Chapter 40: The Diary

Opening the door, Nora wiped the sweat from her brow and hung her iron shovel behind the door.

The room's layout... well, there was barely any layout to speak of. The interior contained only a single table, a wooden chest, and a rolled-up pallet in the corner.

Nora dragged the wooden chest in front of the table. At night, she would spread her bedding over it to sleep, but for now, it served as her bench.

Proppping herself up with her hand as she sat on the chest, she kicked off her bearskin boots. They had been brought all the way from the Northern Realm, and in this island climate, they felt rather stifling.

Before she knew it, she had been here for quite a long time. She found herself somewhat longing for the churches, wind, and snow of the Northern Realm.

Nora's gaze dimmed slightly. She reached under the table and pulled out a notebook.

This was her diary. Every member of the clergy in the Church of Silence kept a diary. The White Calamity was so terrifying in the Northern Realm that when rescue parties finally arrived, they often found nothing left in the churches except corpses frozen in ice; the rescuers could only flip through the remaining diaries to learn what had transpired.

Consequently, many people deeply resented writing diaries, feeling as though they were drafting their own final testaments.

Yet Nora had never thought that way. She believed that keeping a diary was a deeply romantic endeavor.

To condense an entire lifetime into a single book, opening its pages as if conversing with oneself—it felt wonderful to her, as though the boundary between life and death became blurred.

She cherished it dearly.

Retrieving a feather pen from a small box, she unscrewed the ink bottle, dipped the nib, and carefully brushed away the strands of white hair that had slipped across the paper, before beginning to write.

......

[The seventh day of the Month of Blossoms, clear.]

[Today is a day worth recording properly. I have been on Castle Island for nearly two months, and the Church's mission has finally made some slight progress.]

[Persistence was indeed the right choice.]

[Ever since the beginning of this month, the local lord, Hughes, had ceased replying to me. The matters he previously promised remained unmentioned, and I had assumed this mission was already a failure.]

[Yet this morning, he contacted me through the Empress's channels, which left me somewhat puzzled... Afterward, it dawned on me that he perhaps intends to establish formal communication with me.]

[This is a good sign. Although his previous promises will most likely be voided, at the very least it represents a form of recognition—recognition of my power.]

[He must have run into trouble.]

[Sure enough, after a round of hypocritical pleasantries, he asked me to heal his "alien friend."]

[He even offered new promises.]

[Though I knew full well it was a lie, that single phrase, "This is your homeland too," still made my heart flutter.]

[How long has it been since the followers of the White Raven possessed a homeland?]

[My brothers and sisters who succeed me, you should be able to comprehend that feeling.]

......

[Like a bonfire amidst a blizzard, like a ray of sunlight at the end of the polar night.]

[At that moment, a blazing fire surged through my chest, and I would gladly do anything for this sliver of hope.]

[Even if it means cooperating with a cult leader like Hughes.]

Nora frowned as she wrote this, pausing to glance at the sky outside. She carefully set her pen aside, jumped down from the chest, and turned to open it.

Supporting the chest lid with one hand, she used the other to lift out a set of armor bound together by leather straps.

Unbuckling the straps, she let out a soft sigh and laid them out neatly on the floor, one by one, to make it easier to put them on later.

Donning such full-plate armor alone was terribly cumbersome without assistance, but alas, she was entirely by herself here.

After arranging the pieces, Nora hesitated, casting a reluctant glance at the diary before returning to the table to write once more.

......

[That godforsaken cult leader is certainly arrogant.]

[He actually expects me to heal an alien from the sea. Ha.]

[Does he take me for a fool? Ever since that day, contamination has pervaded the entire ocean; there are no longer any aliens in the sea, only monsters.]

[Though, strangely enough, I detected no contamination upon him whatsoever... not a single trace.]

[He must have been too afraid to seek out the nuns of the Candlelight Society, which is why he came to me for help. He's probably planning to silence me after the treatment is complete.]

[Reaching out to me specifically through official channels is surely his way of shifting any future trouble onto my shoulders.]

[It is a pity he does not understand the Burrowers, nor does he know what tremendous power a holy death can unleash.]

Nora pinched the pen shaft and let out a soft huff through her nose.

[I will help him heal, I will help him conceal the truth, and I will force him to fulfill his promise.]

[The Church has nowhere left to turn. Every shred of hope must be firmly grasped, and even if we must dance with the hounds of evil gods, we must secure a new homeland for our believers.]

[Although the lord has been corrupted by an evil god, Castor is not entirely beyond saving. As long as we can establish a church here and raise a sanctuary, this place shall once again become a home for the followers of the White Raven.]

[Homeland... We have sacrificed far too much for this single word. The White Calamity destroyed everything, plunging countless compatriots into despair.]

[Fortunately, hope still lingers here.]

[Our predecessors paved the path with their flesh and blood, and now the burden falls upon me.]

[I have already dug my own grave; my successor, please remember to bury me.]

[May the wind and snow recede, may the flowers bloom.]

......

With a sharp snap, Nora closed the diary.

She carefully wiped the cover with the hem of her clothes, then picked it up to inspect it thoroughly from top to bottom.

Splendid—clean and neat; this was her book.

Future successors would flip through this diary and remember her, making it seem as though she still lived by their side.

As Nora thought this, her hands trembled slightly.

She placed a prepared bouquet of flowers atop the book.

They were flowers she had brought from the Northern Realm, wild blossoms picked from the roadside that bore no name. She had tended to them meticulously, but now it seemed unnecessary.

She had already written a cipher message, which would be dispatched shortly; the Church would send a successor.

Now, it was time to fulfill her duty.

Nora hauled the quilted inner lining from the chest and slipped it on, followed by the chainmail, and finally the plate armor components.

How strange it was that once the armor was on, all her weakness, hesitation, and sentimentality vanished completely.

She was a warrior now, and she would die upon the path of the charge.

How wonderful.

The corners of Nora's mouth curved upward slightly before she hurriedly pressed them into a firm line.

With her left hand, she hoisted the tower shield, and in her right, she grasped a flail.

The priests of the Church of Silence were not known for reasoning with words, but when a spiked iron ball was driven straight into an opponent's skull, the enemy ought to gain some enlightenment.

To this end, Nora had even engraved scriptures of the holy canon onto the flail's striking head.

Having donned her armor, Nora turned back to close the lid of the chest and tidied the table.

Hesitating for a moment, she scribbled a brief note, folded it in half, and pressed it underneath the diary.

When everything was done, Nora pulled a cloak over her shoulders to conceal the armor, opened the door, and strode out without ever looking back.