Having returned ho from the Black Raven Library, it was already half-past ten in the morning. After confirming the effects of the New Arcane Technique, Shard didn't cook at ho but instead, took Mia—who had developed an interest in cards—out of the house and took a carriage to Dawn Chapel.
When looking for a carriage in Saint Delan Square, they already felt the festive atmosphere because of the young Priests wearing Cleric Robes and distributing promotional materials. By the ti they approached Dawn Square, the pleasant ambiance created by the religious festival in this city beca even more intense.
Having gone through the traumatic events two weeks ago on Thursday, City Hall also planned to help the city recover from its wounds through large public events, thus providing a lot of support for the Holy Prayer Day of the sumr of 1853.
Centered around Dawn Chapel, banners and strears hung throughout the nearby blocks. It was unclear whether the City Hall had spent Gold Pounds or the Dawn Church had spent its own money, but the shops' external walls on several streets directly connected to Dawn Square were all adorned with the Holy Emblem of the True God, "Mr. Dawn."
Pigeons flew through the foggy sky, and the bustling crowd converged towards the Chapel and the surrounding streets. The lively festival also attracted more street vendors to set up their stalls along the roadside, which the City Hall turned a blind eye to.
The carriage could not enter the site of the celebration and only dropped Shard off at an intersection on the edge of the square.
The area was nearly all people, and cries of vendors could be heard in various places around the square. Amid the hustle and bustle, the cat Mia held tight in Shard's arms tucked itself even tighter into his embrace. Shard knew Mia was a timid cat but hadn't expected she would be this skittish.
Therefore, he didn't bother to stroll through the square brimming with tents and went straight into the church.
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Although the preparations for Holy Prayer Day were very busy, Priest Augustus actually had so free ti now that the festival had truly begun.
When Shard saw him, the Old Cleric was in the last row of seats in the chapel's side hall, listening to a sermon by a middle-aged Priest.
Normally, even on Sundays, this side hall of the chapel could at most only be half full, but today it was not only completely occupied by Believers, so even had to stand in the aisles against the walls.
Knowing that Mia was well-behaved and wouldn't make noise, Shard stood next to the Priest with Mia in his arms. The Priest nodded to Shard, indicating him to listen patiently.
So Shard stood there for twenty minutes, listening to a sermon he wasn't much interested in. Only after it finished did he and the Priest walk out with the dispersing crowd.
It was now ti for lunch, and Priest Augustus hosted Shard for a al at the church. During Holy Prayer Day, the church's dining hall was open to a select few invited Believers, and the als were very generous, which is why Shard had taken Mia out, wanting her to have sothing good to eat as well.
Throughout the al, Shard didn't forget to reveal that he had recently obtained what was claid to be an "Elixir of Immortality"—a Magic Potion—and wanted Priest Augustus to help verify it. The Priest was very interested and took the potion by the dining table, but did not conduct the identification in the church:
"I need a few days, I will tell you imdiately once I have news."
After lunch, everything proceeded as planned. Outside the church was the lively celebration, while inside was the much more solemn religious activity.
Shard was arranged to take part in a small prayer eting, in a room with thick curtains drawn, candles and incense burning, he prayed together with the Believers to "Mr. Dawn." If this wasn't a church, then the scene would be a standard Cult ritual.
Afterward, he observed the baptism of three children, who had been selected from families of devout Believers, along with Priest Augustus and other visitors. Shard had already experienced a baptism in the Steam Age once before, but this one was even more formal. Not only were high-power gas lamps used, but steam pipes were brought in to spray Steam Mist, making the entire venue foggy.
The scene was not comical at all. The church's solemn and subli architecture, colored glass windows, and religious murals overhead all perfectly blended with the hazy feeling of the Steam Mist. This excited the photographers snapping photos on the side and left everyone present damp.
Except for Mia, who Shard had hidden inside his clothes.
Shard only needed to follow Priest Augustus in his activities within the church, for the Old Cleric was in a very good mood today. In between events, he also showed Shard a new oil painting that was hanging in the church corridor.
The painting was quite large, frad in a gilt fra, and located on the corridor leading from the main hall to the east side hall. The painting's colors were rather dark, with no white space left, people in various colored dresses stood in a ring around the edges of the painting, and in the center, shallow brushstrokes outlined the stone tiles of the floor, with a carriage parked to the left side of the center, a carriage window revealing the face of a beautiful, elegant woman, and two n standing on the right side of the painting.
One man held a pistol, and another stood in front of him with arms outstretched.
The person with outstretched arms could almost be said to stand at the center of the painting, and the artist had rendered him with the most exquisite brushwork. With the use of ink and color, it seed as if a beam of light shone above the head of this person in the painting, bathing him in holy light. And those who viewed the painting could instantly recognize that he was indeed the protagonist of the scene.
"This is..."
Priest Augustus smiled, the wrinkles on his face piling up, his mood genuinely splendid.
Shard couldn't help but smile as well, bending down to check the naplate of the painting. There were two lines on the naplate; the top line recorded the date the painting was hung here, and the bottom read:
[The Blessed Mortal - Commoration of the Holy Prayer Day of 1853]
"How about it? This was finished just the day before yesterday, specially in ti to be hung here before the Holy Prayer Day. This morning when you weren't here, there were even reporters taking pictures of it, so perhaps it will appear in tomorrow's newspaper,"
Priest Augustus said.
Shard wasn't dissatisfied, to have the events he experienced rembered by others was a fine thing.
He was just curiously asking:
"Will this painting always hang here?"
Shard only rembered that the scene at the ti was very noisy, completely lacking the sacred solemnity of the oil painting, nor the feeling as if he was going to sacrifice himself for so lofty reason.
"It might hang for several decades. You don't need to worry, I know you don't want many people to recognize your face, so the face in this painting doesn't resemble you much. Additionally, Queen Diana has seen this painting and provided guidance on her own likeness in it, and she too is quite satisfied with the painting,"
The priest said while nodding, then asked with a laugh:
"Shard, how do you feel about this?"
The Outlander certainly never imagined he would leave a mark in the churches of Tobesk that would last for decades in such a manner:
"Does the church always commission such paintings?"
The people coming and going behind them were imbued with the festive atmosphere, yet no one could recognize that the protagonist on the wall was standing right here, looking up at it.
"Only during tis worth commorating do we have such oil paintings. It just happened that you saved the Empress, were seen by many people, and it coincided with the upcoming Holy Prayer Day. If it were an ordinary day, and if the person you saved had been just an ordinary individual, I'm afraid you would need to have survived eighteen gunshots in the street to..."
The Old Cleric shrugged and didn't continue. Although it sounded harsh, that was the reality.
Shard's speech took place in the side hall as well, where the church had long prepared the script and requested that he do his best to speak without it. The Outlander, though busy with exams the past week and without ti to morize the script, had "her" with him. After Shard read it twice, she could recite it almost completely.
Thus, during the half-hour-long speech, Shard simply followed the voice in his heart, translating the ancient language she used into the modern Draleon common tongue.
The content of the speech wasn't fresh; the the was "God Loves the World, God Blesses the World." Although the core doctrines of the Church of the Five Gods differ, they are all religious groups exhorting people to be good and use similar thods in promoting their churches.
The content of the speech wasn't very fresh, but the church's scriptwriter, with great skill, made the content seem novel. They even incorporated the experience of Shard being shot, making what could have been a preachy speech considerably more attention-grabbing.
Anyone who could write a speech like this would be considered a scarce talent in both this world and the Outlander's holand, so after the speech ended, Shard wanted to ask Priest Augustus to introduce him to the scriptwriter.
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