Strictly speaking, when Langman Griffin displays this bewildered and wary expression, it's easy to arouse the spectators' affection and protective desire. However, once you have the opportunity to spend more than ten minutes with him, as Mr. Ford put it, you either immediately feel the urge to smack him in the head or quickly become accomplices with him.
Aside from Langman's secretary, no one present sided with him. So, aside from the secretary offering an awkward yet polite smile in response to her boss's question, only Erica, the person who had sparked the meeting, stepped forward and greeted Langman, "Hello, Mr. Griffin."
"……what happened?"
Another person upstairs also came out of the study.
He was an Alpha, about sixty years old, dressed in the standard Vatican robes. Despite his age, he still looked energetic and, standing next to Langman, seemed half a head taller than him. He held a leather-bound notebook in his hand, and a golden dagger was tucked at his waist, seemingly a symbol of status.
I don’t know what he had discussed with Langman before. The old man now looked calm, and his brown eyes were staring at the people in the living room below the stairs with a scrutinizing look.
"Bishop Gilbert," Longman said softly, "There's a guest downstairs that I'm going to meet this afternoon."
"Oh?" Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "Did I take up your time?"
"How so? I have benefited a lot from talking with you."
When necessary, Langman can actually make his tone sound particularly sincere.
Gilbert smiled and shook his head, then walked down the stairs first. "As expected of a busy man in the capital. Since you still have guests, I'll take my leave."
Their ordinary conversation made the atmosphere in the Griffin mansion much more relaxed.
As the bishop passed by the coffee table, he nodded to Langman's guests, but paid them no further attention. A figure like him, standing at the pinnacle of his field, had experienced and met people beyond the ordinary trajectory of most ordinary people. If nothing unexpected happened, today's visit and chance encounter should be a trivial, everyday occurrence. As long as the sun rose tomorrow, all other trivial matters would be forgotten.
If nothing unexpected happens.
Langman looked at his solid back as he left, and always felt as if he had forgotten something.
“—Please wait a moment!”
He suddenly shouted when Gilbert was half the length of Azathoth.
"What..." Bishop Gilbert paused and was about to turn back when a flash of red light suddenly appeared from the dagger at his side. This seemingly unsharpened weapon actually ripped through his fine robe, leaving a two to three centimeter-long wound on the right side of his thigh.
The blood was immediately absorbed by the fabric, leaving a dark red mark. Soon, the rusty-smelling liquid flowed down Gilbert's legs, meandering over his exposed ankles and flowing into the pair of cloth shoes embroidered with dark gold patterns.
This sudden and unexpected situation made Langman Griffin feel nervous.
"Are you all right?"
He asked worriedly, "I'm sorry, I called you so abruptly..."
"No, it's not your fault." Gilbert's voice was hoarse. He didn't care about the wound on his leg, but stared at the dagger for a while, then slowly shifted his gaze to the faceless stranger sitting on the sofa in a black cloak.
Azathoth looked into his dark brown eyes, which were like wet soil after rain.
Both the man and the god were surprised by this sudden situation.
Langman's secretary realized what had happened. She jumped up in shock and stammered nervously, "I'll get you some medicine and gauze!"
But the Griffin Mansion was the safe and worry-free residence of a noble lord on weekdays. Langman could call a group of private doctors with just one communication. Apart from some emergency life-saving drugs, it seemed that the only thing that had an effect of stopping bleeding and relieving pain was the mild children's painkiller prepared a few days ago for little Terry, who had two teeth knocked out by Erica - Langman also used some of it because he was bitten on the cheek.
As a painkiller that is not much stronger than saline solution, this small box seems to bear too much weight that it should not bear.
"No need, it's just a small matter."
Fortunately, Bishop Gilbert did not intend to add to the burden of the Griffin family's only box of life-saving herbs for toothaches.
He handed the notebook in his right hand to his left hand, then used his free hand to gently wipe the scar on his leg. In the blink of an eye, the wound disappeared.
"It's just a trivial ability," he said casually. "In daily life, it can only be used to treat minor wounds like cutting your fingers while cutting vegetables."
As he spoke, the old man's eyes did not leave Azathoth.
Anyone with a little bit of sensitivity would notice that something was wrong.
Igor said at the right moment: "I think we are only here today to discuss the compensation for Mr. Terry with Your Excellency... If you and Bishop Gilbert still have important matters to discuss, we can come back another day."
Langman: "I..."
Before he could speak, Azathoth asked Gilbert, "What does this mean?"
His tone was neither hurried nor panicky, as if he was asking about the weather.
Langman suddenly stopped talking, his expression uncertain.
His secretary rubbed against the boss and typed on a mobile terminal: "What do you want?"
Her boss glanced at her.
—Find a way to invite Bishop Gilbert to stay, no matter what method you use.
The secretary suddenly felt a headache.
Gilbert said: "To be honest, this is the first time I've encountered such a situation."
He pulled out the dagger from his waist, which was still stained with blood, and examined it carefully for a few seconds in the light outside. "As you can see, this is just an ordinary unsharpened dagger."
"And I don't think it's your fault, sir."
He glanced at Igor who was sitting next to Azathoth and said, "Maybe it's just a coincidence. You don't have to be nervous."
After a pause, he recalled what he had just heard and added, "I feel sorry for Mr. Terry's teeth."
"..." Langman didn't want to pay attention to his youngest son's two baby teeth. He asked, "Are you prepared to stay a little longer?"
Gilbert turned around and said, "I thought we had finished discussing this topic. Do you have anything else to say?"
Langman: “Uh.”
The secretary beside him quickly responded, "It's like this! You may not know this, but the Griffin Mansion seems to be haunted lately!"
Gilbert: “……?”
He never expected to hear such a statement and couldn't help but look at Langman.
Langman's expression was very subtle.
"...Actually," he said dryly, "Bishop Gilbert, you know that old houses often encounter some inexplicable problems. Now is a critical period for the development of the Griffin family's business. Changes in federal policy may bring new opportunities, but they will also give rise to some unknown rivals..."
The head of the Griffin family typed on his mobile terminal with his hands behind his back: Your salary is gone.
secretary:……
"...In short, I have reason to suspect this involves some kind of supernatural power or divine arts, and you are undoubtedly an expert in this area." Under his secretary's bereaved gaze, Langman remained calm as he finished this explanation, which at first sounded completely illogical, but upon closer inspection, because no one else could come up with such a bizarre and outlandish reason, it actually felt somewhat believable. "It would be great if you could stay at the Griffin mansion for a night."
The secretary tried to rescue the situation: "I heard you are from Fashat Province? Our chef is from there too. If you have any hometown dishes you want to try, please feel free to ask!"
Bishop Gilbert remained expressionless, seemingly neither flustered by the previous accident nor annoyed by Langman's strange reason for the invitation.
"I'm just an ordinary faculty member," he replied. "Although I think you should contact a nearby plumber or gardener right now...but since Mr. Langman has made the invitation, it would be unkind of me not to accept it."
"I'll just rest in your house for one night."
"It's just...it might affect your discussion."
He looked at where Azathoth was again. Although this man kept emphasizing that he knew nothing and everything was normal, his attention to visitors like Langman was obviously more than normal.
Even his words gave people a strange feeling - he was obviously speaking to the head of the Griffin family, but because he was facing the guests next to him, it seemed as if he was talking to Azathoth or Igor.
However, Azathoth had no intention of taking over.
He hadn't been interested in taking the matter seriously. Even if Langman Griffin was Igor's enemy in some sense, relying solely on the abilities of his family members, it wouldn't be difficult for him to win in this information-asymmetric struggle.
The reason why the shut-in God traveled all the way to the capital was simply because of the little girl Erica.
This young, native cultist from Port Alpre was, in fact, the one who best understood how to assert his presence before the gods of Azathoth. After all, the Federation had an official religion, and many children, influenced by state propaganda and their parents, had a habit of daily prayer or church attendance.
Erica was no exception, but the most striking difference between her and the others was that no matter how many thousand-word essays other believers muttered every day, the gods, who were in some unknown world, might not even hear them. Azathoth and Erica existed in the same plane—or rather, the same cosmic dimension. In short, whenever the little girl sincerely recited Azathoth's true name, the god could actually hear what she wanted to say.
Of course, even if they were very close, there was still a threshold to contacting the gods. If Erica's words weren't urgent or pressing enough, if she was just jotting down a few trivial things like a diary entry, Azathoth would have automatically filtered them out.
Then, just a few days ago, after learning that Ford Hill had reported her fight at school to God, Erica's desire to apologize and be forgiven skyrocketed.
She was young, without complex ideas. Once she had a goal she longed to achieve, she would be single-minded and unwavering. Little did she know that Azathoth could actually hear her mumblings. So every night before bed, the evil god, far away in Keminting Town, would hear a cultist's whispered prayers, filled with nervousness, sadness, and regret. He could even imagine them burying themselves in the quilt mid-sentence, rolling around in bed.
Perhaps the most unbearable thing in this world is the embarrassment of bringing shame upon oneself before God.
Erica is still a child after all.
With this in mind, and in order to provide Igor with opportunities and intelligence, they naturally agreed to Ford's request to pass the buck and caught the last spaceship of the day to arrive in the capital.
As for the various wonderful encounters with gods at the Griffin mansion, which caused Azathoth to wake up from his dream and suddenly become interested in in-depth research, that is another matter.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
