Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

'Yes… He is the same man.

Katalina told me about this person so many times when we last talked. City of White Raven's founder… Eren Elijah Idril.'

Sara Stark, like some mortals, was not used to following what happened in the rankers' world. That's why she was unable to recall that the name Eren Idril was associated with the city of White Raven right away.

However, Sara eventually remembered Eren's name.

Sara couldn't help feeling surprised by realizing that Eren was just as young as her. And still, he had managed to establish a city for himself. He was a successful ranker while she had remained a helpless mortal.

'Just amazing. He is even more amazing than what Kat told me about him.'

Sara still considered Katalina as her friend despite the difference in the realities between them. After all, Katalina had ceased to be mortal. She had turned into a successful ranker at this point. At least in Sara's and her parents' eyes, she had achieved an exceptional form of success.

Katalina Reich was an abandoned orphan living in the same city in which Sara and her family used to live. She spent her childhood doing random chores for anyone that offered her something to eat.

Sara's family was relatively rich for mortals. It adopted Katalina as their daughter so that she could serve as the caretaker for the blind Sara.

Initially, Katalina treated Sara as her master and considered herself her slave. And Sara's family was okay with that distinction too.

Katalina, however, was considered her sister by Sara Stark as much as a friend. Sara eventually learned that Katalina had a talent for harnessing mana. The blind girl took it upon herself to help Katalina become a ranker by investing money and other resources in her.

With Sara's help, Katalina Reich managed to break into the Novice rank. And her journey as a ranker began from there.

Katalina had a very humble beginning.

She had seen the unflattering face of a society that was usually shown to those who didn't have anything in their wallets. Or someone who was not privileged enough to have a wallet in the first place. This was the reason why Katalina was always hungry to make more money even after she became a ranker.

Katalina joined the Titus tournament to secure money for herself. The girl never forgot her benefactor though. She wanted to help Sara get rid of her blindness and intermittent pain. Maybe walk on the path of a ranker too. With enough money, Katalina could hire a high-ranking healer or alchemist who knew how to treat Sara's condition.

Katalina eventually came to meet Sara and her adopted family after winning the Titus tournament. She thanked the family by providing them with loads of Eddies. She also took Sara to see a high-ranking healer who could heal her.

Unfortunately, the healer was not able to get rid of Sara's condition for some reason despite the various methods he tried on her. He asked Sara to provide him with the ranking technique she had practiced when she was a child. However, Sara and Katalina were both shocked to find out that the scroll used in the ranking technique had disappeared from the household.

To avoid being a bother to Katalina who had become a ranker, Sara told her friend that she had gotten used to staying blind. She also said that episodes of pain were not the issue anymore.

Sara appreciated Katalina's efforts to help her. However, Katalina could only pause her goals to help Sara after finding out that the problem wasn't financial. There was no immediate fix to Sara's problem. Katalina returned back to Eren and joined the White Raven Guild.

The orphaned girl maintained contact with Sara though, making the blind see the world of rankers through her descriptions.

***

The Paladin of Pain– Reva Rain was a demonic ranker.

She was used to harnessing the emotions of pain experienced by other living beings. This was why she liked torturing her targets. She also tortured Eren after realizing that the guy had a high pain tolerance. The demonic part inside her considered Eren to be a challenge it wanted to overcome.

However, feelings of pain and suffering were not limited to the rankers' world alone.

Reva Rain could also harness the feelings of pain and suffering she induced on mortals. This was the reason she distributed so many defective ranking techniques among mortals.

Mortals practicing Reva's defective techniques would have various types of illness or physical symptoms. Some would become completely blind while others would turn mute or deaf. However, they all had one thing in common. All of them experienced intermittent episodes of pain.

Due to her fear of being apprehended by establishments or even the Anfang Alliance, Reva Rain did these things very secretly. She did not want any of the defective ranking techniques' origins to get traced back to her. Therefore, she used her minions in the Escalon guild to do such dirty jobs.

Reva Rain also needed to perform a demonic ritual to taste the fruits of her supposed labor. She needed the body parts of the living beings, affected by the emotions of pain she had made them feel, to complete the demonic ritual.

The demonic ritual to harness the emotions of pain was how Reva Rain had progressed so rapidly in her ranking status. And since she only targeted mortals for the most part, her demonic activities weren't discovered by anyone.

Of course, Sara was suffering from the same defective ranking technique that Reva Rain had distributed. And since the technique's origins were demonic, no healer, potion seller, or alchemist could cure her or help her relieve the pain.

In Eren's past timeline, he was sent to kill Sara Stark by Reva Rain so that she could harness the emotions of pain. The Paladin of Pain had a lot of errand runners like Eren under her belt to do this job.

The butcher in his past timeline was jaded because of his circumstances. He did not know why Reva Rain would need to torture or kill mortals. However, he did not care to ask. He knew that he would only receive more torture done to him in the form of an answer to his question.

Eren and Sara's meeting in the past timeline was not romantic under any circumstances. The guy had come to kill her so that his boss at that time could use her organs for her demonic activities.

However, something prevented Eren from killing Sara. That's because the blind girl offered him some food at their first meeting. A kind gesture that shouldn't be seen as a huge favor. And yet, it was enough for the butcher to not listen to the orders that Reva Rain had dished out to him.