Creak!
The carriage tilted slightly towards the side Raven entered from.
The coachman's eyes widened seeing his appearance, "What happened to you, young master?"
His clothes were tattered, his torso was laced with bruises, and his body was full of blood marks.
His axe was bathed in the red liquid.
And his cheeks had a slap mark on each side.
"What qualifies you to know what happened to me?" He sounded pissed.
The coachman, being a sensible human being, decided to keep his quiet.
It was his personal matter after all.
His intuition told him that probing into this any further would not be good for him.
For a while, there was an uncomfortable silence inside the carriage, when suddenly, the carriage started swaying violently.
Loud noises, or banging, trees falling, and blasts travelled inside.
The impact shook them, and the coachman curled up into a corner.
'This must be Eve, fighting the main perpertrating accursed, maybe.' He made an educated guess by the sounds.
The scale of destruction felt bigger than the last time, when she was supposedly fighting the high-level accursed.
But it didn't take much longer than 10 seconds for everything to be calm once again.
The fight was over.
Raven tilted his head down, like he was just doing in front of Eve, and also curled up in the corner.
.
"Also, stay low for a while, and don't do anything suspicious anymore."
.
The words of the silver women still rang in his ears.
Sure, she was an extremely chaotic woman, who had fun in his suffering, but the tone she uttered these words with made him think it was serious this time.
So, he decided to take her words seriously.
Bang!
Not even a few seconds later, the door opened violently.
It was Eve.
"Raven!" She shouted, sounding quite troubled and hurried.
He tilted his head up, and his eyes widened.
This tone, this yelling.
This wasn't natural for Eve.
'Just what happened outside?' He wondered.
"Don't come outside at all," She sounded dead serious.
Just like when she warned him before fighting the accursed.
"I thought you had slain the accursed, by the sounds coming from outside," He queried, genuinely curious about this.
"I did," She confirmed it, but there was no triumph in her voice, "This is different."
"I have just sensed a massive surge in a particular, extremely disgusting type of mana, surging around a few miles up in the sky."
'Oh!' Raven gulped.
It was about him, wasn't it?
"The mana belonged to a person from the White Moon Church."
He was right.
"What does that imply?" He asked her, his heart racing extremely fast.
"It means that someone powerful from that church had appeared here." She caught her breath, "And I am going after that."
'Too late, sister.' He jested internally to cope, 'The guilty is sitting right in front of you.'
"Be careful," His brows softened, voice laced with worry.
"Don't worry about me. Cardinals all over the Holy State must have sensed this energy. I have backup."
Gulp!
Why do they always gotta involve so many high profile people in their affairs?
He was barely a threat to a branch of their church.
In all honesty, he understood the reason behind it all.
But it still felt extremely scary and frustrating.
Last time, he was saved by the Goddess herself, or maybe Arthur.
This time, he was saved by the silver woman.
But what about the next time?
What if he fails at escaping in time?
He didn't think for a second that he could outrun a Cardinal.
Or even a normal Bishop, as a matter of fact.
"Good Luck!" He said, curling back in the seat again.
He still had to act bummed out and guilty, while maintaining the level of surprise and fear to balance the latest news he had received.
It was quite hard to pull off, but his life depended on it.
Bang!
Eve closed the door with a bang and vanished.
And thus began a long, suspenseful night of waiting.
…
The next morning, Raven's eyes turned red because he hadn't had a wink of sleep the whole night.
He was on the edge the entire time, anticipating his impending doom.
Sure, Eve crossed him out, but what if the other Cardinals became suspicious of him?
What if they managed to expose him?
All sorts of 'what ifs' had filled his mind, and he was having an extremely hard time coping with it.
But thankfully, the night passed pretty uneventfully.
Nothing happened last night.
Not even any noise from outside.
He wanted to punch the coachman in his guts for sleeping so soundly in front of him.
But he refrained from causing any commotion here.
Knock! Knock!
Squeak!
Two consecutive knocks jolted both of them awake.
The coachman woke from his sleep, and Raven woke up from his daze.
The door opened, and it was Eve.
"You look tired, Raven?" Eve asked the second she entered the carriage.
Her eyes were keen enough to notice everything inside before they even registered her presence inside.
"I couldn't sleep due to something I was mulling over," He answered her.
It was an extremely ambiguous sentence, meant for her to completely misunderstand without lying.
He knew she caught lies pretty efficiently, so he often resorted to this method.
And his gamble paid off.
Eve's eyes mellowed a bit, "Everything's fine, now."
"We didn't catch anyone," The words had a hint of regret, but also relief, "But everything else is safe enough for now."
"That's good," He sighed, his body easing off, as if a certain tension got released from a rubber band.
He melted into the sitting bench metamorphically.
"Did you have a good sleep?" Eve turned around and asked the coachman.
"Good morning, your grace," He gave her a bow. "And, yes, your grace."
"Good," She nodded, leaving the carriage for a second, "Go outside, and prepare the horses."
Phew!
Raven sighed in relief as his eyes started to close.
He was extremely tired as of now.
The fight last night, the meeting with the silver woman, the bizarre things, and then waking up.
They were all pretty taxing on his body.
But suddenly, he felt a nudge from Eve.
"Hmm?" He grunted.
"I know you are tired, but there is someone special you should greet first."
Her voice was full of anticipation, but somehow, Raven's instinct buzzed.
"Who?" He woke up, staring into her red eyes with his golden ones.
"My senior in church, and also my former mentor,"
"..."
"Cardinal Mark Alfaro."