The Cord of Cause

Claud peeked at the two men trailing behind Captain Blake, who had shown up shortly after Caroline and Holy Daughter Clarissa left the guardhouse. The poor guy was clearly not on duty, judging from his clothes, but he had been called down regardless.

The two guards of the White Church's Holy Daughter were nothing to be scoffed at, despite being in a seemingly low position. Claud's instincts were warning him that both of them were nowhere weaker than Count Nightfall — by no means should they attempt to cross either one of those men without ample preparations and a resolve to die.

"They look really scary," Lily whispered in his ear.

"Well, guards are supposed to look scary," Claud whispered back. "But these guys are seriously scary, though. Some part of me thinks it's better to drink some of Schwarz's alcohol than to actually fight them."

"Hey, I heard that."

"Shouldn't you be grateful that I'm comparing your drinks favourably?" Claud muttered, before returning his attention to the two guards before him.

He appraised the two guards' back view. Unlike most thugs, these two had a medium-sized build. Their muscles weren't excessively bulky either; they were mean, lean and had a lifestone-like quality to them. This was proof of their training; instead of trying to look intimidating to the common person, these two guards had trained in such a way that they were intimidating to professional mercenaries and other fighters.

Dressed in white from head to toe, Claud really couldn't see much of a difference. They looked like brothers or even twins from their backs alone, and to make matters worse, none of them had named themselves.

In this stifling atmosphere, the little party continued on in relative silence, which was only broken by the occasional whispered conversation. Everyone had the good sense to not annoy the two men walking just behind Captain Blake, since they would probably lose in a straight fight.

Claud felt his nose scrunch up as they approached the murder scene, but since he had been exposed to Schwarz's nose-numbing solutions not too long ago, he didn't feel the need to retch or anything.

"W-we're here," said Captain Blake. "I have preserved the crime scene with 'Indigo God's Canvas'. Do you want me to dispel the skill?"

The two guards shook their head in silence, before the one on the right produced a skillstrip. With a deliberate, practiced motion, he tore up the piece of paper, and a white sheen gathered around him.

At the same time, the other guard produced a small bell. White light, soft and gentle on the eyes, gathered into a string as he rang the bell once, a string that extended from Zulan Patra's corpse and through the roof directly, arcing into the sky.

Nodding to himself, the guard rang the bell five more times, and with each chime, the white string doubled in thickness. By the time the guard stowed the bell away, the string that extended out from Zulan Patra's corpse was now as thick as a mercenary's arm.

The guard that was covered in the white sheen bowed towards the corpse, and then reached out for the white sheen. With a gentle tug, he separated the string from its origin, before producing a small white knife, which he handed to his bell-wielding companion.

"Lord," the glowing guard murmured, stepping forward to touch Zulan Patra's corpse. "Thy servant has fallen in the land of the profane. May thine mercy lift him into thy Divine Kingdom, and bring him into your embrace everlasting."

The white sheen around the guard drifted over to the Spear of Fate, and his corpse began to burn with a pure white flame. Claud could not feel any heat from it, even as it raged on, and within seconds, all that was left behind was an empty chair.

In unison, the two chanted, "May his karma burn true."

The two guards let out a small sigh. "Zulan's last rites have been performed. The five of you bear witness to this."

Captain Blake cleared his throat. "M-my apologies, but can I speak?"

The knife-holding guard nodded. "Go ahead."

"Your Excellencies were summoned here to investigate the Spear of Fate's murder, but if you performed his last rites…" The captain's words died away, but there wasn't any need to complete that sentence.

"Do not worry, captain." The white-robed, knife-wielding man smiled, gesturing at his companion, who was holding on to the white strong. "Our leads are here. The White God, the Holy of Holies, the Lord Schizel, is the God of Karma. All deeds incur karma. The death of his Blessed, doubly so."

"Is it that…string thing?" Captain Blake asked, clearly intrigued.

"That is the Cord of Cause, a manifestation created by the Bell of Beginnings. At the other end is the murderer of the Lord's Blessed. The faithful will soon know that attached to one such Cord is a murderer of a Blessed." The guard inclined his head slowly.

Claud felt his heart skip a beat. From the looks of it, if such a means was employed against him, the only thing he could hope to do was to use Presence Nullification as this Cord thing sought him out. Being attached to it was probably a death sentence.

"Can the Cord of Cause be severed?" Captain Blake asked.

"Anything can be severed. Even karma. But it will not be easy," the guard replied placidly. "The Lord is merciful. A way out is provided for all who seek to repent — and that is to experience what the victim felt. Should the penitent accept his punishment, the Cord will fall apart."

Claud glanced at the brutal way in which Zulan Patra died, and stifled a grin. The guard noticed his expression, and then grinned back.

"Right. Since Zulan is a Blessed of the Lord, the murderer's penitence will be…doubled."

Captain Blake cleared his throat. "Despite the solemn occasion and the gruesomeness of the murder, I really feel like laughing or something."

"Don't worry," said the guard holding on to the knife. "It is good to laugh at the comeuppance of some wrong-doer. It pulls them down from their pedestal of fear, and makes them smaller in one's mind. Laugh, if you want to. The Lord will approve."

As the three chattered away, Claud wryly noted that these guards didn't seem all that different from the likes of Captain Blake and the others. It was possible that they were only that solemn earlier because they wanted to discharge their duty first and foremost, but now that they had sent off the Spear of Fate, their personality had returned to normal.

"There's another victim, but…"

"We can call out the Cord of Cause once again," said the knife-holding guard, whose smile had disappeared. "But his last rites…"

He glanced at his buddy, who shook his head.

"We can't carry it out. You should arrange a civil funeral for the second victim, or a funeral from the Coloured God he follows."

"Okay." Captain Blake took a step back.

Once again, bell chimes filled the room, and before long, there were two such cords leading out of the room. The only thing Claud now wanted to know was what that knife did, since the two of them hadn't done anything with it so far.

After doing a few more routine things, like filling up forms and getting everyone to sign it, the two were done with the investigation. Leading everyone out of the house, the knife-holding guard stopped at the street outside and looked towards the house.

"Clear," said his companion. "You may begin, Alf."

"Noted. Beginning." Blue light began to glow around him, wrapping around the knife. A luminous blade extended out of the knife hilt, and before Claud could admire it for more than three seconds, the piercing white light split into two and shot skywards, following the cord to its end.

"That looks dangerous," Captain Blake noted

"It is dangerous. I just launched an attack that cannot be evaded at the murderer. The culprit definitely won't like it, that's for sure." Alf glanced at the two cords. "Hmm. The murderer is still very much alive. We'll try again every day until the cord vanishes. At the same time, we will send out word to the nearby territories, to look for someone with two Cords of Cause attached to them."

"Can't we just follow these two and see where they lead us?" Schwarz asked, curious.

"It doesn't work that way. The sky is the medium in which the Cord of Cause is based on," the second guard replied. "The Cord of Cause goes to the sky, and then it comes down from the sky."

"…How complicated."

"It is a miracle of the Lord. If mortals could understand easily, it wouldn't be a miracle, right?" The guard smiled. "We don't need to know how miracles work. We just need to know miracles exist. That, I think, is good enough."

It was, all things considered, a rather philosophical way of ending the conversation.