13 Mink Street

Karon drove Tiz to the hospital in the hearse.

Perhaps because of his previous encounter with a Beguiler while hospitalized, Karon still felt a slight nervousness with hospitals. It was something he would need to get over, since a significant portion of the family’s business came from such places.

Most importantly, with Tiz at your side, there was no need for any explanation to have a sense of security.

Tiz walked in front, with Karon following behind. Grandfather and grandson climbed the stairs to the inpatient ward.

Back when Mr. Hoffen had claimed, right to Karon’s face, that he “wasn’t Karon,” Karon had actually had actually considered if he should just strangle the old man on the spot. At the time, he had truly not felt safe.

That thought no longer existed. Whatever the matter was, Karon could leave it to Tiz to make a decision. The best part about being part of the Immers family was that if you ran into trouble, you could ask yourself, why not go ask Tiz?

Still, the fact that Mr. Hoffen, already with terminal cancer even before receiving a severe blow to the back of his head, had been repeatedly rushed in for emergency treatment, only to then be pushed back to his room alive each time, was genuinely impressive.

The old man’s will to live was astonishingly strong, as if he was doing sit-ups in his hospital bed.

The door to the room was open, so Tiz went right in and switched on the light. The caregiver who was supposed to be on duty was lying on the tile floor, fast asleep.

Tiz pointed at her, and Karon went over to help the woman up. Still half-asleep, she did not resist. If anything, some residual instinct remained, so with Karon’s help she was soon laid on the empty bed beside Hoffen. Upon clamping the blanket between her legs, she promptly fell right back to sleep.

Tiz walked over to Hoffen’s bedside. Karon pulled a chair over and placed it behind Tiz. The old man sat down.

Hoffen’s eyes were open. When his gaze fell upon Karon, disgust clearly manifested. There was no mistaking such a reaction. Karon had long since become used to it.

Then Hoffen looked at Tiz. “He’s here.”

“Oh?”

“I told him about the descent of the heretical god.”

“Mhm.” Tiz again gave a simple answer.

“I still think it’s not too late for you to kill him.” Mr. Hoffen was still trying to persuade his friend.

For a time, Karon had believed Mr. Hoffen was only clinging to life for one reason: the “heretical god” had still not died, so the old man could not die in peace.

Karon showed no reaction to Mr. Hoffen’s vicious provocation. Instead, he quietly picked up a thermos, rinsed a cup with hot water, and poured a fresh cup. The first cup went to Tiz, who accepted it.

When Karon poured the second cup, Hoffen automatically reached out to take it, but Karon kept it in his own hand, blew on it, and took a sip.

“...” Hoffen said nothing.

“He didn’t come to me first,” Tiz said. “As expected.”

“I think Rasma came here from the central church with you in mind. I said it back then, when you yielded the position of High Priest to him, doing so didn’t earn you his gratitude. It planted a seed of hatred that’ll last for decades. What he clawed after was something you could give away like a toy. That’s a kind of grudge that doesn’t stay small.”

“I’ve never liked taking mediocre people into much consideration. It’s tiring.”

“Heh.” Hoffen laughed. “You’re the same as ever. Even after all these years, you haven’t changed at all.”

“You can close your eyes and rest. He’ll handle the funeral arrangements,” Tiz said with a glance to Karon standing beside him.

The young man silently set his cup down.

“For some reason, even though I’ve been wishing he’d die already, the thought of a heretical god personally handling my funeral now has me so excited I can barely hold back. Is this the joy of breaking a taboo?”

“If you want more joy, have him call you ‘Grandpa’ too.”

“Who would care about a heretical god calling me Grandpa.” Yet right after saying that, Mr. Hoffen pursed his lips tightly. A glimmer of temptation flickered in his eyes.

Tiz said nothing.

Hoffen also remained silent.

Karon blew on cup again, and then set the warm water in front of Hoffen. “Grandpa, have some tea.”

“Heh...” Mr. Hoffen gave a contemptuous snort, but still took a sip.

After swallowing, he closed his eyes. His hands clenched and loosened against his will. His feet tensed and relaxed without him meaning to.

It was movement due to no longer being able to fully contain what he was feeling. He started to simply roll back and forth on the bed, laughter occasionally slipping out.

If Tiz had not been sitting there, unmoving, Karon might have thought Mr. Hoffen was having an episode.

It was a long while later that Mr. Hoffen finally stopped and resumed breathing deeply. “Tiz, I understand your kind of happiness.”

Tiz shook his head. “You misunderstand.”

“No. This is enough. I followed the teachings of the Church of Principle my whole life. I studied with all my heart. I kept the rules and restrictions. I never imagined that at the end of my life I would agree to go mad with you.”

“Do you regret it?” Tiz asked.

“It’s not a matter of regret; It’s just a shame. It’s a shame that I spent my whole life inside a box, only to jump out of it at the very end.

“And yet, there’s a kind of happiness that I can’t explain. Especially at night, when I’m sleeping, I’ll suddenly laugh for no reason. It’s like when I was a child, the sky would open up and it would rain. Once, I ran through the rain with other children. We didn’t care that our clothes got soaked through. We didn’t care that our mothers would punish us when we got home. We didn’t care about the mud caking our pants. We played in the rain, fought and laughed, jumped, and let the mud splash all over us. The feeling of that moment was truly beautiful.”

“Yes.” Tiz nodded.

“I’ve always envied you. Back then I was still young, I heard about a young man in the Church of Order who said to the elders themselves that Order was a mask only to be worn when necessary.

“Do you know what I thought when I heard that? I thought, ‘what kind of person says something like that? I want to meet him. How did he dare? How could he...’

“Sigh. Heh. Later, you saved me. I think it was already destined back then, that I was actually looking forward to the day you would drag me into madness with you. Maybe I should have learned divination, because that hunch of mine proved true.”

“Maybe,” Tiz agreed.

“But no matter what, Tiz, it’s good to have known a friend like you in this life. Of course, I also know you don’t lack friends like me.”

“No, Hoffen. I’ve never had many friends.” Tiz reached out and smoothed Hoffen’s thinning hair. “How many people can tolerate my personality?”

“If it weren’t for what happened to his parents...”

“It had nothing to do with his parents. I grew tired long ago. Maybe I walked too fast, maybe I experienced too early the same mental state as the last mad pope of the Church of Light; He said he didn’t believe the God of Light ever truly existed.”

“So that’s your loneliness, Tiz? How pitiful. A man without faith is pitiful.”

“Yes.” Tiz nodded. “But I have family, and I cherish my family. They are my faith.”

“Including him?”

“Yes, including him. My grandson, Karon.”

“You really care for him, I can feel it. Maybe my luck was just bad. I fell the first time I met him, so maybe I missed something.”

“Yes. Karon is very much like me. He’s exactly like me in my youth.”

“Don’t you feel sorry for him? If he’s exactly like you were when you were young, then in the end he’ll...”

“But there is one difference.”

“Where?”

“He has faith.”

“We all did. You did too, back then. What’s so strange about having faith?”

“But in his faith, there is no god.”

Hoffen’s eyes instantly flared. “Can faith without a god can still be called faith? A house without a foundation, how could one ever be built?”

Karon spoke, “A house is built by people, and they lay the foundation as well. A god has never added a brick or a tile.”

Hoffen stared at Karon. “Demonkin. A heretical god.”

Karon shrugged. He was used to being attacked by this dying old man.

“If your world has no god, what’s use of an empty house? At least a real house can keep out wind and rain. Heh.”

“I don’t believe in gods, but I have faith in truth.”

“Faith in truth?” As a believer of the Church of Principle, old Hoffen’s emotions surged at once.

Should I... bring this heretical god... into the Church of Principle? Good heavens, what an insane idea, and yet I want to try.

Karon saw the change in Hoffen’s expression, and knew the old man had misunderstood. The truth Karon believed in had no god above it.

Hoffen took out his cross necklace. The sight of it caused Karon to feel a sudden flare of pain again in his left palm.

Hoffen looked at Karon and said, “Take it, heretical god. This is a gift from your grandfather.”

“Thank you... Grandpa.” Karon carefully lifted the necklace by the chain, doing his best not to touch the cross itself.

Mr. Hoffen grumbled, “It hasn’t been prayed over. It won’t harm demonkin.”

“Oh, is that so?” Karon reached out and touched it with one finger. Sure enough, nothing happened.

Seeing that, Hoffen asked, “So the last time, it did burn you, didn’t it? Yet you pretended that nothing happened in front of me, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Karon admitted it openly. He even opened his left hand to reveal the cross-shaped scar in his palm. It was already fading.

Hoffen stared hard at the scar. “Do you know what that means?”

“I remember what you said. If I were demonkin, and held it willingly, I would be burned to ash. But I wasn’t.”

Hoffen’s eyelids drooped. “It means that you are a very powerful demonkin, a heretical god. The prayers of someone at my level, even with a holy relic like this, can only hurt your hide a little.”

Karon laughed softly. “And yet I’ve never noticed anything powerful about me.”

Mr. Hoffen said, “Your grandfather used to say that when he was young too.”

“...” Karon remained silent.

“Tiz, I’m tired. Truly. They came much too late.” Hoffen held Tiz’s hand. “There’s something I’m about to say that feels shameful now. I don’t want to say it, but if I don’t, I won’t have another chance.

“Tiz, do you know, in this life I didn’t just worship the God of Principle? I also always admired you. I admired the you from before. It’s a pity. After that incident, you sank into silence.”

Tiz leaned close to Hoffen and said softly, “I told you. It wasn’t because of Karon’s parents’ deaths that I fell into silence.”

“Wasn’t it?” Hoffen’s eyelids grew heavier. His voice grew softer.

“It was because I felt that I could no longer suppress my realm. I felt that I had already touched the essence of Order. I could not continue. I had to choose to suppress it, and I sometimes even needed to deliberately expend my faith power to force my realm to slip back. If not, I would have needed to enter the Temple of Order and become a temple elder, and that troubled me. Because compared to serving the God of Order up close, I prefer being able to sit at the same table as my family every night and eat dinner.”

Hearing that, Hoffen bared his teeth in a grin.

Then, the smile froze. He was gone.

Tiz straightened and said to Karon, “Bring the gurney up. We’re taking Hoffen home.”

Karon immediately ran downstairs and to the parking lot. He removed the gurney from the hearse, picked it up, and hurried back to the room. He was soon breathing hard from moving too fast, and yet he did not feel tired. Tiz’s words from earlier kept echoing in his mind.

Grandpa feels troubled because he can’t control his realm? In that case, just how strong is Grandpa, really?

So, that night of “indulgence” was never because Grandpa is an Inquisitor of the Church of Order, but because Grandpa himself has the necessary strength.

“Put it here.”

“Yes, Grandpa.”

Tiz grabbed Hoffen’s back, while Karon held the old man’s feet. Together, grandfather and grandson moved Mr. Hoffen onto the gurney.

“Let’s go home.”

“Alright.” Karon pushed the gurney, with Tiz walking beside it.

“Grandpa, who is Rasma?” Karon asked.

“A High Priest of the Church of Order.”

“He came to Swillen?”

“Yes. He was in Hoffen’s room before we arrived.”

“Hoffen already told him about the divine descent ritual?”

“Yes. Old Hoffen was holding on for so long because he was waiting for someone to question him. He was already exhausted.”

“Then we...”

“In a few days, there will be another grand divine descent ritual in Belwyn City. A powerful demonkin will attempt to summon a being that was suppressed by the God of Order in an earlier epoch.”

“A powerful... demonkin?”

“Compared to them, Alfred is a clown.”

“Then...”

“Compared to me, he is like Alfred is to you.”

“I understand.” That comparison made the demonkin’s strength clear enough.

“I told that demonkin of the method Old Hoffen helped me to refine, a grand divine descent ritual of the Church of Order. I also helped them with some preparations. They will fulfill their long-cherished wish, to summon a true heretical god. But they are destined to fail.

“That is because both their strength and realm are not enough. They are destined to be reduced to ash by the ritual. Most importantly, that demonkin does not have enough to offer as a sacrifice.”

“Then why would they...”

“Because of a dream. They know that they can’t really summon their ancestor, yet should they succeed, then before they and the altar vanish, they will be able to see their ancestor once and exchange a few words. That is what they want.”

“So we just...”

“Yes. I will help that demonkin fulfill their wish, while they will help me to erase all blame and suspicion from the last divine descent ritual. That’s why I told you that the ritual that had summoned you will not bring any repercussions upon our family, and we have no need to fear an investigation.

“In fact, before that ritual was ready, Hoffen and Pu’er were not the only helping with the preparations, but also them.”

Karon understood, it was a closed loop.

Mr. Hoffen had refused to die because he had wanted to be “questioned” before his death, so that all suspicions could be pushed onto the powerful demonkin. Then, that powerful demonkin would hold a “second” divine descent ritual, and the truth would be “revealed.”

Tiz had said he would never do anything as foolish as reviving one member of the family just to drag the entire family into the maelstrom. Facts proved that Tiz had arranged everything long ago.

Karon looked at Hoffen lying on the gurney. He could not help letting out a quiet sigh.

The old man who had kept calling him a “heretical god” and kept urging Tiz to kill him, had endured immense pain and refused to die, all to complete this closed loop for Tiz, all to protect the Immers family.

He had been a stubborn old man, and a lovable one.

Karon reached out and tucked the white sheet tighter around Mr. Hoffen. The Immers family owed the man a proper funeral.

With Tiz’s help, Mr. Hoffen was loaded into the hearse. The gurney’s wheels folded in, and the whole thing set into the rectangular recess in the center of the car. Straps were pulled out from both sides, like seatbelts, and buckled around the gurney. In the new hearse, so long as there was only one passenger, there would not be any jostling.

The last time, Mr. Morf and the editor-in-chief had only been hugging each other inside the car because they had simply been tossed inside and left there.

Karon started the hearse and headed home. Once on the road, he suddenly remembered a word Tiz had used earlier: offering.

Pu’er had used that word as well. She had been very curious about what Tiz had offered to complete the divine descent ritual. She had assumed that the divine descent ritual would not succeed, only to witness “Karon” come back to life. That meant that it had succeeded, so what had been the price? What had Tiz offered to the God of Order?

“Grandpa, can I ask you something?”

“Ask.”

“For the divine descent ritual, what did you offer?”

“Ask again.”

“What did you offer?”

“Your first question.”

“Grandpa, can I ask you some—”

“I’m tired.”

Then, grandfather and grandson both laughed. Seeing Tiz did not want to answer, Karon did not ask again.

The hearse stopped at the front gate. Karon got out first, lowered the steel ramp, unbuckled the straps around Mr. Hoffen, and guided the gurney down the ramp and out of the hearse.

Throughout the entire process, Tiz sat in the hearse, watching Karon do the work alone.

To revive his grandson, he had prepared to offer everything he had. For that, he had even undone the seal on himself, lifting every suppression he had placed on his realm. His realm, his faith, his power, even his life. He had already made himself ready. Whatever offering the God of Order demanded for the ritual, He could take His pick.

Tiz had believed that he could bear it. He had believed he could satisfy the God of Order, because he possessed strength infinitely close to that of a temple elder. The only difference was that Tiz had always refused to take that final step.

The temple that everyone in the Church of Order yearned for, the place that was closest to the God of Order, was precisely the place Tiz hated the most.

“Grandpa, shall we go home?” Karon had Mr. Hoffen steady on the gurney and was ready to push him through the gate.

“Alright.” Tiz got out of the hearse, and Karon locked the car. He returned to the front yard, and then personally pushed Mr. Hoffen’s body inside.

Tiz waited at the doorway, watching his grandson working, busy and steady.

Old Hoffen, even at the moment of death, had held back from asking that question.

Pu’er also wanted to know, and had asked Tiz multiple times.

Even he himself had asked, I know that this humble me cannot compare to you, but I still wish to ask devoutly, hoping for your guidance.

What, exactly, had Tiz offered?

He had told no one the answer. Even when his grandson had asked while driving home, Tiz had not said.

He couldn’t give an answer, because there wasn’t any.

He had started the divine descent ritual prepared to offer everything he possessed, only to discover, once it was over...

The God of Order had taken nothing at all.