A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 312 Divination Formulas
During the first fall into the abyss, in the elevator of the "China World Trade Center," Lin also used Earth's language.

Quinn is fluent in Chinese, Japanese, English, and German. He learned most of his Japanese from watching anime, so he is naturally familiar with "私、気になります" (I am curious), a famous Kyoto Animation line that, as Sissa said, means "I am curious."

Coincidences with extremely low probabilities are likely man-made, and Quinn certainly wouldn't believe that there's a dialect in the Northern Continent that's exactly the same as Japanese.

Given Lin's experience, Quinn wouldn't rashly conclude that Xisa was a time traveler based on just one sentence.

To date, Quinn knows of at least three people in Temuran who know Earth languages.

Lin, Leticia, and Sysa.

Celia, who was infected by the Abyss, doesn't count.

Lin didn't have a complete grasp of Chinese; it was more like a fragment of knowledge for her. When Quinn asked her why she felt it was her native language, the little girl replied that it was just how she remembered it.

Judging from the dialogue in Merlin's tomb, Leticia's command of Chinese is clearly superior to Lyn's. Whether she can understand Chinese characters is unknown, but she has already reached a level sufficient for daily communication. Perhaps Merlin or Link taught her, or perhaps the ancient and mysterious Elf Queen learned it through other means.

Both of them are elves, and Lin's Chinese is probably related to Leticia, but Sissa...
A deep sense of confusion arose in Quinn's heart. This guy was obviously also connected to the hero in some way, because of the Empire's artificial hero experiment.
Of the five suspected heroes, Lin has been cleared of suspicion.

Celia. Excluded.

Elon, with his ideals of hometown nationalism, Ike, who replicates the experiences of his hometown gang, and this priest who inexplicably utters a Japanese phrase...
If Leticia wasn't lying, and the world could only accommodate two transmigrators' souls, and she had already taken one of those spots, then regardless of whether the true hero was among them, she felt that these three were inextricably linked to the hero.

“Your dialect is quite uncommon.” Quinn’s expression remained unchanged throughout. “Just out of curiosity, you’re willing to go to such lengths to investigate something that may not even exist?”

Sissa tilted his head slightly, as if Quinn were the odd one out, and asked him in return, "Do we need any other reason?"

His matter-of-fact expression made it seem as if he would gladly pluck the moon from the sky out of "curiosity."

Quinn stood with his hands behind his back, walked to the edge of the corridor, and gazed at the blue sky and white clouds for a long time.

"I will not give you her blood."

“But if what you say is true, I am willing to go to the Eastern Kingdom with you to investigate this matter.”

“I will tell Amamiya Nene about this. She wants to know what happened to her father more than anyone else in the world.”

Sissa walked over to Quinn, raised her index finger and shook it, indicating 'that won't work.'

Quinn frowned. "No way."

“If she finds out about this, we probably won’t be able to find anything,” Sissa explained. “That man can erase all traces, so naturally he would think that family is the only clue to the future. He’s a fortune teller. Do you know what fortune telling is?”

“I’m in the divination department,” Quinn said, as if he were an air conditioning technician being asked about his job.

“Actually, predicting the future is like a mathematical formula—” Sisa explained from a novel perspective: “Leaving aside the complex parts, everything can be reduced to two quantities. Let’s assume Amamiya Nene is a constant, and the people she will encounter in the future are the variable. Then, by using these two values ​​as a basis for calculation, we can deduce what will happen in the future.”

Although this world lacks electricity, applied science based on steam power has developed to a considerably high level. Universities in various countries have reached the level of the Earth in the first half of the 20th century in mathematical research. The formula that Sissa mentioned is not considered out of the ordinary.

"As long as he can calculate the future, he can prepare many, many 'ambushes' to keep his hidden past from being discovered and to make the future develop in the direction he wants."

This is an incredibly skillful divination, no different from the time god of the Eternal Church.

However, Quinn did not question this speculation at all.

Because that's exactly what his fellow villagers did.

All that's missing is arranging blind dates for myself.

“Amamiya Nene is his biological daughter whom he raised. In the future divination, she is a super stable known number. If I were him, I would make a lot of arrangements around Amamiya Nene. By the time you tell Amamiya Nene the truth, you will no longer be able to find out anything.”

Quinn's eyes narrowed slightly.

It all started with the "prophecy" told to her by Nene Amamiya, then progressed to theft of the containment item Heaven's Gate, and later to the Abyss.
Rather than saying that the fellow villager had calculated every step he took, it would be more accurate to say that he had calculated every step his daughter took!
You came to this information just by making casual guesses?
Quinn looked at the priest, who had slightly narrowed his eyes and a faint smile on his lips, with some shock. He continued, "If divination is described as a formula, then the unknown variable 'X' is the key to breaking the entire formula."

“X?” Quinn repeated his English pronunciation as a question.

“For example, high-sequence extraordinary beings who have escaped the river of fate, for example, the abyss, for example, the hero.” He raised an eyebrow at Quinn: “Or for example, me. They are all objects that cannot be anchored.”

"Don't look at me like that. I haven't reached the high sequence yet, I have nothing to do with the abyss, and I'm not a hero. It's just that some things in the past have given me similar traits."

Sissa extended a hand to Quinn: "Want to cooperate? Don't miss this opportunity."

Four p.m.

Quinn, now dressed as Shelby, and Sysa, in a priest's black robe, left the Church of Return and headed down the mountain towards Seville.

“The Abyss Transcendents are like cockroaches in your house,” Sissa said as they walked. “If you see one, it means there are countless others hiding in the shadows.”

"After you brought that guy—oh, Jack—to me so I could kill him, our church's busy clerk started investigating."

Xisa gestured, "Sequence Eight, Merchant. His extraordinary abilities are unstable; he's clearly only recently advanced. That's strange. The entrance to the Abyss is guarded by the Cult and the Academy. If no one brings out Abyss relics for them, no new Abyss extraordinary beings can be born in the world."

“Not just anyone can carry Abyssal relics. To project the Abyss into the present world, one needs at least the strength of a ‘Priest.’ Oh, I forgot you’re not a member of the Cult of God. A Priest is Abyssal Sequence Four—but that’s not necessarily true. Any Abyssal transcendent who can hear the will of Original Sin can be considered a Priest.”

"Based on past records of methods used to eradicate the Abyss, each Abyss path had only two or three priests. They remained within the Abyss for extended periods, relying on their subordinate 'managers' to operate in the real world. They distributed Abyss relics to the managers, who then selected suitable candidates to create new Abyss transcendents."

Quinn nodded slightly; this was similar to the information he had extracted from the abyss.

"So Misha was certain at the time that there was an 'administrator' in Azwell developing new Abyss superhumans."

“Generally speaking, priests and administrators wouldn’t choose a big city like Aishwell, since it’s where the academy is located. They prefer remote small towns or villages, but we still checked it out on a whim, and we found something unexpectedly good.” From the moment we passed through the barbed wire separating East and West Aishwell, a fog carrying the metallic smell of heavy metal filled our nostrils. The bright blue sky seemed to be covered with a layer of dirty gray, and everywhere smelled of foul water and firewood.

Sissa glanced back at Quinn, noticing his unhurried pace and lack of aversion to the uneven, sewage-strewn ground of Seville. A thoughtful look flashed in her eyes.

He continued:

"Lust investigates lovers, Gluttony investigates officialdom, and Greed investigates buying and selling. Among the four existing abyss sequences, the Greedy Fate is the easiest to investigate, since the accounts will be kept. [Buyers] can't carry a bunch of gold pounds all over the world; they also need banks."

Quinn asked at just the right moment, "And what about the fate of arrogance?"

“Pride?” Sissa smiled. “The Pride Path hasn’t appeared for many years. Abyss Transcendents of this sequence are extremely rare, even rarer than Secret Envoys. Not just anyone can fuse with the Pride Relic; it’s as picky as its name suggests.”

"Through some channels, we found Jack's bank account, and then followed the trail to his home."

"That guy is a refugee from the Western Continent. When he was young, he worked as a smuggler for a gang in Sewell—"

"Golden Wind?"

"Yes and no. Street smugglers are people who sell stolen goods for pickpockets or thieves. They occasionally act as pimps and take on anyone's goods. However, as fellow Western Continent people, they are more likely to be favored by Golden Wind. That guy is hardworking and quick-witted. He made a lot of money in this line of work and settled down in Westwell."

"How did you collect this information?"

It should be noted that even Ankuya, who was backed by the school administration, couldn't find out Jack's background.

Xisa smiled slightly.

"Don't be fooled by the fact that our Guishu God Cult is not popular in the Southern Continent. Just like the Holy Spirit and Goddess are worshipped by the rich, the Heavenly Father is very popular in Xiwell."

The roads of Seville were crowded, with houses crammed together and rooftops blocking out the sky. The comings and goings were filled with chocobos, porters, tall orcs, and laborers. They were all jostling and cursing, making a commotion that was annoying. Whoever had the biggest fist had the right of way, and even the carriages of the rich were no match for them.

However, when Sissa, dressed in a black robe, walked in the middle of the road, these uncivilized and ill-mannered people of Seville spontaneously made way for him, leaving the smoothest path for the priest. The surrounding noise subsided considerably, and some elderly people and children even closed their eyes in prayer from the moment they saw Sissa—they were not believers in God the Father, and their prayer postures varied widely, including those of the White Church, the Vatican, and the Eternal Church.
They weren't unaware of the World Tree pendant on Sissa's chest. They simply knew that their god rarely visited this dark and dreary slum; only the priests of the Returning Tree Cult frequently roamed through it.

Prayer is the only way for these people at the bottom of society to find solace in their miserable lives; any priest will do, it is the veneration of the ignorant.

"After having children, Jack left the underworld and moved away. We don't know where he moved to, and his whereabouts became elusive. That's probably when he became an Abyss Transcendent. When he reappeared, he had transformed into a doctor treating Reeve, the head of the Branson family."

"Is his name really Jack?" Quinn asked.

Sissa glanced at him, smiled, and asked, "Is that important?"

"With his real name, the academy can use divination to find more information."

“But the academy isn’t just about divination; it also has an administration office.” Sissa picked up the Seagull brand camera hanging around her neck, squatted behind a hotel wall, and pointed the lens through the window at the second floor. As she focused, she said, “If you knew his real name, his wife and children wouldn’t survive. We’ve checked, and they don’t know anything about it.”

Quinn fell silent for a long time before finally asking, "What are you filming?"

"I love the world after the rain. Fog and dew are both on the glass at the same time, and the silhouettes behind the windows appear both vivid and ambiguous, like another dimension of the world."

As he spoke, Xisa pressed the shutter, then a genuine smile of joy spread across his face. Unlike his usual demeanor, carrying his scriptures, he covered the camera lens like a child.

"So, the prostitutes upstairs are working?" Quinn had already seen what was in the window.

“No, there’s bread on the table by the windowsill.” Sissa lowered her head and left. “That must be for the children. The little pig bread with its nose is so cute, isn’t it?”

The two walked through the smog of Seville, their conversation continuing.

"After several confirmations, we identified the middleman who introduced Jack to the Branson family: Reeve's friend and the former Minister of the Treasury of Ashwell. When we found him, he was already close to advancing to Sequence Seven of the Gluttony Fate Path."

What is Sequence Seven of Gluttony?

"Sequence Nine [Public Servant], Sequence Eight [Observer], Sequence Seven [Eavesdropper]. I don't know about anything above that. Gluttony's Sequence Eight can gather information that is beneficial to himself from people's social activities, which is probably why he noticed Reeve's desire for offspring and arranged for a doctor to treat the symptoms."

“If he advances to Sequence Seven, it will be troublesome. Eavesdroppers can hear human thoughts directly. These guys are faster than rabbits and almost impossible to catch.”

"Unfortunately, we originally wanted to follow the Minister's trail, but it seems we alerted him. Several individuals connected to him who are likely Abyss Transcendents have left Azwell."

Quinn frowned and questioned, "Why are you unwilling to share this information with the college? Even if you only provide a list, the administration won't let them get away with it."

Like other Churches of Returning Trees in the Southern Continent, the Church of Returning Trees in Aiswell has been smaller in terms of available personnel in recent years due to a lack of funding and support.

“Because we have to handle this ourselves.” Xisa’s tone was not guilty. “You know the situation the Guishu Church has been in these past few years. If we make the case of the Abyss Transcendent beings public, the Academy will inevitably share the information with other cults. In the joint operation, we, lacking manpower, will become mere bystanders.”

"No wonder the Returning Tree Cult smells so strongly of them," Quinn sneered. "This is the first time I've heard of a cult eradicating Abyss Transcendents just to gain political achievements, and if they can't achieve that, they'll block the way for others?"

Xisa didn't offer much explanation, and continued, "But fortunately, we followed this big fish and found his superior. A guy called 'Mr. Q' is the Abyss Administrator of Axwell."

“Normally, the managers are very well hidden, and communication is one-way. Their daily interactions are only within the Abyss. To capture someone, you have to go into the Abyss to wipe them out. But the Aiswell incident is extremely abnormal. The superhumans here are very active in the real world. Mr. Q has taken a lot of money over the years through that minister, and he also sold a kind of drug. We found Mr. Q's code name in the ledger.”

Quinn's gaze sharpened.

Starlight?

"The reason why Abyssal Transcendents are difficult to capture is because they do not operate in the real world. And based on past experience with Abyssal turmoil, once they do become active in the real world, they usually only do one thing."

“A ‘chosen one’ who can bear the will of original sin is about to be born.”

(End of this chapter)