The Secret Code of Monsters.

Chapter 448 Ch.447 The End of the Lake

Peggy left the servant behind and went deeper into the forest with Roland.

The gentleman will use his cane and arm to clear a path slightly in front of the lady, shielding her from dead branches that might prick her delicate skin - just as he often shields them from unwanted attention.

Both of them have the same tacit understanding in this regard and do what they are supposed to do.

One is pruning, the other is walking lightly.

They pushed aside the guards blocking the way like needles piercing cashmere, and in a blink of an eye they saw the bottom - it was a lake in late winter.

The mirror surface, which had thawed at some point, now showed a dark blue color that was not clear.

This does not make people think of vitality, but rather a sense of approaching solemnity.

Late winter isn’t over yet.

“I came to this lake with my brother when I was a kid.”

Peggy stopped, reached out her hand somewhat rudely, held Roland's shoulder, and smashed the mud with the toe of her shoe.

She bent down, picked up a stone, and threw it into the lake.

A unique raindrop fell lonely into the arms of a being with which it had no blood relationship.

“That’s just how I feel.”

The blonde girl heard the 'dong' sound and saw the ripples spread and disappear. She seemed to be relieved and took off her majestic veil, revealing a girlish smile - the same smile she had when they first met.

"Mr. Dawson, I am so tired."

She kicked the stones under her feet, stepped on the creaking dead branches and holes made by something, and found a felled wooden stake.

He wiped it with his hand and sat down.

"Wild girls are more comfortable."

she says.

"London is not as lively as it used to be." Roland followed her slowly, but there was no other wooden stake for him to sit on. "You should pay most attention to yourself, Ms. Street."

"Why don't you call me Peggy?"

The girl suddenly looked up, her eyes like the lake beside her, rippled by the man who threw him at her.

"Of course, if you want." Roland was good at listening.

These soft words made Peggy a little angry, but she couldn't blame the man in front of her: "I..."

She thought about it.

asked quietly.

“…I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

Roland didn't know which time, which day, or which behavior she was asking about.

"No." He shook his head gently. "You should get what you want. People should always get what they want. If they can, they should."

"Even if it's evil?"

Roland chuckled: "People who do evil don't need this help, Peggy."

The girl was satisfied.

She turned her gaze back to the silent lake, taking in the desolate and solemn surroundings.

"I will buy Shelley's Jet Shop. Please tell Miss Shelley and send someone to Ince Town to discuss in detail... By the way, I will not stop the white mine - even if it is harmful to mortals."

She looked at it for a while and suddenly said.

"I won't stop. Because it represents the future - Mr. Dawson, if you want to know the secrets, I can tell you everything... everything."

She was the one being requested, but her words seemed to be begging the man, begging him, begging him to let her tell him the secret.

"This secret is why I can't stop the white mine."

Roland tilted his face to let the morning light carve out a clearer outline: "Does it represent the future?"

"Yes."

"So, how do you plan to accommodate those 'family-like' miners?"

"...I will give them better treatment. For example, guards, or supervisors. I still have a conscience, and I know who helped me--" She fluttered her eyelashes, and her sudden smile was a little chilling, "but there is a limit..."

"It's like wielding a double-edged sword, Mr. Dawson. You never understand what masters worry about until you've sat in their shoes."

She said it to Roland, or perhaps to the calm, bottomless lake.

"We worry that it won't use its full strength, but we also worry that it will use its strength in the wrong place; we worry that it will get sick and can no longer work, but we also worry that it will never get sick and we won't be able to replace it with a new 'it'."

"I expected them to be stupid enough - and lo and behold, that's how I succeeded."

She tapped her cheeks with her fingers, all five of them as clean as if they had just grown out. "But then, I don't want them to be stupid, so as not to be taken advantage of by people other than me..."

Peggy laughed a few times in a self-destructive way as she spoke those unpleasant, unvarnished truths.

"Mr. Dawson, am I still your friend if I do this?"

The lake breeze ruffled the man's dark hair, and his voice was as gentle as the wind: "Of course you are."

Roland said.

"This is a necessary action by the master, perhaps?" He didn't care about what Peggy had done recently, but asked an unrelated question: "I heard that the 'herd' can be of one mind with the animals, and each link can contract a compatible 'friend'."

Peggy said 'hmm': "That's right."

"Excuse me, you probably contracted a cat when you were in the first level... right?" Roland said to himself: "What animal's voice can make people involuntarily let down their guard and get close to the owner of the voice... It can't be a crow, right?"

Peggy was as silent as the lake. "By dismembering and consuming contracted creatures, the ritualists of the Path of the Beast will gain a special, extremely difficult-to-detect power at each stage. The ritualists of this path are so terrifying because it is difficult for their enemies to set up a perfect ambush against them."

"They are changeable and adaptable, unless they are used to dig out intelligence information about their target for a long time, in a targeted manner, and at any cost..."

Roland's voice was very soft, like a mother's whisper in the lamplight beside a sleeping baby at night: "The Streeters will never cut down the forest again..."

These words, as light as goose feathers and making people feel tickled, actually cut an invisible crack in the cold and lonely lakeside.

The noise slips into the world through the cracks.

"Dawson."

Peggy omitted 'Mr.'

Now, there was also an invisible ravine on her face, which was difficult to suppress, and gradually extended to her entire increasingly prominent face as her suppressed emotions gradually extended to her entire increasingly prominent face: "...Dawson."

Instead of trying to change the subject with social etiquette, she was extremely bold - she grabbed Roland's hand.

“…You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

Her voice was trembling and broke at the slightest touch.

But it seems like this...

The divination was correct.

Rose is the key.

Without her, there would be no William.

It won't irritate people.

There would be no roaring tide of ore.

There would be no 'disappearing' ritualists.

There would be no logical ending.

Everything, by coincidence, was cleverly twisted into a rope called "fate" - and it finally tied up the person it wanted to tie up.

"Miss Peggy Streeter. You may have been insulted, abused, and hurt by your brothers, servants, or even your parents when you were young. You may have had a sad and extremely dark childhood. I will not even use the 'price' of the 'road' to belittle your determination to ignite the flame..."

Roland shook her hand back, trying to give the girl whose fingers were as cold as ice the warmth of his palm.

His voice was gentle, as if he didn't care at all who was taken away by the fire.

- Including Martin, the butler who hated Henry and doted on Peggy so much that he helped her every time over the years.

He is not important.

He is too old and, like his son, it is time for him to die.

"I don't care what you did, Miss Peggy Streeter," he sighed. "I just pity you."

"mercy…?"

Paige opened her mouth.

I don't understand where this mercy comes from.

She wanted to tell Roland everything that had happened in the past, tear off the masks of those hypocritical people, and tell him that it was not a conspiracy and was not as terrible as he thought.

She never thought about this day, and when the divination was over, she didn't expect to get the result she got today.

Everything is fate.

Maybe she deserved it, as she later destroyed Innstown and Street; maybe she didn't deserve it, as her family and the town prospered greatly, but she died early.

Everything is fate...

but.

But the other party told her lightly:

that's not important.

In one sentence, everything she wanted to say was blocked in her throat.

"…Dawson."

The girl with spider webs all over her cheeks raised her head.

The broken corners of her mask dropped debris like a waterfall, but it was still firmly attached to her face.

It has long been stuck to the skin and flesh.

"I didn't lie," she said. "At least 'Peggy' didn't lie to you."

She wanted to express, urgently and shamelessly, her enthusiasm and expectations in this last chance.

The rose that suddenly blooms in her heart needs someone passing by the flower garden.

She wanted her to stop for the only rose in the flowerbed.

"...Dawson." Peggy held Roland's hand tightly. "Perhaps, Inns Town will have a better development. Would you like to come again? I will treat you, we...we can go around and fish, ride horses, and have a picnic."

"I mean, I've got to have some real friends besides those boring, predictable socializings, right?"

"You are willing to be my true friend and maintain our true friendship..."

"Perhaps I could still come to see you in West Manlis?"

She used her other hand to brush her hair. As time passed, she could no longer see Roland's face in the sunlight.

And those golden eyes that blended into the sunlight.

(End of this chapter)