"Master Servant of God, I have a question. Are you willing to answer it?"
Baron Howard put down the cleaning tools in his hands and used the translation program just written by Xingshu to chat with the slug priest.
The holographic priest who was supervising the baron's cleaning shook his head. Just when Howard thought that the other party was rejecting him, the priest replied in a positive tone: "Of course, as a priest created by the envoy of God, for the lost, It’s my job to answer people’s questions.”
It seems that in the other party's culture, shaking the head represents recognition, the Baron thought in his mind.
So he picked up the gilded vessel sitting on a stone table in the large room, wiped its smooth surface, and asked his question.
Who is Saaria, the Envoy of Enlightenment? If the holographic priest is just the artificial intelligence she left here to receive travelers, then where is she as the real owner of the temple now after thousands of years?
As if he had expected the Baron to ask this question, the Slug Priest hesitated for a moment before his tone became a little low.
"Pious believers, as you can see, the God Envoy has created many holographic sacrifices like me based on himself. Due to insufficient energy supply and lack of maintenance, most of the sacrifices have fallen into eternal slumber and cannot be used. Wake up again.”
"Unless a miracle happens, I should be the last priest of the Qiming Church."
According to Slug's description, more than 1,200 years have passed since the divine messenger Sa'aria established the Enlightenment Church. In the first hundred years since the church was founded, countless flesh-and-blood, living entity priests walked on this planet, bringing the blessings of forgetfulness given by gods to the believers of the church.
That was the most glorious moment of the Qiming Church. Countless space travelers who passed by Corbin IV were sometimes willing to stop here and accept the blessing ceremony personally hosted by the Lord God. This is why Slug is so interested in the Baron and others. The arrival was no surprise at all.
Because the group's second fleet was not the first alien visitor to come to the temple.
But more than 1,140 years ago, a war broke out between the native race of the divine messenger Zaaria, a civilized country born on Corbin IV, and an alien civilization.
In the following years, the opponent's powerful fleet annihilated the Qiming Church's skitarii like autumn leaves, destroying the peace-loving civilization on Corbin IV. Before the enemy fleet sailed away, they did not forget to burn countless lives on Corbin IV and everything they created.
The God Envoy Zaaria escaped from Corbin IV before that and went to a star system called "Asir" to escape the war. Through the fragments of information remaining in the database, the Slug Priest believes that there should be some kind of legacy left by the Church of Enlightenment in the Asr galaxy, otherwise the envoy would never leave her followers and escape alone.
Regarding the statement of sacrifices, Baron Howard was noncommittal, because the group's orbiting satellites did find many traces of orbital bombing and the remains of cities destroyed by nuclear explosions on the surface of Corbin IV.
But in his view, wars between civilizations are no child's play, and the Church of Enlightenment cannot be destroyed without reason. It is very likely that the slug priest is hiding something from him, or the other party actually does not know the secret behind the war.
In order to dig out the truth buried under the dust of history, Baron Howard fully developed his spirit as an archaeologist to break the casserole and ask the truth. He asked the holographic priest more than ten hidden trap questions to ensure that the other party really had nothing to hide. He breathed a sigh of relief after discovering the secret that might have led to the annihilation of the archaeological team.
Suddenly, his helmet scanner found several tiny gaps on the ground, and air flow surged back and forth between the gaps from time to time. Therefore, if nothing unexpected happens, there must be a dark room of unknown purpose underground in the sacristy.
"The cellar under my feet must be filled with the bones of travelers..."
The baron, who became more and more frightened as he thought about it, touched his helmet, as if this could wipe away the fine cold sweat on his forehead. After realizing that he and the archaeological team members might be in danger, he secretly sent an evacuation signal to others and chose to stay alone in the temple to deal with the holographic priest.
"All your friends have left. Can you tell me why?"
As the voice of the holographic priest sounded faintly from behind, Howard turned around, drew his pistol, pointed it at the gap in the stone slabs on the ground, and shouted: "There is another layer underground in the collection room! I can tell you the reason why they left, but before that, You have to tell me what the Qiming Church is hiding under my feet!"
Unexpectedly, the slug shook his head again, not at all angry at the revelation of the shocking secret, but calmly responded to the baron's question.
Although there were indeed mysteries hidden beneath the collection room, all the baron's dire conjectures about the purpose of the cellar were wrong.
What was beneath their feet was neither a trap strewn with corpses, nor a forbidding dark prison or torture chamber, but simply the private office of the divine envoy Saaria in the temple.
However, the Baron was not the kind of person who would let down his guard easily. After he stepped heavily on the stone floor tiles to show that he was not satisfied with the answer, he used the scanner on his helmet to constantly search for possible possibilities in the room. existing institutions.
"If you want me to believe you, take me to Zaaria's office. As the saying goes, seeing is believing. Only in this way can I rest assured that my friend will continue to serve Qiming Church."
Such an overbearing request obviously made the slug very embarrassed. Before it could refuse, Howard immediately added: "You are an artificial intelligence. As long as you have enough energy and maintenance, you can live forever. But have you ever thought about it, maybe Slug?" Aria didn’t mean not to contact you, but she died of old age in the Asr galaxy, so there has been no news.”
The Baron's words are not without purpose. As long as he is still flesh and blood, he will die one day, even if he is a divine envoy. Thousands of years are so long. Unless Saaria has permanently frozen his body, it is estimated that a dehydrated skin would be quite good now.
For a moment, the two people confronting each other in the collection room fell into silence.
The holographic priest is using its limited programming thinking to calculate whether it is worth opening the office of the envoy to outsiders in exchange for services, while the baron is thinking about how he can get out of the deep temple if there is really a problem with the Church of Enlightenment. The sacristy was cleared.
After an unknown amount of time passed, the slug priest shook his head and agreed to Howard's request.
"You may be right. There is a limit to the lifespan of a flesh-and-blood body, and even a divine envoy is no exception. As long as you are willing to help me restore the operation of the temple, I promise to take you to the office of the divine envoy."
"when!"
After hearing this, the baron couldn't help but snap his fingers with his metal glove, and praised the slug repeatedly, saying that he was worthy of being the last priest of the Qiming Church. He was indeed very intelligent, even though he was traveling among the boundless sea of stars like this. No traveler has ever seen a smarter artificial intelligence.
The priest who received the verbal promise did not hesitate, but closed his eyes and activated the mechanism in the collection room.
A moment later, a heartbreaking sound of rusty gears biting together came from all directions, and the sacristy room where the Baron was in slowly sank into the ground, falling for a full half a minute before slowly stopping.
The four smooth stone walls were also embedded tightly into the ground, showing the baron an unobstructed view of Saaria's extremely spacious office space.
Due to its location deep underground, the office is much better preserved than the dilapidated temples on the ground. Many luxurious furniture and religious utensils remain motionless in their positions thousands of years ago, full of the weight of history.
The baron's archaeological experience told him that these seemingly glamorous ancient cultural relics must be handled with care, otherwise they will fall apart in a blink of an eye and their value will be greatly reduced.
Soon, the densely packed blue crystal balls on one wall aroused his curiosity.
After pulling out the data tablet in his backpack and comparing it with the images on the mysterious scroll, the Baron discovered that the shapes of these crystal balls were very similar to the spheres held by the scroll priests, and could even be said to be exactly the same.
"It seems that this is the biggest secret of the Qiming Church."
After taking a closer look at the complex patterns on the surface of the sphere and the faint blue light that was still flickering after thousands of years, the baron turned to look at the holographic priest, waiting for him to take the initiative to reveal the truth.
"As you can see, these are the 'memories of sin' left by believers when they confess. Since most 'memories of sin' are trivial and have no value of being preserved, the envoy of God will screen them regularly. Select the 'Memories of Sin' with higher value among them and collect them for future use."
Stretching out its tentacles and pointing to the ring-shaped instrument not far away, Slug explained: "This device is the secret detector that the Lord God needs to use when selecting high-value sin memories. It can help the Lord God browse carefully. The content of sinful memories without having to bear the many side effects it brings.”
After further discussing with the priest the meaning of "confession", "memory of sin" and "the blessing of forgetfulness", the baron finally understood everything that the scroll wanted to say.
The orbs on the walls store the memories of the confessors, not their good memories, but their crimes.
These crimes can range from big to small, and most of them are trivial things, such as infidelity, wearing blasphemous clothing, exposing one's body in front of others, etc.
Although there are slightly more interesting sins, such as eating neighbor's children and pets alive, on the whole, the memory of most believers being removed from the chair is insignificant on the scale of civilization.
And the sinful memories worthy of being preserved by the angels are obviously not the boring memories mentioned above. Even if the holographic priest does not know the contents of these digital spheres, Baron Howard can guess it roughly.
The truth behind the Qiming Church's ability to rapidly develop into every corner of the world like a virus in the native civilization of Corbin IV, and even replace various countries, must be inseparable from this memory extraction technology.
The sinful memories of important figures such as politicians, military officers, and scientists serve as handles and weapons, which is enough for the divine messenger Sa'aria to take her enlightened church across the world in just a few decades, and ultimately put religion above civilization.
And the so-called Envoy of Enlightenment is probably just a title that Saaria gave herself in order to build momentum. Her true identity is most likely a scientist. After developing the technology to extract memories, instead of using it on the right path, this person went against the grain and used people's faith that had nowhere to place it to establish a religious empire that belonged to her alone.
After carefully checking the labels on the hundreds of memory spheres on the wall, the Baron was surprised to find that about one-third of them were the sinful memories left by the divine messenger Sa'aria himself.
But according to the holographic priest, frequent confessional rituals will cause irreversible trauma to the memory that the confessor does not want to lose. Unless the other party was lying to her, wouldn't Saaria's brain be turned into a puddle of mud by the side effects if she abused the memory extraction technology to herself?
With such doubts, Baron Howard connected with the communication with the ground troops, and after reporting that it was safe, ordered them to send a marine team to serve as security personnel for the central black tower to ensure that the work of the archaeological team could be carried out without any interference. carried out under the circumstances.
No matter why Zaaria wanted to extract his memories like crazy, since this temple of the Enlightenment Church has now become the group's asset, he has the obligation to protect all the items in the tower. Including hundreds of well-preserved memory spheres and the secret detector dedicated to the angel, all must be completely accepted by scientific researchers.
After arranging his work, Howard returned to the warm armored transport vehicle alone to regain his energy. Faced with the worries of his subordinates, he opened his eyes that he had just closed for a while and said with a smile: "At least we don't need to continue working in the dark now, no. ?"
"And I have a hunch that this ruins will bring unexpected surprises to the group."
