"It was a mission related to Hawrin's past," Rem answered. "I made the mission available in the Mission Hall for someone to investigate the village where Hawrin used to live. I wanted them to find out the truth about what happened in the village on the day of the Priest of Light, who was Hawrin's father."
"It was a pretty basic mission, just to interrogate the people of the village and the neighboring towns," he continued. However, now that he knew that it could be true that Gabriel actually took the letter, he also couldn't help but try to find something wrong with it.
Why would Gabriel take the mission letter? Why would he try to delay the mission? Unless this mission was somehow related to him?
"A mission to investigate the day where Hawrin's family was killed by a Dark Mage? Why would he care even if we investigate it? Even if the Dark Mage who did it worked for him, that wouldn't change anything, will it?" Yoan inquired.
"I don't think there's more to it than that," Rem commented. Now that he could look at the bigger picture, he was able to take an educated guess.
"I am sure that the person who killed Hawrin's father and brother was him." He pointed at Gabriel's name. "And he killed Hawrin now..."
"We were looking at it all wrong! We thought that his main goal here was to take the treasures, but if he really didn't care about Hawrin as much as his main goal, why would he be so hasty as to kill him and make his own mission hard?"
Rem's question was enough to make the others seriously think about it to understand what he was trying to say.
To make it easier for them, Rem straight came to his conclusion.
"If I'm not wrong, Gabriel is actually his real name. Karyk was the fake name that came with his fake persona. The reason he used Gabriel as his name is because he wants to leave a legacy behind in the Academy! It isn't that he wanted to hide that he was Karyk!"
"Moreover, one thing is for sure. Gabriel hated Hawrin and his family... He killed Hawrin's father and his brother. And now, he killed Hawrin, even at the risk of making things hard for him, instead of waiting. That means his anger wasn't light."
"Think about it. Gabriel is supposed to be someone who can even kill a Holy Priestess of Water. How could a simple priest make him so angry that to wipe his own family, he had to put his life at risk?"
"You're saying that it wasn't a small enmity," Eliana said, getting the gist of it.
"Before a Holy Priest, what could a weak town priest do to offend him to this extent? Nothing. The strength difference was too high... When he was a Holy Priest, that is. But what if that enmity started before he became a Holy Priest?" Rem further stated.
"An ordinary Priest and his son couldn't do much to a Holy Priest of Darkness who was capable of killing a Head Priestess of Water, but they could definitely do a lot of things to instill this hate in a young man's heart who didn't have the strength..."
Even though some of Rem's assumptions were wrong, like Gabriel being a priest of Darkness or him being the one who killed the Head Priestess of water, his conclusion was quite close.
With that line of thinking, he continued with his explanation, "In other words, I think that Gabriel hadn't awakened his Element when his enmity with Hawrin's family was established."
" I don't know what they did to someone who hadn't awakened his Element, but it was enough to fill him with such hate that even after all this time, he still chose to kill Hawrin first, even if that meant putting his entire mission at risk," he added before finally stopping, observing the reactions of the others to see what they thought about his theory.
"That... Does make sense. Hawrin was certainly given a painful death. He was broken completely before being healed and then being broken until his soul crumbled before the pain," Lishen could also see that this story made sense if they matched it with Hawrin's death.
"Doesn't that also mean that this Gabriel was from Hawrin's village?" Yoan grimaced. "Doesn't that also mean that Gabriel only awakened his Element a few months ago at best? And with that, he's already so strong? Was the Element of Darkness really that strong?"
Yoan didn't live during the time of the Great War of Churches, but even he knew that Holy Priests shouldn't have had such fast growth where they could kill Head Priestesses with such ease.
They were thinking that Gabriel had at least more than a year of training, but if he really had the enmity as they talked about, that would mean that he awakened right before he attacked his Village and even killed people there. From that time to now, only a few weeks have passed. Could someone really be that talented?
"It's possible... His talent is over two hundred after all," Lishen smiled wryly, scratching the back of his head. "Even though it seems unlikely, it's not impossible. Moreover, maybe he also had the help of someone else when killing the Head Priestess of Water? So he could be strong, but not strong enough to kill a Head Priest alone."
"So the reason he took the letter was so the mission could be canceled. He didn't want his story to be out for some reason..." Rem commented.
"So Hawrin's villager turned out to be a Holy Priest of Darkness. A young man awakened his element and was selected by Holy Grimoire. He was instantly strong enough to kill a Priest. This wasn't a small thing, and there's no way the Church of Light wouldn't know about this!" Xinci exclaimed.
She was quite angry at the Church of Light. "Those bastards misled us with half information! They made us believe that an old Mage of Darkness killed Hawrin's parents, not telling us that it was a mage who had just awakened!"
"No wonder Hawrin said he wasn't allowed to talk about such things. The Church of Light wanted to keep this a secret," Lishen couldn't understand what the Church of Light could be thinking when they came to the decision of keeping such a thing a secret.
"They probably found it embarrassing to accept that a Novice Mage of Darkness killed one of their Priests," Yoan scoffed. "Those bastards will really do anything for their pride."
"No. I don't think that's it..." Rem disagreed. "They could've at least told us and warned us if it was just about a young mage killing. There was definitely something more to it..."
