Kingdom and Harem

The innermost reaches of the Trinity Church.

Very few people were allowed into this inviolable sanctum.

The first was the highest-ranked member of the Trinity; the Pope.

Next were the Cardinals, the highest appointment holders of the six sects that were devoted to the 3 Gods. Incidentally, each of them was a potential candidate to be the next Pope.

Saint Albina, was the sole female among them. She was over 50 years old, and a little plump, possibly due to her age. Her well-fed face bore a motherly smile which put all who looked upon it at ease.

Saint Cicero, was a shrivelled old man. He was so old that one could not tell his exact age, and his skin was a dusty brown. Although people worried about his health, none could exceed his intellect.

Saint Felix, looked like a kindly old man, but he was originally of the Templar knight, and had exterminated many witches, elves and others during his time as a Templar. His wrath was like a wildfire while his murderous intent was like chilling frost.

Saint Vitus, was a keen-eyed man and the youngest of his present company. That said, he was still in his mid-40s, though his energy made that fact difficult to believe. He was a former member of the Templar who had served for 15 years — a hero during Inquisition to kill non believers.

Saint Albus, his narrow eyes and skinny frame made him look like a sinister person, but that was definitely not the case. Everyone here knew the reason. As a user of divine magic, he ranked at or near the top of all the people present.

Saint Marcellus, he was surrounded by books. He wore round glasses, and he had originally been a priest from the judiciary. 

These people comprised the highest executive authority of the Trinity Church.

After entering the room, they took up cleaning tools and began cleaning the room. Some of them got rid of dust with feather dusters. Some of them wiped with dry cloths, while other wiped with wet cloths.

There was no wastefulness in their movements, and they cleaned the room with well-practiced movements.

Not a single one of these people — who stood at the pinnacle of the Trinity Church — was slacking off. Sweat gushed from their foreheads, their beautiful and pristine robes were stained by dust, and none of them stopped in their efforts until the room was spotless.

The room had been quite clean before they started working on it. Now, it seemed to glow.

None of them thought to wipe off their sweat. Instead, they lined up in front of the three statues,  two naked men and a woman in robe — which appeared to be defending this room — and lowered their heads.

“Today, we give thanks to the gods that human beings like ourselves are still alive.”

After the Pope said those words, everyone repeated them after him.

They took their seats at the round table. This included the Pope.

At this table, everyone was equal. There were no superiors or inferiors here. Everyone was a collaborator and a comrade. Indeed, all this was for the glory of mankind.

“Then, let us begin the meeting.”

The organizer of this meeting was Saint Vitus.

"Our first agenda was annihilation at Circle Tower."

There was nothing that could possibly be any more important than the sudden rebellion of mages. However, far too few people knew the details of the situation. Most of what they knew was little more than hearsay.

For starters, they knew a group of dark mages from Circle of Magi had performed forbidden ritual which summoned various creatures that ran amok in the lower floor occupied by templars. A survivor escaped to inform the church on this matter. 400 templars were sent to Circle Tower and Circle of Magi was wholly decimated last week.

Saint Vitus reported these details in his capacity as the meeting’s organizer.

Just then, someone spoke out:

“I knew we shouldn’t have let it happen, we should have intervened in that war!”

“…What are you saying? We capture plebeians who could use magic. Didn’t we all agree on that earlier? You might have objected then, but don’t try to overturn our previous decision… Although, I didn’t think they would rebel."

The group nodded one after the other.

“What does the Goldonia plan to do? They’re allies of the church and they’ve endorsed the founding of that Circle Tower but they refused to send enforcement during the rebellion."

"Impossible. Their hands are tied with wars against Magrado and Empire."

“Then, I guess we made a mistake in thinking that Goldonian could be used.”

After a brief clapping of hands, the debate which was about to heat up promptly cooled down.

"Archbishop Julius was there with the templars to investigate during the rebellion. However, there’s been a slight problem, so the report was delayed. I beg your forgiveness.”

“Then, we shall distribute the records of what he saw. These have not been verified by others; they’re just his account of what he saw in the tower."

How troublesome, everyone thought, though they did not say it. They took the records and studied them.

They stopped after the last piece of paper. They went over the same part over and over again. They had the same stiff expressions and their faces slowly grew pale.

Saint Vitus smiled to see the changes in their expressions. He had been through the same thing that was happening to them now, and he was glad because misery loved company.

And then, as though to represent everyone else, Saint Marcellus shouted. His mouth opened so wide that his glasses fell off, but he did not seem to care about that.

“Impossible! How could anything like this possibly happened?!”

“I told you earlier, didn’t I? This is just a description of what he claimed to have seen.”

Marcellus shut up in the face of Vitus’s cold response.

He was panting like he had just been sprinting. As Marcellus struggled to get his breathing back under control, Saint Albina decided to ask another question, to see if someone shared her opinions.

“Can you say that again? Is this actually real?”

“If everyone here still believes the word of Archbishop Julius, then it is.”

With pained looks on their faces, they all looked back to the papers they were holding.

"120 templars stationed from third until sixth floor disappeared without trace. Actually, 20 of them were still alive before Julius went to seventh floor. When he returned, the 20 templars were missing. Even the 100 corpses belong to dead templars disappeared."

That was followed by several defeated sighs.

All they could do was acknowledge the point in voices full of fatigue, and then they continued discussing the matter.

"But did he interrogate any witness? There should be some survivors among the captured witches."

Vitus shook his head, "There were indeed several witches roaming freely from third to fifth floor, but none of them was present when he reached there."

"Could be that's magic by the roaming witches?"

Vitus was silent for a while and explained,

"Perhaps. But we had record of every Mage's ability in there including the killed ones. None of them had such ability, to wipe out twenty strong templars and make the bodies disappear. In fact, does such magic even exist?"

He continued,

"The captured mages also disappeared."

"How about the stuffs in the libraries? Did these items give any clue?"

Vitus stared at their faces before uttered weakly. 

"The books, magic items, gold, every useful thing disappeared."

Saint Felix stood up and slammed the table, "What the hell?"

Saint Cicero spelled the words out from the report, "Every single book, magic items, jewellery and useful tools disappeared within 2 hours as if they were teleported away."

Cicero resumed, "However, there was signs of rooms were rummaged. The door for room that imprisoned the  11 mages were broken by a large sword."

They looked at each other.

Cicero summarised, "There was a strong man who could use such a large sword on that floor who was not Templar. He possibly saved the mages and stole the items."

Vitus retorted, "But Julius wrote in the report that the only entrance into the tower was tightly guarded by over a hundred templars That huge man, if he did exist, couldn't breach that. No one saw any outsider at the entrance."

Cicero concluded, "So, there was a man wielding large sword broke the door and brought the mages, corpses and things out."

A moment of silent went in for several minutes.

“It doesn’t matter who did that and how he did that. What matters is what we can do about it.”

It was a valid opinion, and the direction of the meeting began to turn.

"If the captured mages did escape, they must be somewhere in the outside world. What will a group of mage from Circle of Magi do in outside world?"

"Do we need to send people to capture them? It has been over a week since that incident?'

"Then, it's decided. We shall inform the templars, to convene meeting and set teams to look for them."