Inside the Sanctuary of the Vast, Raven was writing, when warm palms slid over her eyes like dusk draping a silk veil.

No one worried about assassins slipping in like snakes through grass; the temple was the Divine Being’s proclamation on earth, a hawk-eye that missed no shadow, unless the Demon King broke the gates head‑on and tore the god’s anchor loose.

Besides, these hands were soft and warm, like bread from a hearth, carrying no chill, no scent of killing.

“You’re Elina, right?” Her voice rose like a smile under spring rain.

Raven pulled the hands down with a helpless sigh, turned, and met Elina’s bright grin and the twitching furry ears, quivering like grass in a wind.

“Weren’t you looking after Andor?” Her words drifted like steam over tea.

“Right now Andor’s heresy trial is underway, a drumbeat at noon you shouldn’t miss—Raven, have you gone foggy?” Her tone hopped like a sparrow on a rail.

“A little, yeah…” The answer fell like a leaf.

The girl rubbed her head, dropped her pen, and stretched wide like a cat basking by a window.

Translating and copying was heavy as wet sand, and Raven was a work-obsessed soul, often laboring till sky and sun blurred, like night swallowing the horizon.

There was another reason—no, most of it—she wished to drown in tasks like sinking under river water, to forget the tragedy Andor suffered because of her.

When she recalled Andor carried back by Stini, his body scored with wounds like clawmarks on old bark—no, stop; thinking only deepens the ache like salt in a cut.

“I’m nobody, not a princess, not a leader, maybe even with a bounty inside the Heretic Inquisition, so I can’t attend the trial; I can only ask Stini… wait, Elina, you didn’t go?”

“Ah, this humble self is the agent of the Vast Deity, so of course I’ll be there; but even if the High Divine Healer hinted I should manage the Sanctuary of the Vast, it concerns the Heretic Inquisition, a body under the Divine Being, so I must tread like a crane on thin ice.”

“At most I can state my view, cast a faint shade of displeasure toward the Heretic Inquisition, and keep a stance like two banks of the same river, neither side aided.”

She pressed a hand to her full chest and sighed, like wind slipping out of a bell.

“Priests, even an agent like me, can’t float beyond good and evil like a cloud that never falls; the world’s a tangled forest.”

Raven’s expression dimmed like a lamp in mist; she wanted Elina’s full support for Andor, yet people carried their own weights like stones in a sling, and asking more felt unfair.

Elina had given them a sheltered room, a cave under rain, insisted on questioning the Heretic Inquisition, and refused to surrender Andor, shouldering pressure like a mountain that might slow her future in the Sanctuary of the Vast.

Raven looked at Elina’s gentle smile, and warmth spread like hot tea through chilled fingers; it was a steadier glow than the strained smiles at the Sanctuary of Life.

It’s still Elina—our partner—who feels steady as a warm hearth in winter.

Raven answered her partner with the same soft smile, like moonlight answering a quiet pond.

“This humble self got scared, not brave enough to watch till the end, so I slipped back early; but we can set our hopes on Stini—oh my, I’ve never seen such daring, questioning the Heretic Inquisition right in the trial like a sword raised at noon.”

“Think of how many stand with Andor—the maids, Beatrice with Abigail speaking for her, and others—and the heart settles like silt in clear water.”

“Right, this humble self prays all goes smooth as silk through a loom.”

“Now we can only pray to the Divine Being,” Stini had joked before, like a pebble skipped across a lake at dusk.

“No, we mustn’t pray for that,” Elina admonished, her voice firm like a bell calling dawn; doctrine says we may ask the Divine Being only for things beyond our power, tossed by luck, and never for victory over others.”

Yet Elina’s cheeks puffed like soft bao buns, her tone sticky as sweet rice, with no edge of authority, only a cozy warmth like quilted cotton.

Raven bit back laughter like a fish holding its breath underwater, and raised a hand in apology.

“Alright, I get it—sorry, sorry, won’t do that again.” Her words landed like pebbles in sand.

“Mm! That’s better… so, what are you writing, Raven?” Her curiosity peeped out like a fox from brush.

Elina pointed at the manuscript on Raven’s desk, and Raven nodded, a lantern tilt saying yes.

Elina picked up a page to browse, and her face shifted like a sky gathering rain.

“Raven, this is…”

“Useless things, a heap of no‑value, no‑meaning things.” The words fell like dull hail.

Raven felt honest fatigue now, like dusk settling after a long vigil; she’d finally recovered from nights beside Andor that had frayed her spirit like rope.

She wiped away drowsy tears like dew at sunrise, and began to speak, loosening words buried in her chest like seeds under soil.

“You know about the Truth Seekers Assembly and me… right?” Her voice trembled like a reed in wind.

“I know.” Elina’s answer was quiet, a stone at the riverbed.

“The Truth Seekers Assembly is a band of fanatics; I still can’t accept Professor Nagash saying ‘let the Divine Being leave the world,’ when the Divine Being rains so much grace on this land like spring after drought.”

“I know his theory points true like a north compass; we humans should strive to live by our own hands, but… does no one need to die for that? Why demand death?”

“He could’ve used his learning and long years to slowly sway the world like a tide, he really could’ve.” Her breath shivered like heat over sand.

Raven drew a long breath and let it out, an ebbing tide stroking stones.

“Sorry, I lost my composure,” she said, the words like a cooled blade.

Elina dropped her usual girlish haze and listened like a true Divine Healer, ears still as night water.

To listen to sorrow, to cup another’s trouble like water from a stream—this was a priest’s most sacred craft.

“Off-topic; anyway, this is their legacy.” Raven patted the stack at her side, a small mountain under lamplight.

“Maybe the Heretic Inquisition thinks I took some world‑ending thing, a storm locked in a box; but besides one sword, all that’s left are these papers, and I don’t plan to wield that sword.”

“The Truth Seekers Assembly was led by Arcane Engineers, though it housed all sorts, but many Arcane Engineers joined for Nagash, so we saw it as an Arcane Engineer guild.”

“We—no, they—studied a field of things, yet the heart of it was this: ‘When the Divine Being leaves the mortal world, when there’s no godpower, even no magic, what technology remains.’”

“Truly, relics empty of value, empty of meaning, like shells without pearl.”

Raven lifted the translated folios, tapping them one by one like raindrops on tiles.

“‘Bandage and surgical care without Divine Art,’ ‘On the loss of godpower in transport and countermeasures,’ ‘Fuel beyond magic,’ ‘Classes of plague and compounding of remedies.’”

“They were thinking hard, plowing the soil for humanity’s future if the Divine Being left the world, like farmers mapping fields under a bare sky.”

“But it’s worthless, it’s meaningless,” she said, the denial hard as frost.

“The Divine Being loves the living, and won’t leave people groping alone in a cave; what if kings and leaders find only a road to death?”

“If the world had no godpower, how many would fall to storm and drought like stalks in a bad season?”

“How could mortal lands lose all magic, the nightly stars of our age?”

“They—Nagash, Lily, Paroti—died for this, this trash, this straw bundle; fools, colossal fools!” Her voice cracked like thunder beyond the ridge.

“What’s precious about this? Staying alive is better than any scrap!” The shout leapt like sparks from dry tinder.

Raven bared her teeth and roared, a wolfish cry under iron clouds, yet this time she shed no tears, not one drop of rain.

So no one needed to clutch her or kiss her to pull her back to shore; she stood like a pine under snow.

She was strong; for pain and grief she allowed herself one storm, and that was enough, refusing to become someone forever mourning like a willow by a ruined bridge.

Past things pass like rivers to the sea; time won’t rewind, so lament is wind with no harvest.

Efficient in deed and iron within, the alchemist Raven Segrito carried herself like a blade kept bright.

Embarrassed once before Andor, needing his kiss to find herself—once was enough, a single mark burned like incense.

The girl vowed in her heart, a promise knotted like red thread, not knowing that a single kiss left a sweetness that took root because of her strength, like a seed sprouting in stone.

She straightened her attire, recalled noble etiquette like a dance taught in youth, sat demure, and sipped tea in small stitches like embroidery.

“Anyway, that’s it—useless things the fools prized above life; Elina, can you help me?” Her request came like a lantern offered in shade.

“Mm… ah‑mm, if it’s within my reach!” Elina started like a sparrow roused from sleep.

This friend, as a Divine Healer, wasn’t quite qualified; she was meant to listen and guide like a monk under cedars, yet the speaker’s words moved her like strings drawn tight.

Raven hoped Elina would grow steadier in time, like wine deepening with years.

“Please deliver these translated manuscripts to the Truth Seekers Assembly,” Raven said, her gaze steady as a riverbank.

“Aren’t they already crushed?” Elina’s question hung like mist.

“Their headquarters is gone, yes, but strangely the Heretic Inquisitors haven’t dug into other branches; they just ordered disbandment like a seal stamped and done.”

“There’s one in SkywardCity too, small and low‑key, nothing like a great house such as the Sanctuary of the Vast.”

“Understood, I’ll help,” Elina said, gathering the papers like leaves, “but this kind of legacy should be handed over by you, like a torch passed palm to palm.”

“If I could, I would,” Raven answered, the wish warm as a hearth.

Together they sorted the scattered folios into order, tied in a neat bundle like bamboo bound with cord.

“But they refuse to see me,” she said, the truth blunt as a stake.

“How come?” The question pricked like a thorn.

“Before Andor’s trouble, Stini took me to a branch, and we got a shut door, a wall like granite.”

“Later I understood—my impatience; I told the Heretic Inquisitors I had fully defected from the Truth Seekers Assembly, so they lacked cause to hunt me.”

“If I rushed to contact the Assembly now, the road might turn dangerous, a cliff under fog.”

“I see,” Elina said, lowering her head like a bending reed, then suddenly added, “Then, what if this humble self betrays you?”

“…Beastfolk bluntness, speaking straight as a spear, really isn’t priestly,” Raven said, her tone wry as bitter tea.

“Ah, sorry! I spoke out of turn!” Elina clapped a hand over her mouth like a lid over a pot, forgetting the papers, which scattered like leaves on a path.

She crouched to gather them again, flustered like rain on tiles, and Raven laughed, the sound bright as a bell.

This Divine Healer had no schemes and no malice, only simple, clumsy honesty, words like stones tossed clear.

“No, I trust you,” Raven said, her voice warm as evening light.

“We’re partners, we’re friends,” she added, a bond tied like knots in red string.

Elina smiled too, and a peaceful warmth filled the little room in the Sanctuary of the Vast, like winter sun through a window.

This was a small tale that unfolded like a paper fan while Andor faced the heresy trial.