“What’s there to know. We just work as much as we’re paid for and leave. Put away your needless curiosity.”

The seasoned worker sidestepped Isaac’s question with a clicking of his tongue.

Not just this man, but almost all the workers had the same response, so he had not hoped for much to begin with, but he couldn’t help but sigh.

After all, information usually flowed from documents or from person to person.

But no such information was flowing here.

An ‘altar’ that anyone with eyes could predict was blatantly being built, but nothing was coming from the mouths of those who had eyes.

The actual workers breaking and moving the stones simply thought they were getting a lot of money for their work, so they didn’t care what they were doing in the first place, and the architects supervising them didn’t seem to know either.

Isaac’s ears pricked up at the complaints bursting from a gathering of architects, not the workers.

“Damn, if you build the foundation like this, it might look fine now, but it’s bound to collapse!”

“Hey. Keep it down. All we have to do is follow the orders.”

Another architect strongly pulled the shoulder of one who was venting his anger.

“Didn’t you hear that even the walls in the palace have ears?”

“Oh, damn it, how would I know that? It’s my first time in the palace too.”

“Quiet!”

Isaac, who had been listening to their conversation, tilted his head.

They used architects who were visiting the palace for the first time to build a new building in a part of the royal palace?

Building, not maintaining, a building that constitutes one of the ‘Royal Palace’ axes with such architects?

Feeling like he had fished something out of the information drought, Isaac naturally melted into the shadows and listened to the conversation of the discontented architect and the soothing architect.

“…So, we don’t know how long this can hold.”

“We did our best with what the palace demanded.”

“Damn, if my master knew, it would be a scandal. And there’s something more disturbing.”

Anxiety suddenly filled the face of the architect who was venting his grievances.

“Do you see that guy over there? You know him too. That guy.”

“I know. The fool who’s obsessed with whether it’s a god or a demon.”

The other architect who took his words clicked his tongue, but there was no condescension.

Because there were often those among the architects who were deeply religious.

If you ask for a few of the most famous buildings on the continent right now, isn’t half of them not temples of specific gods?

The architect who started the conversation also nodded nervously.

“Fool? That’s too harsh for a young sprout.”

Judging by the rather submissive reaction, compared to when he was complaining about the building, he seemed to be kind to the younger architect.

But on the contrary, the architect who was calming him down replied sarcastically.

“Tsk, he’s showing off too much. It’s not good to go to extremes in anything.”

“But that’s not what I meant. The guy keeps mumbling that this building is ominous.”

The architect who first brought up the foolishness clicked his tongue.

“I knew he would do that. Look. It’s because he’s overly immersed in religion.”

“Is that so? But it’s my first time seeing a pattern laid out over the entire building.”

The architect tapped on the blueprint, but his gaze was actually towards the nearly completed building.

Because the pattern, which was not recognizable just by looking at the blueprint, was clearly visible in the building.

The architect who had been clicking his tongue for a long time also nodded hesitantly.

“That’s… true.”

He probably couldn’t say out loud that it was an altar for an unknown god.

As I said myself, even the walls in the palace have ears, so you shouldn’t say anything that the palace didn’t specify.

At the end of the slow gaze of the two architects, a young, still youthfullooking architect was mumbling and biting his nails.

“It’s ominous. It’s too ominous.”

No one answered the mumbling of the relatively young architect.

But there was someone who was just listening without answering.

Isaac tilted his head as he watched the young architect whose teeth were chattering.

An ominous pattern on a building that looks like an altar.

It was really uncomfortable, but everything was just conjecture.

There’s not a single piece of information that can be confirmed.

In the end, it seems that it’s not something else disguised as an altar….

But for which god is this altar for?

There was no news of a change in the state religion of the Norden Kingdom.

It’s quite a big deal for a nation’s state religion to change.

Even though religion has become a part of life and temples no longer hold power as in the past, one can’t ignore the influence they still have on people.

Isaac examined the complexly engraved patterns all over the altar, but he couldn’t recall any deity.

Could it be that any pattern was just drawn outside in smoke…?

No, it can’t be in a holy temple that worships the gods.

In the end, Isaac let out a deep sigh that welled up from deep within.