Mysteries: Arcana Wars

Leonard and Klein sat on the sofa, staring at each other.

As soon as the Minimalist Tarot Club ended, Emlyn was the first to slip away, as if he would be killed by millions of deadly tomatoes if he stayed here for another half a second.

Emlyn was busy like an ant on a hot pot with all the things going on at the Earth Hospital. Just as he said, the more capable you are, the more work you should do. As the savior of the Earth Hospital, he must work harder.

This made Klein feel that when Emlyn said this, he looked like the protagonist of some hot-blooded comic, who was just missing a title like "Crisis! The ancient hospital is on the verge of death! I, who just became the acting dean, have to make a debut to save the hospital!?", or an old light novel like "Even if it is an ancient church hospital on the verge of disintegration, I will save it for you, because I am the savior of the vampires who traveled through time for three hundred years!"

So in the end, the time alone between the two of them after the Tarot Club seemed to become a regular part of Klein and Leonard's life.

Klein didn't want to admit that Emlyn's light-speed retreat was indeed what Klein had hoped for, because he now had too many things he wanted to ask Leonard alone. There were some things that Klein didn't intend to tell Emlyn or anyone else after the Tarot Club until he had figured them out.

Emlyn and Klein were both tacitly aware of this necessary concealment.

"Leonard, there are still many things I can't figure out..."

Klein leaned back on the sofa, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Indeed, in this battle with Nelson Korodeko, although the Bloody Killer himself escaped, we can still barely count it as a victory...

"But don't you think that our series of events are a little too strange?

“Especially when I chased Nelson to St. Julie’s Church, Nelson suddenly became abnormal, as if he had just woken up from a dream, as if he had realized something incredible. This secret conclusion even made him slide uncontrollably into emotional collapse and loss of control.

"He was so resistant to the chapel that he refused to step onto the square no matter how hard he struggled. At the same time, it seemed that coming to the chapel was not on his escape route. It was not until he saw the chapel that he suddenly woke up..."

"Huh? Wait, so driving Nelson to St. Julie's Church and then killing him wasn't part of your pursuit plan?" Leonard suddenly sat up straight and asked in confusion.

“Not really.” Klein said frankly. “To be honest, both of us were in a very negative state at the time. Emlyn’s potion made me dizzy, and I could only mindlessly chase Nelson and couldn’t care about more tactical details. It was only when I saw the church that I realized we were at St. Julie…”

"Oh! That's all right then! It seems this is the influence of St. Julie's Church again!"

Leonard suddenly realized what was going on and began to explain it to Klein.

“As I said last time, the essence of St. Julie is not ‘church’ but ‘weapon’.

“In addition to her own extraordinary power isolation, she can, to a certain extent, attract extraordinary events or extraordinary conflicts.

"Within the main city of Backlund, if there is any extraordinary conflict, such as fights between extraordinary people, cult sacrifices, etc., then their actions will involuntarily move closer to Saint Julie. The planner may unconsciously design Saint Julie as an important node, and the executor may unconsciously pass by Saint Julie's Church..."

“When these restless Beyonders arrive at St. Julie’s Church Square, they will find that their Beyonders are suppressed by this church. At this time, the Red Gloves stationed at St. Julie’s Church will swarm out with a large number of ordinary weapons and wipe out all these lawless elements.

“…It’s like a spider, sitting in the center of its web, waiting for its prey to fall into the trap, and then eating them…” Klein frowned.

"Indeed, it's very vivid! Or rather, the Red Gloves stationed at St. Julie's Church are more like spiders. When a Beyonder conflict occurs, as long as the Beyonders do not set foot in the church square, they will never go out to meet the enemy. But as long as the enemy falls into the square, they will do their best to keep the enemy and then eliminate him!

"So I fought outside for so long, but they didn't come out to help me. Instead, when I put Olga next to the fountain, the Red Gloves rushed over like the wind and wanted to capture me as well." Klein suddenly understood the irrationality of the previous battle.

"Yes, this iron rule is not only an important part of Saint Julie's hunting strategy, but also a kind of protection for Saint Julie's Red Gloves. Many times, the extraordinary events that occur in Saint Julie involve a higher level than the average level of the garrison personnel. Before these extraordinary forces are suppressed, letting these Red Gloves go out to meet the enemy equipped with ordinary weapons is completely giving up our home advantage, and the casualty rate will become very high."

The thousand-year-old old red gloves explained it to Klein in detail.

"However, in fact, for daily affairs, the 'attraction' effect of Saint Julie is actually very weak. For the extraordinary conflicts that occur in daily life, the conflict may be over before it reaches Saint Julie's Church, or it may be handled by other Red Gloves and Night Watchers. Or because the guidance effect of the church is minimal, some people are not effectively affected at all. Of course, there are also some probability issues involved here..."

“So this thing isn’t that useful. It doesn’t work when it fails, right?” Klein concluded.

"Indeed. It's still pretty useless in daily work, but when encountering a large-scale extraordinary conflict, if you can affect one person, it's a profit. If you can kill one in the square, it's a huge profit."

Leonard admitted.

"But at the end of the [Sky Curtain War], Saint Julie was still young, and she didn't have many important achievements other than the war. I'm sure Saint Julie must have had many proud kills in the past three hundred years. As for Saint Julie's current hunting strategy, I'm not sure. From your description, it seems that there has been no major adjustment.

"Another point is that if we don't take precautions in advance, it seems that the higher the level of the Extraordinary involved in the incident, the greater the possibility of being affected by Saint Julie, and the greater the degree of influence..."

"Does this have anything to do with the law of Beyonder characteristic aggregation?" Klein asked.

"I personally think it has a lot to do with it, but the church itself has the properties of anti-prophecy, anti-divination, and even extraordinary silence. The two seem to be somewhat contradictory... But when I think about the fact that the design and construction of St. Julie is related to you, then everything seems to make sense."

Leonard spread his hands.

"It's related to me?"