the thirty or so in the capital. mage.
Since the church is not the one taking the long-term view, it can only be Akers.
Thinking of this, Benjamin couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.
I'm afraid... Ax is really hiding the mage.
The scene in the theater most likely showed him realizing that something was going to happen, so he had to surrender to the church first. He was being wise to protect himself and sold all the mages he had raised in exchange for the church's understanding.
If this is the case, the news that the Navre family colluded with the mage was probably only received by the church that afternoon.
Something must have happened in the meantime.
The church would not come to Aix for no reason. It is possible that someone told the church about Aix taking in the mage. Before the church could investigate, Aix quickly realized this, so he cut off his arm to protect himself.
Then...who could this informer be
Benjamin sighed.
He stood up from his bed, walked to the bedroom window, and stared at the setting sun outside the window. The direction outside the window happened to be St. Peter's Cathedral. The spire of the church was like a sharp blade, passing through the setting sun. The continuous sunset glow was like a pool of blood spread across the sky by the setting sun.
Rows of unknown birds flew slowly through the "pool of blood" in the setting sun.
Compared with the outer city, the inner city of Havenright is always so quiet. Even the carriages and pedestrians on the street in the distance seemed to be shrouded in a layer of divine light, looking calm and peaceful.
Benjamin could only vaguely feel how many undercurrents were surging under this layer of noble divine light.