Under the night sky, the monastery was quiet and peaceful. Moonlight like thin silk poured down between the stars, washing away the last trace of noise from the day.
Only loneliness remained.
Silence—dead silence—was the true nature of this ancient building.
But right now, in one of its rooms, a fierce clash completely out of place with the calm outside was taking place.
Click, click, click…
The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The faint sound of gears grinding, turning, and colliding inside the mechanical clock was clear.
And the sharp scratching of a pen across paper.
Scratch scratch scratch!
"…"
Herbert stared blankly at his left hand, which held a quill and moved quickly across the page, leaving behind lines of gorgeous, twisted words.
When his left hand finally stopped, he picked up the heavy dictionary beside him and painstakingly translated what "he" had just written.
"What."
"Afraid."
"You… tch!"
[What are you afraid of?]
Looking at the translated sentence, feeling the teasing tone in it, Herbert's mouth twitched. A little annoyed, he used his right hand to write back:
"Afraid of what? You don't know? You seriously don't know???"
Heh.
What kind of question is that?
It's the middle of the night and I'm not sleeping. I'm playing spirit-writing and a talking board by myself.
What do you think I'm afraid of?
Of course I'm afraid of you!
After several rounds of testing, Herbert's last bit of hope finally died. He had to accept reality—he wasn't developing a split personality. He had really encountered a ghost.
Fine, maybe he could accept suddenly writing in elegant left-handed script. But there was no way he had magically mastered six or seven foreign languages of different races.
Just admit it.
Some dirty thing possessed me. I'm not clean anymore. Wuwu…
Scratch scratch scratch!
When the writing returned to the common language, it moved even faster.
[You're not afraid of me, are you?]
The other side didn't care about Herbert's slightly mocking tone at all. It even seemed more interested. The joy almost burst out from the words.
[No way? No way? No way?]
[You're a Holy Knight. How could you be afraid of me?]
Damn it, this ghost is like a bratty little girl.
The two of them used the same pen and argued fiercely for several rounds, filling several sheets with aggressive word battles.
Not long ago, when his holy mark warned him that his thoughts were being silently influenced, Herbert realized something was very wrong—the sealed object beneath the monastery was out of control!
This world was not safe. Evil gods, demons, devils, monsters… all kinds of dangerous beings existed.
Every monastery had originally been built to seal and suppress entities that could not be destroyed or killed.
Herbert didn't know what was sealed beneath the Mist Monastery, but he was sure of one thing—it was not something he could deal with.
There was no need to act brave. Very self-aware, he immediately wanted to call for help.
Come on.
This was the Mist Monastery, guarded by several legendary powerhouses. Even if something escaped, it wouldn't be his turn, a newbie Holy Knight, to show off.
With the big shots around, all evil would eventually be punished!
If I can just get some experience points, that's already good enough.
Sadly, good idea—useless result.
He wanted to shout for help, but his throat couldn't make a sound. Even breathing was hard.
He wanted to bang on the door, but his hand went weak before touching it, ending up only softly stroking it.
After every attempt failed, Herbert was guided by his "naughty left hand" to the desk, and had been talking with the hidden presence until now.
In the end, Herbert gave up first. He raised a white flag and, tired, wrote:
"So what exactly do you want?"
After half a night of arguing, though he still had no idea who the other party was, he understood at least one thing.
From the tone in its words, maybe there was ill intent—hard to say—but it didn't seem to want to kill him.
Call for help? Not allowed.
Seek death? Not allowed.
Even begging for mercy? Not allowed!
So you're just forcing me to argue with you by letter?!
Are you sick or what!?
[Oh? You finally believe I'm not something you made up in your head?]
"Believe, believe, I believe, okay? So then, great and mighty being, what exactly do you want me to do?"
In his previous life, Herbert had seen too many tragedies caused by trusting others too easily.
He would never believe nonsense like "I'm just lonely at night and want someone to chat with~." That kind of talk always leads to prison time.
Except for family, whenever someone is overly enthusiastic toward you, they want something. Power, money, looks… never an exception.
[What I want is not important. You will understand sooner or later.]
[Hehe. But you, young Holy Knight… have you truly thought about what it means to trade with an evil god?]
[Are you prepared?]
Evil god.
When Herbert saw the word, he narrowed his eyes. His expression turned serious.
Gods of the evil camp. True enemies of justice. They spread blood and fire, bring endless death and pain. Every Holy Knight would fight them at any cost.
After a long silence, he finally picked up the pen and slowly wrote the biggest question in his heart—
"Are you… a proper evil god?"
Swish!
[?]
Seeing the huge question mark covering half the page, Herbert curled his lips.
Look, you're already flustered.
Not steady at all.
Are you even an evil god? Or just a joke god?
Forget everything else—tell me, what kind of proper evil god forces someone to stay up at night arguing by letter instead of sleeping?!
Maybe that line hit too hard. The evil god actually went silent for a full minute.
[I see. You still don't believe me.]
[Fine.]
It said:
[I will let you personally experience the terror of an evil god.]
Hm?
Hm???
A very bad feeling flashed through Herbert's heart. Forgetting the pen, he quickly spoke:
"Wait! What are you going to do to—"
Thud.
Before he could finish, his consciousness cut off. He collapsed onto the desk.
He fell asleep.
That night, for the first time since arriving at the Mist Monastery, Herbert slept deeply.
And he had a dream.
A dream that was extremely lewd and absurd.
In the dream, he was surrounded by dozens of beautiful ladies from different races, carrying out deep and thorough academic discussions.
But just when the discussion reached its peak, those monster girls suddenly changed form!
"W-wait!!?"
"No no no!"
"Don't come closer—"
"Don't come over here!"
"At least not goblins!"
"Even female ones won't do—"