Secrets: Priestess

Chapter 121 Arrangement
Claire returned to her office on Pacefield Street and pushed the door open to see a woman with burgundy hair curled up on a small sofa, grinning foolishly at a piece of paper in her hand.

"Cindy?"

Claire wondered why Cindy didn't go to rest. Lifting the seal was a very spiritually draining task. According to the attendance regulations, this woman didn't need to go on any missions or be on duty tonight.

Seeing Claire return, Cindy slightly restrained her nonchalant attitude, quickly stood up, and said to Claire, "Lord Cecima asked me to wait for you."

"What's up?" Claire took off her coat and hung it on the hanger.

Cindy smiled and handed the sealed envelope to Claire. "The merits for this mission have been calculated. Lord Cecima asked me to deliver it to you."

Cindy folded the slip of paper that contained her merit account, a smile still on her face. "Thanks to you, I made quite a bit this time. If I save up some more, I can exchange it for that magical item I've been longing for."

Claire opened the envelope and pulled out the accounting slip. The first thing she saw was the total amount: 6355 Merits!

Claire raised her eyebrows slightly. This total amount was much higher than she expected.

It can almost be exchanged for two sequence 6 potions.

Cindy, standing by, asked curiously, "I've already earned several hundred this time. So, for providing the clue, you've earned 2000 merit points? Or 3000?"

In order not to discourage Cindy's excitement, Claire said vaguely, "About the same. How many people went on this mission?"

Cindy counted on her fingers and said, "To prevent a counterattack from the Aurora Society's cultists, quite a few people were dispatched... Lord Cesimma led the team, Captain Soest and I carried the Sealed Artifact, Bob and Daly were on guard in the outer world, and a small team of Nighthawks were also seconded to assist..."

After listening to Cindy's answer, Claire roughly estimated the total merit points for this mission. Secretly shocked, she asked Cindy, "Is Lord Cecima in his office?"

Cindy wasn't sure either: "I think so."

"I'm going to the dream world to investigate something. I won't bother you anymore." Claire sat down behind the desk, her hands on the nightmare doll at her waist, and she lowered her head to enter the dream world.

In a pure white, uncontaminated dream.

Creste Sesima stood in the center, looking up at Claire, who had dragged him into the dream, with confusion. He first took the initiative to help Claire maintain this dream world, and then asked, "You're back? Any new information?"

A high-backed chair appeared behind Krestey. As he sat down, a seat materialized next to Claire.

Claire sat down and talked about the merit calculation she had just received. She said, "...This time the merit is much higher than I expected."

Creste laughed. "Because they're worried the Aurora Society might hide and cause a bigger incident, the church's leaders have doubled the merits for all Aurora Society-related missions during this period."

This is really lucky...

Claire suddenly realized: "I see."

Crestai raised the corner of his mouth and said, "You've used your dream-entering ability to come to me. You're not going to discuss something like merit points, are you?"

"This is what happened," Claire said slowly. "This time, we were able to learn about Mr. A of the Aurora Society thanks to the help of my informant in the aristocratic circle. He had a request: he hoped the church would allow a member of the Meazza family to see Claire's remains."

A hint of doubt flashed in Krestey's dark green eyes. He looked at Claire and said, "You know, Claire's body has long been taken away by Her Highness Arianna."

Claire explained, "I planned to create a fake one. The Meazza family member was deeply saddened by Claire's death... The purpose of letting her see Claire's body wasn't to help resolve her mental disorder."

Creste recalled going to the Meazza family to inform them of Claire's death. He had a deep memory of a woman who lost control of her emotions. He pondered, "That member... are you referring to Jessica Meazza?"

"Yes, have you seen Lady Cecima?" Claire said.

Krestai nodded and asked doubtfully:
"How confident are you that you can soothe the other person's spirit? Don't let your good intentions lead to bad consequences, causing them secondary harm... In this case, it's easier to find a 'psychologist' to solve the problem."

Claire sighed and said, "But 'psychiatrists' aren't that easy to find. The 'psychiatrist' who used to work at the Backlund Sanatorium also suddenly disappeared recently, and there's currently no trace of any other psychiatrists in Backlund. Besides, psychiatrists aren't omnipotent."

Thinking of the pain of the victims' families and seeing the confidence in Claire's eyes, Creste thought for a moment and finally allowed Claire to do so. He asked, "Then, do you need any assistance in reporting this to me?"

Claire shook her head and explained her purpose. "Daly, who's been assigned to my team, and I can handle the specific details. However, I need to use the church's name to arrange for Jessica to meet Claire's body, so I wanted to report this to Her Excellency Cecima in advance."

"'Necromancer' Daly..." Creste sighed deeply and said solemnly, "That's good. She's still resentful of Claire's sacrifice. Helping Claire's family will also make her feel better. I wish you all the best."

"Then I won't bother Lord Cecima."

Claire retreated from the dream world. Cindy had already left. It was late at night. "Daly isn't sleepless... Let's go find her tomorrow morning."

The next day was Saturday, and Claire knocked on the door of Daly's residence in the North District early in the morning.

"Captain Galadilla?" Daly, after removing her strange makeup, looked even younger and more beautiful. Her emerald green eyes looked questioningly at Claire, who had come to see her in the early morning.

After being led into the house by Daly, Claire got straight to the point and asked, "Do you remember Jessica Meazza?"

"Claire's aunt, of course I remember her." Daly's eyes dimmed and she nodded, "What's wrong?"

Claire said, "This noble lady has been experiencing some mental issues lately, and has even become self-destructive. Her friends have asked me to help resolve this issue."

Daly, who was clearing the bottles on the coffee table, frowned and looked at Claire in confusion: "Captain Galadilla, can you help people with mental problems?"

Claire told Daly her idea, "I plan to disguise myself as Claire's corpse and meet Jessica. Then you pretend to perform psychic magic... After that, I will play Claire and talk to Jessica, trying to persuade her to stop wallowing in grief and live a good life."

"Is it reliable?" Daly hesitated.
"If you don't act well and get caught, it could lead to secondary harm... and how can you act..."

Daly paused before saying, "Claire's body?"

Claire smiled confidently, "Don't worry, I have a magical item that can solve this problem."

As she spoke, Claire used her spirituality to communicate with the Goddess's Heart within her body.

The power of this holy object gradually fell into dormancy under Claire's active guidance. When her heartbeat stopped, the aura of the sealed hidden sage lingered faintly around her heart.

At this time, Claire's appearance and image had changed significantly!

Her tall figure became shorter.

The elegant face becomes more refined.

There are also subtle changes in hair color and eye color.

Daly was astonished to see the woman in front of her transformed into the Claire she remembered. Her mouth dropped open in surprise, "Claire?!"

Claire smiled with some difficulty: "It's quite similar, but I can't maintain this look for too long."

As she spoke, Claire transformed back into Galadilla.

Daly sighed, "If you hadn't transformed right in front of me, I would have thought Claire had returned... But the way you looked just now didn't quite seem like you were playing a deceased person."

Claire said, "Just say that there are many different ways to preserve corpses in the Extraordinary World. I don't think Ms. Jessica would doubt it."

Dai Li shook her head and said:

"Since we have to pretend, we have to pretend to be more real. Meeting Jessica in the appearance of a living person like just now might backfire. What if Jessica starts to think that the dead are resurrected or something like that, that would be bad..."

"I once accidentally summoned a rather special spiritual creature. It possessed the body of the contractor and could disguise the contractor as a real corpse. Would you like to try it?"

"There's this special spirit creature?" Claire asked in surprise. Daly fetched a pen and paper and explained in detail, "The transformation into a corpse is just a side effect. The main function of this spirit creature is to merge with the contractor, granting them an 'undead essence'. This trait reduces the requirements for using the 'spiritual travel' ability."

"I tried, but unfortunately my sequence is still too low... I have a feeling that once I'm promoted to 'Gatekeeper', I'll probably be able to use these spirit creatures and initially utilize 'Spiritual Transmigration'."

"Spiritual Travel" is an ability that only a few higher-order paths can possess, and the "Corpse Collector" path is one of them.

Daly wrote the descriptive phrase for the psychic communication on a piece of paper and handed it to Claire.

Claire was silent after hearing this: "This kind of spirit is very valuable."

Daly simply fetched the materials needed for the ceremony and helped Claire set up the altar. As she did so, her eyes were restrained as she sighed softly, "It's well worth it to be able to help Claire's family."

"It's worth noting..." Daly warned, "When this spiritual being merges with you, you'll experience a near-death experience. It's quite painful, and you might even experience a revolving lantern phenomenon... The contract is your first fusion, so you need to be mentally prepared."

With the help of Daly, the "Necromancer", Claire successfully summoned this spiritual creature, which she named "Mist Butterfly".

The body of this spiritual creature is composed of weak mist, and the flowing mist is shaped like butterfly wings, which is strange and beautiful.

Claire signed a contract with the spiritual being in front of her in the name of "Galadia". Unlike the previous "blank paper" contract, she could feel that her spiritual power was being consumed quickly this time.

Fortunately, it is within the acceptable range.

Butterfly-like mist "wings" enveloped Claire. The color on Claire's face gradually disappeared, and her body temperature gradually became ice-cold. She looked like she was transforming into a dead spirit.

During this process, Claire felt the pain that Daly reminded her of—

It was like walking in an endless and lonely desert. She lost her sense of time and space, and the only thing that could accompany her was her own memories.

So those clear memories replayed in her mind over and over again.

again and again……

The memories of Jiang Zhe, Tai Poslan, and Claire Meazza.

But in this repetitive cycle, Claire actually saw some memory fragments that she had never known before.

She saw in Claire's memory that the woman was alone, taking care of the living dead Tai Poslan day after day.

That woman had a very hard and miserable life during those days.

"Are these... the memories that originally belonged to Claire, the fragments from the reincarnation ritual?"

"That's not right... These memories of 'Claire' are from her second year at Tingen University."

"And in Tai's memory, that year was when he met Claire but hadn't confessed his feelings yet... And based on Tai's continuous and complete memory, there's no way he could have been paralyzed!"

"Could it be that these memories of 'Claire' are hallucinations created by me in this empty environment?"

Claire re-examined the memories of "Tai Perslan".

Watching "Tai Poslan" grow up lonely and ordinary in the orphanage.

Seeing "Ty Perslan" showing his academic talent and gaining some attention from others.

Watch as "Tai. Perslan" relied on a scholarship to come from a remote town to study at the famous University of Tingen.

Seeing that "Tai. Perslan" studied harder after getting familiar with college life, he improved his poor life with the help of the college scholarship.

He watched "Ty Perslan" get acquainted with that woman, and how they were attracted to each other after getting to know each other, and had a young love affair that only lasted for a few minutes, holding hands and hugging... His memory ended with the reincarnation ceremony.

There is no doubt that this life is complete and real!
But what puzzled her was that the fragmented memories of "Claire" continued to surface before her:

She saw the woman happily holding the hand of the young "Tai. Poslan" and spinning around. At that time, "Tai. Poslan" clearly was still studying in a small town, and had not yet been admitted to Tingen University.

She saw the woman and the youthful-looking "Tai. Poslan" hugging each other tightly, shouting excitedly, "We finally meet!" At that time, "Tai. Poslan" was clearly preparing to leave for the entrance examination of Tingen University.

She saw that Ty Poslan gradually become stupid and unable to take care of himself in the eyes of the woman. At that time, Ty Poslan was clearly in his first year of college, adapting to university life and finding it new and exciting.

She saw the woman pinching the lifeless Tai Poslan's neck, even leaving a blue handprint, before she helplessly let go and broke down in tears. At that time, Tai Poslan was clearly studying hard to get a scholarship to the academy.

These memories of "Claire" that suddenly appeared conflicted with those of "Tai Perslan"...

At first, Claire firmly believed that her original memories were real, and the memory fragments that appeared in this strange place were false. However, after losing her sense of time, the repeated memory conflicts made Claire's thinking confused, and even affected the stability of the memory library.

In this chaotic state, Claire took the initiative to focus on the memories of "Jiang Zhe". Looking at the ordinary and warm life of this ordinary Earthling made her feel calm.

But slowly, even "Jiang Zhe's" memory began to be affected, and she even heard the voice of that woman in "Jiang Zhe's" memory.

This feeling of confusion caused Claire's mental state to worsen.

Fortunately... after an unknown amount of time, Claire finally opened her eyes and saw Daly looking at her with concern.

"How does it feel?" Daly asked.

"I felt like I almost died." Claire sat up in fear. She had lost her body temperature and her face was pale, just like a corpse.

Daly looked puzzled and didn't seem to believe it. "Not really... It's uncomfortable, but it's not as exaggerated as you say."

Claire smiled bitterly and said, "Really? That feeling of emptiness that I didn't know when it would end nearly drove me crazy. I had all kinds of hallucinations and even my memory was messed up."

Daly was stunned. "But I just watched the revolving lantern and woke up."

"Hmm?" Claire's heart moved. Could it be that Daly's experience when she merged with the "Mist Butterfly" was different from hers?

A spiritual creature like the Mist Butterfly would judge people by their appearance?

Daly also thought of this and said a little embarrassedly: "It seems that different people's states when fusing with the Mist Butterfly are different. Are you really okay?"

Claire confirmed, "It's okay now. But... I won't suffer again when I contact the fusion later, right?"

"No, I didn't—" Daly stopped talking and said awkwardly, "But now I'm not sure if you will have any other experiences..."

Under Daly's guidance, Claire began to break the fusion state with the Mist Butterfly with a guilty conscience.

Fortunately, there were no other special circumstances.

Claire breathed a sigh of relief. She looked at the spirit creature that had transformed back into a butterfly-shaped mist and said with a wry smile, "I'm actually a little scared of merging with this little thing."

Dai Li comforted him, "The more times you fuse, the less uncomfortable you'll feel...at least that's how it is for me."

Daly's voice got lower and lower.

"Heh..." Claire's mouth twitched slightly in silence.

　The previous chapter was modified and the section "Agreeing on the time and place with Audrey" was deleted.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)