The Girl Who Hacked The Magic System
Chapter 115 - Infiltration Mission (2)

Chapter 115: Chapter 115 - Infiltration Mission (2)

PoV: Lovelace

I’ve been waiting for this moment for months, watching the Church’s moves, taking notes of all the ins and outs.

And now it’s the moment.

The Pontifex and all high-ranking officials of the Church are off to Essendia to a Council, which means that the closed-off area inside and under the temple is empty of people.

The security around and inside the temple is tightened, but all guards are normal humans; they wouldn’t be able to detect me.

I shadow-hop my way inside the temple like the other day and retrace my steps until I arrive at the lit room.

There are two guards at the entrance of the room, but none inside. If I turn to human form now, they will see me, but the only way for me to traverse the room is by leaving the shadow form.

But these few meters are trivial to me because of what I learned with Aurea. I might not be as resourceful or have the same finesse as her with illusion magic, but I can pull off an invisibility spell.

It won’t last long, but it’s more than enough for me to cross a single room.

At the other side of that room is a very ornate door. It is locked, and the light of the room enters its underside and the keyhole, leaving no shadow for me to exploit.

But I am already prepared for that, of course.

I take a small piece of cloth from my pocket and stick it over the keyhole. It’s a magical cloth imbued with the Dark element and capable of casting a shadow even in a circumstance like this one.

The inside of the keyhole is now in shadows, and I quickly hop into it.

The other side of the door is normally lit with normal magic candles, but I don’t need to shadow hop anymore. I can just walk normally; there is nobody here.

:::

The first rooms are normal halls, with sofas and nice furniture adequate to the high ranking of the people living in this area.

From here, I can hear and sense everything that is inside this restricted area, but nothing of what is outside of it. The underground complex is still cut off, though.

There are some offices, each one with the name of the responsible official in it. At the end of the main hall, an even bigger door leads to the Pontifex’s office.

There is really nobody around, as I expected.

If I had come during the day, there was a chance that I would encounter some of the cleaners. But no cleaner would be working this late at night.

I enter the Pontifex’s office. It’s neatly tidied up, with well-organized documents lining the shelves on the walls.

His desk is as clean and organized as everything else, with every object geometrically aligned in relation to each other, forming a perfect ensemble that follows the golden rule.

But that’s not what I’m after. I’m here in search of any clues about my missing memories. All documents here seem to pertain to the day-to-day mundane operations of the Church.

I look around in the room, searching for any possible secret passage or storage, but ultimately fail to find anything. So I leave the office and keep searching around the place.

:::

After some time, I finally find a secret passage. It’s inside the Pontifex’s personal quarters. The back of his wardrobe opens to reveal a spiral staircase going down.

Now we’re talking.

There is a barrier similar to the one that kept me from leaving that room in the Dragon Mountains’ temple, but I’m able to bypass it thanks to the amulet Aurea found in that temple.

In all those years, I never thought that I could become as emotional as I am right now. My heart looks like it’s trying to escape through my mouth, and my hands are trembling.

Is this what Aurea calls ’to be nervous’?

Below the stairs, a simple hall. It looks almost out of place compared to the lavish furniture of the temple above.

This is obviously not an official part of the temple. It isn’t in any building plan held by the kingdom, nor does it share the motifs found everywhere else in the overground facility.

Also, the sounds of the outside are again cut off, as well as the mana sense. And the reason might be right in front of me.

A pedestal over which a red gem is floating. It seems to be the field of the layered sense barriers of the temple.

I won’t mess with it, because it would be a dead giveaway of the presence of an intruder. So I go past it, towards a door at the end of the hall.

There is an intense magical presence coming from that place, after all.

:::

The door leads to a corridor, which in turn leads to some sort of antechamber.

While the magical presence comes from the room beyond this antechamber, this room is quite interesting by itself. It seems to be a library filled with records of Her life and exploits.

Some of them look quite old, maybe even from contemporary witnesses. Some might even mention me.

I take one of the oldest-looking books and leaf through it. And it indeed mentions me. Not only that, it has a whole section about my own life.

"So this is how people back then saw me..."

I’m surprised by the cordial and almost reverent tone in which I’m described. I half expected to be depicted like a demon.

The writer of this book saw me as an ’aloof and distant, yet wise and kind companion’ to the goddess. It seems that it was written before the betrayal, as it doesn’t mention that I disappeared.

:::

"This is... I can’t believe it!"

Her weapons, armor sets, and clothes are displayed on pedestals, like a museum dedicated to Her.

Most of those I know very well, as I was at her side when she wielded or wore them. While others might be from later days.

For the first time since that fateful day in which a knife was put through my back, both literally and metaphorically, I truly cry.

"Julia... Why?"

"WHY?"