Iron Powder and Spellcasters Chapter 329

   Chapter 329 The Oath

   "The vast majority of people in Tiefeng County regard you as one of mine, whether or not this is the case, am I right?"

   "So your actions represent not only you, but also my attitude, can you understand?"

   "After a very tough battle just now, the last thing Tiefeng County needs now is internal strife. I can't go to war with the Catholic Church, you should also know that."

   Except for the head start when he entered the door, Winters did not have any excesses.

   He calmly laid out the facts and reasoned with Kaman, without any reproach in his tone.

"Father Edmond just gave me an ultimatum." Winters sighed heavily: "You should come and discuss things like this with me first. Otherwise it will become like this - putting me in a very passive position. situation.”

   Kaman's cheeks were red to purple. He stood up stiffly, bent down reluctantly, and his voice was as small as a butterfly flapping its wings: "I'm sorry."

   Winters actually had a little bit of teasing Kaman, after all Kaman always ignored him on weekdays.

   But seeing Kaman bow and apologize because of his guilt, Winters did not feel any sense of pride, but was very uncomfortable.

   "Hmph, with such a good attitude, I'm really not used to it!" Winters hurriedly pressed Kaman back to his seat and joked, "You didn't really cause any trouble, did you?"

  Kaman heard the words and stood up again.

   Winters smelled a tinge of danger.

   "Mr. Kaman." Winters leaned on Kaman's shoulder and asked, "Are we friends?"

  Kaman was stunned for a moment, then glared at Winters angrily.

"We've been through so many things together, even if we're not friends, we're very close. I'll never betray you, and I believe you won't betray me." Winters said seriously: "But I don't know if I'm involved yet. In something, I think you should give me some explanation."

  Kaman hesitated, he struggled for a long time, and finally gave up: "I once made a secret oath before the true holy emblem..."

  It's good that Kaman didn't mention it. When he mentioned the “Oath of Secrecy”, Winters was aroused instead-because the last time Kaman mentioned the oath of secrecy, he was talking about magic.

   Winters immediately walked out of the room and ordered Ciel to stay outside the door, not allowing anyone to approach.

After    closed the door, Winters poured Kaman a glass of water: "The oath of confidentiality? Can the oath be said? Is it rigorous? I can find loopholes."

  Kaman sneered disdainfully and did not answer.

   "How about this? I'll ask you a question, you just answer 'yes' and 'no'."

  Kaman shook his head: "No."

   Winters proposed several more solutions, all of which were rejected by Kaman.

   "Well, I see. As long as you give any response, you will break your oath." Winters became more and more interested: "It's quite strict."

   "This matter won't involve you for too long." Kaman said hard: "I just need to buy some time."

"Suppose there is another country in the East, suppose that country has another pagan church, and suppose that pagan church in that country has another oath of secrecy..." Winters interrupted Carman, who paced the room: "We are talking about fiction, can we bypass the oath?"

   "You can deceive others, but you can't deceive yourself." Kaman shook his head: "Even if you can deceive yourself, you can't deceive the Lord."

Winters didn't seem to hear Kaman's words, he stopped and came up with the final plan: "There's no other way, that's it - I'll state it, you don't have to answer, you don't have to make a statement, you just listen to me Just fine."

  Kaman was a little annoyed: "Why don't you understand? If I tolerate you talking about this topic, it is likely that I have broken my oath."

   "Maybe?" Winters caught the loophole in Kaman's words: "You said 'maybe', right? Since there is a possibility, it means that there is still room for flexibility in the oath."

  Kaman closed his mouth angrily.

"I'm a little curious, so how do you guys who have made an oath of secrecy communicate? Could it be that the oath restricts you to 'talk only to another person who has made an oath of secrecy'?" Catching the opponent's omissions, he continued to attack: "Then I also make an oath, can you tell me?"

  Kaman's shoulders and hands were shaking.

"Forget it, I won't talk about that today." Winters rationally decided not to continue to stimulate Kaman. He poured himself a glass of water, and whether Kaman wanted to listen or not, he said to himself: "Ronald The major mentioned in his letter that he rescued an old slave from the Hurds who claimed to be Father Saul, other information unknown..."

  Kaman sat expressionlessly.

   Winters paid careful attention to Kaman's expression. For him, Kaman did not get up and leave means victory.

   oath? No matter how rigorous the oath is, it is people who carry out the oath—people are the biggest loophole.

   "...After the old slave who called himself Father Saul came to Zhongtiefeng County, you were the first to see him..." Winters paused for a moment and said word by word: "And you hid him."

  Kaman stared at the water glass without any response, but his emotions betrayed him invisibly.

Winters' tone was flat, as if he was chatting: "You want to act secretly, but there is no airtight wall in the world. The monks of the Gervoudan Abbey learned about this and reacted more violently than you expected. In desperation, you borrowed in my name—or rather, you want to use my name to scare them away and buy you time..."

  Kaman stared at the water in the glass, as if there was an apparition of the Virgin in the water.

  Winters sat back in the chair, with a bit of reproach in his tone: "Why are you so innocent?"

  Kaman raised his head sharply, his eyes stabbed at Winters.

   "Since you borrowed my name, you can't hide it from me! Look, didn't Edmond come to me directly?"

   Turning a blind eye to Kaman's angry eyes, Winters commented in a leisurely manner:

"I thought you had a special status in the church. What happened? Even a few country priests couldn't hold back! That's how the church treats magic users? I'm really surprised, how does the church balance power and magic? You don't rebel?"

   "Enough! You treat us as you?" Kaman was simply furious: "The status of priests is equal, and there is no distinction between high and low by God!"

   "Equality? What are Holy Orders?" Winters asked, "Why are some bishops, some priests, and some poor enough to starve?"

   "Holy orders are a sacrament, a mission and a responsibility! When reaching out and knocking on the gates of heaven, everyone is equal!"

   "Mission? Responsibility? Do you believe in what you say?" Winters raised his chin.

  Kaman rolled up his sleeves: "[Though the emotions are violent but the vulgar language has little lethality]!"

   "Okay, okay." Seeing that he was about to experience the death-type magic, Winters quickly stopped: "I didn't come to debate with you. Didn't the big debate end 30 years ago?"

   "I only ask you one thing." In an instant, Winters' expression became cold, and Kaman was caught off guard by the rapid change in his emotions.

   Winters asked coldly, "Where is the captive?"

   A quarter of an hour later, the Gervodin officer's quarters.

   turned around, and Winters actually returned to his residence.

   Winters figured it out--why did Father Emmond bribe him in shame? Why didn't the Abbey of Gervoudan simply kill first and then report?

  Kaman hid people in the blood wolf's lair, who dares to reach out?

   "You hid people here?" Winters asked Kaman in surprise.

  Kaman was a little embarrassed, but still had a cold face: "Stay temporarily."

   "I mean." Winters pointed to the kitchen door, a little disbelieving: "Anyway, people are also priests, so you put them in the kitchen."

  Kaman was even more ashamed: "This is what Brother Saul asked for himself."

   pushed the door open, the kitchen was warm. The fire was burning vigorously, and the pot was "gudugudu" cooking.

  A gray-bearded old man was hunched over the stove, peeling beets.

   Winters could never have imagined that the "heresy" that the Iron Peak County Church had to clear up anyway was actually such an old man who was dying.

The old man was not surprised by the arrival of Winters and Kaman, as if he had expected such a moment.

   He narrowed his eyes to see who was coming, nodded as a greeting, and continued to lower his head to peel the beetroot in his hand.

   Winters walked over to the pot and looked at the thick soup that was simmering.

   "So this morning's soup is your craft." Winters smiled helplessly: "No wonder it has some prairie flavor-I thought I was thinking too much."

   "Just boil it."

  Winters couldn't help laughing: "Isn't the Hurd's stew just random cooking?"

  The old man also showed a knowing smile, only Kaman stood awkwardly.

   "Old man, I want to ask something. But he won't tell me." Winters pointed to Kaman: "Then I can only ask you."

   "Please." The old man picked up another beetroot and continued peeling: "If you want to listen."

  Winters sat on the ground, because he was taller than the old man, so their eyes were on the same level: "Have you not made any oath of confidentiality?"

   "Stand up."

   "Can you say that you have taken the oath of keeping secrets?"

"Can."

   "Brother Saul!" Kaman said anxiously.

   "Brother Kaman." The old man known as Saul slowly peeled the beet: "I have been excommunicated."

  Kaman was speechless, he pushed open the door angrily and left.

   "He doesn't want to listen, so he's gone." Winters got up and filled two cups of hot soup and sat back down: "Alright, we can talk slowly."

  The old man was noncommittal.

  Interrogation usually starts with name, age, and origin, but Winters doesn't care about that. So he went straight to the point from the very beginning: "Why does the Church of Geraldine have to kill you?"

  The old man was silent for a moment: "Because I belong to the [Renovation Order]."

   Once the thread ends are found, the next step is easy.

   "Renovation Order." Winters continued to ask along the key words: "What is it?"

   "Renovation Order is..." The old man's hand stopped, and Winters' incomprehensible complex emotions appeared in his dry eyes, but only for a moment.

  The old man continued to peel the beets: "A group of people who have died."

   "It's okay." Winters took a sip of the hot soup: "I have time."

  What is the nature of man?

   The pursuit of reason? Or unstoppable blindness?

The form of    dualism is obviously ineffective, but even the most pessimistic philosophers of human nature have to admit that there are times when the pursuit of reason prevails.

  Because it is human's instinct to explore the laws of all things, even in the face of "God", human beings will want an explanation.

   So we can see the following wonder: the foundation of orthodox scholastic theology is rigorous logic, and scholastic theology can be logically self-consistent when it accepts its given premises.

The same is true of    magic.

   From the very beginning of the Catholic faith - not the Church - magic was seen as a miracle, a grace of the Lord, a gospel preached by the Lord through the hands of the clergy.

  The ancient empire originally revered the old polytheistic religion, and extremely rejected the "pagans" who believed in Catholicism. Massacres and persecutions were not uncommon.

  The original Catholicism was a religion belonging to the poor. "It is harder for the rich to go to heaven than for a camel to pierce the eye of a needle", so it was powerless to face the butcher's knife from the ruling class.

There is only one way for   Catholicism to survive: to destroy its opponent and replace it.

   As a result, the Catholic Church, which was originally spread among the poor, began to take the initiative to get close to the powerful, and even transformed itself to cater to the ruling class.

The    catholic church—a tight, centralized organization—also took shape at this stage.

  In the end, Catholicism was officially accepted as the sole state religion by Constantine the Great.

   From then on, the Catholic Church took advantage of the power of the regime to systematically eliminate the old religious system and despised it as "paganism".

   And in the battle between the Catholic Church and the old religion for the upper class, the unique magic is the most powerful.

   As the position of the Catholic Church became more and more stable, and when it was so stable that it could not be shaken, the priests of the Catholic Church finally had the time to think about a question:

What is    magic?

   Magic is of course the grace of God, but how is it realized? Is it logically justifiable?

Is    magic a complete miracle? Or is the practitioner involved to some extent?

   If it is the former, it means that the magic can be stripped; if it is the latter, what is the ratio of the two?

   Once the fire of doubt is ignited, it will immediately spread out of control.

The discussion of    became more and more, and tit-for-tat views began to appear, and the Eastern Church and the Western Church of the empire even faced serious opposition because of this, which was called "the first debate" in history.

   For the church, this is a debate about truth. But for the ruling group, it was an imperial hemorrhage.

  The emperor at that time was Dalek II. Dalek II had no interest in theology and did not want to watch theological debates at all.

  What the emperor wanted was peace and honesty.

  Therefore, Dalek II finally issued the [Edict of Mia], which forcibly quelled the first dispute in the way of "you are all right, but no further discussion is allowed".

   If the apostles who fought hard against pagan beliefs and laid the foundation of catholicism a hundred years ago heard the content of the first argument, the apostles would probably slap the table and curse on the spot: "I think you are all fed up!"

   But there is no way, once people get rid of the crisis of existence, they will start to think about the meaning of existence.

The   Edict of Mia temporarily quelled the debate, but did not resolve the underlying problem.

  The clergy who were forced to shut up turned their heads and began to search for the classics, hoping to find evidence to support their side from the historical archives.

   However, there is no initial record of magic in the scrolls—a complete blank.

   Instead, someone found something else—a description of pagan magic.

  Although most of the words about pagan beliefs have been erased by the victors, there are still a few words that prove that paganism also has the ability to "achieve extraordinary things", but its value to the powerful is far less than that of catholic magic.

   This discovery caused an uproar. If paganism also has "magic magic", then... it means that Catholic faith has become a castle in the air.

The    Catholic Church was immediately divided into two factions.

A group of    shouted hoarsely, "Don't explore any further! Divine magic is God's grace and miracle. Pagan magic is the devil's black magic, and it is an unclean force."

  The other faction firmly believes that "it must be checked, otherwise the teachings of Catholicism will always have logical loopholes and will never be perfect".

   In the end, it was the emperor who quelled the dispute.

   This time, Dalek II did not have any trouble with the mud. He fully supported the "Miracle School" and launched a brutal purge of the "Exploration School".

The    Inquiry School was branded as a heretic, and most of the Inquisitorial clergy were arrested, tried, and burned at the stake.

  Alive clergy went underground and fled to the edge of the world—to wild places beyond the reach of emperors and the Catholic Church.

  The history is called "The First Great Rupture".

  The exploration of divine arts has since become a taboo in the Catholic Church, and relevant content is not allowed to be viewed, discussed or even mentioned.

"Dalek II, and the clergy of that era, they may think that this is the end of the matter." Old man Saul turned his back to Winters and reached out to the fire: "But you know what the most terrifying thing is. The echoes of the first Great Rupture still haven't dissipated."

   Winters was fascinated, he kept sipping the hot soup, unaware that the cup was empty.

"As Dalek II had expected, the controversy subsided, for a long, long time. Ancient empires were destroyed, and new empires were built on his corpse. The Catholic Church fell and flourished. , is still flourishing. All the warm lands have been converted, so the Catholic Church began to send missionaries to the north in a planned way.” Old man Saul pondered for a moment: “That was probably five centuries ago.”

   Winters was in a trance for a moment.

"Then, the monks who went to the north to preach found out." Saul's shadow fluctuated under the fire of the fire: "The 'demi-gods' of the barbarians in the north possess the unique magic of the Catholic Church... They can even achieve even more amazing miracles."

   [orZ]

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   (end of this chapter)

Chapter end