Chapter 125: Ava's Pastry Shop

Chapter 125: Ava's Pastry Shop

"Hey."

Karen called out.

Mr. Pavaro did not move, but the two black-robed men cast their gazes toward Karen.

"Is this a rehearsal for a show? Or some novel kind of game?"

Mr. Pavaro suddenly smiled and said:

"That just shows your lack of experience; this kind of game has long ceased to be novel in pastry shops."

"Pfft, who goes to places like that? It's all older women."

"There you go being young again. Age is the accumulation of technique."

Karen flicked his cigarette ash, then deliberately leaned his head out to glance at the handcuffs on Pavaro's wrists:

"Debt collectors? Do the loan shark gangs use handcuffs nowadays?"

One of the black-robed men produced a police badge and placed it before Karen:

"We are the police. We currently suspect you know and have associations with the suspect."

"Uh..." Karen immediately dropped his still-burning cigarette butt onto the ground, raised his hands, and ducked his head. "It has nothing to do with me, really nothing to do with me. I just thought your outfits... Officers, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to obstruct official business."

Karen maintained a placating smile while slowly rolling up his car window.

The black-robed men did not actually come over to investigate Karen; they merely intended to give him a fright.

After all, the priests of the Whip of Order squad were not so idle as to need to investigate a regular passerby who just happened to be driving through.

Wearing the handcuffs, Pavaro stepped into the car, and the commercial vehicle promptly drove away.

Sitting inside his car, the look of panic on Karen's face slowly faded away.

"Oh, thank you. Fortunately, you're a smoker."

The meaning behind this sentence was that Pavaro had known all along that he was no ordinary person?

Karen was not particularly surprised by this. Although his unique method of purification made it difficult for him to be "scanned," that was only limited to instances where he and another person merely brushed shoulders on the street.

He had interacted with Mr. Pavaro several times, and during that period, the man had even examined Alfred. Linking the clues together and discovering that he was not a "commoner" was hardly astonishing.

What surprised Karen was that Mr. Pavaro had actively brought up the pastry shop.

Was this a warning to him?

But why hadn't he warned his own two employees?

Karen directed his gaze toward the two employees who remained standing there entirely motionless even though their boss had been taken away.

Well, telling them probably would have been useless anyway. Neither of these two workers seemed very intelligent. Dincom was slightly better, but only marginally so.

Was that why he had told him instead?

He did owe the man a favor, but in truth, they hadn't shared much interaction and could not yet be considered friends. If it was a favor, he could just return it; perhaps giving some extra money, or procuring a few coupons to pay back the boss's wife, and that would be the end of it?

One had to understand that the party he feared dealing with the most, and the one he wished to avoid above all else, was the Church of Order.

All in all, asking himself honestly, watching Mr. Pavaro get arrested did not spark any grand impulse in Karen's heart to gather evidence and help exonerate him.

This was nowhere near as simple as helping Alaye's son with a psychological consultation. The latter demanded nothing more than a bit of time and energy, whereas the former, if handled poorly, could very well drag him down into the mire as well.

However, since he had already come all this way, even though Mr. Pavaro had been taken away, the visit to offer his gratitude still needed to be carried out.

Karen stepped out of the car, retrieved the gifts from the trunk, and walked toward the funeral parlor.

Midway, he came to a stop before Pick and Dincom.

Pick stared at the approaching Karen, momentarily unable to believe his eyes.

Dincom, on the other hand, reached out proactively to help Karen carry the gifts, speaking with great humility:

"My Lord."

Observing the reactions of Dincom and Pick,

Hmm?

It seemed they had misunderstood something.

Karen immediately figured it out; they had indeed misunderstood. He really had just coincidentally arrived at this moment, and his car just happened to contain the lighter prepared by Alaye.

Yet, after a brief hesitation, Karen chose not to explain, merely nodding back at Dincom.

"My Lord, this way please."

Dincom led Karen into the funeral parlor. It was a street-facing shop, and though two storefronts had been merged together, it still appeared somewhat crude.

Because a mourning ceremony had just concluded, the interior was still a bit cluttered, and there was a small raised platform within where a "guest" lay resting.

"My Lord, over here."

Dincom led Karen to the backyard. The rear was the living area, and, well, the working area too—for instance, an unlocked room that Karen knew, from a fleeting glance out of the corner of his eye, was a place similar to where Aunt Mary worked.

The living room was not large, sitting adjacent to the dining area, and Karen took a seat.

Dincom poured another cup of black tea and set it down before Karen.

Karen lifted the cup, brought it beneath his nose to catch the scent, and for a moment did not dare to drink.

Although he believed the probability of Dincom poisoning his tea to avenge his boss was so low as to be virtually impossible, why wager his own life on it?

Just then, Karen noticed a detail, which was the presence of a room right across from him. This room was covered in very girlish stickers, which ought not to belong to Mrs. Pavaro.

Even if Mr. and Mrs. Pavaro enjoyed playing into that kind of aesthetic, they wouldn't arrange the scene on the outer side of the door.

Karen set down the teacup, stood up, and walked over to the door of that room. The door was fitted with a lock, fastened from the outside, though it wasn't fully locked down—yet it was sufficient to ensure anyone inside could not come out.

Seeing Karen walk toward it, Pick instinctively moved as if to stop him, but Dincom gripped his wrist directly to hold him back.

Karen removed the lock and pushed the door open.

Instantly, a dense, musty stench rushed at his face, like a whole room filled with pickled vegetables that had long since spoiled.

Karen blinked hard, his eyes stinging so sharply from the fumes that tears threatened to fall.

However, the interior was no storage room, but a bedroom.

The furnishings were remarkably simple: a large bed occupied the furthest corner, while a bathing tub sat in the middle.

Upon the bed lay two girls of identical size, seemingly twins, both around thirteen or fourteen years of age.

One was lying on the bed reading a book, while the other sat up, playing with small stickers.

Karen had seen Mina play with this kind of sticker before—a plastic cardboard sheet with four female models printed at the top, and a row of skirts, trousers, and headpieces below that acted like double-sided tape, allowing one to mix and match outfits for the models.

The commotion of the door being pushed open startled them, and they both lifted their heads to look at Karen standing in the doorway.

The girl reading the book had putrid sores covering half her face, and black sores marred the back of her hands as well.

The girl playing with the stickers possessed a face that was quite clean, but everything below her neck was entirely black.

The bed they lay upon was lined with a layer of plastic sheeting, because the pustules on their bodies would occasionally ooze fluid that dripped down; this layer of plastic was there to make cleaning easier.

The musty stench inside the room was precisely what emanated from the bodies of these two girls.

Karen frowned slightly. Ever since his divine enlightenment, his perception of the world had grown sharper; though certainly not as effective as a specific technique like an "Inspection Spell," it at least allowed him to discern some shallow spiritual currents.

Upon these two girls, he beheld a shroud of "black mist."

They were not merely ill, but... contaminated.

Karen silently withdrew, closing the bedroom door behind him, and asked,

"Who are they?"

Dincom replied, "My lord, they are the boss's daughters."

Mr. Pavaro's daughters?

"Are they contaminated?"

"Yes, my lord. Six years ago on their way home from school, they were targeted in retaliation by a rogue demon that was being hunted."

"Can this contamination not be purified?"

"My lord, that rogue demon was not powerful, but it was of the spiritual type. Initially, their anomaly went unnoticed, and the boss was occupied with continuing the pursuit. By the time the rogue demon was finally captured and the boss returned home, he discovered his two daughters had already suffered spiritual contamination.

The pustules on their skin... are merely the surface."

Spiritual contamination could also be understood as soul contamination. Once it reached this degree, it became exceedingly difficult to administer a radical cure; a tainted soul was not like a diseased limb where, if all else failed, one could choose amputation.

The soul was like a glass of clear water; even if just a single drop of ink fell into it, one could never use a spoon to scoop all the ink back out.

"Six years," Karen murmured.

"The two young ladies must immerse their bodies in a bath of Blood Spirit Powder at regular intervals to alleviate and suppress the agony racking their souls and bodies.

Yet as time has worn on, particularly over these past two years, I have clearly felt the intervals between these baths shrinking significantly, while the amount of Blood Spirit Powder required for each soak has noticeably increased."

"Blood Spirit Powder?"

Karen remembered this substance.

Back then, Old Anderson, along with Mr. Bed and Mr. Mike, had shown him the asset ledger of the Allen Manor. Compared to the Allen Manor's secular wealth, its "Church Assets" had shrunk to a pitiful state.

At its peak, the Allen family possessed twelve workshops supplying basic materials to eight orthodox churches.

Now, the Allen family had only three workshops left in their hands, and among the nine lost workshops, one was precisely the Blood Spirit Powder production workshop.

If he recalled correctly, that workshop was now in the possession of the Raphael family.

Dincom pursed his lips and continued, "Although the boss receives Order Vouchers from the district office every month, currently, the monthly vouchers cannot possibly cover the expense of the Blood Spirit Powder required by the two young ladies each month. Though a small amount can be purchased with Reals, not only is the price exorbitant, but the supply is also exceedingly scarce.

Therefore, the boss frequently takes the initiative to accept missions issued by the district office to earn extra Order Vouchers as rewards.

He even... goes so far as to anonymously accept missions from other churches to obtain rewards."

The Allen Manor was immensely wealthy, yet it still faced the crisis of a decaying lineage because in the true inner circles of this world, the most valuable currency was the Voucher.

A specialized basic material like Blood Spirit Powder was supplied directly from its originating workshops to the churches, circulating almost exclusively within that specific circle, so obtaining it required Vouchers.

No wonder the lady of the house had specifically asked him that day if he had Vouchers to offer as payment, because her two daughters needed Vouchers to buy medicine.

"So, Inquisitor Pavaro broke the law for this?" Karen asked.