Three people cannot—at the very least, they should not!

"Forget it, I'll worry about it later!"

After a moment of serious contemplation, Herbert chose to give up on thinking. Escapism might be shameful, but it was truly effective. The awakening of memories, the Vow of Purity, the indoctrination of alien races... there was simply too much happening and too little he could do. Brooding over it was meaningless; he would just have to take things one step at a time.

"Since things have come to this, I might as well eat."

Having missed lunch while sorting through his memories, Herbert did not go to the refectory. Instead, he turned toward the kitchen. This was not the Duke's estate; there were no servants waiting to set aside food for him. In the kitchen, there was only smoked jerky and black bread. It tasted terrible, but it was enough to stave off hunger. Though this behavior wasn't strictly permitted, given the Albert family's years of generous donations to the monastery, he doubted any sensible monk would make a fuss over such a trivial matter.

"Speaking of which, if I find adhering to these vows so agonizing, others must feel the same. How do they release the pressure in their hearts when they can't hold on anymore?"

Herbert nodded to the ascetic monks he passed, noting the details about them. Their clothes were tattered, their figures gaunt, and they remained silent—yet, surprisingly, they bore few scars.

"It seems only a very small minority of ascetics choose to suppress their desires through the pain of self-mutilation. How do the others handle it?"

As he pondered this question, he walked into the kitchen. Just as he was about to select a suitably sturdy baguette, his pupils constricted sharply.

A moment ago, he had instinctively twitched his nose, and amidst the complex odors of the kitchen, he had precisely caught a very faint but inexplicably familiar scent.

The scent of heather!

?

¿

Is this right?

No, this can't be right.

"Hiss!"

Herbert remained silent for a long time. After building up his mental defenses, he finally mustered the courage to look slowly toward the source of the smell. In a water bucket in the corner, he saw a dead fish floating on its back, its mouth wide open.

?

"Hiss... it's a grass carp!"

...

Dinner was clear-stewed grass carp.

Herbert didn't touch a single bite. Forget about eating it; he didn't even go to the refectory. He didn't want to accidentally consume "essence porridge," but he couldn't proactively warn others, as that would inevitably draw the attention of a certain fish enthusiast.

There's no helping it. It doesn't matter if I suffer a bit; let them enjoy this blessing.

Chewing happily on the hard bread—which was sturdy enough to serve as a murder weapon—and thinking about the tragedy in the corner of the kitchen, Herbert couldn't help but hum.

"Heh, that guy... it's one thing to make 'Brother Fish' die with its eyes wide open, but to not even let the poor thing close its mouth afterward? That's really rude."

It was sheer blasphemy. But then again, *you are not the fish; how can you know the joy of the fish?* Perhaps the two of them were a match made in heaven...

After letting his thoughts wander for a while, Herbert reined in his imagination and began to think silently. He wasn't gossiping about the person's identity, nor did he want to rely on snitching to gain favor with the monastery's upper echelons; he wasn't that bored. Regarding the unique hobbies of others, he always maintained a stance of "I don't understand, but I respect and offer my blessings."

After having his eyes opened, he suddenly realized something: he had unintentionally discovered a bug—no, a feature—that could be exploited.

The taboo interaction between a monk and a fish—was that blasphemous enough?

Absolutely!

Such an outrageous act, let alone for a monk who had taken a Vow of Purity, should have triggered a backlash for a monk of any vow. People shouldn't do that; at the very least, they shouldn't.

And yet, such a blasphemous event had occurred so casually in a corner no one cared about, and no one had heard the grass carp's silent scream. As of now, everything in the monastery was normal; Herbert hadn't heard any news of monks suffering from breaking their vows.

"Is the news being blocked? Or... is it similar to how 'intimate exchanges between a priest and a young boy' don't count as breaking the戒律? As long as it's not between a man and a woman, it's fine?"

Grass carp ≠ breaking the vow?

Tsk.

Damn it, even in another world, this cursed inequality is still chasing me!

"...Heh."

While feeling speechless, Herbert also felt a surge of excitement. It wasn't that he had any particular preference for slender boys in over-the-knee white socks—he really wasn't into that—but this discovery gave him an idea.

His professional disease of looking for legal loopholes had kicked in.

Hey, I've got an idea!

If animals don't count as prohibited objects for breaking vows, could it be interpreted as... as long as the object isn't human, it's fine?

One must realize that the number of races in this world is quite vast! Elves, dryads, centaurs, merfolk, dragons, succubi... these diverse species would be enough to send any xenophile into ecstasy. Moreover, his current position as a warden gave him the perfect opportunity to test his hypothesis.

But amidst his excitement, Herbert felt a flicker of hesitation. The Paladin profession had existed for so many years; he didn't believe he was the first lucky person to discover this trait.

Human reproductive capacity in this world was incredibly exaggerated, second only to green-skinned goblins, and there was no reproductive isolation with the vast majority of alien races. Although these alien races were guarded against by humans and even viewed as enemies—contemptuously labeled as "monstrosities"—due to tribal wars, slave trade, and other subtle reasons, it was not rare for mixed-blood offspring to be born from unions between humans and these races.

Half-elves, half-orcs, dragonkin, half-doppelgangers, half-demons, and so on. In some coastal legends, there were even fish-men with fish heads and human bodies... Hmm?

Uh, how did it seem like I accidentally discovered some secret?

These mixed-blood descendants, rejected and loathed by both sides of their parentage, might not compare in numbers to the major races, but their scale was enough to form their own groups, and some powerful ones had even established their own nations.

Following this logic, if intermarriage with alien races was possible, it shouldn't have been left for him to suddenly discover; someone else should have found this loophole long ago.

Sure enough, when Herbert opened that code of law thicker than a brick, he easily found a wide variety of ways to break vows—or rather, case files.

Hiss!

There had been brave souls who sacrificed themselves to the "demons," playing games more perverse than the last, and dying more miserably than the last. Perhaps because those who knowingly break the law are punished more severely, the fates of these brothers were not pretty. These "macho men" were either killed by the backlash of their broken vows, or if they survived, they were hunted down by the Church Inquisition and executed—none were spared.

That's truly criminal!

It had the flavor of reading the penal code!

Well, that path is a dead end.

At this point, Herbert had to temporarily put away his dangerous little bit of cleverness—people can't do it because the commandments don't allow it. Furthermore, stepping back, even if the alien ladies in the prison were restrained, they could crush him with one hand; trying to trade on his looks carried the risk of being played to death.

Being a gigolo could be life-threatening; this world is truly unreasonable.

Sigh, forget it, forget it!

"Keep your head focused; the top priority is to find a way to become stronger. Don't engage in those crooked paths."

Herbert now only hoped that he could gain enough strength through Paladin cultivation to resist the punishment for breaking vows sooner, break free from this cage, and enjoy his own life of freedom.

"Freedom!"

Herbert stood up, stretched his limbs, and walked toward the door, preparing to go outside and breathe the sweet air of the free world.

But just as Herbert was about to push the door open, the holy mark on the back of his hand erupted with a searing, stinging pain, causing his whole body to tremble and stop abruptly before the door.

"..."

At that moment, a bone-chilling coldness crept up Herbert's spine.

On the very first day Herbert arrived at the monastery, he had been warned multiple times never to go out after midnight, and he had never had any intention of wandering at night. But just now, he had almost walked out of his room without any precautions, stepping into that seemingly calm night.

What exactly...

*Gulp.*

Herbert swallowed hard, turned his head with difficulty, and looked at the mechanical clock nearby.

He saw the gold-plated hand just finish completing a full circle—

Midnight had passed.