Chapter Eighty-Six: The First Miracle — "The Twisted Holy Father"

A relatively well-preserved farewell letter.

It was old, yellowed, tinged with gray, and thick with dust, lying atop a desk that had managed to withstand the passage of time. The one who had written it was now nothing more than a heap of bones—some still clothed, slumped over a chair—clearly dead for quite some time.

The paper, frail and brittle from the ravages of years, was too delicate for Colin to risk touching. After asking Lee Chou to help collect the remains, Colin lifted his lantern over the letter, leaning forward to examine its contents.

The writing was in a script unfamiliar to him, reminiscent of cuneiform. With the combined aid of the system’s “machine translation” and some prompts, Colin pieced together its meaning:

The plague has broken out again. The Church has abandoned us. They not only forbid us from contacting the priest, but won’t even send a single knight… They tell us that if we are faithful devotees of the “Mother of Suffering and Thorns,” miracles will descend upon us in the midst of pain and despair… These sanctimonious wretches, they have utterly twisted the Church, perverted the truth of the First Miracle—the “Twisted Holy Father”… Damn them… damn them all…

From here, the handwriting devolved into a frenzied scrawl, the paper torn and shredded, every inch saturated with despair and hopelessness.

“The First Miracle—‘Twisted Holy Father’…”

Colin’s gaze lingered on that phrase, and almost immediately, he recalled the statue enshrined in the church outside: wild-haired, emaciated, a man bound in a grotesque, tormented posture to a thorny tree.

[In your speculation, you believe the “Twisted Holy Father” is the name that statue represents. In the Age of Suffering, he was called the First Miracle, the first to endure torment, the origin of all suffering, and the one who inaugurated this era.]

“So ‘First Miracle’ refers to sequence, not strength. Still, if he were alive, I doubt he’d be weak…” Colin mused, noting the grand tone used in the prompt’s description.

The beginning of the Age of Suffering, the first to be martyred, the first miracle, the origin of all suffering… It all sounded quite formidable…

Then, as if struck by another thought, Colin pulled out his parchment to check his progress. In his “Civilization Investigator” task list, his personal progress had jumped from roughly 0.0002% to about 0.1%—a leap of two decimal places.

Yet in the overall progress, it still hadn’t reached the threshold for entry, meaning that global investigation was still less than one percent complete.

What a pity, he thought—just a single name had pushed his progress forward by so much. If he could uncover more details about the life and deeds of this “Twisted Holy Father,” his progress would surely skyrocket.

Just a name, and he’d advanced by two decimal points. Imagine if he were to dig up all the details, scandals, and rumors—he’d be unstoppable.

No, this is starting to feel like tabloid journalism, he joked to himself, shaking his head and returning to the contents of the letter.

“The plague…”

He recalled the state of these remains—they looked as if they’d been gnawed to death by rats, not by disease.

Some of the bodies lay sprawled on the ground, arms outstretched, as if in their final moments they had desperately reached out for salvation. Yet their skeletons had been picked clean by rodents—hardly the image of those claimed by illness.

What did this have to do with plague?

“Stupid auto-translation, this was a rat disaster, not a plague,” Colin muttered, confused. “If it was rats, then where are they?”

Not a trace—not a rat, not a whisker, not even a footprint. Other than the gnaw marks on the bones, there was nothing here to suggest rats had ever been present.

He gingerly turned to the next page, only to find it blank.

“Even if the rats had survived, by now they should have starved to death,” Colin reasoned. Such a horde would have consumed the entire town; without food, they’d perish.

But then he remembered something else, and dismissed his own logic. Next door was the “Olive Maiden,” who could keep hundreds of thousands of olive trees alive just by weeping a little.

So, was it really so hard to imagine a “Miracle Boy” or “Miracle Girl” who could sustain millions of rats with their tears?

After all, the two places weren’t far apart…

“Well, if it weren’t for the white mists, these areas might not be so close at all… The fog seems to layer space itself…” Colin’s mind spun with possibilities, but none brought him closer to the answer.

Where had the rats gone?

[You realize that these were no ordinary rats—they used some occult method to kill everyone.]

“Occult methods…” Colin could only abandon his speculation for now. Without more information, he’d have to keep collecting clues and hope the system would offer new hints.

Still, one conclusion seemed clear…

Colin gathered his thoughts. “The Church is deliberately manufacturing suffering, trying to provoke ‘miracles,’ and then… harvesting them?”

Otherwise, he found it hard to explain their utter disregard for humanity.

Perhaps, to the upper echelons, the lives of ordinary people were worthless; no matter how many died, if just one “miracle” resulted, every sacrifice would be justified.

That’s why Colin saw them act with such inhuman callousness.

The Church’s refusal to help this time, it seemed, must have been for the same reason…

Just like with Kimino.

But whether or not a “miracle” had truly occurred in this city remained unknown.

Colin shook his head. However one tried to justify it, such behavior was still absurd beyond belief.

As his search continued, Colin gathered more and more historical details…

Yet he remained utterly mystified about the rats.

Throughout the town there were many farewell letters, but most were worthless—prayers for miracles, dying wishes for food or loved ones, even, astonishingly, entreaties to spend one’s last moments in the arms of a neighbor’s wife.

Letters as varied as the human spirit—some serene, some hopeless, some hysterical.

One thing was certain: everyone knew what was coming, and the disaster struck so suddenly that no one had time to adequately prepare before death claimed them all.

“A rough estimate, this town once held ten or twenty thousand people…”

Not a large number, but not a small one, either.

…

The investigation pressed on, and as Colin uncovered more and more remnants, he began to glimpse the origin of the rats.

“The noise inside the walls is getting louder. They’re coming. They’re coming!” …Inside the walls…

He pondered the words as he stood in a collapsed house, eyeing the “farewell letter” gouged into the tabletop by desperate fingernails.

The rats—had they tunneled out from inside the walls?