"Now, if I were in your place..."
Hearing Emma’s question, Leon couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh.
If it were me in your place, then between him and me, one of us definitely wouldn’t have survived until now. Our deep-seated hatred left no room for reconciliation.
Moreover, I finally understood why even the all-powerful Director couldn’t do anything about your situation.
Looking at the half-abandoned garden, where three children were being chased away by a returning mother bird while trying to take its eggs, Leon gently asked,
"Have you not taken revenge in the past because of some related rules in the bureau?"
Emma, also watching the three children, slightly pursed her lips and said,
"Unlike you, who joined the Purification Bureau voluntarily, we, who joined through the ’Amnesty Ordinance,’ have to undergo special Word Spirit restrictions. We promise not to use the anomalous objects we gain to seek revenge on our former ’enemies.’
If it weren’t for the unique situation of the Virgin Branch and Olivia vouching for me, someone like me with a high potential for revenge would have been forcibly transferred and never allowed to return to my original country for life.
This is one of the conditions under which various Kingdoms are willing to cooperate with the Purification Bureau, providing full financial and intelligence support, and even granting temporary military authority; even becoming a Level One Cleaner doesn’t exempt you from this."
After hearing Emma’s explanation, Leon unconsciously furrowed his brows slightly.
The reason the Purification Bureau, despite its formidable power, had set such "humiliating" rules wasn’t hard to guess.
Considering that the creation of anomalous objects was indeed mostly accompanied by extremism and pain, and that the cleaners, who were constantly exposed to the corrosion, weren’t mentally stable to begin with, once they gained strong enough abilities, the possibility of them seeking revenge was nearly a hundred percent.
Take Senior Emma as an example: without this rule, neither the royal family nor the Marquis of Golden Oriole would allow her to grow stronger in the Purification Bureau and eventually launch a counterattack. They would definitely act as soon as they discovered Emma had an anomalous object, killing her immediately.
And the Undying Body was a rare special anomalous object. Most cleaners’ bodies were only slightly more resilient than ordinary people. Without a special protective anomalous object, getting shot in the vital organs would still result in immediate death.
Without this seemingly absurd rule, many potentially powerful anomalous objects and cleaners might be eliminated prematurely, leading to a drastic reduction in the Purification Bureau’s available manpower.
What’s more, in the past, when the rules were not yet mature, there might have been numerous instances of early "elimination," causing serious consequences, prompting the Purification Bureau to establish such rules to ensure its normal continuation.
But conversely, while this binding rule protected many cleaners, it might also have sheltered quite a few scoundrels.
Recalling the file on [Sin of the Precious Flower] and the record of little Ellie’s "accidental drowning," Leon’s eyes couldn’t help but narrow slightly, as if something was burning faintly in his heart.
Touching the cuff storing his sniper rifle, Leon couldn’t help but ask,
"The reason you’ve been practicing with a sniper rifle even though you have long-range anomalous objects, is it because you want to..."
"Yes, just as you thought."
Looking at her daughter, who had dirt all over her dress and grass all over her body, turning from a delicate porcelain doll into a dirty little mud monkey, but was smiling happily, Emma acknowledged with a loving look at the garden entrance,
"Because of the Word Spirit constraint, I couldn’t use anomalous objects on that person, so I specially practiced using firearms. The reason I wanted to ask for your help was to use soul vision to lock onto that person from a distance and end this once and for all, but Olivia managed to temporarily talk me out of it.
I’m sorry, Leon, I shouldn’t have involved you.
If I had really gone through with it then, even if you were completely unaware, you would have probably been caught up in the investigation as well. Olivia was right; at that time, I was already blinded by hatred."
"It’s okay, after all, none of that happened..."
Shaking his head slightly, Leon looked at the three children in the garden and said softly, with a somewhat complicated expression,
"Senior Emma, if you completed your revenge, what would the cost be?"
"I would probably be stripped of all anomalous objects and forcibly sent into the Realm of the Dead."
"According to the related regulations, if someone at the Division Chief Level violates this ordinance, they can still perform three consecutive high-mortality cleanup tasks. For those below the Division Chief Level, it’s just execution."
Upon hearing this, Leon’s expression shifted slightly, and he asked,
"Have you ever thought about..."
"Taking revenge after becoming a Division Chief to avoid immediate execution, right?"
Emma said with a calm expression,
"I did think about that, or rather, except for the time when I found out that Ellie wasn’t my daughter, just a reflection of my wish, I’ve always planned on it.
Although Ellie isn’t truly alive, she still has my daughter’s soul. *I really don’t want to lose her again,* and I’m willing to keep enduring because of her, it’s just..."