Secrets: Priestess

Chapter 132 Hometown
The chapel at Ushill Cemetery.

The candlelight of the ceremony flickered in front of Daly, and phantom shadows kept circling around her, while Claire sat quietly in a chair beside her.

"No... I can't find him. Tai Perslan's whereabouts are harder to track down than a scumbag who just ran away with his pants pulled up." Daly pouted and said to Claire, who had turned back into Galadilla.

Claire was not surprised by the result, but she was helpless with Daly's love of telling dirty jokes. Daly's jokes this time made Claire feel like she had been shot in the knee - what Tessa did to her was not much different from what a scumbag did to her.

Claire said, "But this arrest operation did yield some results. At least we know she's disguised as 'Beth Lyonness.' We can investigate Beth later."

"I didn't even see her face... I can only confirm that she had black hair." Daly collected the remaining altar materials and asked Claire, "Captain Galadilla, have you seen Tai Perslan's face?"

Claire stepped forward to help clean up the altar and shook her head, "I didn't see it either. Tai Perslan had already prepared a disguise when he dragged me out of the coffin."

Although she felt a little sorry for Daly's hard work in the arrest, Claire ultimately did not mention the name "Tessa" and her corresponding appearance.

After this night's ordeal, Claire's desire to arrest Tessa herself was even stronger than before. This woman was truly despicable!
Due to the conversation Tessa revealed last night, the underlying purpose was to buy time and recover the spirituality used for escape.

Therefore, Claire could only take the information revealed in Tessa's words as a reference and could not trust it.

“In the end, that woman didn’t reveal who that time traveler friend was…” Claire sighed inwardly.

Claire had three guesses about this time traveler: it was Tessa herself, her fused predecessor, Tai Perslan, or some other unknown person.

Claire thought it was most likely Tessa. Her rebellious nature as a child had given her the air of someone who'd traveled from Earth. She didn't seem like a native Loen noblewoman.

Tai Poslan is the second most suspected.

"But if that's the case, then Jiang Zhe and Tai Perslan are both time travelers. Then am I the product of the fusion of two time travelers' souls? Is this some kind of... law of time travel aggregation?"

Thinking of this conjecture, Claire couldn't help but complain in her heart, subconsciously feeling that the water here is deeper than she thought.

Considering that Tai Poslan's memories had been tampered with by Tessa, Claire decided to find time to investigate Tai Poslan's past. She said to Daly, "Daly, I plan to visit the small town of Omlet, which is under the jurisdiction of Tingen City."

Dai Li was puzzled: "Where is that place? Why are we going there?"

Claire explained, "That's Ty Perslan's hometown. I want to find out about his childhood."

Daly was also tempted after hearing this, but she still remembered the mission her team had received from Cecima, so she reminded Claire, "Didn't Lord Cecima ask us to participate in the investigation of the serial murder case as soon as possible? We don't have time to go recently, do we?"

To get from Backlund to Omlight, one not only had to take a steam train, but also, due to its remote location, a horse-drawn carriage.

It will take at least two days to go there and back.

Claire had already made arrangements for this and said:

"Daly, you follow Al Hassan and investigate the case first. I'll go to Omlight alone to investigate. This way, we won't be delayed."

Claire explained, "The main reason Lord Cecima assigned us to the case was because he was worried the serial killer was high up in the serial killer cycle. So, he wanted to bring you, the 'Necromancer,' to help. Actually, whether I'm there or not doesn't really matter."

"How can a captain run around and leave only the team members to handle the case? I'd rather be out on the case myself..." Daly sighed, then resignedly waved to Claire, "Alright, you're the captain after all." Seeing Daly's willingness to obey orders, Claire smiled and said, "To get back sooner, I'll take the earliest steam train... I'll leave the investigation at Beth's mansion to you, Daly."

Dai Li: “…”

……

On the railway tracks extending to the azure sky, the steam train locomotive roared past, spewing thick smoke and sparks.

In the sparsely populated carriage, Claire took off the lotus leaf hat that covered most of her face. As mist butterflies drifted out from her body, her deathly pale face gradually turned rosy.

Thanks to the small number of passengers in the carriage, Claire had forced herself to merge with the Mist Butterfly several times in order to delve deeper into the original, altered memories.

This method was indeed effective and could help Claire regain some of her memories, but it wasn't efficient enough and was too mentally taxing.

Claire was already a person with a strong spirit, but after enduring three consecutive experiences of mist butterfly fusion, she became mentally confused.

"Claire Meazza's memories are fundamentally different from Ty Perslan's. I can recover Ty's true memories this way. But recovering Claire's true memories is much more difficult, and I only have a few fragments..."

Claire guessed that this was because the memories of "Tai Perslan" were her own memories, while the memories of "Claire Meazza" were foreign memories that were instilled into her.

"Based on the corrected memories I've made so far, Tessa hasn't altered many of my memories of life in Omlet. It was mainly during my time studying at Tingen University that a lot of them were altered... But the memories of the days in mid-May 1345 are no longer connected..."

May 1345 was a critical period for Tai Poslan's learning sprint. In his false memory, Tai Poslan was studying hard in Omlet.

But in his real memory, on May 13th of that year, Tai Perslan was staying in a hotel in Backlund, and the hotel was arranged by Claire!
Claire pressed her forehead, recalling her memories of the period around the 13th. These memories were all of her studying at a church school and living in an orphanage. "That means my current memories of May 13th might have been tampered with. When we get to Omlight, we can focus our investigation on this date..."

After the steam train arrived at the station, Claire had a meal and then boarded a horse-drawn carriage. As the sun was setting, Claire finally arrived back at her hometown, the small town of Omlite.

The buildings in Omlight were simple and elegant, and most of them retained the style of the pre-steam age. In the afterglow of the setting sun, they were like a flowing natural oil painting, leisurely spreading out before Claire's eyes.

As it was getting late, Claire went to the only hotel in the town and booked a room.

"Ursula, we have a visitor! Take this lady to the private room on the second floor."

The innkeeper was a middle-aged man. In Claire's memory, his name was Caravi.

Carraway was also the hotel's chef. After registering Claire, he shouted towards the stairs.

A woman came running down the wooden stairs, clattering loudly.

Similar to what Tai Poslan remembered, she was a middle-aged woman with a kind face. She often went to the orphanage to bring snacks to the children there.

The town had a small population, and Claire knew almost everyone here.

In fact, it's not just Tai. Even Claire Meazza remembers that she came back to this small town with Tai and lived there for a short time.

　The previous chapter was significantly modified for review. Some readers may have seen a version with a lot of missing content and only 1600 words at noon. If this is the case, you can take a look again. The current version has 2074 words. Um... the original version was 2200+
　　
　
(End of this chapter)