A New Case

Knock-knock! Knock-knock!

"Priest Anton!"

On the morning of the next day, in Anton's silent house, a voice urgently pounded on the door early in the morning. Anton, who had just been awakened, opened the door and, with a sleepy expression, was surprised to see the person at the door.

"Miss Lucia?"

The person who had knocked on his door was a teenager. Anton, who had been living here for more than two months, knew that Lucia was the daughter of a famous bakery just a few streets away, and she often visited the local church, for obvious reasons, being a devout follower.

"Hmm, you know I don't do things in English, even if I am a priest."

As soon as Anton appeared at the door and said those words, Lucia clasped her hands, which were trembling. "Priest Anton, please, save my brother!"

"Are you referring to Josh? Has something happened that requires my presence?" Anton believed that Lucia was a quiet girl and not like other young people who spent their time with friends, but that was his only impression of this commonly cheerful girl.

But as soon as she heard her brother's name, her eyes showed an unusual anxiety in her behavior within Anton's memories. She only clenched her hands tightly and said, "Yes, Priest Anton!"

"I suspect that my brother has been possessed by a cursed spirit. My mother doesn't want to believe it, but I have no other option than to come without her permission. Am I wrong?"

Anton's eyes chilled upon hearing those words, but he didn't get overly emotional. He asked, "Why do you believe something like that?"

Firstly, as an exorcist, Anton must correctly identify the causes before even going to the place where the affected person is. In most cases involving human possession, there is usually no exorcism needed, and it's something a local doctor can solve with medications.

People in the village know things; nobody is foolish, and they know exactly why Anton is living near their homes. The last priest died. Unexplained things tend to happen, but everything calms down after the priests sent by the church take charge. Regardless of what one wants to believe, everyone knows that something evil is born every so often, and it's the job of people like Anton to take care of it.

Of course, this only happens in the more rural villages. In cities, people take weeks to realize that something has happened, and most of the time, no one knows that priests do more than preach the word of their lord.

"For the love of God, I actually heard him speak with the voice of an adult man and attack my mother. We could only tie him to the bed after my father suggested it. They wanted to go to the central church, but it's not open yet."

"Priest, although we all know you are very young, no one doubts your abilities. I don't want anything to happen to my brother; I trust you."

Anton's eyebrows furrowed. He was young and only acted when the Association of Light sent Novice Purifiers who were one level below Exorcist Priests and were around twenty-five years old. Anton, at twenty years old, was of legal age, but in the eyes of the people, he was still too young to be a priest, something they were somewhat right about.

"The proper procedure would be..." Before Anton could finish his words, a mechanical sound echoed in his ears.

"[Mission in progress…

Class: Exorcism

Request: Rescue young Josh from the clutches of whoever is torturing him.

Reward: +10 general strength points.]"

It would be impossible for Anton to reject an official request that his attribute panel detected as valid. This was one of the reasons why he preferred to be alone rather than at a Light Association base. Most of the time, they were deceived, but Anton knew he couldn't be fooled, so he preferred to go solo.

"Miss Lucia, don't worry; your brother will be fine..." Although Anton's words were reassuring, Lucia still doubted if this was true.

"But he..."

Anton completely changed his personality as soon as he knew that something supernatural was involved and said confidently, "Miss Lucia, do you believe in God? Rest assured that your God will not abandon your little brother; I will take care of all of this."

With these words, Anton took off the silver cross around his neck and placed it in Lucia's trembling hands. She felt Anton's warm hands, and her anxious face softened.

"This is a silver cross blessed with holy water... Please go back home and hang it outside the door where your brother is tied. After placing this cross on the door, do not enter that room anymore. This will give time to protect everyone before I arrive." Anton's calm and cold voice reassured Lucia, who had heard unfavorable rumors about the young priest in front of her.

"Okay. Okay, Father Anton."

Anton's expression remained unchanged as he spoke softly. "Go, return home. I will prepare myself and be there as soon as I finish."

After receiving Anton's instructions, Lucia didn't waste much time and hurriedly left. Watching Lucia's back as she ran quickly through the streets, Anton tilted his head. After seeing her disappear, he entered his house to change clothes.

"We have an exorcism case; proceed immediately." Anton made a call immediately as he crossed a dark room.

Miss Lucia's family runs a bakery and resides close to the entire city. Perhaps due to their status and the fact that her brother is being possessed by a spirit, things could get complicated. This family is considered quite noble; they are faithful believers in the Christian church and help many people. Anton is not one to judge the religion of each person, but as an exorcist, he must know exactly where the faith of the families or individuals affected by these entities lies.

As someone who eliminates evil, he felt very in tune with the affected, and a burning desire to eliminate these beings that should not belong to this world ignites within him every time there is a case. But regardless of his personal desires, this city, which was actually a town, was his sector and territory to protect. He was the only exorcist priest nearby, and as such, he would not allow any supernatural beings to disturb the tranquility of this place.

Demons or evil spirits are like contagious sources of diseases; if not eliminated in time, these supernatural incidents will only increase in number. The normal procedure is for the Light Association to send him as an exorcist priest, but in most cases, he orders the Light Association about jobs they are not aware of. This had complicated things for him, but as a ShadowBane, this didn't bother him much.

Upon opening the door to the dark room, there was only normal wooden furniture inside. Anton walked directly to the center of the room, crouched down, and searched for a secret compartment under the wooden planks.

Finding the secret compartment, Anton pulled the lever behind it, and a basement opened a few meters in front of him, and the lights dimly lit up. This is a basement specially built to store some exorcism tools much more special than what the Light Association ended up giving him, such as real firearms, silver daggers, poison powders against physical creatures, and many other things that could only be obtained in the official bases of the Light Association.

By creating this place, they made sure that these things were not exposed to civilians; after all, this would cause problems. Descending about ten steps, Anton reached a flat wooden floor. Upon reaching the basement floor, the smell of dampness was quite strong, but ignoring all this, he continued changing and soon reached a space similar to a warehouse.

The vast space is filled with more than thirty wooden shelves, like a warehouse full of various items, and the total area is even larger than the house above. For Anton, the disorder in front of his eyes wasn't really a disorder. Looking at all that variety of weapons to face dark entities, whether physical, spiritual, material, incorporeal, or ethereal,.

Before acting, the Light Association must identify the type of work they would do, but as in most cases, there was no time, so they had to work with what they had. According to Lucia's account and the message that appeared on his panel, it is most likely that Josh is being possessed by evil spirits or a demon. In these jobs, he has a lot of experience and is familiar with them because he has done them before.

After passing through the shelves full of firearms, silver ammunition, and salt grenades, among other things, Anton stood in front of a black wooden shelf. On this shelf, some objects of the Christian church are kept, such as the so-called holy water, silver crosses, gold tokens, incense, and rosaries, among many other things that are basically tools used in any type of exorcism.

The Light Association may not follow any religion, but there were always occasions where they used weapons from wherever they could to face the enemy. People's faith in material things has no name, so everything was used just to eliminate the darkness. Remembering those movies he had seen, Anton felt a little inspired and began filling a black leather briefcase with the things he would use in this job.

If he were an ordinary priest, these things might be enough, but things always turned out differently, so he used a very special method. Anton walked after taking the most essential items towards another shelf, but this one was metallic. In comparison to all the shelves, the things on this shelf were a bit different. At first glance, it was filled with bottles, cans, and even syringes. If it weren't for the peculiar items next to them, many might think these were just common medicines.

"A drug so potent it would knock out a gorilla; something like this will work," murmured Anton, who knew what he was doing. "Star dust to blind them." Anton took a glass bottle with glittering powder.

Not only should he be prepared for an exorcism, but he should also be able to eliminate it completely if conventional methods don't work. That's why he used not only holy water and a Grimoire but also real firearms with special ammunition.

"There's one last thing..." Anton took his backpack and walked towards the first shelf. Although he lacked no firearms, there were also weapons that weren't exactly what everyone knew. He also had silver nail guns, needles, and some more similar to firearms but launching different things. After placing the nail gun, which looked like a pistol model, the previous preparations are approximately completed, and the last step is to put on the Exorcist Priest robe.

This robe was entirely black but had protection against stabs, shots, and fire—things that were necessary. When dressing, Anton put on a pair of black gloves and went outside, where a black car was waiting for him.

"Let's go; the girl's name is Lucia Rossi." Anton got into the car, and the man who looked at him for a few brief seconds nodded before getting into the driver's seat.

The area where he lives is in the rural areas of the city, so this community was small and it was easy to find people. However, the security situation in this area has worsened as time goes by, and you could see small children playing as gang members. They covered their faces with ski masks, wore loose clothing, and behaved like idiots.

While the car moved slowly, Anton could see a group of young people under a pedestrian tunnel; they were the kind of idiots Anton encountered very frequently. Anton ignored them; he had to do it to avoid hitting idiotic kids. But because he had the window open, these boys could see them passing very slowly through the tunnel.

"Hey!! Father!"

Anton, who was sitting in the back of the car, glanced superficially at them and ignored them.

"I'm a faithful believer!" arrogantly shouted the short-haired young man, not caring about the volume of his voice.

"Can I ask you a question?!"

"Stop the car," Anton said, looking at the driver, who was one of the members of the Light Association in charge of being the right hand of the Exorcist priests.