System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 124
Cold wind slid through the library’s second-floor window and lifted the stray hairs at Yar’s temple. Yar shaded his eyes from the sharp white light outside, rubbed his sore eyes and wrists, and spoke with a touch of complaint,
“Roy, you should look at the sky, we’ve been searching all afternoon, it’s nearly dark. You must understand I’m only a common man, and I’m short-sighted; I don’t have your witcher’s altered body. Can I rest a little first?”
“Come on, friend, one more push.” The witcher’s voice was loud, still full of spirit, showing no sign of fatigue. “If we reach one step sooner, we can rescue Letho from the killer sooner!”
“And you said this morning you’d seen the idea of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ in a travelogue? Let’s flip through the travelogue again, we’ll surely find it!”
“How I wish I had already copied every book in the library, then we could find it at once.” Yar wailed and bent his head back into his books.
For a long while the empty library echoed only with the quick rustle of turned pages.
At some point Yar’s heavy eyelids were about to shut entirely; his eyes reddened, tears ran, his eyes, narrowed to slits, skimmed a volume and suddenly widened.
He slapped the table and sprang up.
“Roy, come look, I found the book!”
“Well done, truly—The Travels of Van Zerren...” Yar opened the yellowed hardback, reached the first page, his slender finger tracing the words as he read aloud,
“Van Zerren, 1168–1239, a Temple of Melitele missionary, travelled south to Nilfgaard before 1215. After ten years traversing much of the southern lands he returned to the Temple and wrote this book. The work details the customs, beliefs, and culture of the Nilfgaardian Empire.”
“Page thirty-nine, City of Golden Towers...”
Roy leaned close to Yar and read every line without blinking.
“Today I arrived at the Nilfgaardian Empire’s capital, the City of Golden Towers. Set upon the River Alba, this magnificent city is the Empire’s heart. In the local mind only the City of Golden Towers and the folk who dwell nearby may be called true Nilfgaardians. Residents of other regions of the Empire do not enjoy that honour.”
“It adjoins the Yaruga River and boasts the south’s largest harbour, a natural advantage that made it the southern economic centre.”
“More than that, it is the south’s religious and cultural hub, home to the headquarters of the Nilfgaardian ‘greatest religion.’”
“The rise of the ‘greatest religion’ dates back to 1207. Then Emperor Fergus var Emreis enacted sweeping political and religious reforms, and from the south’s many sects emerged a single dominant faith, the Cult of the Great Sun.”
“Fergus var Emreis declared the Cult of the Great Sun the state faith and named himself High Priest of the Cult of the Great Sun, placing cult clerics in civil posts to unite secular authority and divine authority, thus tightening unity within the Empire and concentrating power.”
As a man of the cloth Van Zerren dwelt on the Great Sun.
“Glory to the great sun! Praise the sun! —Nilfgaardian hymn.”
“The Cult of the Great Sun came to stand above all in the south. Where the Temple of Melitele is female-led, the Cult of the Great Sun is male-led; its High Priest and clergy are men.”
“These men, drunk on power, believe all life is sheltered by the sun; it is giver of life and mankind’s protector, but it is also cruel and devastating.”
“Unlike Melitele’s soft proclamations of mercy and kindness, the Great Sun’s shadow is terrifying.”
“By chance I unearthed a secret hidden in the Great Sun.”
“In a concealed scripture Fergus var Emreis wrote the Seven Deadly Sins as warnings to the cult’s inner circle: Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Pride.”
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