Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 343 Eyes
Soon, today's Tarot meeting came to an end and Adele returned to the real world.

With the advice of the demigods of the Tarot Club, especially "Sun" Derrick, who once lived in the God-forsaken Land and had seen all kinds of strange phenomena, she became more confident and prepared to find a possible observer around her.

As for the dream of the City of Disaster, the Hermit Lady suggested that they could try to isolate it with the magical items of the Night Path. Adele had just obtained the "Night Veil" numbered 2-024 not long ago, so she could use it to try out the effect.

However, before Adele could sort out the order of what to do next, the cabin of the ironclad ship under her feet suddenly shook violently. Fortunately, Adele reacted in time and used the ability of "Assassin" to easily maintain her balance.

Adele looked out the window and found that the speed of the ironclad ship had slowed down visibly, and finally came to a slow stop.

"what happened?"

Adele pulled the bell rope in the captain's room hard, and soon the sailor from the next room came running over. Adele asked him to check the situation while she waited in the cabin.

However, before the sailor left, chaotic footsteps were heard in the corridor, and Wendy, with coal dust all over her face, pushed open the door of the captain's room.

"Captain, there's something wrong in the engine room. You'd better go and take a look yourself."

Wendy looked terrified. "I was worried about the negative impact, so I asked the sailors to temporarily block the engine room."

Adele didn't ask any more questions after hearing this. She picked up her pistol and walked towards the engine room with Wendy.

……

The two men quickly arrived at the door of the engine room and saw two terrified sailors guarding the door with rifles, looking somewhat absent-minded.

Seeing Adele, they were obviously relieved and quickly opened the door for her and let Adele into the engine room.

The moment the heavy iron door opened, Adele smelled a burning stench coming towards her, and she immediately noticed the smell of burning flesh mixed in it.

Afterwards, she saw the crew members who were originally on duty here. Their bodies were stuck in various locations in the engine room. Some were stuffed into the filling port of the boiler, some were stuck in the exposed gears of the engine, and some broke through the steel plates on the surface of the steam engine and pierced into the cylinder. Their skin was covered with blisters from the scorching steam.

There was nothing on the bodies that could reveal their identities, and the memories related to them in the shift roster in Adele's memory also automatically became blurred. Before Adele could accurately grasp their identities, the memories disappeared completely.

The moment she saw the scene, Adele understood why all this happened.

The equipment in the engine room took up too much space, resulting in a blind spot between the five people...

She had originally suspected that this matter was related to what was recorded in Roselle's notes. Now the usefulness of the theories mentioned by Roselle was self-evident.

When someone is observing, the "cat" model will collapse and disappear; when there is no gaze, they can move freely and there is no way to confirm whether they are dead or alive.

When being watched, even the watcher cannot interfere with the existence that collapses and disappears.

Sighing, Adele turned to Wendy, trying not to look at the miserable bodies of the sailors: "Is there any way to get them out?"

"Wait until the temperature of the unit drops, then clear it manually."

Wendy glanced at the mangled body that had been turned into a paste by the engine's connecting rod and felt nauseous, so she quickly looked away.

"If it doesn't work, let Constantine get some undead creatures to dig them out, or give their bodies a new soul and let them crawl out by themselves." Adele ordered, while opening the windows of the engine room and creating ice to lower the temperature in the room.

"In fact, what worries me most is not the disposal of the remains, but the serious damage to our steam engine and turbine unit."

Wendy said worriedly, "The cylinder is damaged, and human body parts are mixed in the mechanical structure. It will take at least two days to clean it up and replace it with new spare parts."

Adele didn't answer, she was weighing the pros and cons.

The current situation has further deteriorated. The damage to the engine has seriously affected the progress of the "Snow Wind". Not to mention going to the farther Alas, even turning around and returning to the Berens Harbor Naval Base will take at least four days.

If this problem is not solved, the longer you delay, the greater the casualties will be, until finally, all the sailors are replaced by unknown things.

The three people who sneaked into the team before have not revealed their identities yet, and now, perhaps there are new people who have sneaked into the sailor team, making the atmosphere on the ship even more tense.

There is no time to waste…

Adele walked out of the room with Wendy with a solemn expression. She took a deep breath and said to Wendy, "I'll help you replace the spare parts and try to fix the cylinder before tomorrow. After that, we'll sail at full speed and try to reach Aleser before the situation gets out of control."

After all, I am not an extraordinary person on the sailor path. When encountering mysterious events, I still hope to face the enemy on solid land. There will be more choices for me, and at least I will not fall into a dilemma because of a shipwreck.

Wendy nodded, changed into work clothes with Adele, and quietly cleaned up the bodies in the engine room.

……

While working, Adele was thinking about the reasons for the strange events that happened on the sailboat.

Now she has roughly analyzed the existence form of the attackers on the sailboat, but there are still many things she can't figure out.

The captain's diary mentioned that during the exploration a month ago, the other party passed through a fog and arrived at a place called "the Kingdom of God" by the captain.

Later, the notes mentioned the description of "we will become stars", which makes it difficult not to associate the current star tragedy with this so-called "Kingdom of God".

Adele, who had learned a lot at the Tarot Club, naturally knew that the kingdom of the Seven Gods was high up in the star realm. With an ordinary sailboat like the "Nebuchadnezzar", it was absolutely impossible to travel through the star realm or even reach the kingdom of God without the protection of angels. Where exactly they were going was still under discussion.

However, the records about the "Kingdom of God", the tragedy related to the "stars", and all the clues so far indicate that what they found in the fog has a lot to do with their current situation.

Does this mean that the people on this ship arrived at a place they believed to be the "Kingdom of God", and then encountered something there that turned them into the unobservable information creatures they are today?
Adele thought this was very likely, so she tried divination without holding out much hope, but as expected, she failed.

Although Mr. Fool's citrine pendant was magical, it had nothing to do with her and contained no divination materials. It was also likely to involve matters of higher levels. Even if Adele held the citrine pendulum, she would be helpless.

If this speculation is correct, then the other party probably crossed the foggy sea under the instruction of the Church of Knowledge and arrived at a place on the other side of the sea line, where they completed the transformation of all the members of the ship...

What, then, is the purpose of the Church of Knowledge?
At the Tarot Club, Cattleya mentioned that the "Hidden Sage" seemed to have issued an oracle, asking the pillars to spread the symbols inherited from the Church of Knowledge;
In Indo Port, the appearance of these symbols is closely related to the previous phenomena of ordinary people's mutation and disappearance. They are also widely used by the current parade teams and have become a symbol of the parade teams. With the tide of reform, they are spreading to the whole of Feysac and even to the whole continent.

Could it be that the purpose of the Church of Knowledge is to spread this symbol throughout the world?

Then use these symbols to create more information creatures around the world, and even convert all human beings into similar creatures?
Adele frowned and thought, and felt that many things didn't make sense.

For example, the current parade seems to have directed its spearhead at all churches indiscriminately through its words. It can be said that if this revolution spreads to the entire continent, all gods will lose, even the god of knowledge and wisdom himself.

Their thoughts will greatly hinder them from gaining believers. Without sufficient anchors, it will be even more difficult for them to maintain their status, and they are likely to fall in the upcoming doomsday battle.

As the instigator of all this, the God of Knowledge and Wisdom naturally did not have a good ending. His followers were relatively few among the Seven Gods, and the areas he mainly influenced were only three small countries, namely, Lunburg, Masi and Segar. Their combined area was only about the same size as that of Ahowa County in Rune.

As long as He did this, no matter whether others would win or not, the God of Knowledge and Wisdom would definitely lose everything. The only difference was whether He could drag the other six gods down with Him.
However, the God of Knowledge and Wisdom is known for his rationality. Would he do such an irrational act that would result in a loss of both sides?
Moreover, the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom does not seem to be alone at present. The Moss Ascetic Order and the Iron Cross are currently cooperating with them to varying degrees. If the God of Knowledge and Wisdom really wants to fight to the death with the other six gods, would the Hidden Sage, who originally had no mortal hatred with the six gods, tie himself directly to the chariot of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom?

The answer is obviously no.

"That is to say, the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom must have other ways to ensure that it can maintain its sanity after losing most of its believers, or to ensure that believers continue to believe in it after conversion..."

Adele muttered to herself, her brain working at high speed.

At this time, Wendy was taking out spare parts from the warehouse nearby and handed the steel plate in her hand to Adele.

Adele subconsciously tried to block it with her hand, but she didn't expect Wendy's hand to suddenly slip, and the heavy steel plate hit Adele's forearm directly.

There was a crisp sound of disintegration, and in Adele's shocked eyes, the mechanical structure of the "Survivor's Hidden Blade" on her forearm could not bear the weight and fell to the ground with a crash.

"Hey, I just handed over a piece of steel plate, it was not intentional..."

Wendy was a little confused. She didn't expect the hidden blade to break for no reason. She apologized quickly and instinctively, fearing that Adele would deduct her salary, which was already owed to her for a few years because of the advance payment of potions.

Adele didn't react, but she instinctively squatted down to pick up the parts of the hidden blade. After collecting the broken parts, she carefully checked them and breathed a sigh of relief, saying:

"It's okay. The connection is loose. The main mechanical structure is still very reliable. You can just put it back later."

Although the "Survivor's Sleeve Blade" is a magical item, as a distinctive mechanical product, it is not one-piece like other magical items. It is divided into many additional functional components and mechanisms that perform deformation functions.

Strictly speaking, the only parts of this magical item that have magical properties are the blade, the claw and the crossbow, while the components connecting these three parts are just ordinary mechanical structures, and the possibility of damage is also very high.

Because of this, it is particularly difficult to maintain. It takes a whole morning every time to disassemble the mechanism, clean the dirt between the joints, and replace worn parts, so Adele always gives it to Wendy for maintenance.

"No problem..." Wendy was about to agree, but when she saw Adele pick up the parts, she suddenly frowned:
"Why is there an extra piece of black gemstone here?"

As an extraordinary person on the path of the universalist, she was very sensitive to mechanical structures, and immediately discovered that the pile of things in Adele's hands was different from what she had disassembled before, with an extra black eye-shaped gem.

"Wasn't there this gem before?"

Adele asked back curiously.

"Of course not. I trust my intuition about mechanical structures." Wendy frowned and took the parts from Adele. "Oh, there's actually a small space here?"

Wendy lifted the gauntlet that was covering it and pointed out the groove next to the blade to Adele. "This was blocked by the blade before. I didn't know it was also removable. I guess the gem fell out from here."

Adele picked up the black gem from Wendy's hand and held it in her palm, feeling it warm up slightly. It looked more like a real eye than a gem, and there were even blood vessel-like textures on the surface.

There is a strange luster sparkling on the gem. If you stare at it for a long time, you will think that this eye-like gem has come alive and is looking back at the observer.

Eye-shaped gemstone... a strange observer... could it be?
Adele suddenly thought of this possibility and felt a little excited.

Without having time to explain to Wendy, she first stuffed the black gem into Wendy's hands, then swallowed her saliva, deftly untied the yellow crystal pendulum from her wrist, and quickly recited the divination sentence in her mind:

"It would be dangerous for my life if I went back to my room alone now."

After reciting silently seven times, Adele nervously opened her eyes and immediately saw the pendulum rotating clockwise with a large amplitude and a fast speed.

This means that after she hands over the black eye-shaped gem, she will no longer be safe alone!

(End of this chapter)