Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 349 An unexpected start but a tail end
After an unknown amount of time, Adele opened her eyes and what she saw was a sky that seemed to be burning and a beech tree with lush branches and leaves.

She raised her hands in front of her eyes with some effort and found that she was still wearing the navy coat, which was dripping with water. Adele used her tongue to wipe the water droplets on her face; they tasted salty.

The feeling of severe spiritual deficiency did not disappear. At this moment, she only felt a splitting headache. It seemed as if hundreds of seeds had been planted under the skin of her face. When she touched it with her hands, she could feel countless protrusions stirring under the skin.

"It seems that every time I lose consciousness or fall asleep, my consciousness will come into this world and consume my spiritual energy to adjust my state to the mode I am most accustomed to."

Adele thought to herself that every time she came here before, she was wearing the light white robe she wore when she was an assassin in the East District, and her spirituality was full. Only this time, she entered the City of Disaster with her spirituality almost exhausted, and she was still in a state of spiritual exhaustion.

"However, since I am still here alive, it proves that they at least rescued me."

Thinking of this, Adele felt a little relieved and gave up the idea of ​​returning to reality directly through suicide.

There is no fixed relationship between the time inside the City of Disaster and the time in the real world. The time Adele feels in the City of Disaster and the time that has passed in the real world do not match each other at all. It seems that the only correspondence between the two is that Adele's death in the City of Disaster is equivalent to waking up in reality.

In this case, even if Adele explores the City of Disaster for a while longer, it will not delay her rescue in the real world.

"Now, we have to take action..."

Adele stood up and walked towards the telegraph office in her memory with unsteady steps.

Last time, she stayed in the outside world for too long and was killed by a corpse falling from a beech tree. So this time she chose the Hongcheng District Telegraph Office as her target, wanting to find out why she appeared here and what the purpose of the City of Disaster was behind it.

After all, I couldn't have come here for no reason. The City of Disaster must have its purpose. As for whether I should cooperate or not, I had to wait until I figured it out first.

Soon, Adele arrived at the door of the strange telegraph office and pushed it open carefully.

However, she did not see Pavo Court and his female colleague Melanie, and the telegraph office was empty.

Adele walked behind the telegraph office window with her revolver in hand and found a pipe that had not yet been completely extinguished. It was this pipe that Pavelcott used to smoke last time.

Things in the room were placed randomly, and on the table were scattered red and blue pencils, telegraph paper, playing cards, and white dice made of animal bones.

They have been living here all their lives, so it is impossible for them not to know that the dead will be resurrected here at sunset; and now, it is not long before sunset, where did Melanie and the other two go?

Adele was confused, so she decided to wait for the two men to come back in the telegraph office.

There were newspapers on the table. She picked up one and started reading. She found that the date on it was the date used by the Solomon Empire in the early Fourth Age.

The calendar currently in common use in the northern continent has been revised by Roselle, and there are obvious differences in the number of days in some months compared to the Solomon Empire. For example, February had thirty days during the Solomon Empire, but now it only has twenty-nine days at most.

The date on this newspaper shows February 30th, so it should be from the Solomon Empire period.

Adele turned to the front page of the newspaper and found that the front page was about a major breakthrough in navigation and the discovery of a new route leading to a new continent.

All the crew members who went there went crazy without exception, and this route was summarized from the fragments of information that leaked out when they occasionally regained clarity.

Originally no one would believe the nonsense of these crazy sailors, but fortunately they did not forget to leave evidence when they discovered the New World. The two old-fashioned cameras on the ship faithfully recorded everything they saw.

The newspaper quoted these sets of photos. Although the clarity was not high, Adele could still see that it was a continent completely wrapped in sunlight. It was full of vitality and there were plants growing that she had never seen before. It was unlike any sea area in the northern continent.

In addition, the newspaper also mentioned that the word that those crazy navigators and sailors repeatedly mentioned during their brief moments of clarity was "light".

If you insist on explaining it, the sun is indeed strong on this continent. But is this level of connection enough for a group of crazy sailors to remember?
Adele had a question mark in her mind. The subject of the newspaper's narrative did not seem to be from the southern and northern continents that Adele knew, but Melanie and Pavkot looked like people from the southern continent, and they also used the northern continent's chronology, which created a strong sense of contrast and conflict.

Just as Adele was thinking about these things, there were sudden footsteps at the door, and a figure wearing a white hooded robe and with an unclear face walked into the telegraph office, walked straight to the window where Adele was, and tapped twice on the glass with his index finger.

"Do you want to send a telegram? The operators here have just gone out. You may have to wait until they come back."

Having learned from the previous two times, Adele tried her best to avoid conflicts with the other party.

The other party did not speak, but just knocked on the glass window with his index finger more vigorously. The knocking sound was annoying. Adele waited for a long time, but the man still did not stop.

Could it be that this is one of the rules of the City of Disaster, and there is no way to proceed without helping him send the telegram?
Adele hesitated a little, and after weighing the pros and cons, she felt that it was just a telegram and not a big deal, so she opened the window and signaled the other party to throw the note in.

Soon, a crumpled note was thrown into the window. Adele took out the note, walked to the telegraph machine, and began typing skillfully. Her fingers painted with red nail polish flew up and down flexibly, as if she had done it countless times.

No, why would I be able to operate this typewriter?
The moment Adele typed the last character, she suddenly thought of this question.

There is a big difference between the telegraph machine used in the telegraph office and the one used at home. I am not an expert on this, so how can I possibly be able to operate it proficiently after just one look?
Besides, she has never worn red nail polish!
"Do you need a manuscript?"

Adele was horrified to find that she had said something she didn't want to say at all. The voice was so unfamiliar, it didn't sound like her own, but more like Melanie whose voice was ruined by secondhand smoke!
She twisted her neck to look out of the window. At this moment, the person outside the window raised his head because of her words, revealing a face exactly like Adele's, with a faint smile!

Then she felt her body becoming stiff and she was about to lose the ability to move on her own.

Using up her last bit of strength, Adele pulled out the pistol from her waist, which had not yet completely disappeared, pointed it at her head and pulled the trigger.

After the bang of a gunshot, Adele sat up suddenly.

Tracy and the others surrounded her, and seemed startled by her sudden awakening.

"...How long have I been unconscious?" The first thing Adele asked the people around her when she woke up.

"Five hours."

Wendy took out her pocket watch and took a look. "Since you killed the last monster, there has been no abnormality on the ship. We are now heading towards Aleser."

"Although we fished you out of the water quickly, for some reason you were still in a coma. Tracy speculated that it might be due to spiritual deficiency."

Five hours... Adele took a deep breath. She originally thought that the time she spent in the dreamland of the City of Disaster would only be longer than the real time. Unexpectedly, this time, although the perceived time was only more than ten minutes, five hours passed in reality.

It should be the difference caused by that kind of replacement...

Adele thought to herself that the biggest difference in entering the dream this time was that she was almost corroded by Melanie's personality.

Will that kind of erosion slow down the speed of awakening in the real world?

Adele kept this information in mind and reminded herself not to do anything stupid next time.

But I still don’t understand why all the creatures started to go berserk tonight?

If these creatures hadn't suddenly gone berserk, Adele might not have been able to deal with these strange crew members who came and went without a trace so quickly. Although this also caused Adele a lot of trouble, it was still a bit anticlimactic compared to the atmosphere they created at the beginning.

Suspicious things happened one after another. Adele simply stopped thinking about them and tried to sit up in bed.

Seeing that she was fine, everyone felt relieved and gradually dispersed with relieved expressions.

Only Wendy still had a puzzled look on her face, and she would stare at the dial of her pocket watch from time to time.

When she had just come here and had little start-up capital, she wanted to sell some of the original owner's things at the flea market. As a result, she met an old man in a black robe there and bought the pocket watch from him.

Wendy didn't remember how the old man persuaded her to buy the pocket watch, and she even forgot what he looked like. She could only vaguely remember that the old man's eyes were as dark as the lightless water, and he had a conspicuous, soft, long white beard.

And now, of the four long scales on the dial, only the lonely 9 o'clock scale is left, and the others have fallen off and disappeared at some point in time.

……

Indo Port.

Due to the time difference, it was still evening in Indo Port. The marchers had been shouting and yelling for the entire day and had consumed a lot of energy, so they were ready to find a place to fill their stomachs.

However, the surrounding shops had already had experience in dealing with gangs and marches, and they closed down when they gathered and took away all the valuables in the shops.

——After all, physical conflicts were inevitable during the Feysac parade. Because of their personalities, such conflicts were bound to escalate, and it was not uncommon for them to end up with looting, smashing, burning, or zero-dollar shopping.

"It's finally quiet."

Annie sighed and took out the cotton earplugs from her ears. Her ears were almost callused from listening to these guys making noise at the door all day.

Under the deliberate guidance of the forces behind the scenes, the first target of this march was the Feysac government and the Church of the God of War, which had lost the support of the True God. The reason was to start a war, and Queen Island Shipping Co., Ltd., as the representative of Loen, was just a by-product.

Therefore, apart from enduring a day of noise and having a few windows broken when they were caught off guard at the beginning, the company suffered no damage.

"Well, it's about time to get those people out."

Vinata, who was sitting at her desk, nodded and reached out to pull the bell rope in front of the desk. Soon, a company member wearing a thick cotton uniform walked into the room and saluted Vinata.

Now, the sign of the original Esco family headquarters had long been taken down by Vinata and replaced with the sign of Queen Island Shipping and Mining Co., Ltd., and the emblem had also changed from the original sword and pistol to honeysuckle and crown.

"Send out the prepared food."

Vinata said to the man, with nothing unnatural on her face.

In the end, she had not forgotten the purpose that Adele had told her. They were trying to recruit as many believers as possible in the Feysac Empire. Although they had taken on the identity of a government official before, they just thought it would be easier to do things that way. If Vinata really had to choose between the government and these people, she would definitely choose these ordinary people without hesitation.

Soon, several company members carrying iron pots walked to the main road in front and, escorted by a group of armed bodyguards, began distributing white bread and soup to the confused marchers.

As for what this action symbolized, Vinata was too lazy to delve into it.

Since they were not on good terms with the Church of the God of War, did they really have to risk their lives for them? Speaking of risking their lives, Vinata, who was forcibly conscripted into the army during the invasion of Loen, had already done it once.

After the food is distributed, Azik Eggers will go out to promote the modified Gnosis teachings...

Vinata narrowed her eyes and plotted secretly.

The Gnostic Society believes that spirit is the essence of man, and the body is just a cage that binds the spirit. Man commits evil because he is influenced by the body. He must gain knowledge through spirituality to gradually free the spirit from the body, and then go through layers of tests of the astral body before finally leaving the material world, returning to the purest and truest self, and obtaining eternal salvation.

Although most of the senior members of the Gnosis Society in Intis and Loen are of the Witch Path, the original teachings do not include the belief in the original witch.

The believers of the Gnosis Society are either bewitched by high-level members and directly convert to the Original Witch, or they, based on the description of the spiritual world in the doctrine, forcibly draw the anchor point to the Original Witch who possesses the authority over the spiritual world and the true self.

However, the Original Witch is not the only one who possesses authority over the spiritual world. The great ruler "The Fool" who is above the spiritual world and reality and dominates the spiritual world in the past, present, and future is also a target of this doctrine.

As for the necessary connections...

Anyway, it can't be written down, so even if rumors spread among the people that the "Original Witch" is actually the wife of the "Fool", it is logical... right?
(End of this chapter)