Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 280 The Beginning

(The copies these days are more difficult to write, so the updates may be late, maybe until the afternoon)
Adele and her friend went straight up the stairs to the fourth floor. Along the way, they did not suddenly return to the second floor as before. They stopped at the stairs and prepared to rest for a while.

"Before we go any further, I think it's worth going over the officer's notes again."

Adele suggested, "Although he was stared at by those things for too long and eventually went crazy, it is very likely that he left some information before he went completely crazy."

The reason why Adele proposed this was that she had noticed that the mystery of this world was extremely weak. Even if John Joyce, who was originally just an ordinary person, was really driven crazy by the gaze of an indescribable existence, the records he left behind could not drive a Middle-Sequence Beyonder like Adele crazy. At most, it could only make her feel a little uncomfortable.

It was obviously a very cost-effective deal to get important information at such a price. Qiao Qiao had no reason to refuse. After all, the latest version of the manual they were holding was a summary of the information recorded by countless on-duty team members before they died.

The two sat down on the stairs and opened the notes left by John Joyce.

Unlike Qiao Qiao's manual, it was just a notebook, and all the information on it was recorded by Joyce himself. There was a family photo on the front page, a full-body photo, and a photo of several soldiers on the second page.

"It seems that he died earlier than I thought. At that time, there was not even a general manual. The life and death of the soldiers depended entirely on luck. He should be one of the unlucky ones who were sent out to summarize the rules."

Qiao Qiao sighed and began to read the information in the notes carefully.

"1. Humans are the same creatures as in the photo, but they are no taller than four times your rifle. They have only five fingers, and they have no more than three joints. They do not have nails that are longer than the fingers."

"2. People don't lick their elbows, armpits, or buttocks."

“3. Teammates are valuable, remember to watch the strobe lights.”

"4. I don't have a gas mask, and I never will. Helmets are evil, masks are evil, goggles are evil, and my head cannot be covered."

“5. People don’t smile all the time like they do in photos.”

"6. Don't drink tap water. Water that can't be drunk is completely transparent. Bottled water is also not allowed. Water in a kettle is OK, but be conserve it."

"It seems like he really went through a lot of cruel things..."

Qiao Qiao sighed, "By the time he decided to write this down, he was no longer conscious."

"Keep watching."

Adele patted Qiao Qiao's shoulder and turned another page.

"7. Stay where there are buildings. Don't go into the dark. Smash all the glass."

At this point, he no longer cared about identifying typos, which showed that his mental state was already very bad...

Adele continued to move her eyes downwards and saw more similar information. The further she went down, the messier the handwriting became and the crazier the content became. The serial number had lost its meaning in the end, and numbers were randomly mixed with words.

"31. Teammates are precious. Teammates can survive. Teammates cannot be eaten. I can survive. Someone will come to save us. We must be alive."

"32. Corpses are dangerous and evil. The corpse of a child is deadly. Corpses do not move. Living things do."

"48. I never had teammates."

"21. I'm not leaving here. Kill anyone who makes me leave."

"2. Need morphine. Need a light. Need a pen. I don't have a name. I need a name."

“13. I am the human in the photo. Hungry. I am the human in the photo. Humans are precious.”

"666. Eyes."

At this point, the last words come to an abrupt end, and what follows are only chaotic and crazy lines that make people feel sick at first glance.

After a long silence, Qiao Qiao seemed to be unable to bear this depressing atmosphere and spoke first: "Have you noticed? In Joyce's notes, he repeatedly emphasized that he was a human being and constantly defined himself."

“That’s easy to understand.”

Adele nodded. "Perhaps due to the needs of your work and the requirements of the code, you firmly believe in atheism. In fact, this seems to be the current situation in your world. However, gods do exist in our world."

"Although the technology in our world is not as advanced as yours, there are gods with extraordinary powers. Thousands of years ago, gods walked the earth and left behind a lot of historical facts and legends. Therefore, the development of mysticism is also quite mature."

Adele paused, and when she saw that Qiao Qiao was just surprised and not hostile, she felt relieved and continued to explain.

"In mysticism, maintaining self-awareness is the first lesson in learning mysticism. Practicing meditation and controlling dreams are all ways to maintain awareness. Mysticism is the study of using mysterious and supernatural means to realize wishes. Maintaining self-awareness helps you understand what your wishes are."

"Those things you consider as pollution actually have a two-way impact on you. It is not as unreasonable as the pollution in our world. As long as you have a firm understanding of yourself, you should not be polluted or reduce the degree of pollution."

"You should have noticed that there are many descriptions of humans in the manual, especially on the last page, which keeps instilling the concept of humans in you. This should be able to reduce the degree of pollution. Perhaps it will be difficult to understand from your previous atheistic worldview, but you just need to remember it..."

Adele analyzed the situation based on her knowledge of mysticism. Qiao Qiao fell silent again after listening to her. This time, neither of them took the initiative to break the silence. They just sat in the stairwell with the red and blue warning lights on their bodies flickering.

Qiao Qiao was silent because she couldn't digest such a large amount of information at once, and Adele suddenly fell silent because she found that she seemed to have guessed something extraordinary.

She did not tell Qiao Qiao that their world was most likely the past of her own world, and that this disaster destroyed their technological heritage, causing many technologies to not be passed down to Adele's era.

But why did extraordinary abilities and extraordinary races appear in Adele's time?
In the Apocalypse of the Night of the Church of the Night, it is mentioned that the Creator woke up from the chaos, broke the darkness, created the first ray of light, and completely merged into the universe, becoming all things. His body became the earth and the stars, one of His eyes became the sun and the other became the red moon, and part of His blood flowed into the sea and rivers, nourishing and nurturing life.

His lungs became elves, his heart became giants, his liver evolved into tree people, his head became dragons, his kidneys evolved into feathered serpents, his hair became phoenixes, his ears became demon wolves, his mouth and teeth evolved into alien species. His remaining body fluids evolved into sea monsters, the essence of which was Naga. His stomach, large and small intestines evolved into evil spirits, demons, and various unknown evil beings. The God of Knowledge and Wisdom, the Lord of Storms, and the Eternal Sun God were born from his spirit.

In other words, before the initial awakening, the universe did not exist. There was an end, emptiness, and the destruction of everything. Only after the initial awakening did the world and various races come into being.

However, the history of this world told her that this world did not have an origin, no gods, and even existed before the initial awakening.

An extremely blasphemous thought suddenly came to Adele's mind. She tried to forget it, but it only made the thought more deeply rooted.

"Could it be that the world that was created in the beginning was not this world, but our world?"

When Adele thought of this possibility, she found herself shaking uncontrollably, as if she had an acute fever.

In this era, the "Original Creator" is an independent existence, not like Adele's world, which is contained in the extraordinary characteristics and the way of God. The original sleep led to the complete destruction of this world, and then the original woke up and created the extraordinary world... ?
What may be a catastrophe that destroys the world to us is just a normal sleep and waking up to complete the change of the world...

Adele stared blankly at the security door that was flashing green light, and it took her several minutes to react.

"Okay, it's almost time to rest."

Adele tried to make her voice sound less weird, "It's time to go."

There is no need to think about the past. After all, you were born in a world with gods, and you have experienced being used as a pawn by big shots. There is no difference between being controlled by a saint and being controlled by an ancient god. In fact, the latter is more prestigious...

Adele tried to comfort herself, but she clearly realized that after learning about John Joyce's experience and reading his manual, something in her heart seemed to have changed.

Although she couldn't explain what it was specifically, she knew that after she got out, she would have to seek psychological treatment from Miss Justice in order to maintain her mentality.

Qiao Qiao looked at her with a complicated expression, stood up, sorted out his equipment, and then pushed open the security door.

The scene on the fourth floor is quite different from that on the previous floors. Originally, this was the restaurant with the best view in the entire hotel. Now that all the staff have evacuated, it is no longer as lively as before.

Adele and her friend stepped into the spacious hall, carefully avoiding the overturned tables, chairs and benches, and walked towards the spiral staircase on the other side of the hall. Only from there could they reach the top floor.

Just before entering the hotel, Adele tested the building strength of the hotel and came to the conclusion that the protective measures here were not only steel bars and concrete, but also some kind of mystical power was interfering with this area, making it difficult for the buildings here to be destroyed by brute force. This made Adele give up the idea of ​​using spider silk to pull herself to the roof directly.

"Wendy, you just said that you are not from our world, right?"

Qiao Qiao suddenly asked Adele, "So you want to find the water of the Fountain of Youth now. Do you think there are clues hidden there?"

"Well...I guess so." Adele hesitated for a moment, but nodded to confirm the other party's judgment.

Qiao Qiao thought for a while, then made it clear:
"So, are you looking for clues to return to your world, or clues to save this world?"

Adele paused for a moment, not knowing how to answer.

I can't just tell her that I'm from the future, and that your world has sunk into the ground, and is polluted and wrapped in the depths of the earth's sea, and even the remains of civilization have completely disappeared, right?
"Actually, I don't know what I'm looking for."

Adele sighed, "Originally, I was sent by my boss to find the Fountain of Youth. However, due to the arrangement of the gods in our world, I was thrown here for no apparent reason..."

"I don't even know how I was thrown in, so it's impossible for me to know what the clues are or how to get back. As for finding the Fountain of Youth... it's better to do something than nothing."

"Is that so... Well, I wish you good luck."

Qiao Qiao patted Adele's shoulder and walked towards the spiral staircase. "From here, you will reach the rooftop. The water tower is right in the center of the rooftop. You can see it directly when you go up."

Adele nodded and said nothing more. After all, from here on, their goals diverged, and what she would face next might involve high-sequence Beyonder characteristics. Even she herself might not be able to escape unscathed, so it was unrealistic to bring along an ordinary person like Qiao Qiao.

"So, where are you going next?"

Adele walked up the stairs for two steps, then suddenly stopped and asked Qiao Qiao at the bottom of the stairs, "The on-duty team is gone, and it looks like this hotel has become a place where strange things are sealed. Have you thought about what to do in the future?"

"Me? I'm not going anywhere."

Qiao Qiao sat down on the steps and smiled quietly.

"Every 'anomaly' needs to be guarded. This is the rule for on-duty police officers. At least, compared to other things, you are one of the easier ones to get along with."

"In order to restore the environment of the Fountain of Youth, the entire rooftop is sealed off, with only this one exit. I'm just an ordinary person, and it's unlikely that I'll be able to find a more reliable place to stay than here."

"...Okay, since this is your choice." Adele nodded. Then she suddenly remembered something, fumbled in her pocket for a while, and took out a silver amulet. This was the last batch of sleeping charms she made at the time, and she had been stuffing it in the inner pocket of her clothes.

Adele put the amulet in Qiao Qiao's hand and said to her, "When using it, say the word 'scarlet'. It can make you...have a good dream."

"In a world like this, it's really a luxury."

Qiao Qiao took the amulet and put it in her pocket. "Thank you... But I don't have anything to give you in return."

She scratched her hair in distress, then hardened her heart, took out her orange manual from her pocket, wrote on the last page for a while, and then handed it to Adele.

"Give me Lucia's book...only the last page is useful anyway." Qiao Qiao said a little embarrassedly, "This manual contains some things I recorded during this period. If you can return to your world, I hope you can remember this place."

"It's terrible here, but for me, this is the only home."

(End of this chapter)