Chapter 1959: Chapter 180: Collecting Opinions
In the center of the ceiling, arranged in a septagram shape, was a circle of white candles, the flas hanging down onto thin wicks, like clusters of golden lantern fruits.
The candles were scorched by the heat, lting into drops of translucent wax, which slowly rolled down the wicks into the flas, emitting a soft sizzling sound and casting a gentle light.
A few green vines stretched out slender tendrils, like curling claws, clinging to the white candles, and the tender leaves on the tendrils opened their arms, hungrily absorbing the heat radiating from the flas, leaving mottled black shadows in the soft candlelight below.
Around the oval eting table, the seven mbers of the Seven Sins silently stared at the pot of vines in the center of the table, speechless for a mont. In the room, apart from the sound of Beelzebub munching on sothing, there was no other noise.
Friedman could hardly hear anyone else’s breathing.
Vampires are known for their keen senses, yet in this room, beneath the concealnt of robes and masks, Friedman’s usually prized talent beca as dim as the candlelight.
The candle flas flickered slightly.
The shadows on the table seed like light boats, gently rippling, and even the atmosphere in the room was stirred open. Just as the flickering flas had yet to stabilize completely, amidst the shifting shadows, a figure silently appeared beside the vines.
The Sin Bearer of the Seven Sins.
—A decrepit old soul who breaks promises out of thirst for office.
Behind the bat mask, the Long-Lived Kind silently cursed in his heart, while casting his eyes on the Sin Bearer’s smooth egg-like white mask.
“Good evening, my little ones!”
Seated cross-legged in the middle of the eting table, the Faceless Man raised a hand in greeting, his voice carrying a touch of cheerfulness: “I’m truly sorry, took a little nap this evening, nearly forgot about the eting… Saw a big black dog blocking the road on my way here, its eyes so eerily green… What a year of misfortune…”
Sir Friedman didn’t believe a word of what the Sin Bearer said. Every ti there’s a eting, he’s always the last to arrive, always coming up with all sorts of strange and peculiar excuses.
“We’re breaking the school’s curfew late at night, not here to listen to your views on the mutts,” ca the low interruption from the Duke behind the bat mask.
“Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer,” the Faceless Man lifted a finger, shaking it in front of him: “Why is it always you… How long will it take for you to learn to respect authority a bit?… Silence!”
The Duke grunted, eventually quieting down.
The others seed oblivious, silently observing the scene, only the sound of Beelzebub’s eating quieted a bit, showing so respect to the Sin Bearer.
“There are a few small matters that need to be discussed with everyone today,” said the Sin Bearer in a cheerful tone, continuing with the white mask on: “Of course, as compensation for this unexpected eting and interrupting your rest, I will collect ‘opinions’ tonight…”
As he spoke, a blank parchnt appeared abruptly before each of the seven ‘devils’ around the eting table, a white feather pen hovering above the paper.
This was quite a pleasant surprise, Friedman’s eyebrows slightly rose beneath his mask.
Unlike other societies, the mbers of the Seven Sins do not know each other’s identities. On one hand, this ancient and inefficient organizational model well maintains the privacy of mbers; even if they trade wizard corpses within the society, it won’t attract investigations from the school or Trident Sword; on the other hand, in this state of mutual guarding, the society’s cohesion is very weak.
For example, if one mber of the society seeks help from the organization, as ‘Lucifer,’ Sir Friedman intends to assist, but using any power from 3A (he is still the president of this society) or the Karen Family could easily expose his identity. Even if he didn’t use any external power, just his own actions, it would be difficult to conceal all traces.
In such circumstances, a sufficiently ‘objective’ and ‘fair’ arbitrator becos very important. This was one of the reasons for the original creation of the Sin Bearer position.
Besides convening etings and supervising the internal ‘transactions’ of the society, the Sin Bearer’s most critical duty is collecting mber requests—these requests are called ‘opinions’ within the Seven Sins.
These collected ‘opinions’ are handled by the Sin Bearer and entrusted to third parties—such as Sacred Will, Wandering Bar, so hunting team from the New World, or even the gathering place of Witch Demons, the Land of Desolation, etc.—completed by those high-credit third parties. Correspondingly, the Seven Sins would receive equivalent tasks from the third parties.
For instance, recently, Wandering Bar completed seven tasks for the Seven Sins, and in return, the Seven Sins provided the Wanering Bar with the professors’ movents within the school over the past month.
Because it was recent, Friedman rembered clearly; it was an extrely simple task. He just needed to occasionally go around the office building, chatting with professors under the guise of competing with Augustus, to confirm whether the professors were at school.
As for the reason why the Wandering Wizard was investigating the professors’ whereabouts, it had nothing to do with him.
Since the collection of ‘opinions’ and completion of ‘transactions’ are never simple, unless the seven devils simultaneously raise a demand, the Sin Bearer seldom finds trouble for himself.
Thus, when Friedman heard this ti the Sin Bearer, whose mask shone brighter than an egg, proactively collecting ‘opinions,’ he was inevitably surprised.
He wasn’t the only one surprised.
“Mia… mia, huh?” Beelzebub, who was burying his head in cake, raised his head, revealing a dirty pig mask, his fan-like ears swaying back and forth with so vigilance in his voice: “Why are you so positive today?… Is there sothing weird outside that ca to you?”
The Sin Bearer’s shiny mask turned toward the pig mask.
Though expressionless, everyone could feel he seed to be smiling.
“Sensitive fellow, it’s too mismatched with your mask,” he clicked his tongue twice and shook his head: “There aren’t any troubles outside… just foreseeing so incidents may occur at school in the future, making so arrangents in advance.”
—Possessing high divination skills, or knowing a powerful diviner?
Friedman silently noted, but anwhile sighed inwardly in frustration. Since entering the Seven Sins on the first day, he had tried profiling the other six devils and that Sin Bearer, but to date, each one behaved no different than an ordinary wizard; even occasionally noting so traits would quickly lead to contradictory conditions, leaving one scratching their head.
Actually, he had long given up guessing their identities, that thought just now was rely an instinctive response.
In response, this Long-Lived Kind, who once served as the vice president of the Alpha student council, could only strive to hide himself deeper, behaving more conventionally.
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