On the Mainland, unaware of the desperate straits to which his student was being forced to, Jonah was going through a ledger that detailed the enormous Energy expenditure of the army that would soon set out to Angaria.
His bones still hurt from the last of the frequent torture sessions, but he was still the one put in charge of maintaining this force that had been assembled. Hence, even though he had spent the last two hours being questioned for the umpteenth time about what else he could tell about the continent that might help in the war effort, he now found himself dutifully going through the list to see if there were any discrepancies.
To run such a large organization, precise accounting was required to keep track of the vast amounts of Energy that was used every day to maintain its forces, and train the upcoming members who joined primarily for these very resources. Before sending the list off, he had to check, first, and make sure that none of the soldiers were acting cheekily by using more Energy than they should.
It was silly and ironic, but as Jonah knew that he would be in for even more agony if he didn't do it, he used this time to think and reflect on these past days as the task was a simple one.
Alas, the demerit of it being simple was that it didn't take that long to get it done, so after 10 minutes, when he looked up, the loathsome person who had taken him up to the Bishop on that fateful day was waiting.
\"While I was here, you went over it thrice. Do I need to report you again for wasting time?\"
\"Go on… And the next time, there will be a mistake. When asked, I'll simply say that I was accused of wasting time when I was just trying to be thorough. You can take the opportunity to explain the mistake to the accountants, then.\"
His reply made the man grimace, as everyone knew that there was no one angrier than an accountant who was rooting out someone that had sent a faulty list. If he was found out to be the one responsible, he would be in for a beating, as curiously, the accountants in the church were made up of some of its strongest members. Jonah had thought on this before and had come to the conclusion that it might be because only those whose minds were proven to be more complex than anyone at that level were chosen for this task where thousands of numbers needed to be crunched. As they did nothing else but complete this task and train daily, it was to be expected that they would grow inordinately powerful.
\"You can check the list again later. The Hell Lions need to be fed, and I'm busy. Go and take care of it - we don't want them breaking out, do we? If they do, you're the one who will have to put them back in, so if I were you, I'd get to it.\"
With a sigh, Jonah got up and began to walk towards the door.
He was sitting in one of the small stone alcoves of one of the libraries in the Headquarters of the Church which was, by itself, as vast as a city on Angaria. His path outside was currently blocked by the man who was making no effort to hide the gloating expression on his face, and even as he neared, he did not move.
When Jonah approached, the man spread open his legs and gestured at the space between them.
He wanted him to kneel, and crawl through as if he were a dog.
These days, this treatment and was par for the course from this guy who had figured out that even though he had been placed in such a significant role, he was out of favor with the Bishop.
He had only been guessing it before, but after 'coincidentally' walking into a session of torture one day, it had been confirmed, and the Bishop had not been bothered to speak up.
Since then, he had threatened to make this news public. If that happened, Jonah would be met with trouble everywhere, so he was trying to maintain his dignity while fending off the sadistic desires of this creep.
Feeling the desire to rebel rise in his mind, Jonah saw that today, he was feeling more pissed off than usual. Perhaps the reason was that four of the Angarians who had not screamed at him while he stood in the air as they were tortured had turned, and let loose their tongues. Until today, they had been believing that perhaps it was all a big mistake, but it seemed that the pain had become too much to bear. They found the only outlet available in the room, and ever since he had heard the curses that still filled his ears, Jonah had been feeling giddy with rage.
Now, as his eyes flashed dangerously, he hid it well and obediently dropped to his knees.
For at least a short time, he was determined to be rid of this guy, so he had made a plan.
As he shuffled forward on his hands, the guy started to laugh.
The laughter went on and on… Until Jonah reached the point just below his most precious goods, and flicked his head up with all the force he could muster from his Peak Hero level body.
CRACK!
As a sickening sound echoed in the alcove, the man went mute and held his crotch where there was nothing left but blood left.
Barriers worked in such a way that they would not stop anything happening inside the area that they were protecting, so as Jonah had been able to reach so close that he had even been able to touch him to include himself in that area, they had not activated.
He fell to the ground moaning with pain, and for a second, Jonah was tempted to finish the job.
The temptation came and went, as the death of the valuable members of the Church was more than he could handle at the moment.
Shaking his head, he took one last, satisfying look as his victim's eyes rolled back to show their whites.