Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 105 Taking a seat
August 12, early morning.

This day is the "Nafan Festival" for storm believers. Storm believers are mostly fishermen. On this day, the sea near the Storm Abyss of Pasu Island, which is originally in the temperate zone, will freeze against common sense and the ice will not melt until the New Year.

Fishermen often use this date as a dividing line. After this day, even the most diligent fishermen will not go out to sea before the "Sailing Festival" on January 1 of the following year. It is said that this period of time is the time when marine creatures meet the Lord of Storms, so fishing is not allowed.

On this day, believers of the Storm often choose seafood or meat produced in the port area as food, hoping to obtain the blessing of the Lord of Storms in a similar way.

Of course, in winter, in an inland city like Backlund, the price of seafood is quite high, and the Statham family cannot afford it. However, they have other alternatives.

"There's not much salted meat left from Damir Port that I asked a merchant to buy. I'll have to ask someone to buy another piece by the time of the Sailing Festival."

Mr. Statham chatted with his family while carefully cutting a few slices with a kitchen knife from a large piece of bacon that had obviously been left for a long time.

"It's five pounds a piece... but luckily I only eat it twice a year."

Marisol nodded in agreement, somewhat painfully. This was also the reason why the poor in the East Side had to consider religion when forming a family - if the religion was different, they would have to prepare for two festivals and double the expenses.

The Statham family sat at the table, and each of them had four thick slices of red and white special cured meat in their bowls.

They eat very slowly and seriously, first putting the bacon in their mouths for a while, then swallowing a mouthful of oatmeal or a bite of bread with the aroma of oil and salt. They repeat this several times until the taste of the bacon surface fades, then they carefully take a bite, put it in their mouths and chew it slowly, and finally drink a mouthful of oatmeal, leaving no meat scraps in their mouths.

Then, Sophie and Marisol walked to the factory early. Although it was a church holiday, the factory would not be closed for the day. In the past, Old Lynch would bring out a cart with black bread and cream at lunchtime on similar days, and unhappily ask them to come up one by one to get a snack. If anyone was greedy and took a few more sips of cream, Old Lynch would hit their buttocks hard with his cane.

However, today Sophie did not see the old Lynch who used to be like an eagle-beaked door knocker, guarding the door early to check the number of people. Even the guards who had always been guarding the door were nowhere to be seen, and only the two guards at the main gate were still slacking off in the sentry box.

Of course, since the workers are paid by the piece, no one will slack off even without a supervisor. Most of the time, the supervisor's role is just to prevent someone from dying of exhaustion at their workstation or damaging the finished product due to fatigue.

"Strange, why didn't Old Lynch come?"

Marisol grunted and went to her own workstation without giving it any further thought.

Sophie's job was to pick lace, which was at the end of the assembly line, so she was quite close to the door. This was a job that hurt the eyes quite a lot, so when Sophie first raised her head and rubbed her sore eyes, and found that there seemed to be a bunch of shadowy black things behind the door, she was not surprised.

"Did you pick too fast today? Everything you see is dark..."

Sophie pouted and complained in confusion.

However, when she turned her attention back to the work at hand, she found that the shadows had disappeared.

Unexpectedly, I recovered so quickly... Sophie breathed a sigh of relief and continued to devote herself to her intense work.

However, when Sophie raised her head again to stretch her sore neck, she was surprised to find that the shadows behind the door not only did not disappear, but seemed to be closer to her, allowing her to slightly see their general shape.

Twisted, deformed, not like a human!

Sophie stepped back suddenly and fell to the ground with a thud, almost knocking over the female worker behind her. The other party shouted at her impatiently, but when she saw it was Sophie, her anger subsided a little, but she was still furious.

"What's wrong, Sophie? Are you tired?"

The older female worker beside her stopped her work in surprise and tried to help Sophie up. Although the female workers had become irritable and angry after years of hard work in the East District, similar to men, not everyone could be cruel enough to scold a well-behaved child like Sophie.

"That, that door, there's a monster behind that door!"

Sophie threw herself into the other's arms in fear and curled up into a small ball.

"Don't be silly, there is no monster, isn't the door fine?"

The older female worker was startled and looked towards the warehouse door that had been closed all the time, but she didn't see any monster. Apart from the pile of goods that were originally blocking the door and had been moved away at some point, the door and the chain on the door were in good condition and there was nothing unusual.

"But, but I really saw it..." Sophie defended aggrievedly, "Now, it's still there, lying behind that door!"

"Stop talking nonsense and get back to work. There are a lot of things piled up in front."

The worker shook her head and called out in Marisol's direction.

"Mary, come here and comfort the child!"

After a while, Marisol hurried over from her workstation and wiped Sophie's tears with her sleeve.

"What's wrong Sophie? You were fine last night, why are you suddenly making a fuss today?"

Marisol asked, puzzled.

Sophie lay timidly in her stepmother's arms and told Marisol what she had seen.

"What nonsense are you talking about? How could there be a monster in broad daylight..."

Marisol was about to comfort Sophie when her eyes fell on the heavy door. However, the door had a strange feeling in her eyes, as if there was a thin black mist behind the door. Although she didn't see the black monster that Sophie said, she felt that there was something wrong with the door.

Although the Statham family didn't know, there were parts of the volcanic caves in Damir Port that were connected to the spirit world. The smoked meat in the caves connected to the spirit world naturally had some of the special characteristics of the spirit world. For example, it allowed ordinary people to have the ability of "clairvoyance" for a short period of time. The purer the child's mind, the better the effect of clairvoyance.

"How about you go to my workstation first and I'll help you here?"

Marisol suggested this despite her instinctive discomfort with the door. She didn't know what was behind it, but she knew that if she wanted to ask for leave with this excuse, she would definitely lose her job. Anyway, no matter what it was, it would definitely be a good idea to keep Sophie away from it as much as possible.

However, at this moment, the door exploded with a loud bang. Caught off guard, Marisol, Sophie and several female workers who were nearby were blown away by the blast.

Then the thing in the door bared its fangs.

(End of this chapter)