Mystery: Survival from the Secret Doll

Chapter 294, 293 Whirlpool
In the southern continent, there is a sect that believes in "Stars," which holds that everything in the world originated from a point with infinite mass and infinitesimal volume.
As a double-degree student in history and languages ​​at the University of Tingen, and after a month of intensive study in the occult, Klein had never heard of such a realistic "Big Bang theory" before.

After all, according to the worldview and the generally accepted origin of the world, the Creator awoke from chaos and created the first ray of light. The Creator then manifested as all things, its body becoming the earth and the stars, one eye becoming the sun and the other the red moon, and its blood becoming the sea and rivers, nourishing and nurturing life...

Such an unmystical explanation? Are you out of your mind?

It's called the "Singularity Cult," which is practically a blatant attempt to imply that I'm a time traveler and need to find me.
Senior transmigrator, you've already expanded your business to the Southern Continent?

Ah, Emperor Roselle? As everyone knows, Emperor Roselle seems to have no connection with the Southern Continent...

Klein's expression turned a little strange, and Anderson just chuckled when he saw it. "How about that? A very strange theory. You've never heard of it before, have you?"

Indeed, I've never heard of such a theory before. Klein thought sincerely.

Seeing that Klein and Fors both looked like they had never heard of it, Anderson grinned, then casually picked up the candlestick that had fallen to the ground but was still strangely burning, waved his hand casually, and said, "Indeed, many people haven't heard of it."

He glanced at the heads and headless corpses rolling on the ground, and shrugged indifferently: "I only happened to hear about it from others, I only know the name, as for the specifics regarding the 'Singularity Cult',"

He smiled and said, "I'm not quite sure either."

Klein, Fors opened his mouth: "..."

Klein and Fors, who were ready to listen to Anderson's explanation, felt a surge of anger rising in their hearts: What are you talking about then? Are you kidding us?
Who were you trying to impress with that "Why are you all such country bumpkins?" attitude?
"Let's look inside the church. There should be some props or something. It's such an important and unique location, there must be something they want us to find."

Anderson smiled and answered with his expression what Klein and Fors seemed not to have said aloud.

I didn't say I knew the answer.

Klein and Fors: ...

Upon hearing this, the group had no choice but to search through everything in the church.

Putting everything else aside, there's a lot of stuff here, all mixed up, but none of it seems very useful. Neither Fors nor Anderson are good at divination. Anderson's dangerous intuition can help him avoid some of the messy stuff, but it also causes him to miss clues that could help him pass the exam.

Therefore, the final decision on what can be taken away needs to be made by Klein, who is skilled in divination.

While identifying what was problematic and what wasn't, and considering the strangeness of the church, after consulting with Fors and Anderson, and having basically determined what could be taken and what was worthless, Klein took out the three candles he had brought with him, lit them in a corner of the church, and set up a spiritual wall.

Standing within the spiritual wall, Klein prayed softly and quickly in ancient Hermes:
"The goddess of night, who is nobler than the starry sky and longer than eternity..."

"I pray to the power of the night, I pray to the power of concealment, I pray to the goddess's favor..."

“I pray that all the hidden things in this church will be revealed to me.”

Given the possibility that something might influence their spiritual intuition, leading to oversights and omissions, Klein used ritual magic with considerable caution to invoke the goddess's power.

After all, this is a "professional ritual magic level test," not a game dungeon or anything like that. You have to think about how to perform while clearing the dungeon.

Outside the spiritual wall, Fors looked at this rather orthodox ritual magic pointing to the true god, and touched his pocket, where there were also a few candles.

Just as Klein was chanting the incantation in a low voice and activating the corresponding ritual symbol, her inspiration was triggered, and she looked at the front of the church, behind the strange holy light that seemed to symbolize "density," "stars," and "fundamental power."

Behind the strange holy light, in the hazy darkness, a crimson light suddenly appeared, like a divine oracle guiding believers. Fors and Anderson both turned their attention to it and discovered the problem.

That was something that was hidden.

Anderson quickly stepped forward, glanced at what was displayed in the glowing crimson dot, then laughed and took it out from behind the strange holy light.

It was an old, worn-out diary.

Klein, having ended the ritual magic and dispelled the spiritual wall, remained silent upon seeing that thing.

Senior, this online game-like puzzle-solving vibe is really hitting him right in the head.

-

After Klein and his group left the church in the pouring rain, the body of the murdered "Stars" believer suddenly twitched.

Then, his bones, muscles, organs, blood, and skin began to tremble involuntarily, as if every cell, every bone, and every blood vessel was being lifted by one illusory, transparent thread after another. The puppeteer was readjusting to the new puppet body in his hands.

The head rolled to one side, its unseeing eyes now clouded with a misty veil.

After writhing for a while, the "Stars" believer's body suddenly stood up. The headless torso shakily picked up his head from a short distance away, but he didn't seem to intend to press it onto his forehead.

"swirl……"

"swirl……"

"The vortex has taken shape..."

The "Stars" believers, whose eyes were covered with a strange grayish color, muttered to themselves.

His limbs twitched and began to twist.

The head was cradled by the body at the navel, the withered, limp hands now bent and twisted. The headless corpse no longer held its own head, yet the head did not fall off on its own.

The head, with its unseeing, lifeless eyes, began to merge eerily with the corpse behind it from the point of contact, as if the severed neck of the head had grown back onto the stomach.

However, that's not the case, or rather, it's not just that.

The headless corpse's abdomen split open, from which countless pinkish fleshy sprouts grew. These pinkish fleshy sprouts grabbed the unseeing head and firmly embedded it into its body.

His limbs were stretched out and twisted and rotated in a clockwise direction.

He—no, it—became a new monster, reborn.

The head, located at the center of the vortex-like twisted limbs, watched the group of people gradually disappear into the distance, and slowly, sinisterly, revealed a row of black teeth.

"The vortex had already taken shape."

-

Klein struggled to translate the notebook in his hand as he walked.

This isn't to say that the ancient Hermes on it is obscure and difficult to translate; rather, each character seems to have its own thought, constantly shifting and changing, resulting in complete gibberish when opened. "This should be part of the decryption process, although this ancient Hermes..."

Fors offered to help, but after glancing at the jumbled, constantly jumping ancient Hermes script, circles quickly formed around her eyes.

"What and what?"

"Divination, or similar ritual magic that points to knowledge, is required to interpret it in the correct order."

Klein answered succinctly. Anderson held an umbrella over Klein to keep the notebook dry, while Klein held the gold coins, performed divination, and deciphered the notebook in his mind, translating it into the corresponding Rune words.

"On my first day in this town, I built the first church for the 'Stars' to guide the children in the sea."

"..."

"The stars are great, they are heavy, they are our father and our mother, they are the ones who give us everything..."

"..."

"On the last day of this town, the stars return to their places, the vortex restarts, the 'door' is about to open once more, and all things return to chaos, return to the singularity..."

“Oh, great Lord, the day is coming soon, when all your children will awaken and return to your divine kingdom…”

door?
The contents of this diary are quite haphazard. Rather than a typical diary used to record daily events, such as the diary of Emperor Roselle, this diary by Klein is more like a combination of a church priest's daily work summary and daily praise of the divine.

In other words, each large section contained relatively little effective content, and the more Klein read, the more dizzy he felt, as if his mental state was being affected by the text.

He only glanced at the very beginning and end of each item, quickly filtering the information; the rest...

"The door opens once every sixty years, and the time is approaching; the children of the stars are awakening..."

Are the children of the stars awakening?
Klein carefully examined the sentence, and a bad feeling arose within him.

"strangeness……"

At this moment, Fors suddenly frowned.

"what happened?"

Klein, who was focused on deciphering the notebook and whose brain seemed a little slow to react, raised his head and looked at Fors.

Fors stared at Klein and Anderson, and said somewhat uncertainly, "Don't you think your hair is a little longer than when we first entered Blackvortex Town?"

Their hair was longer than when they were about to enter Blackvortex Town.
Klein paused, and Anderson looked at Klein's hair, narrowing his eyes. "Indeed, it's a little longer than before."

And the ends of her hair are a bit curly.

Fors reached out and smoothed her hair, noticing that the ends of her hair were sticking up, resembling an unformed vortex.

swirl……

"You've probably seen quite a few things related to vortexes as well."

Seeing this, Anderson breathed a sigh of relief and said slowly.

Whether it was the ancient Hermes script that began to distort on the station sign when they first arrived at the station, or the huge chimney and the swirling vortex in the sky at their first stop, "Uncle's Funeral," everything seemed to be related to the concept of "vortex."

Fors reasonably guessed: "The constant emphasis on a concept, a symbol, could it indicate that the anomalies in this town are essentially related to the concept of 'vortex'?"

"That's a possibility."

Anderson thought for a moment and replied, "Things that place great emphasis on symbolism are generally only encountered in places with strong religious overtones, or by extraordinary individuals with this type of extraordinary ability. The one that this town worships, well, 'Stars,' is either the former or the latter."

Then the fact that their hair starts to grow long and swirl is not a good thing.

-

Klein, with the notebook in hand, returned to the family he had woven for himself, ready to continue his mission.

His mental strength, aside from the 20 points forcibly deducted at the beginning for completing the task, the 7 points that automatically dropped when he heard the strange priest's prayer in the church, and the 5 points deducted for translating the notes, stabilized at 75 after a period of rest.

According to Anderson's advice, it's best for the group to keep their mental state above 90 before venturing into those strange locations and to record any anomalies. Otherwise, without knowing if there's anything there that can stabilize their mental state, dropping their mental state is tantamount to slow suicide, and once it drops to a certain level, it won't recover automatically.

Now, Klein is returning "home" for two reasons: first, to retrieve the coffin inside, and second, to obtain materials needed for ritual magic. He intends to use ritual magic to invoke the source of knowledge, quickly decipher the contents of the notebook, and find clues within it.

"call……"

He remembered the exam prompts he had seen at the beginning.

Location Four: Home. 'There's a coffin here. Would you like to lie down in it?'

Putting the words "home" and "coffin" together, does that mean the house is filled with red coffins, white coffins, all sorts of coffins, and inside lie brides, water ghosts, or something like that...? Klein shuddered.

A drop in mental energy, gradually succumbing to madness, does indeed make one prone to overthinking.

In Euclidean space.

Tang exclaimed "Ah!" and then looked at Nikolai with a smile.

"My 'Mysterious Servant' potion is starting to be digested in large quantities."

"It seems that the Lord of Mysteries really likes the story I prepared... This should be the final digestion process. To be honest, it's a bit of a pity."

Tang rested his chin on his hand and smacked his lips. "I thought it would take a while, but it looks like all my potions will be digested by the time the exam is over."

Nikolai glanced at a ball of light not far away, his lips twitched slightly, but in the end he just sighed softly.

Sin ah.

(End of this chapter)