Arknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 79

Chapter 79: I Am Kjeragandr’s Most Dazzling Boy!

Without sparing a single moment of mourning for the heroic sacrifice of the Originium Heater, the Karlan Saint—Ernst SilverAsh—rushed straight to the Holy Stone Plaza.

No matter how foul or pleasant his current mood happened to be, the grand prayer ceremony dedicated to Kjeragandr absolutely could not be delayed. It simply would not do to bungle his own political affairs and then take his frustrations out on his goddess mother; that would cross the line into genuine disrespect.

Compared to the relatively sparse gathering at the Turicum Railway Station, the Holy Stone Plaza was a sea of humanity. If the morning crowd at the station could be likened to a modest high school opening ceremony, then the Holy Stone Plaza was the apocalyptic equivalent of a national college entrance examination site, packed to the absolute brim with the devout masses of this entirely different world.

It was a cold, hard fact that the people of Kjerag vastly preferred theology over science, and witchcraft over calculated parameters. Therefore, to achieve the sweeping industrial transformation Kjerag desperately needed, it was absolutely essential to first enlighten the populace. Otherwise, no matter how much advanced technology he imported or how many modern factories he established, it would merely amount to bleeding money into foreign enterprises. They would end up as nothing more than obedient dogs serving high-tech companies that held absolute technological monopolies.

This was the harsh truth of progress. Anyone who doubted it only needed to look back at the Self-Strengthening Movement of the Qing Dynasty in his past life; history had deeply taught that a corrupt, decadent ruling class paired with an ignorant, backward social environment could never be saved by throwing a couple of factories and a few ambitious pioneers at the problem.

This was precisely why Ernst wanted to focus on education above all else.

It was also the exact reason he had painstakingly drafted today’s speech.

If an education system was provided but the people were entirely unwilling to participate, it was as good as useless. Ernst absolutely refused to let the “Spark” night school, which he had poured so much effort into building in Turicum, devolve into a hollow formality. Therefore, stimulating—or rather, aggressively arousing—the common people’s interest in knowledge was an absolute necessity.

And to arouse a population’s interest, one first had to cater to their deeply ingrained preferences.

“Sister, after the prayer, can I borrow a few minutes of your time?”

His gaze swept across the countless, densely packed bodies filling the Holy Stone Plaza, all kneeling on the freezing stone and praying with absolute devotion. Lowering his voice, Ernst whispered to Enya, who stood beside him leading the rhythmic chanting of the sacred scriptures.

Ernst had, of course, read the Epic of Kjeragandr. Thanks to his rigorous aristocratic family education, he was intimately familiar with the texts and could easily recite several lengthy scriptures praising the goddess. But that was hardly enough; on such a monumentally grand occasion, Ernst, acting as the Karlan Saint, had no desire to open his mouth and accidentally make a fool of himself by missing a syllable.

Just as most people from his past life could recite a few famous lines of classical poetry, it didn’t mean they were qualified to march onto a national poetry competition stage and trade complex couplets with seasoned literary scholars.

So, for the vast majority of the ceremony, he simply relied on the flawless fake-reading technique he had cultivated through twelve grueling years of exam-oriented education. He moved his lips in perfect synchronization, repeating whatever Enya said and matching her exact cadence.

Enya herself had no real objection to his lip-syncing. However, Ernst casually striking up a conversation in the middle of a sacred prayer made her visibly displeased.

Frowning slightly, Enya opened her eyes and shot Ernst a sharp glare. Her icy gaze perfectly conveyed a silent threat: ‘Be quiet right now, we will talk later.’ At the same time, the complex scriptures flowing from her lips did not falter or pause for even a fraction of a second, maintaining a perfectly smooth, melodic rhythm.

Ernst naturally caught his sister’s heavy hint. He pursed his lips, entirely prepared to argue his case, but ultimately thought better of it and simply nodded.

There was nothing he could do about it right now. Ernst could not realistically expect everyone to share his highly unorthodox attitude—viewing the supreme deity not as an untouchable God, but as a pragmatic partner, a casual friend, or a doting mother.

Following the Great Elder’s death, Ernst, despite holding the title of Saint, rarely intervened in the day-to-day religious affairs of the Karlan Temple. The temple was the Saintess’s exclusive domain. Operating right in the heart of the conservative stronghold, Ernst knew he couldn’t expect Enya to remain entirely unaffected by their rigid traditions.

Still, a slightly conservative mindset wasn’t an impossible problem. Ernst was not some radical extremist whose first instinct upon seeing traditionalists was to line them up against a wall.

Once the school is fully operational, you too will experience the wonders of scientific education, he thought, glancing at his sister. It wasn’t that all superstitious thoughts needed to be violently purged, but guiding someone from a rigid traditionalist into a forward-thinking innovator was always a hopeful endeavor. Ernst had immense, unwavering confidence in his sister’s potential.

Of course, this distinction between traditionalist and innovator wasn’t a petty argument over whether to burn traditional incense candles or offer cyber-prayers. It was roughly akin to the ideological divide between mainstream orthodox doctrine and radical liberation theology.

The Great Prayer dragged on for nearly two agonizing hours. During this entire period, Ernst and Enya stood rigidly before the Holy Stone with their heads bowed. Custom strictly forbade them from looking up, opening their eyes, or casting a direct gaze upon the Holy Stone, because the stone—acting as the physical representation of Kjeragandr—was actively observing them at that very moment. A disrespectful, direct gaze at the divine was considered the highest form of sacrilege.

But the worshippers gathered out in the open plaza had it far worse; they were required to remain kneeling on the freezing ground for the entire duration.

Kneeling, heads bowed low, foreheads touching the icy earth in a perfectly uniform, standardized posture—this agonizing physical toll might not have been a rule originally set by Kjeragandr herself, but over thousands of years of human interpretation, it had morphed into a mandatory trial to test one’s devotion to the goddess.

Ultimately, humans were always the ones who best understood how to tame and discipline other humans.

These two hours were a mind-numbing ordeal for Ernst, but for the sea of people present, it likely felt like a fleeting, familiar moment. They were already thoroughly accustomed to such grueling rituals; the sheer power of human inertia was a terrifying thing. Occurring once a year, it only took a decade—from the age of three when a child was first forced to kneel, until they were thirteen—for their societal domestication to be perfectly and thoroughly completed.

Even before the age of three, a child wasn’t exempt from the ceremony. Every single life ‘bestowed’ by Kjeragandr was expected to pray from the moment of birth until the moment of death; it was just that infants were permitted to be held in their parents’ arms.

Before the prayers had officially commenced, Ernst had even spotted several infants in the crowd whose mouths were tightly bound with strips of coarse cloth. This was done to prevent them from crying out during the two-hour silence, lest they disturb the absolute purity and holiness demanded by the temple.

One could only count it as a small mercy that the temple hadn’t used the twisted logic of ‘children are the purest offerings’ to sacrifice a pair of virgin boys and girls to the goddess every year.

Actually, Ernst recalled reading that the Karlan Temple had indeed adopted a similarly barbaric custom in the ancient past, but it had been swiftly and violently abolished by a direct, furious divine oracle from Kjeragandr herself.

“Amen.”

Ernst offered the closing praise from the very bottom of his heart. The outward standards of piety and the specific rituals of the believers might have been vastly different from his own, but a genuinely pious heart was universal.

“Praise the Great Goddess Kjeragandr.”

A long, solemn, and incredibly slow closing remark, uttered with a haunting, rhythmic melody from Saint Enya’s lips, finally announced the end of the grueling two-hour grand prayer.

Ernst eagerly snapped his head up, turning away from the Holy Stone to face the massive sea of people.

Looking out at the sprawling crowd, who were still devoutly burying their faces in the freezing snow—their skin already taking on a dangerous, purplish hue from the biting cold—Ernst raised his hand high and declared with a booming voice:

“Stand up! There is no need to kneel!”

The people of Kjerag hardly reacted to his command. The vast majority were still deeply immersed in the pious, silent atmosphere of the ritual, their temporary spiritual satisfaction entirely numbing them to the physical fatigue and freezing temperatures of the material world.

Ernst pursed his lips in mild annoyance, drawing a deep breath before shouting again:

“The prayer is officially over! Stand up!”

This time, a small ripple of movement finally responded to Ernst’s call. A few people looked around with heavy hesitation, slowly and stiffly pushing themselves up from the snow.

Ernst immediately recognized those faces; they were the laborers and citizens living in Turicum.

Sighing deeply at the sheer stubbornness of the rest of the crowd, Ernst realized he had no choice but to play dirty. He pitched his voice to carry across the entire plaza:

“Stand up! Only sinners kneel! Do you want Kjeragandr to look down and think all of her people are wretched sinners?!”

The crowd instantly erupted into a frantic stir. Panic flashed in their eyes, and people finally began scrambling to their feet at a speed that even Ernst found slightly exaggerated.

They looked up at the Karlan Saint, their gazes carrying a heavy dose of reproach. Perhaps they were offended because Ernst’s urgent, shouting tone lacked the expected pious grace, or perhaps they were deeply insulted by his sudden implication that they were “sinful.”

But Ernst, having successfully achieved his immediate goal, simply ignored their glares. Feeling a mix of deep satisfaction and lingering helplessness, he reached into his heavy coat, pulled out his carefully prepared speech draft, and declared loudly to the thousands of Kjerag citizens who were currently casting him glances of suppressed anger:

“Admit it! The only reason I am qualified to stand here and say such bold words without incurring Kjeragandr’s wrath and divine punishment is because, while you all hesitated in blind prayer, I was already actively learning how to make Kjeragandr proud of me!”

Ernst stood tall, thrusting his chest out proudly. He met the sea of astonished, bewildered, and outright angry gazes without flinching for a single second, projecting absolute, unshakeable confidence.

That’s right, he was laying it all on the line.

“I am Kjeragandr’s most dazzling child!”

I’m really afraid he’ll be blocked by T1 fan trucks as soon as he leaves the venue, hahahahaha.

Regardless, it’s still a good draw, and the excitement is full. Will Xiaohu and Karsa get revenge on G2, will Teacher Shy descend from the heavens once more, or will BLG and JDG defy fate or have an all-out brawl, and T1 and GenG replay the Korean server finals?

LNG? They’re practically guaranteed. I’ll boldly predict that in all forecasts, C9’s point is added!

I started having diarrhea this afternoon and it continued into the evening, accompanied by cramps. Taking Chang Yan Ning and Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid didn’t help much, so I had to go to the hospital. Now I have to get an IV drip.

After the IV, it will probably be one or two in the morning, and I’m very tired, so there’s nothing I can do. I’ll have to take a leave of absence, brothers.

Everyone, please take care of your health. The weather has dropped too sharply. Chongqing was hot the day before yesterday, then suddenly cooled down yesterday, and today it’s directly single digits.

Brothers, I’m off to get my IV.

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