“Iliana.”

Iliana stopped in her tracks, prompting Basil to do the same, as Margaret called her. Turning around with a quirked eyebrow, she asked what Margaret wanted with her gaze.

“Once you got Basil to know every part of our village, I need you to meet us here. We have something important to talk about with you.” Margaret then turned to Basil. “I don’t think you find the idea of becoming the Pacifer’s Patriarch pleasant yet. Still, you don’t need to become one to know what we are going to talk about.”

Basil merely nodded his head and said nothing. Margaret smiled wryly at how casually Basil reacted to that. She had an inkling that he already figured out what they would talk about with Iliana. Regardless of who he was, it was mindboggling.

Saying her farewell, Iliana took Basil out of the Maha Dmitra Mansion. Many clanswomen were standing before the mansion, so they were immediately greeted by the crowd upon getting outside. Basil’s status as the Fated Child was legendary. He would’ve gotten away with the attention if he hadn’t shown his Pacifer Seal, yet he did.

Fortunately, the clanswomen of the Pacifer were sensible people. They could put themselves in Basil’s shoes, so they merely looked at him curiously from afar and stayed quiet. Most of them hadn’t seen his Pacifer Seal yet and they came to see it. No different from them, those who had seen it, too, came to see it.

The colour of the light one’s Pacifer Seal exuded was significant. Hina Dmitra’s Pacifer Seal glowed in white meanwhile Maha Dmitra’s glowed in purple. Basil’s Pacifer Seal, on the other hand, glowed in gold which they had never seen before. The profoundness that Basil’s Pacifer Seal was exuding was incomprehensible, evoking reverence from those who saw it.

“Iliana, you don’t know where to go, do you?” Basil called out as they had been standing motionlessly while looking at the crowd for more than fifteen seconds. “This is not the same village that you grew up in, after all.”

Iliana merely cleared her throat, turning a deaf ear to Basil’s statement. Fortunately for her, Ione came to her rescue. Her eyes lit up as the said female Pacifer walked over to them after finishing her chat with her friend. Ione quirked an eyebrow as she looked at her but didn’t say anything. She knew what she had to do.

“Want to look around?” Ione offered.

“That will be lovely,” Iliana responded gladly.

“Why didn’t you come in?” Basil asked, ignoring Ione’s offer.

“I figured that you needed some privacy, My Lord. You were going to hear about your heritage, after all.”

“I thank you for being considerate, but it was unnecessary this time. I don’t mean to hide anything about my origin, although not everyone should know.”

Ione glanced at Basil and Iliana’s tangled hands and nodded her head. The thing that Iliana was afraid of when Basil “knew the truth” didn’t happen. She was happy for her friend but couldn’t help the bittersweet feeling she had in her heart. She shook her head and stomped that feeling down as soon as she realized what she was thinking about.

Motioning the couple to follow after her, she took them around the village. Nothing much could be found in the Pacifer village. Most of its area was decorated by houses that were built out of specially processed earth. They looked simple yet artistic. There were some rivers in the village, but they were manmade. The world behind the Obelisk Barrier wouldn’t have natural rivers.

Some part of the area was reserved for crops. The Pacifer had a knack for cultivation, so the crops were going extremely well. The living condition in the village was good. If not for the fact that the Demons were threatening to reclaim the area, the Pacifer would have had a peaceful life.

Basil could ask the Guide how the Pacifer ran the village but he didn’t, because he would have no reason to talk. The stare they got as they walked around the village already made the walk feel slightly awkward, so he didn’t want to prolong the silence to make it even more so.

“How do you trade?” Basil asked.

“We don’t,” Ione answered.

“We provide every clanswoman what they need and don’t ask for money. The currency in the village is ‘ask,’” Iliana elaborated. “We produce everything by ourselves. When we lack raw materials, we will send some chosen people to go outside.”

“Surely, you don’t buy raw materials.”

“Yes, we gather them,” Ione confirmed Basil’s statement.

The Pacifer’s interaction with the outside world was getting scant for the last ten years. With the intensity of the Church’s hunt for their heads, they were forced to stay away from civilization. The Church had many agents spread around the world, so encountering them in civilized areas was not rare. Therefore, the Pacifer hunted, not traded.

“Do you have rules in this village?”

“We have a simple one: those who feel oppressed by the Maha Dmitra may leave the village and seek the meaning of freedom by themselves. Some clanswomen do think that we are merely wasting our time by waiting for the Fated Child who, in their opinion, is not real.”

Ione was displeased by that fact but didn’t despise the clanswomen who thought that way. If it wasn’t for her mother, she would have also thought like them after all. It was hard to keep believing when all one got for it had been sufferings. The clanswomen made a logical decision, just not the right one. Still, they weren’t to be blamed.𝗈𝑣𝓵xt.𝗰𝑶𝔪

“Now that My Lord is here, our remaining concern is population. We haven’t interacted with other people for quite a long time and with our distrust of them, we find it hard to reproduce. Our clanswomen are more romantic than pragmatic, so they don’t want to sleep with anyone just to get their seed.”

“How many widows do we have?”

“Out of the seven hundred and sixty-six members of the Pacifer, we have two hundred and fifty-six widows. The rest of them remain virgins because of our condition.”

Basil wanted to ask how many “experienced” virgins they had but held himself back. Age was a touchy subject for some people. Regardless, the Pacifer was truly on the brink of extinction. Most of them would attain immortality once they became a Ninth Circle Mage, but it wouldn’t change a thing. The lineage would end if they were killed before they could reproduce.

Basil thought about a way to kick up the population but immediately berated himself. He was almost thinking about making his people emotionless baby factories. The romantic Pacifers would reproduce when they found the right person. His duty was not to encourage them but create an environment where they could find the right person.

“Even more reason for us to demolish those bastards sooner,” Basil said calmly.

Iliana stopped in her tracks, holding Basil in place. Ione stopped in her tracks a second late and turned in wonder. Light of understanding entered her eyes when she saw Iliana’s eyes planted on the garden beside them. Iliana was just like her mother, Maya: she loved flowers dearly.

As Iliana dragged Basil to the garden, Ione took that as a cue for her to leave. She figured Iliana needed to talk; thus, she left. At least, she was about to do that until she felt Iliana’s gaze bore a hole into her head. She turned around with an awkward smile before eventually sighing as she walked over to the couple.

They stayed silent until they were in the centre of the garden. The wind made the flowers sway and their hair flutter. The fragrant smell of the flowers was carried by the wind to their nose, bringing a calming sensation. A comfortable silence engulfed them until Iliana decided to break the silence.

“Master Lawson came here on the day Mother was captured. I was playing in the garden when that happened,” Iliana reminisced, earning Basil and Ione’s solemn attention. “I can remember vividly his hardened and regretful look. Mother immediately knew what happened and handed me over to him.”

Iliana relived the memory. She saw her mother’s stern look and it made her afraid to ask. Everything was like a déjà vu. The atmosphere and the way her heart was beating were similar to that day. That day became the last time she saw her father and her little brother. This day might be the last she could see her mother. Unfortunately, she turned out to be correct.

“Find your brother and guide him! Don’t fail him as your mother did you!”

She couldn’t forget her mother’s last words. She wanted to cry every time she recalled them. Despite the things her mother had done for her, her mother still felt inadequate. The memories that her mother had made with her were unforgettable. She enjoyed every moment she spent with her mother. Her mother shouldn’t have said that.

Lawson didn’t waste his time as he immediately took off and take her with him. It was at that same time that the Paladins barged into their village. The clanswomen came out of their houses. Maha Dmitras exerted their power and an earth-shattering clash between them and the Paladins broke out.

Iliana watched in horror as a group of Paladins surrounded her mother. She wanted to scream, but Lawson held her mouth close. Fortunately, her mother made it through her predicament. Though; sadly, her mother didn’t triumph for long. Lawson was forced to fight the Paladins trying to stop him, so she had time to watch as her mother began to get overwhelmed.

She could have just left and survived, but she didn’t. Her mother protected the other clanswomen, leading to her capture. She saw it with her own eyes—the scene of her mother getting dragged by her hair as if a worthless potato sack—as Lawson took her away. Her eyes went blurry and she was already in Braxtein when they cleared up.

She sat silently on Lawson’s sofa, emptily gazing at the regretful man. He was trying hard to make himself look unbothered, but his guilt could be vividly felt in the Mana that he was exuding.

“Kid, I am sorry I couldn’t do much. I watched as your father got executed and looked away as your mother got captured. Keeping you safe is the only way for me to make amends to your parents. I don’t need you to like me, but trust me. Okay?”

She didn’t feel like it, but she nodded her head. Years passed and they got closer with each passing day. Though, she remained defiant until the end. She already got desperate around this time. More than a decade had passed and she hadn’t found her little brother. It was purely a coincidence that they met in the Regional Tournament.

She could immediately tell it was him because of the strong Pacifer aura he was exuding. Much to her horror, the moment their eyes met, her heart skipped a beat. When he smirked at her, she fell in love. Ever since that day, seeing Basil as a man became her guilty pleasure.