Do ratmen dream of the sacred tree of spirits?

Chapter 37 Moving Forward

July, the last working day before the holiday.

After Fafnir finished mopping the corridors of the teaching building in the morning, he left his cleaning tools at the logistics department.

"Fafner, Bishop Victor wants you to go to his office at 2 PM," the logistics staff member said.

"Okay, what can I do for you?"

The teacher shook his head: "He didn't say, he just told you to be there on time."

……

At 5:50 p.m., Fafnir knocked on Mr. Victor's office door.

"Please come in."

Mr. Victor sat behind his desk, several documents spread out in front of him. He looked up, saw Fafner, smiled, and gestured to the chair opposite him:

"Please have a seat."

Fafnir tiptoed onto the chair.

Victor organized the documents and pushed them to the center of the table:

"Little Fafnir, I called you here today to have you sign something."

Fafner looked down at the documents.

At the top is a form with the heading "Application Form for Change of Status of Employee of the Holy Kingdom of Elf Lorin".

"This is..." Fafnir looked up.

"Your parents wrote to the school," Victor said, leaning back in his chair, his tone calm.

"They want to remove you from the employee list, but even though you've been sent to a grammar school as a volunteer, you're still considered an employee."

Fafnir was unaware of this.

"Last month I went to see Viscount Lorraine and talked to him about your situation."

His Excellency the Viscount said that since he was already an assistant priest of the church, it was indeed inappropriate for him to continue holding the status of an employee.

Mr. Victor paused:

"Sign it, congratulations."

Fafner picked up a pen and signed his name at the bottom of the form, writing slowly and carefully, stroke by stroke.

"Mr. Victor," Fafnir said, "may I ask about the money my parents saved...

"What money?" Victor glanced at him and put the form away. "His Excellency the Viscount didn't mention any money."

Fafnir opened his mouth as if to say something, but then swallowed it back.

"By the way, you need to keep copies of these employment status cancellation certificates, and you also need to sign them."

Fafner signed them one by one:

"Mr. Victor...aren't I an employee?"

"Yes, Fafnir."

"You are a second-level assistant priest of the Church of the God of Death, and a gentleman usher at the Grammar School," Mr. Victor said with a smile. "You are now a 'free man'."

After signing the last document, Mr. Victor put it into a manila envelope and sealed it with sealing wax.

"I'll take it to the government office for registration tomorrow," Victor said.

Fafnard stood up and bowed deeply to Mr. Victor.

"Thank you, Mr. Victor."

"Why thank me?" Victor laughed. "It was your parents who wrote a letter to the school."

He took a palm-sized cloth bag out of the drawer and pushed it over.

"Here is your church rank stipend for this semester, ten silver shields. Have a pleasant holiday."

Fafnir took the bag and put it in his pocket.

He walked to the door, then turned back.

"Mr. Victor,"

Fafner stood in the doorway, sunlight streaming in through the window and falling upon him:

"thank you."

Mr. Victor waved his hand.

Fafner stood at the door for a while, then walked toward the faculty dormitory.

……

In the evening, Fafnir was reading "The Language of Spirits" when there was a knock on the door.

Martha and Allen stood at the door, each carrying a cloth bag.

"Fafner," Martha said, "we're going to the grocery store to buy some things for the family. Do you want to come with us?"

Fafnir thought about it for a moment, and since he had nothing else to do, he nodded.

The three of them had just stepped out of the faculty dormitory building when they ran into Mr. Victor coming from the teaching building. He was wearing a clean short-sleeved shirt and carrying nothing in his hands.

"Where are you going, little ones?" Mr. Victor asked.

"Hello Mr. Victor, we're going to the nearby grocery store," Martha said. "We're buying some things for the family; Alan and I saved up some money this semester."

Victor looked up at the sky:

"That's good. I don't have anything planned today, so I'll join you for a walk. It'll be a good opportunity to relax."

On a July afternoon, the sun bathed the entire street in orange light, and there weren't many pedestrians on the street.

"Mr. Victor," Fafnir said, walking beside Victor, "are you busy today?"

"Fortunately, it was the last day of the semester, and Professor Ze Ruo was busy with his own things, so he didn't need me."

After walking through two streets, the group turned into a small alley.

The alley was narrow, with gray residential buildings on both sides, their walls peeling and their windows faded.

Several children were standing at the entrance of the alley.

They were about the same age as Ellen Martha, dressed in coarse cloth clothes that weren't very clean, some barefoot, some wearing worn-out shoes.

Several children, both boys and girls, with messy hair, were squatting on the ground playing around with sticks.

Hearing footsteps, they looked up.

The boy in the lead glanced at the four of them.

"Isn't that Martha and Allen? Hahaha," he stood up, threw the branch on the ground, and grinned.

"Nuns dog, Nunns dog, you clown who came to the Holy Kingdom to be a slave."

A boy next to him laughed and said, "Look at that short guy, wearing such an old and ill-fitting short-sleeved shirt, I don't know where he picked it up from."

Are you talking about me? Fafnir doesn't wear priestly robes in the summer; he just grabs a short-sleeved shirt from home.

Martha's lips tightened, and Allen lowered his head.

"Look, everyone, it's them, Ellen Martha, our Holy Kingdom's slaves from Nunns! Hahaha..."

"Alright," Mr. Victor said, his tone not harsh, but the children's voices immediately quieted down.

Victor led Fafner and his group through the area quickly.

One of the children glanced at Victor, then at his plain but clean short-sleeved shirt, pursed his lips, and didn't follow. But the voice still drifted from behind—

"So what if you wear clean clothes?"

"Stop pretending."

……

A series of giggles and laughter.

Fafnir didn't turn around. He could feel Martha's pace quicken and Allen's breathing become heavier.

Mr. Victor walked beside him, as if he hadn't heard anything.

Victor said, "Sigh...please don't mind it."

I know this place. I came here before when I was recruiting students. Many families live in this alley. Most of the adults are dockworkers or temporary servants. They have many children and can't take care of them.

Sometimes we don't even have enough to eat.

Allen whispered from behind, "Why do they hate us so much?"

Victor was silent for a moment, then said, "It's not that I hate you... someone told them they should hate people who are doing better than them, even if you're not doing so well."

"What will happen to them in the future?" Martha asked.

"I don't know," Victor shook his head.

"They might... be led down a path of crime by beggars and scoundrels."

The boys typically become idle scoundrels or thieves. Some girls, however, may become prostitutes due to lack of care or being sold by their morally corrupt mothers.

Favre took over the conversation.

……

On a side street in the eastern part of Ryan City, there were a few small grocery stores. Martha picked out a piece of dark blue cotton cloth and bought two spools of thread.

After we finished shopping, it was already getting dark, and the taverns and shops along the roadside were emitting a dim yellow light.

On the way back, Martha walked a little slower than she had come. Fafnir noticed that she opened her mouth and closed it several times, as if she was hesitating about something.

"Little Martha," Victor suddenly spoke, "is there something you want to say?"

Martha stopped in her tracks.

"Hello Mr. Victor," she said, "Alan and I have been practicing meditation this semester, following the steps in the book, every morning and evening, but... we haven't felt anything."

"Don't you feel anything at all?" Mr. Victor asked.

"No, no," Martha said. "I can't sense any spirituality or spirit world at all."

“You have a spirit,” Victor said, “but in very little.”

Martha trembled slightly.

"How much less than your peers?" she asked.

"Much less than Fafner Jr., but not much less than his peers," Mr. Victor said. "Most people don't have much talent."

Martha remained silent for a long time, her face turning pale.

"Then... is it still possible to learn?"

"Of course you can, but it might take you three months, six months, or even longer. The person I've met who had the slowest spiritual awareness took a full eight months to develop it."

"And... what about eight months from now?" Allen couldn't help but ask.

"Eight months later, he sensed spirituality, and it took another year before he could barely construct the simplest spiritual vision runes. However, many years have passed and he is still stuck at the preparatory stage, unable to even cast a first-level spell."

Victor said this in a very calm tone.

“Mr. Victor,” Martha said, “please forgive my intrusion, but I’ve heard that… guiding spells help others enter a meditative state, just like you did for Fafnir.”

Victor glanced at Fafnir.

"Yes, guiding techniques can directly bring the recipient into a meditative state. But—"

Mr. Victor paused for a moment:

"I'm sorry, but there are also requirements for the recipient of the initiation technique."

Those with weak spirituality cannot withstand it; forcibly performing the ritual will harm you.

"I want to give it a try," Martha said.

"I'd like to try it too," Allen added.

Victor looked at them for a moment and nodded.

"Okay. But if you feel any discomfort, tell me immediately and I will stop right away."

Martha and Allen nodded at the same time.

Victor asked them to sit down on the stone steps by the roadside.

"Close your eyes," Victor said. "Don't think about anything, just relax."

Fafnir, standing to the side, had already activated his spiritual vision.

He watched as Mr. Victor raised his hands, and silvery-white spiritual threads spread from his fingertips, very fine and faint, like spider silk, drifting towards the space between their brows.

He saw Victor's spiritual threads attempting to seep into Martha's spirituality. The essence of the guiding technique was to construct a temporary spiritual framework outside the recipient's body, allowing the recipient's own spirituality to flow along this framework, thereby entering a meditative state.

But Martha's spirituality was too weak.

As soon as Victor's spiritual threads touched the spiritual radiance on her body, the thin layer of grayish-white light seemed to be blown by the wind, swayed, and then shattered into even finer fragments.

The silvery-white thread finally found a point of attachment and began to slowly weave.

A very basic meditation guide rune took shape on the outer side of Martha's forehead, only the size of a fingernail, with a structure as simple as it could be.

Then... it broke.

Martha groaned and swayed. Alan sat beside her, the spiritual threads of Victor on his forehead having also stopped weaving—his condition was slightly better than Martha's; the runes lasted for two more seconds, but eventually dissipated.

Victor withdrew his hands.

"Am I... not good enough?" Her voice trembled slightly.

Victor remained silent for a few seconds.

"Guiding techniques require a certain level of spiritual understanding," Mr. Victor said.

"Your spirituality is too weak to bear the weight of my spiritual weaving. Forcing it to continue will only harm you."

Fafnir stood beside her, watching Martha's face gradually turn pale.

"So," Allen's voice came from the side, "we don't even have the right to be guided."

Victor did not answer the question.

"There's a book called 'The Training Method of Spiritual Perception' in the library; you can borrow it," Mr. Victor said.

"It's more suitable for your situation than 'Basic Meditation Methods.' The book has some auxiliary methods, such as using specific breathing rhythms to enhance perception."

"Little ones, let's go back, it's getting late."

By the time I got back to school, it was completely dark.

Victor stopped in front of the faculty and staff dormitory building.

"Kids, get some rest," Mr. Victor said. "Tomorrow's a holiday, what are your plans?"

"Let's go home," Martha said.

"Me too," Fafnir said.

Victor nodded and turned to walk towards the teaching building.

Fafnir watched his retreating figure: "Mr. Victor."

Victor stopped.

Aren't you going back to your dorm?

"Little Fafnir, Professor Zero has some matters to attend to. The underground monitoring array has been rather unstable lately, and he asked me to keep an eye on it."

"Not very stable?"

Victor paused for a moment, as if considering whether or not to speak.

"Little Fafnir," Mr. Victor said, "have you sensed... something unusual about the underground ley lines lately?"

Fafnir paused for a moment.

"Sir, no."

“I felt it last night,” Victor said. “It was a vibration coming from underground, like a heartbeat, but the intervals were getting shorter and shorter.”

Mr. Victor looked at him, his gaze becoming more serious.

"What is that?" Fafnir asked.

"Teacher Ze Ruo said that the fluctuations deep in the spirit world are becoming more and more frequent, and the source cannot be locked."

But one thing is certain—those fluctuating characteristics do not belong to any known race.

"Not belonging to any known race," Fafnir said, somewhat puzzled. "What does that mean?"

"It means that some things shouldn't be in the spirit world, but they are."

He didn't say anything more, and waved his hand at Fafnir.

"Little Fafnir, it's nothing. Please go back to sleep. Keep these things to yourself and don't tell anyone else."

Fafnir nodded and turned to walk back.

After walking a few steps, he turned around and saw that Victor was already far away.

In the direction of the teaching building, at the end of the corridor on the second floor, a light was on; that was Bishop Andrei's office.

Fafner pondered the words he had just spoken.

Not belonging to any known race,

Things that shouldn't be in the spirit world

That pulsation, like a heartbeat, came from underground.