It was in this manner a week passed by. With me and Ailya both religiously waking up at an ungodly hour every morning in order for her to go to the cathedral and I to the library.

According to Ailya, in the afternoon of her first day, a man by the name Alexandros came by to visit. Thanks to the reverential reaction of the other brothers, she quickly learned that the man was an Archbishop, and was apparently making a visit to one of the lower parishes in order to see the current state of it.

Taking notice of Alice, the Archbishop apparently took a liking to her and invited her to study under him in the morning at his local residence next to the cathedral during the morning. In the afternoon, she was free to head to the church and volunteer in helping the destitute. Although I knew this was all a result of Charlotte’s planning and not a mere accident.

One thing I was able to take notice of was that there were people observing us. It wasn’t as though they were obvious in their actions, but more as if my overly paranoid self was keeping track of everyone who came close to me, waiting for either the hero or the order to show up. And although I couldn’t tell who they all were, I was at least sure that some of them had to be from the Order of the Grey Heron, as I was able to spot the old man visiting the library one day.

Charlotte had made a habit of us meeting every night for around an hour, and during one such night, I asked her if we should be worried about the people tailing us. Charlotte however, reassured us that they would take no action as the two of us were very clearly already under the protection of the kingdom from their point of view. In anticipation to their appearance, Charlotte had made sure to not hide the fact that the two of us were receiving special treatment, so it was likely that the Order suspected that the two of us had the fates they believed us to have. The only problem Charlotte saw was that they hadn’t initiated any form of contact with us, but said to be on the lookout for them to initiate contact with us at any point.

One of the main things we discussed in the nights were the abilities and skills I possessed. Particularly interesting to Charlotte was [Veritas]. According to her, the soul skills and abilities that I was able to see was something that couldn't be discovered by any measuring device.

As a result, such abilities and skills were simply referred to as ‘unique abilities’, and those who possessed them would simply instinctively know about them at some point. Although according to Charlotte, it was entirely possible to never notice you possessed one. She even mentioned that she herself was not aware of possessing the [Eyes of Truth] initially, as she always relied on her [Mana Eyes] to observe the world around her, but figured out she had them when she learned through old records that it was something that all who reached the tenth tier in [Mana Eyes] received. However, she has been unable to increase their tier as she seldom finds a good use for them. Charlotte also mentioned that it was not known that it was such skills and abilities that defined the potential of a person, and she was very interested in having me divulge many of the workings of stats, levels and souls.

Aside from this, Charlotte also asked if Ailya and I would be able to unlock all possible magic skills as we leveled up. I explained to her, however, that while there were a large amount of base skills for us to learn, that depending on our choices of skills, the ones we would be able to learn later on would change. Charlotte then asked if it was possible for me to learn dark magic, and I told her that it was possible, but wouldn’t happen until I was at least level 30. Although she seemed a bit downtrodden about this, overall, her mood had improved greatly and had me promise her to let her see me use dark magic as well as explain it using [Veritas]. According to her, she was able to learn any magic skills so long as she understood how it worked or had the opportunity to observe it thanks to her [Sage Archive].

As we continued with our daily grind, both Ailya and I began to learn a great deal about the world and had made marked improvements in our skills. Thanks to Charlotte, we were able to learn that the ability to see souls was something that was extremely rare, and only a few of the highest ranking members of the theocracy, as well as a few special individuals scattered throughout the world were capable of such a thing.

Thanks to that, I felt slightly more confident in using my [Soul Devourer], although I still had no plans of using it in a way that would attract someone’s attention, as I was sure that the stupid Order most likely had someone capable of such a feat.

After a week, Ailya had managed to increase another level as a result of her picking up a few souls here and there from dying patients. Although thanks to Archbishop Alexandros support and most likely also Charlotte’s, the rather humble church was able to receive a nice stock of potions and elixirs that allowed them to successfully treat a greater amount of patients. This news spread throughout the populace when a large amount of the sick who were expected to die, came back healthy. In turn, causing a greater number of sick persons to show up in the hopes that they would be cured. This resulted in Ailya’s proficiency in healing magic increasing as she had plenty of patients to practice on, while she also picked up the skill [Mixing] from her potion practice..

I too learned the skill [Mixing] during the week. Thanks to Kelvin letting me join him after three days of studying the required books. More important than that, however, was the vast amount of knowledge I was beginning to gather throughout the day. Although I expected myself to be rather bored since a majority of my day day consisted of staring at a page full of tiny words, I actually found myself rather interested in the history of this world, especially the great empires that once stood and the two prior demon invasions.