Glan Natural Science Academy

The small town of Agate Lake was located in the hinterlands of Glan Principality.

The bone-chilling wind from the extreme north blew and Ryger, who wore ragged burlap clothing, couldn’t help but curl up. He thought of how he would face his father’s disappointment back home before leaving the church in a daze.

His mood was low and he felt sad.

Unconsciously, Ryger walked to the front of Bob’s bakery and stood behind the queuing crowd. He raised his head and looked at the caged double-headed parrot at the entrance.

“Hey, you good-for-nothing. Why don’t you eat less? All you do every day is to eat, eat and eat. It’s because of you that I’m so fat now. Can you stop eating that much?”

The other head that was eating bread crumbs replied: “Shut your mouth up, nag. I’ll peck you to death If you keep squawking.”

The talkative head was scared and turned its head away. It noticed a dumbfounded Ryger who was looking at it and spoke rudely: “What are you looking at, asshole? Never seen such a handsome parrot before?

Ryger scowled at the parrot. Fortunately, the line of people in front of him was getting smaller and soon it was his turn.

The owner of the bakery was a tall, portly man with a lot of facial hair. He looked downwards at those buying his bread. The man was Bob, the person who took away Ryger’s position as a preacher away from him by donations.

The soft, tantalizing white bread in the window display made Ryger’s stomach growl. But he was helpless to buy it. Ryger pointed to piles of black bread and spoke: “I’ll have a kilogram of black bread.”

Bob received 20 copper coins from Ryger and passed him the cold, hard bread. His eyes moved over from Ryger to those behind him.

Ryger took the bread and held it tightly in his embrace in hopes of making it softer with his body head. He curled his body and ran back to his house over the bone-chilling wind.

 

Squeak.

Ryger closed the wooden door and hung the black bread onto the wall. He then added two pieces of firewood to the fireplace and shivered slightly due to the warmth.

Cough cough!

Ryger’s father, who was on a sickbed, looked at Ryger and tried to make a praying posture. “Thank you, Light God for sending my son home safely.”

“Father.” The room reeked of the smell of blood. Ryger looked at his father who was undergoing bloodletting, then at the focused doctor. He spoke concernedly: “Doctor, how is my father doing?”

Through a syringe, the doctor released the blood in Ryger’s father into a wooden basin.

Drip, drip, drip. Blood flowed without stop. It was as though only through this way can the filth in the body be removed for new blood, borne of faith, to take its place and defeat diseases.

In this era, bloodletting is the one-size-fits-all panacea for all problems. It is also the only therapy available to the commoners in distant land who could not afford to pay for the benedictions of pastors.

The doctor wiped the blood off the needle of the syringe and calmly said: “I’ve released the filth in his body. What happens next will depend on how pious he is towards the Lord.”

“He’ll recover for sure!” Said Ryger  resolutely.

The doctor said nothing more and left the wooden house with silver coins.

 

Ryger’s father was a famous hunter in the small town. It was only because of this could he spend silver coins to allow Ryger to learn literacy and attempt the exam to be a preacher.

Unfortunately, he was attacked by a proteus1 this fall. Thereafter, his wounds from it would be slow to heal and even after numerous bloodletting therapy, his body didn’t get well. Instead, his body got weaker and weaker. Many people in the town spoke among themselves that it’s because he wasn’t pious enough.

It was because of this that Ryger pleaded with the pastor to allow him to become a preacher – he wanted to prove that his father was a pious follower of the Light God.

“How did it go?” The mood in the room was terrifyingly depressive. The only sound audible was the crackling sound of the burning firewood.

Faced with his father’s query, Ryger said nothing. He didn’t dare to look at his father’s disappointed gaze.

After getting rid of his father’s blood in the basin, Ryger went to his room. He closed the door and sat on the bed. Only then did he cry out of guilt towards his father. He blamed himself for not being able to become a clergyman and let his father receive the mercy of the Light God.

He held out his hand and looked at the strands of warm light in his palm, lost in thought.

The power of prayer, also known as the power of light. The Light god is real. Every pious follower can feel his existence. Some can even summon part of his power, called the power of light or blessings, into this world. The only way to summon this power is through pious belief. By expanding the number of believers, rallying lost people to join the faith of Light, one would be able to gain the favour of the Light God.

 

Humanity lived in a region called the land of Star-Veil which included numerous principalities. Other than the Light God, there were many local gods who were subordinate to the Light God. Several foreign races2 such as elves, dwarves, halflings, barbarians and others live near many principalities but most of them have mixed and blended into human society without any conflict in religion2.

But at the other end of the vast Furnace Desert, in a terrifying region called the land of Night, there lived a group of heretical organisms. Little is known about that land, but what is well known is that it is a land of evil that every newly instated pope would, without fail, send a crusade to.

Other than that, there was the vast and endless sea. It was said among pirates that beyond the vast sea populated by giant aquatic beings were wide continents. Some even claimed that they saw cities floating in the sky although it was later deemed to be a bunch of nonsense.

The fact that there were unimaginable, horrendous creatures living deep in the ocean, however, was true.

 

Ryger awoke from his dazed state. The light in his band slowly faded away and he felt a slight fatigue. The summoning of divine power places great burden on the body for all mortal men. Even though the divine power summoned by Ryger had no practical use except to show the existence of the Light God in front of faithless fools, it still made Ryger feel slightly tired. From this, one could only imagine the burden carried by the pope when summoning the power of Light.

Ryger shook his head to disperse the tiredness.He took out The Great Canon of Light and read it to strengthen his belief.

“The Light Creator-Deity created Heaven and humans should have lived in Heaven without worry. Yet because of desires, they opened the Box of Original Sin, the world of Star-Veil, and thus fell into it. Only through selfless dedication can they complete their redemptions and then return to Heaven. “

“Ryger!” Father’s voice came from outside the door. Ryger, who was reading The Great Canon of Light, quickly rose up and ran to his father’s room.

“Cough! Cough! Cough!” Ryger’s father was sitting against a bed and had arranged neatly some objects on the bed. Ryger was able to see that the objects were a book, a strange necklace and a badge. He lifted his father and grumbled: “You should rest.”

Ryger’s father was a stubborn man. Even though his body was so weak after several bloodletting that it would tremble when sitting, the stubbornness in his eyes were still present. “I know my own body. I know that I’ll be gone before the end of winter.”

“No! The benevolent Light God will show compassion because of your pious beliefs. Even though you’re misunderstood by those in the town, God clearly knows your piety.” Ryger had always tried to avoid this topic.

The father’s look towards Ryger became more compassionate than ever before, as if looking at his beloved on her deathbed 17 years ago. “Your mother was the most pious Light follower in this world and also the most beautiful woman. She dedicated everything she had to the Light God. At the last moment of labour, she chose to offer and sacrifice herself. She left all her love to you. “

Ryger kept his head down and said nothing. For 17 years, never, even once, was his birthday celebrated. For that day was his mother’s death anniversary.

“As for me… heh heh. The Light God’s mercy?” All of a sudden, the father’s dignified, pious face changed to one full of self-deprecating pain. With flowing tears, he looked guiltily at Ryger. “How could the great Light god give mercy to a descendant of the sorcerers and whose body flows the dirtiest of blood?”

Sorcerers? Weren’t they the stuff of legends? Weren’t all of them burned to death at the stake by the Church? Ryger looked at his father incredulously. Is this person the father who thanked the Light God everyday when his son came home safely? He’s actually saying he’s a descendant of the sorcerers!

“You’ve heard it right, Ryger. You and me, our ancestors are the sorcerers who spread the Black Death, who sowed terror in that dark age, and who were later on crucified by the Church.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Ryger kept moving back. Ryger kept denying his father’s words. He was a pious follower of the Light God; how could he be related to the sorcerers. It’s impossible!

Legends say…

It was a dark age when death and fear enveloped the land. The sorcerers possessed powers that ordinary people couldn’t hope to fight against. They collected the blood and eyes of children for wicked experiments. They wantonly attacked all members of the Church of Light. And at the peak of the dark horror, they even unleashed a pandemic of death. The horrifying Black Death rampaged and at one point made humanity face extinction. Cities were overflowing with corpses and few villages survived.

Later on, only after the sorcerers were crucified, their body immolated, their sharp, sorrowful wail dissipated for long did humanity manage to survive and reproduce, establishing principalities one after another in the process. 

“No! That’s impossible!” Ryger’s face was completely ashen.

“Cough. Cough! I, too, asked my father. He left only one sentence.”

As he coughed, unnatural flushing appeared on his face. Struggling, he said: “This land will never be our home3!”

Footnotes

魔兽. Lit. translation is magic(al)/demonic beast. I used monster but later chapters made me decide against this. Let’s hope that there isn’t any deep meaning behind the nameI’m not particularly sure whether to use species or race. You’ll probably see me use both interchangeablyI can’t help but feel that there’s some nuances here lost in translation