By the time he returned home from the Black Raven Library, it was already ten-thirty in the morning. After confirming the effects of the new occult art, Shade did not cook at home; instead, he left with little Mia, who had developed an interest in the cards, and took a carriage to the Dawn Church.
While searching for a carriage at St. Delan Square, he could already feel the festive atmosphere created by the young priests in clerical robes distributing promotional materials. As he approached Dawn Square, the joyful ambiance fostered by the religious holiday in the city became even more intense.
Following the events of two Thursdays ago, the City Hall intended to help the city recover from its trauma through large-scale civic activities; therefore, they provided substantial assistance for the 1853 Summer Holy Prayer Festival.
With the Dawn Church as the center, all the surrounding blocks were adorned with banners and ribbons. Whether the City Hall provided the gold pounds or the Dawn Church provided the banknotes, the exterior walls of the shops on the streets directly connected to Dawn Square were all unexpectedly adorned with the holy emblem of the True God, [Mr. Dawn].
Pigeons flew across the misty sky, and bustling crowds converged upon the church and surrounding streets. The lively festival attracted more street vendors to set up stalls along the roadside, a practice the City Hall turned a blind eye to.
The carriage was unable to enter the celebration site at all and could only drop Shade off at the intersection on the edge of the square.
The area was almost entirely filled with people, and the cries of vendors could be heard from every corner of the square. The boisterous atmosphere frightened the cat in Shade's arms, causing it to shrink tightly into his embrace. Shade knew Mia was timid, but he hadn't expected her to be this timid.
Consequently, he didn't bother wandering through the square filled with tents and instead walked straight into the church.
Although the preparations for the Holy Prayer Festival had been hectic, Priest Augustus actually became more leisurely once the festival truly began.
When Shade saw him, the old priest was in the last row of seats in the church's side hall, listening to a middle-aged priest deliver a sermon.
Normally, even on a Sabbath, such a side hall would be half-empty at most, but today it was not only filled to capacity with believers, but some were even forced to stand in the aisles against the walls.
Knowing that Mia was well-behaved and wouldn't make noise, Shade stood beside the priest while holding her. The priest nodded to Shade, signaling him to listen patiently.
Thus, Shade stood there for twenty minutes, listening to a sermon he wasn't particularly interested in. Only after this did he walk out with the priest along with the dispersing crowd.
It was now lunchtime, and Priest Augustus invited Shade to dine at the church. During the Holy Prayer Festival, the church's dining hall was open to certain invited believers, and the meals were very lavish, which was why Shade had brought Mia along—he wanted her to eat some good food as well.
During the meal, Shade didn't forget to mention that he had recently acquired a magic potion claimed to be an "elixir of youth" and asked Priest Augustus to help identify it. The priest was very interested and took the potion Shade handed him at the table, but he did not perform the identification within the church
"I need a few days. I will let you know as soon as there is news."
After lunch, everything proceeded according to plan. Outside the church was a lively celebration; inside, it was a rather solemn religious activity.
Shade was arranged to participate in a small prayer meeting. In a room with thick cloth curtains drawn and candles and incense lit, he prayed to [Mr. Dawn] together with the believers. If this weren't a church, such a scene would be a standard cult ritual.
Subsequently, together with Priest Augustus and a group of other visitors, he observed the baptism of three three-year-old children selected from families of senior believers. Shade had already experienced a baptism in the steam age once, but this one was even more solemn. In addition to high-power gas lamps, steam pipes were brought in to spray steam mist, making the entire venue hazy.
The scene was not ridiculous; the church's solemn architecture, the stained glass, and the religious murals overhead combined perfectly with the blurriness of the steam mist. This excited the reporters taking photos on the side and left everyone present feeling damp.
Except for Mia, who was hidden inside Shade's clothes.
Shade only needed to follow Priest Augustus around the church; the old priest was in a very good mood today. During a break in the activities, he even took Shade to see a new oil painting hanging in the church corridor.
The oil painting was quite large, framed in gilded gold, and located in the corridor leading from the main hall to the eastern side hall. The colors of the painting were relatively dark, with no negative space. People dressed in various formal attire formed a circle around the edges of the image, while the stone bricks of the ground were outlined with light brushstrokes in the center. A carriage was parked to the left of the center, and a beautiful, elegant woman's face was visible in the carriage window. To the right of the image stood two people.
One person held a handgun, and the other had their arms spread wide, blocking the way in front of him.
The person with open arms stood almost exactly in the center of the painting and was rendered by the artist with the most exquisite brushwork. Using ink and color, it seemed as if a beam of light shone upon this person's head, making him appear as if bathed in holy light. Anyone viewing the painting could tell at a glance that this was the protagonist of the scene.
"This is..."
Priest Augustus smiled, causing the wrinkles on his face to bunch up; he was truly in a great mood.
Shade couldn't help but smile as well, leaning over to check the painting's plaque. There were two lines of text on the plaque; the top line recorded the date the painting was hung, and the bottom read
[The Protected Mortal — Commemoration of the 1853 Holy Prayer Festival]
"How is it? It was finished just the day before yesterday, specifically to be hung here before the Holy Prayer Festival. When you weren't here this morning, there were reporters taking photos; perhaps this painting will appear in the newspapers tomorrow," Priest Augustus said.
Shade had no complaints; it was a nice thing to have the events he experienced remembered by others.
He simply asked curiously
"Will this painting hang here permanently?"
Shade only remembered that the scene at the time had been very noisy, completely lacking the holiness and solemnity of the oil painting, nor did he feel as if he were sacrificing himself for some noble reason.
"It will probably hang for several decades. You needn't worry; I know you don't want more people to know what you look like, so the face in this painting doesn't look exactly like you. Additionally, Queen Diana has seen this painting and provided guidance on her own appearance in the image; she is also very satisfied with it."
The priest spoke while nodding, then asked with a smile
"Shade, how do you feel?"
The outsider naturally never imagined he would leave a mark in the church of Tobeisk for decades in such a manner
"Does the church always find people to paint these kinds of oil paintings?"
People came and went behind them, the festive atmosphere infecting everyone. It was just that no one could recognize that the protagonist on the wall was standing right here, looking up at it.
"Of course, such oil paintings only exist when something is worth commemorating. You happened to save the Queen, were seen by many people, and it coincided with the approaching Holy Prayer Festival. If it were an ordinary day and you had only saved an ordinary person, I'm afraid you would have needed to be shot eighteen times in the street before..."
The old priest shrugged and didn't continue. Although it sounded cruel, that was reality.
Shade's speech was also in the side hall. The church had already prepared a speech draft and requested that he preferably deliver it without notes. Although the outsider had been busy with exams last week and had no time to memorize the script, with "her" present, Shade only had to read it twice for her to be able to roughly recite it back.
Therefore, during the half-hour speech, Shade simply followed the voice in his heart, translating the ancient language she used into modern common Delarion.
The content of the speech wasn't particularly fresh, with the theme being "God loves the world, God protects the world." Although the core doctrines of the Five-God Church differed, they were all religious groups that encouraged people to be virtuous, and the methods used when promoting their respective churches were similar.
The content wasn't very novel, but the church's writer had used exceptional skill to make the material feel fresh. They even incorporated Shade's experience from the day he was shot, making the slightly preachy content of the speech very gripping.
Someone capable of writing such speeches was a rare talent, whether in this world or in the outsider's hometown. Therefore, after the speech ended, Shade wanted to ask Priest Augustus to take him to meet the writer.