The horse carriage slowly came to a stop on the street, from which a man disembarked and looked up at a run-down house.
"That will be three copper coins, sir" the coachman's voice made the man regain his senses. He then reached into his pocket and took out three copper coins with his hand wearing black leather gloves.
If one took a careful look, they would notice that this man's pinky and ring fingers did not move at all inside the glove.
Taking out a familiar key, Chromie opened the door and stepped inside. Looking at the dusty interior of the house, he put the luggage in his other hand down and sighed: "I've finally returned"
It had been three years since the descent of the Evil God, with many important things happening during this span of time.
The Evil God's descent of three years ago had allowed many ambitious people to notice the weakness of the Sun Shadow church, rousing more and more criminal individuals to display their talents and challenge the authority of the church.
The biggest one among them was the mysterious organization called the Impure Hermit Order, which had taken in an innumerable number of members and remained hidden throughout several nearby cities, becoming an illegal organization that spanned across more than one region.
Their core members consisted only of elites, while their peripheral members had reached a terrifying amount; in the region of Lohr, they were even hailed as the Lords of the Night.
While Chromie, after that incident, was first arrested by the church, his Tome of Sacrifice was confiscated, followed by a round of interrogations.
However, the interrogation itself wasn't continuous, as the church had clearly undergone great changes since that event, even their 'interrogation' of Chromie was done in a glossed-over manner.
It was later on that Chromie understood the error in his choices from the beginning. With so many church personnel at the scene, they still couldn't manage to stop the Evil God, and yet an unrelated suspicious individual like Chromie managed to kill him; this was essentially a slap in the face for the church as a whole.
Quite a few church members had even planned to have Chromie executed using his possession of the Tome of Sacrifice as an excuse. But in the end, he managed to survive.
Chromie uttered a heavy sigh, for the last three years, he had gotten more and more accustomed to sighing like this, perhaps this was also a price he had to pay.
The hired workers soon arrived at the Farnate manor and began their clean-up. As one of the men was about to pick up and carry Chromie's luggage into another room, he stopped him and carried it himself.
His luggage contained a set of clothes, as well as a grimoire. It was the Tome of Sacrifice that he both loved and hated to death, having been returned to him after it was confiscated by the church.
During this span of three years, for one reason or another, Chromie had performed three more sacrifices.
The first was the sacrifice of his fear, from which he gained an ability called Fearful Spirit. Periodically, he was able to infuse himself or his tools with Fearful Spirit, which allowed him to harm souls or entities residing in another aspect of the world.
The second was the sacrifice of his left eye, which was done as a one-time sacrifice to perform Petrifying Gaze, thus turning a certain dangerous monster into stone.
The final was the sacrifice…
"Sir, we've done cleaning up" the worker's words woke Chromie up from his reminiscing. Regardless, he had gained much success over the past three years.
The Farnate family name had been redeemed, and he had also achieved his father's dream. The Farnate family had now become a renowned name of Lohr, he had now gained the rights to bathe in the light of God at the highest square of the church once a month during Spirit Cleansing day, although he wasn't particularly devout in his faith towards the Eternal Heat.
Despite all of that, Chromie found that he couldn't feel happy as he watched over his now-empty house.
He had been through a lot over the past 3 years, leaving his desires towards honor, authority, and wealth to all become extremely lacking.
"Olga…" that girl who accompanied him that year was naturally no longer here. When he was imprisoned in the church's underground prison three years ago, due to the internal changes of the church, not too many people had paid attention to him, so Olga had probably assumed that he was dead and left.
For the past three years, the one he felt that he had owed the most to was Olga, but what could he actually do now even if he sought her out in his current state?
Knock knock!
With a clear sound of knocking on the door, a familiar yet foreign voice resounded from outside: "You must be mister Farnate. I'm your next door neighbor"
"You may call me Gomech, or if you feel inclined to be a bit more intimate, you may also call me Olga"
Chromie turned around in disbelief, only to see Olga Gomech wearing a light blue formal sundress as well as a light yellow hat standing at his door, a light breeze caused her hair to flutter slightly, as beautiful as she ever was.
Chromie's expression became stimulated, he instinctively wanted to walk forward and hug her, but stopped as soon as he saw his own leather gloves. He was no longer himself from three years ago, he could no longer smell the fragrance of food, one of his eyes was now made of glass, six of his fingers were now missing, even if he embraced another person, he would not be able to feel the slight pain of a tight hug.
At times, he had felt like he was now a monster, an incomplete monster, but he would not feel scared about it, because he no longer had a sense of fear.
"What? Aren't you going to greet me?" Olga apparently did not notice Chromie's strangeness and spread her arms wide, as if she had never changed at all.
"No, I was just feeling a bit melancholic" Chromie then proceeded to embrace Olga, feeling an unprecedented sense of peace in his heart.
However, Chromie didn't notice that when Olga hugged him, her gaze became a bit surprised, which then turned into a deep sense of sorrow.
…
〖 So, Chromie has returned? 〗
On top of the clock tower, what used to be a simple room had become especially complicated, the relatively narrow space had also grown over 10 times in area, while the grinding sound of the clock's gears never stopped.
Negary sat still, facing the varied members of the Hermit Order. His gaze seemed to contain an intense level of pressure, as anyone who faced him directly soon lowered their heads.
"He has returned" the one who replied to Negary was a man in a baggy black robe, his expression was completely calm, as if nothing in the world could ever change it, he then slowly continued: "Some members have gone to give him a welcoming gift"
〖 Merritt, I'll leave you in charge of that 〗Negary replied to the black-robed man.
For the last three years, Chromie had been working as a member of the Sun Shadow church's newly-established department, the Saint Hunters, in other regions. Very recently, he completely wiped out the headquarters of the Impure Hermit Order in another region.
A large number of Impure Hermit Order members were captured, which caused them quite a bit of loss, while due to his contributions in that affair, Chromie was both promoted and allowed to return to Lohr.
Watching the members slowly leaving, Negary stroked a black gear wheel in his hand as his eyes became incredibly profound, the huge disk of gears around him constantly turning.
〖 Very soon, it will all be completed 〗Negary smiled and tossed the gear wheel in his hand into the air. Everything in the world was one gear in a greater machine, and by turning the correct one, it shall turn the next and eventually reach the outcome one desired.
The black gear was then tossed forward, falling out from the clock tower and quickly descended below. As it landed, it continued to roll forward until it finally stopped on the side of the road, where a yellow-furred dog noticed it, barked out aloud twice, then swallowed it whole.
