I was in Seclusion for so long that everyone forgot about me

After leaving the gate behind and crossing a swing bridge—a mechanism that could rotate on both sides to allow ship traffic—I was surprised by how much humanity had advanced. Sure, many of these mechanisms were new to them but not to me, yet even I noticed magical gears powered by enchanted ore in ways I had never seen before—only speculated about.

Like that paladin, Richard, had explained, we only had to follow the street. In fact, the church was already visible from the middle of the bridge. It was situated in what looked like an overgrown arena, the structure itself at its center, surrounded by a circular arrangement of tall grey stone pillars. The church had a blue roof, its main entrance facing the road, framed by dense greenery—trees, bushes, and well-kept grassy areas.

To the right, the vegetation thickened into something resembling a small forest. The river bordered the area like a natural boundary. I was sure there was more hidden behind the publicly accessible space—perhaps something sacred or ritualistic. This entire place radiated a peculiar holy energy. Unlike the suffocating, overbearing presence of those paladins, this was something subtler, less intrusive… at least from the outside. If there was a place where those struggling with the System would seek answers, this was it.

Aska was silent, simply taking in the view of the city and the extent of human progress.

Funnily enough, most people ignored us, which made me smile. I wasn’t as out of place as I had feared, especially since I noticed a significant number of people I could only assume were adventurers. Their attire, their weapons, their mannerisms—it was obvious. Most of them moved in pairs or small groups, only a few daring to travel alone.

Unfortunately, none of them were particularly impressive. Some were obviously mages, but their mana… Goddess, had humans grown that much weaker?

'That’s not a very fair comparison, you know?' noted Aska.

I gave her a questioning look, and she rolled her bird-like eyes in exasperation, making her look somewhat comical.

'First, you’re freakishly powerful. Complaining that ants are easy to squash doesn’t say much about the ants. Second,' she added, stretching her wings slightly, 'I was already one of the strongest humans alive in my time. Comparing me to them is basically the same thing.'

'Huh. I didn’t think of it like that…' I admitted.

I sometimes wondered how powerful Aska really was compared to others. I doubted she would struggle to wipe out this entire city if she wanted to. On a System-level power scale, she would likely be categorized as a demi-goddess, maybe even on the verge of full divinity. Okay, now I wondered how she would fare against my fabricants or one of my Téada.

And speaking of gods and goddesses… That other paladin had mentioned that ordinary people could become demi-gods through the System. But would the divine really allow that? Would they risk someone becoming powerful enough to overthrow them using something they had created? There was definitely more to it, but I doubted that priestess would have the answers I needed.

'Speaking of priestesses, we’re here,' Aska said through our link.

The heavy wooden doors groaned as I pushed them open, a cool breath of air rushing past me as I stepped inside. Immediately, the shift in atmosphere was palpable—outside, the streets were bustling with noise, but within these walls, silence reigned, as if sound itself dared not disturb the hollow sanctity of this cursed place. Some kind of enchantment, perhaps? A rune? A concealed magic crystal?

Even Asche seemed skeptical about this place; she had never been particularly pious. 

I paused at the threshold, watching how the interplay of light and shadow shaped the space. Sunlight streamed through towering stained-glass windows, but unlike anything I had seen before in crude human architecture, these were made of iridescent, prism-like shards—a material that had not existed in human lands ten thousand years ago. 

The fractured light cascaded in shifting rainbows, scattering across the polished stone floor and the high, ribbed vaults above. The theatrical display of colors, shifting as if alive and responding to the faintest motion of my hands only deepened the hatred I had for those structures. They were a Spiel designed to deceive those who entered by creating a mirage of sham holiness and awe—something they were expected to bow before, like the miserable worms the so divine perpetrators saw them as.

Only more prose lined the long nave stretched before us, flanked by towering columns. Though slender, they soared upward into pointed arches, their surfaces adorned with gilded carvings of celestial figures and curling, dragon-like forms.

"Dragons?" I mused, wondering how humans had allowed the depiction of other races in a house of false beliefs within their own capital.

'Maybe this church isn’t exclusive to just one race?' Aska suggested. 'The paladin mentioned something about class changes and similar things. Maybe this is a place for everyone connected to the System, regardless of their beliefs?'

That made sense. My gaze drifted upward, tracing the shimmering golden details. They gleamed under the fragmented light, casting elongated shadows across the smooth stone in a way that I wondered if humans had truly built this place. It was suspiciously heathenish compared to what I remember them to be like. Did they change… or were they forced to? 

Only more questions came up when I noticed that between the columns, tall candelabras with enchanted magic crystals flickered, their imitation flames reflecting off the surface, making the entire space breathing with a quiet, living glow. This place was wrong, as if something was lurking up there.

I took a cautious step forward, my boots tapping softly against the polished floor. As we moved deeper into the heart of the church, we passed rows of dark wooden pews, each lined with the same intricate gold embellishments curling along the edges. 

'There is so much gold in this place, it’s sickening. Also, you keep repeating yourself,' noted Asche. 

I grimaced, 'I know, I’m just trying to get some sense into this weird structure. It feels simply wrong, repulsing.'

Asche breathed in, her elemental form quivering, 'Ugh, this horrid stench really isn’t my strong suit.'

I had to agree, the air was thick with the scent of aged incense and something electric, something other—as though magic had seeped into the very stones.

I wondered how many of these materials could be useful for my own creations.

At the center of the church, beneath the great domed transept, we were forced to stop. Urg. A line of people stood ahead of us, waiting. At the front of it stood someone who looked like a priestess draped in ceremonial attire, her presence demanding attention. She was younger than I had expected for someone in such a role. I couldn’t hear what she was saying to those before her—some kind of barrier muffled the conversation.

I could have tried to bypass it, but why risk throwing away an opportunity like this?

'Let’s wait like the proper citizens we are~,' I said to Aska.

'Proper… sure,' she replied doubtfully.

Now waiting, I looked above us. A massive chandelier made of cut glass and yet more fucking gold-plated metal hung from the high ceiling. It wasn’t just a simple ornament like the others, though—its prisms captured the ambient light, scattering it in dazzling beams that flickered across the walls like the restless, caged spirits they actually were. I could see them, their souls bound to this place, serving as just another vicious purpose of exhalting the divines. 

Beneath them, embedded into the very floor we stood on, a circular design shimmered faintly, as if etched with the blood of countless of those light spirits. Their broken forms screamed a harrowing chorus that might sound to mortals like the voices of angels but, to me, were only wails of endless agony. 

'This is sickening,' Asche agreed. I did us both a favor and blocked their voices from reaching us.

Ahead of the priestess, beyond the final stretch of the nave, an altar loomed behind her, bathed in an emerald glow. It was crowned by an enormous relief of a dragon, a human, and an elf, not carved from stone but formed from what seemed to be pure, refracted light—a mother spirit. The dragon’s wings stretched wide, its head bowed slightly, and its many-faceted form pulsed with shifting hues, reflecting the false radiance of the floating crystal above the altar.

I exhaled slowly, resisting the urge to destroy this blighted place on the spot but to feel it with my soul. The vastness, the weight, the presence of the being lurking above was omnipresent, pressing in from every direction in a suffocatingly irritating way. This was more than a house of worship. It was a threshold between the mortal, those devils, and the System. My eyes returned to the fossilized body of the mother spirit an—

‘She died waiting for you, protecting their loved ones,’ a dull voice echoed in my head

‘Tortured for an eternity for denying the new gods,’ another one joined.

‘Forced to listen to her screaming children.’

"Who do those voices belong to?!" Asche demanded inside my mind.

‘A requiem for how you failed them all.’

‘Their cries won’t stop just because you refuse to listen.’

‘They sing the song of their people, of their slaughter by the divine.’

‘They believed in you, in your return.’

“What the fuck is happening?!” screamed Aska in my mind.

‘YoU aBaNdOnEd ThEm.’

‘yOu AbAnDoNeD tTeM.’

‘YOU ABA—’

I gulped down a vial of my medicine. The voices stopped as if they had never existed. 

Asche’s voice was gripped with plight 'What was that? I almost would have—'

'Side-effects. Don’t worry. Once I find a way to use the System, all these problems will vanish.' A wicked smile spread across my lips. As repulsive as this place was, if not here, then where else would I find answers?

Asche clearly wasn’t happy about how much I was withholding from her, but she didn’t have to know. 

Eventually, I had enough. 'Aska, can you do something so we don’t have to wait this long? This line is moving at a snail’s pace,' I asked.

The harpyja-mix gave me a look, her amusement clear. 'I knew you couldn’t wait.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Yeah, yeah, Mrs. Know-it-all. Any ideas? I think anything I do would throw off the balance of this place and summon a bunch of zealots.'

'Let me think of something.'

Only a few seconds later, she spread her massive wings and soared upward. Instantly, every person ahead of us turned in shock. A deafening shriek echoed through the sanctuary, the acoustics amplifying it into something ear-splitting. Almost everyone—except me and the priestess—clutched their ears in pain.

Then she landed right before a group of three young girls who had just finished speaking to the priestess.

The guards stationed at the edges of the room were not pleased. They immediately began moving towards her, hands on their weapons. But before they could reach her, the priestess raised a hand, stopping them in their tracks.

Only then did I notice something odd about her. A white satin blindfold covered her eyes, adorned with intricate golden embroidery.

Then, she pointed at Aska, then at me, and gestured for us to approach.

Smirking, I strode past the line, ignoring the angry stares directed at me.

As we reached her, she was about to raise another barrier—so I raised one first.

The world around us vanished. Now, within a sealed space of my own making, no one outside could hear us.

Unexpectedly, the holy messenger didn’t react. "A fine barrier," she remarked instead, praising it.

Aska cackled. 'She’s not the least bit afraid of you.'

'I’m not trying to make everyone scared of me, you know. I just don’t want any eavesdroppers,' I replied.

The priestess smiled faintly. "That is a magnificent bird you have there. And you, as well—there is something… missing. I cannot feel any connection to either of you."

She tilted her head slightly, curiosity evident in her voice. "Tell me, what has brought you here?"

"We have questions about the System. How it works, what it does, how we can get inside of it," I stated.

The priestess raised an eyebrow. "Those are rather… unique questions." She stepped closer and extended a hand. "May I?"

I nodded and allowed her to take my hand.

She remained silent for a few moments before speaking again. "Curious. Very curious. I feel no connection between you and the System, nor any of the gods. It’s not as though you were removed from it—you were never part of it to begin with."

Her grip tightened slightly, a furrow forming in her brow. "But… there is a connection. A single thread. It seems as if—"

I seized her wrist, and in an instant, my soul surged forward, jagged tendrils of pure darkness latching onto her own like barbed hooks. They slithered through the unseen fabric of her being, twisting, boring deeper, unraveling her defenses fiber by fiber. Her breath hitched—no, choked—as the invasive presence of my soul coiled around her very essence and physical body alike, sinking in with a force that wasn’t meant to be resisted.

Aska screeched in alarm. "Whoa, calm down! What the fuck just happened?!"

I tightened my grip. "What. Did. You. See?!"

The priestess gasped for breath, her lips trembling. "I—I couldn’t—see it…"

Her soul didn’t lie.

I released her, and she collapsed to the floor, coughing, struggling to catch her breath. But just as I was about to retract my essence from hers, something caught my attention.

Something that shouldn’t have been there. A seal.

The priestess, still clutching her throat, looked at me with widened eyes. She felt it too—the moment I had touched something hidden deep within her.

I narrowed my eyes. "Who are you, really?"

She stared at me, confusion spreading across her face. "I—I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Her soul spoke the truth.

Aska flapped her wings sharply, exasperated. "For fuck’s sake, could you not start choking people the second they touch you—after you let them? Goddess, you can’t just go around grabbing people like that!"

"Hard to not react when the System keeps messing with my seals," I muttered, annoyed. "Remind me to adjust them later."

My gaze flickered back to the priestess—if she even was one. "Are you aware there’s a divine seal locking something away inside your soul?"

She blinked in stunned silence. "H-Huh?"

"You know, before tearing through someone’s soul, maybe you should at least ask for their name first," Aska remarked dryly.

"Fine," I relented. "Are you that priestess called Alicia?"

She nodded, still recovering from the sudden exchange. "I am. May I ask yours?"

"You can call me Aska," the harpyja said first.

"Call me Asche," I responded.

'That’s my name!' Aska protested.

'What does it matter? It’s not like I have one,' I said, shrugging.

'How about Bitch?' Aska suggested.

With a flick of my fingers, she was launched into the barrier with a satisfying thud. I swore I heard a weak, "Worth it…" as she slid to the ground.

Alicia’s expression turned panicked. "Wh-what just happened?!"

"The bird-brain flew into the barrier," I said, completely truthfully. "She’s not the smartest, you know."

"O-Okay…"

"Anyway," I continued, turning my attention back to her. "Priestess Alicia, it seems you aren’t aware of your own condition. An easy fix. I co—"

"No!" she interrupted, stepping back. "If there is a seal, then there must be a reason for it! Everything the gods do is for a reason! We are their lambs, guided by their brilliance."

"Suure," I drawled sarcastically.

She suddenly brightened, as if realization had struck her. "You must have been sent by them! A trial to test my faith and understanding. Yes! This darkness within you… the abyss hidden behind your eyes… You are a lost lamb seeking guidance! Let me help you!"

"You broke the priestess," Aska muttered.

"Let’s hope she can help us," I said, then asked aloud, "I really hope so. We need to know about the System. Can you explain it?"

"Of course!" Alicia beamed. "The System is a blessing granted to every being in this world by the gods and goddesses. It slumbers within every soul, awakening at a set time—five years old for humans.

"A holy display will appear before you, showing your name, race, gender, level, gained experience, titles, classes, attributes, skills, sk—"

"Stop. Stop, stop, stop." I groaned. "Don’t infodump me like that when I have no frame of reference."

Alicia bowed slightly. "Apologies. I may have a better way to show you."

She pulled out an identification card. "This is a System Card. It functions like an Adventurer’s ID and can be used to verify identity, rank, and achievements."

I studied it.

"Alicia: Age 19. Level: 32. Class: Saintess. Job: High Priestess of the World Church (King’s Garden)."

Huh. Handy. “Does it update automatically, or does it need to be redone?”

“That depends—not everyone can afford that luxury. Normally, if you only have a standard one, you need to visit the church at least once a year to update it. But if you have one like mine, it updates automatically,” she explained further.

"Can it be altered?" I asked and gave her the card back.

Alicia hesitated. "Yes, but only when a new one is created. Some skills allow manipulation… but it’s rare."

Interesting.

"Skills? Like… okay, try to explain it to me as if I were really stupid," I asked.

"O-okay…" Alicia hesitated for a moment before nodding to herself. "Skills are things a being can do. They reflect a person's origins, natural ability, training, and experience. The more you use them, the stronger they become."

Her fingers traced the symbols on the System Card, and they rippled as if responding to her touch, alive in some unseen way.

A small orb of divine light flickered into existence above her palm, its glow irritatingly pure. It hovered there for a brief moment before she closed her fingers, snuffing it out.

"Or they can be passive," Alicia continued, and as she did, a golden glow briefly surrounded her body. "Always present, offering silent benefits. The one you see right now protects me against necrotic magic."

I frowned. "So, skills… can be trained?"

She nodded. "Use them often, and they will grow. Neglect them, and they will eventually stagnate. But then, there are also abilities—something far greater."

With a flick of her finger, a singular, radiant mark hovered between us, glowing with a deeper, divine light.

"Abilities are unique," she explained. "They are not learned simply through effort. They are gifts of the body, the mind, or the soul. Sometimes, a deity grants them, but those are rare. A mage might wield [Arcane Overflow], channeling pure magic beyond what their vessel can normally contain, preventing them from suffering [Mana Exhaustion]. They aren’t just techniques; they are part of what you are."

Aska exhaled beside me. "So, abilities are special?"

"Yes," Alicia affirmed. "They define you in ways skills never could. A skill can be learned by anyone with effort. An ability… is what sets you apart. They are thresholds that require specific conditions to be unlocked. Some conditions are well-known, but many remain secret or closely guarded treasures. Abilities can affect passive skills and skill trees, but explaining all of that would be pointless without you two actually having access to the System."

I rubbed my temples. "Alright, I get the basic idea. But without actually using the System, it really feels pointless to go into more detail. It seems very experience-driven."

Alicia nodded. "Yes. You need experience to level up, gain attribute points, access classes, and upgrade skills and abilities."

"Yes, yes, I understand," I said, waving a hand dismissively. Of course, I had more questions, but discussing this now wouldn’t be as useful as actually getting inside the System. Once I was in, I could ask her as much as I wanted. For now, the priority was finding a way in.

As if she could sense my next question, Alicia continued, "As for how to enter the System… I’m not entirely sure. But I might find something in the Cathedral Archives. There are records about the Dark Times, when Eternal still roamed this world."

"How long will that take?" I asked.

The high priestess thought for a moment. "A week should be enough. Meet me here again after the night bell rings, once the sun has set."

"Thank you, priestess," I said politely.

She bowed. "I wish I could do more to help you now, lost sheep. But I will do my utmost to pass this trial."

I sighed but didn’t say anything.

"Aska, let’s go," I called.

The moment I dropped the barrier, I was immediately surrounded by heavily armored church guards.

"Let them through!" Alicia commanded. "I’m fine. They did nothing wrong."

The guards hesitated but eventually stepped aside, still glaring at us. But, like the well-trained dogs they were, they obeyed their master.

Once outside, I continued down the street toward the Adventurers' Guild.

'So… what did she see that suddenly made her act like a… well, fanatic?' Aska asked.

"Who knows," I hummed.

Aska grumbled but didn’t push further.

'Let’s exchange ideas and thoughts about what we just learned about the System while we walk,' I offered.

'Yeah, let’s do that. I still don’t understand some of the details.'

'Alright, so…'