1 Chapter 1: Heretic Hunter

"How dare you, how dare you do this to your brother". "You worthless scum." my father was yelling at me. I paid no attention to him, I was already used to comments such as these. I looked down, my fists were soaked in blood. The next thing I heard was my brother's groan. One look at him would tell you where the blood on my fists came from. I felt nothing when I looked at him, no anger, no sadness, no regret. Absolutely nothing. "Leo." "Leo." "Leonard, wake up." said a cold voice. As soon as I came to my senses I felt a strong ache in my left eye. "Bad dream?" said a middle-aged woman with long black hair and blue eyes. She was very pretty but one look at her face would tell you, she is dangerous. She also happens to be my boss.

"Something like that," I said as I made sure my eyepatch was still covering my left eye. She looked at me with concern in her eyes for a second but her usual stoic expression replaced it very quickly. "I need you at your best Leo, this case is no joke," she said as she lit her cigarette. "You shouldn't smoke inside the carriage," I said full well knowing she wouldn't stop. "And you shouldn't sleep during work hours but here we are," she said half-jokingly.

"Not my fault, I was up all night looking for clues about this Heretic Hunter." Heretic Hunter was the name of a notorious criminal. Before his killing spree began he worked as a priest for the Holy Church of Lux. Luxianism is one of the four and most popular religions in the empire. "As you already know his targets are mainly important figures representing other religions." I said "If that was all, we could have labeled him a fanatic and that would be it, but yesterday's murder complicates things," she said. "Right, if his goal was to undermine other religions he wouldn't have killed another priest from Lux," I said as I looked into her inquisitive eyes. "Well, whatever the case maybe he is not the first lunatic we dealt with," she said as our carriage came to a halt.

I looked up at the sky as I got off from the carriage, the sun was nowhere to be seen "What an ominous weather," I thought to myself. "Have you ever been to a Church of Lux, Claire?" I asked her curiously. "Of course not, I am not desperate enough to believe in fairy tales like that," she said with a faint smile. "Well, you better not say that once we are inside," I said pointing at the church. We are right now at the South Boulevard of the empire, the slums are located near this church making it fairly popular. As Claire always says "Desperate people cling to pretty lies." The building itself was pretty if I say so myself. It had a dignified look, it almost felt out of place. This also happens to be Heretic Hunter's old workplace. "Let's go," said Claire. The interior of the Church wasn't nearly as pretty as the exterior but that is to be expected, after all, the main funding of the church comes from donations and not a lot of people are in a position where they can donate around this area.

As we walked inside an old nun welcomed us "Ah, you two must be from the inquisition. We were expecting you" she said with a smile. "Let's cut the pleasantries short, you know why we are here," said Claire with a cold voice. Her sudden tone must have surprised the nun as she seemed scared. Intimidation is a good strategy to use, especially on timid people like these. "Yes, it must be about father Peter. He was a very-" "Heretic Hunter" I said cutting her off. She gave me a surprised look. "That is what he calls himself now, Heretic Hunter," I said without breaking our eye contact. "I don't understand why he would do any of this. He was such a sweet man, always thinking of others before himself." "Tell that to all the people he killed," I said. "When is the last time you saw him?" asked Claire. "To be perfectly honest it has been more than 3 months, I think," the nun said hesitantly. "Is there anything weird he said or did before you last saw him?" I asked. "N-no," she was stuttering and trying to avoid eye contact. Anyone can tell she is trying to hide something.

Usually, witnesses hide information to either protect themselves or protect the culprit. I would assume this innocent-looking nun was not trying to do the latter but you can never be too sure. With that, Claire gave me a small nod. I instantly knew what this meant. I quickly activated my ability, <Neural magic, sensory overboost> we live in a society where nobles wield incredibly powerful magical abilities, how powerful you are with magic is determined by a person's genes. Due to nobles only making offsprings with other nobles this high-class power is mainly enjoyed by those people. However, that doesn't mean common folk can't use magic. Magic is still fairly widespread, even among commoners but the power difference between nobles and commoners is incredibly stark. I myself am a noble but unfortunately, I wasn't blessed with strong magic despite my bloodline. To compensate for this I invented my very own original magic, no one in this world besides me can use it. My ability <Neural Magic> allows me to completely control my brain. With this I can use every muscle in my body, I can manually stop my heart and other organs if I wanted to, but most importantly I can break the natural limit on the human body set by the brain. What this means is I can increase my physical abilities and I can even increase my senses by directly tampering with my brain. I increased my hearing by 30%, instantly I started to hear people outside arguing, dogs barking, and a child crying. Among all the things I could hear I focused on one thing and one thing only, the nun's heartbeat.

The moment I used magic a white transmutation circle appeared inside my right eye. A transmutation circle converts the raw mana inside a person's body into the desired spell. Normally the circle appears mid-air outside the body. However since my magic tempers with something inside my body the circle also appears inside. The nun was stunned after she realized I activated a spell "you, you can use magic?" "Yes, from now on I will be able to tell even your smallest lie so I hope you choose your words carefully," I said while giving her a menacing look. " I'll ask again, did you hear or see anything weird before he disappeared?" asked Claire. After realizing she has no choice but to tell the truth, the nun opened her mouth "He said he was chosen by the god to become the emissary of light." "The fuck does that mean." I thought to myself. "The night before he disappeared I overheard some stuff," the nun said as she continued. "He was on his knees thanking the other man, no, he wasn't thanking him he was worshipping him." "Around what time was this?" asked Claire. "Midnight." Claire gave me a quick look and after I gave her a nod indicating she was telling the truth, Claire instructed her to continue. "As he was frantically thanking the other guy on his knees the man he called god gave him a small letter." "Why would you hide this from us?" I asked, realizing the reason immediately after. "Because you weren't supposed to be there at that time, now that I think about it what were you doing inside the church at a time like that?" asked Claire with a frightening expression. "I-I was preparing for the Sunday school, yeah! I was choosing which book to read to children that day, you know they love-" "Don't lie!" I cut her off with a strong tone. "Let me guess, you were helping yourself to the donations made to the church weren't you?" I asked. Knowing she wouldn't be able to get out of this one she confessed "So what, do you know how little a nun makes around here. It's not like I stole a lot, we didn't have that many donations to begin with" she tried to weasel her way out of this.

"Shut up!" said Clair with an irritated voice. "We are not the goddamn police, so we don't care but you better tell us everything you know if you don't want this to reach their ears," Claire said. After that, we interrogated her a little while longer but she didn't know anything else that would be useful aside from Heretic Hunter's address. Normally the inquisition keeps a record of every mage in the area of their jurisdiction. Casting spells without having a record in Inquisition is very illegal and has some dire consequences. According to the nun, she never saw Heretic Hunter use magic before. However, all of his murders were committed with magic. He used the spell <Blade of light>. This is a spell from the light attribute and it shouldn't be something that a commoner can use. The level of the spell is simply way too high. So he either has noble blood inside him or he somehow externally amplified his magic. I am leaning more towards the latter. "Come on we need to move" Claire's voice interrupted my train of thoughts. Since we now know the Heretic Hunter's address we need to investigate it. "Alright let's go."