Chapter 480 — Gibri's New Assignment
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Gibri sat down before Gao Yang, and the latter looked her up and down with an appraising gaze, then said unhurriedly: "Gibri, no surname, born in the Peibo region, with a rough grasp of magic, once a magic apprentice for a very brief time, but after your mentor died in a vendetta you fled your homeland to the Leslie domain, where you made a living by divination and selling charms, code name 'Witch.' Is that correct?"
Gibri was still a little tense, but had calmed somewhat. She nodded: "Yes. That is my past."
"Amber recommended you specifically. She said you have wonderful talent," Gao Yang said. "I'm told you have a silver tongue, an exceptional gift for swindling, and a real knack for trimming your sails to the wind..."
The expression on Gibri's face turned strange and awkward at once. She had never imagined that her former boss—who was, of course, also her current boss—would use any flattering words to recommend her. After all, there were scarcely a few good words to be found in that boss's head; she had always had a foul mouth that offended gods and men alike, and for years had escaped being beaten to death by her enemies in the underworld only through superb skill at running for her life. But to hear her own boss's description of her subordinates spoken from the mouth of Cecil's ruler... that was a bit stirring.
Fortunately, Gao Yang quickly came to the "witch" lady's rescue: "Don't be nervous. I know Amber's way with words; I can filter it myself and tell what you're really good at. You're a talent when it comes to persuasion, and you should be quite skilled at making people resonate with and accept what you say, no?"
Gibri looked embarrassed: "Only some... unrefined tricks."
"It's a talent that can be put to use, and I happen to have a task for you that requires exactly that. I should warn you that this task will have a very profound impact on your career as an Intelligence Bureau agent, but it truly is important," Gao Yang said as he casually took a stack of papers from beside him. "Take a look at these."
Gibri took the papers curiously, and was startled to see lifelike images upon them—her first thought was of oil paintings, but she soon realized that the utterly realistic black-and-white pictures were quite unlike anything done by a painter's hand, and that the content was no artistically charged landscape or portrait. On the contrary, it was something with scarcely any artistry at all, and nothing pleasant to look at.
She saw ferocious-faced priests and disciplinarian monks beating the common people; she saw men dressed as soldiers dragging residents from their homes into the streets; she saw men in priestly robes directing soldiers to set houses ablaze; she saw Church knights seizing valuables from commoners, while blood-soaked people lay on the ground begging piteously...
Many of the images were not very clear, and the angles were not well chosen—they gave the impression of having been recorded stealthily from the side, and it was precisely such angles that gave the viewer an intense sense of immersion, as though all of this were happening right before their eyes, at this very moment...
And more importantly: even in the blurriest images, the ferocious expressions of those priests, clergymen, and Church knights were the clearest and most complete thing of all.
A deep disgust and revulsion rose in Gibri's heart—because she had seen such scenes in reality, and had even lived through them.
For a witch who had fled from elsewhere, who was not truly a transcendent being yet possessed a trick or two of magic, who used "sorcery" such as divination to "bewitch the masses," being shunned and condemned by the local church was perfectly normal. Once any crime involving transcendent power occurred, she was the first to be suspected; being driven off and beaten at will was routine fare, and even in ordinary times, the church folk or the lord's men would extort a little something from her...