Uncaring to Basil''s sudden existential crisis, Iliana pointed to herself. "Due to that reason, people—the Church—believe that the real Pacifer must be a woman." Then, she pointed her finger to Basil.


    "Unlike you, whose identity as a Pacifer is doubted by the Church, if I were to attach Pacifer behind my name, they would take my head before I knew it. Of course, they would do it discreetly since they don''t want the world to know of the feud they have with Pacifer n."


    Having recovered from his sudden existential crisis, Basil hummed to himself. "Is that the reason why the Church doesn''t take an immediate action upon seeing Pacifer behind my name? They are still hesitating?"


    "Yes and no." Iliana shook hear head faintly. "They actually don''t doubt your heritage as a Pacifer; they doubt your existence as a Pacifer."


    "Yes?" While Basil was slightly puzzled, he had an inkling of where the talk was heading to. "Is this something along the lines of the fated child whose birth will change the fate of the n?" He couldn''t even hold back a chuckle at how amusing it sounded to him.


    "Y-Yeah. How did you know?"


    Basil''s reaction was instantaneous; his smile that was full of amusement was wiped off his face, as he turned his serious gaze to Iliana. He was actually hoping Iliana was messing around like usual, but she was being serious judging by how flustered she was.


    "I don''t want to hear a joke."


    "A joke? I thought you didn''t know anything about our n!" With how serious Iliana said it, Basil found out that the fiction like scenario he had said earlier was spot on.


    Putting a hand on his forehead, Basil massaged his eyebrows lightly. When he was done, he looked at Iliana once again in a very faint disbelief.


    "Tell me the details."


    "Let me tell you that I didn''t stay with the Pacifer that long, so I can''t tell you that much about our n."


    "Is it because the situation that forced your father to bring you here?"


    "Yes."


    "Where did you actually—"


    Iliana put up her hand. "I will exin to you about thatter, so hear me out first." Basil nodded his head lightly, and Iliana started speaking. "Pacifer n is filled with talented Mages—female Mages. Different than the Mages you know however, our n''s Mages are special."


    Basil slightly quirked his eyebrow, and Iliana smiled at that. "I have told you that we, Pacifer n, worship another God, haven''t I? Well, actually we don''t worship a God; wemunicate with whatever God we can connect ourselves to."


    "Are you telling me we are consisted of a bunch of delusional people?"


    Basil simply couldn''t believe the absurdness of Iliana''s word. He had always ridiculed the people of the Church for their belief, but turns out his n was also the same; he just couldn''t bear with the irony.


    "Hold your horses, boy. I haven''t told you anything yet," Iliana said in slight annoyance. "Pacifer n see nature as the true deity, and we are naturally more in tune with Nature than the rest of the human poption."


    Gesturing to her surrounding, she continued, "What our n perceive asmunicating with God is to be one with nature. We are in tune with it, and we find that we canmunicate with it. Of course, not just everyone can do it; only some of the chosen women of our n have the ability to."


    "Are they the Priest of our n?"


    "Quite simr, but no—we don''t have Priest." Iliana shook her head lightly. "Instead, we have Dmitra. They are the chosen women in Pacifer n, who can be one with nature; all of them are invincible when they do so."


    Basil cupped his chin, and mused over the thing Iliana had said. No matter how he saw it, the concept behind Dmitra was simr to Priest; what makes them different is only the fact that Dmitra admitted that they were a Mage.


    Other than that, everything is pretty much simr. While Priest utilized Miracle, Dmitra utilized Nature energy—from what Iliana had described. It seemed different, but both were utilizing energy that came from an unknown origin—their "Gods'' power."


    Of course, this was only Basil''s hypothesis; he hadn''t heard anything about how Dmitra actually utilized the power from Iliana yet. Therefore, he couldn''t just conclude that Priest and Dmitra were basically the same.


    "Dmitra''s ability to be one with nature frightens the Church, because not only can Dmitra achieve the same feat that any Priest does, but also exceeds them at some point. Pacifer n is deemed a n of heretic simply due to our special trait."


    "How foolish. Being insecure just because their ''Gods'' are not the only existing ''Gods'' that can make people achieve the same feat..." Basil snorted coldly. "Who do they think will care of such a matter?"


    "Many," Iliana seriously answered. "What makes up the human poption is not us Mages, but civilians. Why do you think civilians believe in their crap? Yes, Miracle. Now, imagine if the existence of another group of people who can do the same thing appears."


    When the crowd of civilians, who only believed in Gods due to the power they showed through the Miracle the Priests possessed, knew of the existence of another God, their belief would naturally be shaken.


    Although there were some of the fanatics and the firm believers whose belief could never be swayed by the emergence of a new god, they didn''t make the majority of the Church''s followers.


    The ordinary believers, whose belief was already shaken, could easily convert to another "religion"—Pacifer n—and became Pacifer n''s followers, which in turn made Pacifer n gain influence. The Church didn''t want this to happen.


    Basil lightly sneered, and contemptuously said, "They really are afraid of losing their influence." Basil waved his hand nonchntly. "I can care less with their nonsense; there is already bad blood between us. Keep going with your story."


    Iliana exhaled lightly, and continued speaking. "As you might expect, your mother was a Dmitra—a high ranked one, at that. That is the reason why the Church killed her."


    "What about you? What is you rtionship with her?"


    "That will be because of your father." As she sensed a questioning, Iliana immediately exined herself. "After marrying your father, Maya left the ''vige,'' and lived with your father. Your mother was one of the reasons why my father brought me here."


    Although Basil was quite intrigued with the "vige," his attention was focused on the fact that his mother had left the "vige." The statement is ambiguous.


    While there might be a possibility that his mother had indeed left the vige after marrying his father, the ce where she had stayed at was questionable due to his father''s habit.


    Irene had made clear that his father had always taken his time to go on a "vacation," which Basil could easily conclude was just him paying a visit to his mother. That means, his father had to travel to a far ce, which could possibly be Pacifer n''s vige or just another rural ce.


    Since Iliana didn''t borate further about where his mother had stayed after leaving the "vige," she could be either lying or telling the truth about her mother leaving the "vige."


    "What is the other reason of why you left the ''vige?''"


    "I can see you are questioning about why I call it ''vige'' instead of just vige, so I will kindly exin to you." Iliana faintly smirked.


    "Due to our feud with the Church, Pacifer n is nomadic; we move from ce to ce to avoid the Pdins. So, the vige is not actually a vige since it is often destroyed by them." Iliana shrugged.


    "So, Pacifer n is hunted?"


    "Isn''t it a little bitte to realize that?" Iliana chuckled humorlessly.


    As Basil''s eyes turned colder, he frowned his forehead. Although he was aware of the bad blood between the two sides, he didn''t think the Church would go to such lengths to the point of actively hunting Pacifer n.


    It wasn''t because he didn''t consider the possibility—much to his embarrassment, he had even doubted the survival Pacifer n—it was pointless for the Church to hunt after an "extinct" n, after all.


    By listening to Iliana''s story however, he could confirm that there were still Pacifer out there. Although he didn''t know how many living Pacifer there were, he was sure they were quite many since they could even build a vige on their own.


    "At that time..." Basil refocused his attention to Iliana, as soon as she started speaking once again. "At that time, a group of Pdins found our vige. Although we are not powerless, we were outnumbered so bad that fighting them would be suicide."


    Iliana clenched her hand. "Me and my father fled the vige to save our lives ... Andplete a mission—finding the whereabouts of the second Maha Dmitra, Maya Pacifer, who had left the ''vige'' a couple of years ago."


    "Did you know where my mother was?"


    "No." Iliana shook hear head. "We didn''t know where she actually was. What my father and I had in our mind back then was only staying alive. We ran to wherever our heart led us to, and ended up in Braxtein Kingdom. Meeting your mother was just a coincidence."


    "That makes your actual rtionship with my mother—"


    ? "Yes, she was my mentor." A faint smile decorated Iliana''s face. "You know, while every woman in Pacifer n has a potential to be a Dmitra, not just everyone can be one."


    Puffing her chest, Iliana proudly dered, "I, as a genius who is only born once in 2000 years, posses the potential to be a Maha Dmitra. I will let you know what is the difference between Maha Dmitra and Hina Dmitra just so you can admire my brilliance."


    "Hoh? Tell me." Basil quirked his eyebrow in interest, and slight amusement.


    "There can be only 7 Maha Dmitra at a time. They are the best out of the best Dmitra. On the other hand, Hina Dmitra is not restricted by number; anyone can be a Hina Dmitra as long as they are diligent enough to learn the way to utilize the Art."


    Basil didn''t need Iliana to exin what the Art was; he already knew that was the inherited Art that allowed a Pacifer to be one with nature—to be a Dmitra.


    That means, this is the very Art that made Pacifer n''s women couldn''t give birth to a boy, which makes his existence doubtful.