Secrets: Priestess

Chapter 134 Dissipation
"...The entire mansion doesn't have any protection against Beyonders, and Beth isn't among them. I used some non-dangerous props and some harmless methods on the maids who stayed in the mansion..."

This tone... is Daly's style...

Claire held the letter and shook her head with a wry smile. Her depressed mood due to the town of Omlight was somewhat lifted by Daly's familiar style.

Claire continued reading:

"From what the maids heard, Beth moved to a manor in the western suburbs to relax. Other than that, they don't know anything..."

"I sneaked into a bedroom on the second floor of the main building and discovered traces of a fight between Beyonders. The traces had been processed, so I couldn't determine any further information. But I suspect that Tai Poslan attacked Beth Lyonness in this room... This indirectly proves that Tai Poslan's camouflage ability did indeed utilize the corpses of the disguised individuals."

"I can't determine Beth Lyonness's path and sequence. I haven't found any more Beyonder items or materials. This isn't normal. Beth, a Beyonder, doesn't have any Beyonder materials in her home."

"I'm inclined to think that Ty Purslan, disguised as Beth, cleaned up and took away all the extraordinary things."

"The maids also said that Beth arranged for a convoy to move a lot of things yesterday, which was the day when Tai Perslan attacked us at night."

"I followed this clue and found Beth Lyonness's manor in the western suburbs. I didn't find anything extraordinary in the rooms she had settled in...but the luggage she had moved from the west district was filled with a wealth of things, things I had never seen before. It was like I had opened the door to a new world for me!"

After reading this, Claire, who had seen some of the props, could understand some of Daly's shock. Beth Lyonness's thinking was chaotic and twisted beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. It was probably bent into the shape of a strange prop.

"Although I didn't find any extraordinary items, I used extraordinary methods to find some traces of human captivity in this western suburbs manor... I initially suspect Beth Lyonness is secretly committing illegal activities."

"I've also investigated the servants at the manor, but the situation remains grim. No one knows if anyone was imprisoned here, and no one knows where Beth Lyonness, who was supposed to have moved here to relax, has gone..."

"I continued investigating Beth Lyonness's relationships and discovered that she has close ties with many nobles."

"The above is my preliminary investigation."

"Given that Beth Lyonness is most likely dead, I haven't reported the above information to Lord Cecima or the Nighthawks yet. Captain Galadilla, what do you think we should do next?"

After finishing reading Daly's letter, the paper was ignited by Claire's spirituality and turned to ashes in her hands. Claire pondered for a moment.

The case of Beth Lyonness, as it involved extraordinary factors, was to be reported to the Nighthawks in the area, but Beth was actually dead, and the case had in fact turned into the "Ty Perslan Manhunt" which was currently being handled by Claire's team.

Therefore, according to jurisdiction, this case is handled by Claire's team, which is in compliance with the procedures.

After a moment's consideration, Claire found a piece of paper and wrote a brief reply, "You can report the relevant case to Her Excellency Cecima first. I will return to Backlund soon."

Watching Daly's messenger disappear into the spirit world, Claire thought of Tessa's journey through the spirit world when she escaped, the journey of "Gatekeeper" Alicia when she chased Qilingos, and the dark blue stone on Fors's bracelet.

"It would be more convenient if I also had the ability to travel through the spirit world."

Claire thought enviously. According to the information she'd obtained, the real difficulty in "spiritual travel" wasn't actually entering the spirit world. Claire's ability to travel through other people's dreams, relying on her nightmare abilities, was actually a form of spiritual travel.

The basic structure of mysticism consists of only three layers: the "real world," the "astral realm," and the "spiritual realm," and these three layers overlap. Despite this, intelligent beings, and even Beyonders, have little understanding of the astral realm.

In addition to the real world they live in, Extraordinary People know more about the "spiritual world".

This is true for traveling through the spirit world, divination, and dreams.

The principle of dreams is that astral bodies travel through the spiritual world, allowing certain details that are usually noticed unconsciously to be transformed into revelations with symbolic meanings under external stimulation.

Since the owner is in a sleeping state, this will appear in the form of a dream.

The spiritual world and the real world completely overlap, so everyone may get inspiration from the spiritual world. This is also the most basic principle of divination.

But in the spiritual world, there is no distinction between up, down, left, and right.

The past, future, and present may all intersect in the spirit world.

It's like a strange ocean formed by the compression of countless knowledge, countless information, and countless illusory spirits.

It is completely different from the "world" in normal concepts and normal logic.

Because of this, the real difficulty of "traveling through the spiritual world" is to have accurate coordinates in the spiritual world.

As far as Claire knew, the only ones who could truly set up coordinates in the spirit world were the Extraordinary people on the "Apprentice" path and the Extraordinary people on the "Corpse Collector" path.

It is not clear which of these two sequences will gain the ability to "travel through the spirit world".

Fors's dark stone is suspected to be a magical item for the "Apprentice" path.

Alicia obviously has extraordinary abilities brought by the "Corpse Collector" path.

The earrings that Claire wore on her red gloves possessed a degraded version of the "Flame Leap" extraordinary ability. Essentially, it also relied on the spiritual world to travel, but it could only be considered a very short-distance shuttle.

"There's no record of Beyonders on the 'Generalist' path mastering spirit travel, but the sequence I follow, 'Mechanical Expert,' was called 'Craftsman' in ancient times. Records show that Beyonder traits can be used to create Beyonder items..."

“This is a feasible direction.”

"But to do that, I'd need to find a Beyonder with the ability to travel through the spirit world. I just hope the sequence of this Beyonder isn't too high."

After carefully considering how to acquire the ability to travel through the spirit world, Claire sighed softly and returned her thoughts to reality. She faced the impossibility of traveling through the spirit world and at the same time made the most preliminary plans in her heart.

Then Claire put on her coat, opened the window, and looked out at the night outside.

The nights in the small town of Omlite are quiet and deserted, without the hustle and bustle of some places in the big cities that happen day and night.

Walking on the cobblestone country road, in this small town that hadn't changed in years, Claire was familiar with everything here... but these familiar memories were false memories instilled and tampered by others.

The once difficult, warm, lonely, and struggling past life, along with the concept of "hometown", all dissipated in the night wind. "Probably... I won't come back."

Standing on the high slope at the edge of town, Claire glanced back at the inn. She didn't need to go back to the inn; the deposit she'd paid was more than the cost of room and board.

"There's a town called Carlo on the map, just over the hill. It's on the steam train route... If I take this route, at my walking speed, it'll actually save me more time than taking a carriage, and I'll be able to return to Backlund faster."

Claire turned and left Omlight without any regrets.

……

The sun was bright. After taking a nap in the office of St. Samuel's Church, Claire stretched out her body and used her nightmare ability to remind Daly that she had returned to Backlund.

When Daly returned to the church, she looked at Claire, who was relaxing behind her desk, with a puzzled look on her face. She couldn't help but ask, "You're back so soon?"

Daly had just received a reply from Claire in Omlight this morning through her own spiritual messenger.

Claire made a cup of coffee and said, "Now that I'm done with things over there, there's naturally no need for me to stay any longer. It's not like I'm actually going on a trip."

Daly asked in surprise, "Captain Galadilla, have you found out anything?"

Daly couldn't imagine how Claire could have gathered information about Tai Perslan in such a short time, excluding the time spent on the journey back and forth.

Even if the "sleepless people" don't need to sleep, their efficiency is too high!

Claire Tan sighed, watching the steam from her coffee swirl before her. She whispered, "Omwright's investigation was much simpler than I expected. Through the guidance of my dreams, I confirmed that Tai Perslan's identity was actually a fake."

"Fake?" Daly frowned in confusion.

Claire handed the brief report to Daly and said, "Ty Perslan has never lived in Omlet. His identity and background are false, a lie woven by the townspeople."

Daly flipped through it and frowned even more tightly: "But why are these people lying?"

Claire was silent for a moment, then stated the facts briefly mentioned in the report: "These townspeople are seeking practical benefits... Some have gained money, some have given their children a quality education, and some have secured better jobs."

Daly was stunned for a moment. Looking at Claire who seemed a little out of sorts, she corrected him, "What I mean is, what's the point of them making up this lie? These lies and disguises can't fool the investigation by extraordinary means."

"You mean this..." Claire rubbed her forehead, calming herself down a bit before saying, "Actually, I have a guess..."

Seeing that Daly seemed to be listening, Claire continued, "This fake identity seems to be concealing Tai Poslan's true identity. So I guess there must be some secret hidden in Tai Poslan's identity."

"As for the fact that this disguise method couldn't be hidden from extraordinary means... I think there are two possibilities. One is that the person behind the scenes can only achieve this level of deceiving ordinary people. The other is that the person behind the scenes believes that it is enough to just hide it from the secular world."

"Given the wealth and abilities displayed by the mysterious man, I'm more inclined to believe the latter."

There was a deeper guess that Claire didn't say - she suspected that the person behind the scenes was deceiving Tai Perslan, the predecessor she had merged with.

If it was "Tai Perslan" who had not become a Beyonder, he would never have doubted in his life that his childhood memories and his identity were fabricated.

Thinking back to how Tessa had always hoped that "Ty Perslan" could live the rest of his life as an ordinary person, Claire was basically certain that even if the person behind the scenes was not Tessa herself, he must be related to Tessa.

Daly, wearing blue eyeshadow, put down the documents in her hand, a hint of confusion in her emerald eyes. "But... what exactly is Tai Perslan's background? Is he some fallen descendant of a royal family? Why would the person behind this go to such lengths, using a small town to fabricate an identity?"

"Daly, you've been reading too many novels or poetry collections lately, haven't you..." Claire suspected that Daly was slacking off and reading while working on the case. However, thinking about the fact that there were many part-time writers among the Beyonders, Claire wouldn't be surprised even if Daly suddenly said one day that she wanted to write a novel or a poetry collection.

Claire said with a hint of relief, "This matter is relatively easy to investigate. Those people who were transferred from the small town of Omlight and found new, high-paying jobs in cities like Backlund, and those Omlight college students who were 'sent' to university... may all provide clues to the mastermind..."

"Daly, are you interested? How about I let you investigate this case?"

"I am really interested, but I am currently investigating a serial murder case... What's more, now Lady Cecima has added another case to my task of investigating Beth Lyonness's suspected crimes," Daly said regretfully.

"Beth Lyonness's case? Didn't Lady Cecima pass it on to the Nighthawks?" Claire was a little surprised.

Daly replied, "No, they said the Night Watchers couldn't spare any manpower. Lord Cecima said they were so busy they kept asking him for help... and Alicia, the Night Watcher's leader, happened to be under special investigation in the Cathedral for the sake of the holy relic... A case like Beth's, which doesn't seem too dangerous at the moment, probably wouldn't have the manpower to investigate it if it was transferred to the Night Watchers. Lord Cecima asked me to investigate the 'Ty Perslan Manhunt' as well."

Claire sighed, "I didn't expect that Lord Cecima is quite good at assigning people."

Daly shrugged. "I was forced to do it because I was busy. When I received your reply this morning and went to report on the Beth case, I saw that Lord Cecima was in a lot of trouble with the Aurora Society case."

Claire was surprised, "Even though a divine messenger died, the Aurora Society is still so active?"

Daly replied, "From what Her Excellency Cecima said, the Aurora Society has a new divine messenger who has infiltrated Backlund."

Claire couldn't help but complain, "Is Backlund hiding some treasure? To think that those crazy people from the Aurora Society are so obsessed with him..."

Daly smiled helplessly and said, "Lord Cecima has the same attitude. He suspects the Aurora Society has some grand plan in Backlund, so he's been personally leading the search for Aurora Society members lurking in Backlund. Unfortunately, with the precedent of Mr. A's base being destroyed, those lunatics have become even more hidden."

Claire had recently gained a great deal of merit simply by reporting Mr. A, but it was a pity that such good luck was difficult to replicate.

It is not necessarily difficult to replicate. The members of the Aurora Club seem to be short of money. They may be exposed like Mr. A in order to make money.

Although the probability of this happening is relatively small...

Having put aside her desire to get rich overnight, Claire turned to Daly and asked her about serious matters: "Daly, have you started investigating serial murder cases?"

Daly's expression grew more serious. "Because the Beth case is taking longer than expected, I've only met with Al Hassan's team and haven't found any leads yet... and as for the number of victims in this case, we've already found the sixth."

(End of this chapter)