Chapter 160
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How much Abel ran here and there after Eir disappeared, only God would know.
At first, he sought help from the nearest temple, but the priest refused his request, saying that even so, they couldn’t wastefully deploy forces for a criminal’s sake.
“I told you. She’s not a witch, I tell you. I confirmed it with my own eyes.”
“But even so, the fact that she’s a criminal doesn’t change.”
“She’s destined to be punished when she goes to the Central Temple anyway. Even knowing that, you still can’t help?”
When he spoke with such desperate sincerity, the person before him retreated with a troubled face. But at the same time, he answered resolutely as if he couldn’t understand why Abel didn’t know this.
“Aren’t you and I both servants of God? Why don’t you understand that it’s not the result that matters, but the intention behind the action? No, you do know. That’s why you told me the truth, isn’t it? If you had asked me to lend forces from the beginning by saying you needed to take a criminal to the Central Temple, who would have refused your request? But you too kept your faith in God by telling the truth, and I too must refuse your request for the same reason.”
It was a fair point.
Abel had also disclosed everything honestly to him because he couldn’t abandon his faith.
In the end, he concluded that in this situation, only those who truly understood and cherished that woman could help him. After all, among everyone in this world, there was no psychological or material reason for anyone to help that woman.
Except for one person.
“This is insane. What if I get beaten up?”
Of course, Abel could count on his fingers the times he had been beaten by his brother. He had only stayed in the mansion until he was about ten years old, and Rubel wasn’t the type to build brotherly bonds through physical fights.
There was an age difference of about four years between him and Rubel, but Rubel was the one who made Abel feel that he was difficult to approach and instilled a desire to be like him, more so than Magnus, the eldest son. Rubel too was generally generous to his younger brother who looked up to him, so the relationship between the two was relatively smooth.
Except.
‘Brother! I want to learn the swordsmanship you practice!’
Except, Rubel had such clear boundaries that when Abel took them lightly or didn’t treat them as seriously as he did, he would use all his strength to engrave in his bones that he was wrong.
That’s how Rubel nearly beat to death the five-year-old who came wanting to try what his brother was doing, making it perfectly clear that this was the way of the swordsman.
Since then, Abel had never been beaten by Rubel, but because that memory was so intense, Abel’s first thought when he did something wrong to Rubel was that he might get beaten.
But what could he do?
Now he had to clean up the mess he had created.
After all, accidents—the longer you drag them out of fear, the more uncontrollably they grow.
And he was certain that his brother would already know about all of this. He had never seen his brother abandon something he cherished without doing anything.
So Abel, believing the news that his brother was at least imprisoned and couldn’t move, headed to the Central Temple. By riding his horse hurriedly, he was able to arrive in two days.
When he insisted on meeting his brother immediately, people made way, thinking something urgent had happened in the family. After a simple body search, Abel passed through several layers of barriers and went to where Rubel was imprisoned.
Gulp.
Abel swallowed nervously and paused for a moment. Through the iron bars, he could faintly see Rubel sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the bed.
He seemed to have lost none of his control of the place despite being imprisoned. Well, everyone knew he wasn’t truly imprisoned but merely kept there for show.
“B-brother.”
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