The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

The believer frowned slightly and habitually brought her index finger to her lips.

Biting his nails was an old habit of his. In the distant past, when he had free time, he would use it as an alternative to burning his nails, which was an extremely effective way to deal with them. It was all about precision. If a demon's teeth could surpass the precision of nail clippers, then biting with his teeth would definitely be a more efficient way than the conventional way of trimming.

Besides, doing your nails alone can feel a little lonely...

The finger that was about to be brought to her mouth was stopped by an external force. The believer stared at the hand that was holding her wrist and at the girl in front of her who was no longer lost in thought and was hiding under the gray cloak. She felt that this scene was familiar.

However, this time, the external force that stopped him was more resolute than tender.

"It's rare for someone to have their nails done so nicely, so don't ruin it so easily. It's a token of appreciation from others, Mr. Hern."

Chloe had somehow appeared beside him, her hand firmly gripping his wrist.

Those familiar purple eyes shimmered with a subtle light, like dancing flames.

"..."

In that instant, the believer seemed to see through some of the fog, ponder some new things, and reconstruct a relatively objective understanding.

such as……

"Chloe, I don't remember having my nails done by anyone recently, but the marks on these hands clearly prove it. Do you have any clues?"

The believer examined her fingernails and saw that all ten nails had been sharpened and trimmed to a smooth and appropriate size, so fine that they wouldn't leave a scratch even when stroking a baby's skin. However, she couldn't remember when or who had trimmed them for her.

"I have a little bit of a clue, and a little bit of a question, about that address from Miss Aoko earlier."

It seems Chloe is still bothered by that nickname.

"Oh, no need to be angry. For her, 'dog' is a positive word; she's just being straightforward."

The woman smiled and explained, trying to smooth things over for Aoko.

"But why a golden retriever?"

“Emmmmmmm…”

"Emmmmmmm?"

"Don't imitate me, it's just a time-wasting phrase... never mind."

"So, what's the answer?"

"The real answer might not even be understood by Aoko herself. No, the fact that she can say the word so naturally shows that she is still completely clueless. But don't underestimate her. From the past to the present, she has always been a woman with a terrifying intuition. When her thinking can't keep up with the pace, her intuition has already touched the answer."

"Intuition...?"

"Hmm, intuition, a very mysterious thing, it's like I don't know why, but I think it should be that way. In fact, the fact that she was able to say the word Golden Retriever already proves that you are outstanding, or even excellent, in some aspects. To be honest, putting aside my words for now, judging from Aoko's cognitive reaction... Chloe, did you really not use any cognitive interference filters, but just rely on your image, temperament, and speech to achieve this level of cognitive interference? Of course, I'm very sure that you didn't use any crude or low-class methods, it was all natural."

The believer smiled with satisfaction. He gazed at the pair of purple eyes that he usually hid well, but which were now flashing with firelight. His gaze was almost parallel to the ground.

This means that, ignoring subtle factors such as hairstyle and shoe sole thickness, the owner of those purple eyes is actually similar in height to the woman standing here.

Towards the end of her childhood, at that time, Nobunaga's height had actually exceeded that of Shiki and Aoko by more than ten centimeters.

In other words, Chloe's height is much greater than Aoko's and the others.

"Golden Retrievers, or Golden Retrievers, fall into the category of large dogs. There are many smaller dogs with similar coat colors, but Aoko's intuition made her subconsciously choose the term 'breed.' I call this a case of intuition waking up but the brain not, or logic circuits waking up but judgment circuits not. In short, you left her with the impression of a well-behaved, cute, and obedient puppy, and this preconceived impression has been reinforced to the point that she is almost unaware of it, with only her intuition slightly breaking through the barrier. Should I applaud you, Chloe?"

"If that's what you expect."

"Forget it, let's do it another time. I don't want to attract unnecessary trouble by applauding in a place like this. Don't forget we're in the dangerous underground world."

The believer smiled and casually made up an excuse to put the proposal on hold for the time being.

In fact, there's absolutely nothing to worry about.

The two realms, one large and one small, gradually expanded as the two strolled through the area. The mist from the Sea of ​​Time covered the vast underground world, and their perspective went beyond the usual angle of observation, allowing them to overlook the myriad beings of the underground world.

"Chloe, is it just my imagination? I feel like your domain has expanded significantly, and your precision is starting to keep up with mine. If I remember correctly, back in the Sea of ​​Trees, your application of these particles was still at the stage of a fledgling bird, but now you're like a mother eagle kicking you out of the nest, already used to soaring alone."

The believer chose an appropriate metaphor and smiled in approval.

“That’s your misconception, Mr. Hern. I’m still a fledgling bird, and to be honest, I’m still hungry.”

He was met with cold, indifferent words.

"Uh, Chloe, are you indirectly mocking me for being an incompetent teacher? About me, your cheap teacher."

“Mr. Hern, I don’t recall ever participating in any ceremony to formally become your apprentice. Is our relationship one of warm senior-junior affection? Or do you need me to become smaller, more docile, to carefully manicure your nails, to hold your hands in my own from time to time, to gaze at you with moist eyes from bottom to top, and to say innocent and heartwarming things, like a clumsy, innocent little girl with a head full of simple and easy-to-understand thoughts and eyes full of you, like this—”

In the brief moment between these words, Chloe inexplicably appeared to have shrunk, her height visibly diminishing until her forehead barely reached the level of the Shinjo's shoulder. She tied her long hair up with a blue ribbon, simply binding it behind her head. Then, as she had said, she cupped the Shinjo's right hand in her hands, holding it in her palms to feel its warmth. At the same time, she looked up at him with a moist gaze, her once cold purple eyes now filled with a unique, endearing charm, the Shinjo's image reflected in her violet eyes.

She was indeed as she described: an awkward girl, her mind full of simple, easy-to-understand thoughts, her eyes filled with his innocent, kind-hearted nature, but the words she uttered were anything but innocent and heartwarming; they could even be described as cold and indifferent…

"In this way, it will naturally rise in your twisted heart to think, 'Ah, so that's how it is. So, even my hopeless life, which was born only to plunder others, can leave behind some precious treasures that symbolize the future and hope...' Then, with this self-satisfaction, a sense of liberation, relief, and satisfaction, like that of Nirvana, will arise, reaching the spiritual 'peak'—when you are treated like this, you are actually secretly pleased, aren't you? Being treated like this can comfort your perverted hobby that stems from emptiness. Am I right, Mr. Hern?"

"..."

Waaaaah, it's so scary, so really scary.

The believer trembled and tried to pull her hand back, but just like when they shook hands before, it was held tightly and she couldn't pull it back at all.

Although the scene before me had a familiar, healing quality, the change of the female lead brought more shock and horror!

There's a sense of dislocation where it's the same face, the same appearance, yet completely different.

The difference is so great that it's like going from heaven to hell!

"There's a limit to feeling good about yourself and daydreaming. After waking up, he would occasionally show me that silly grin that makes him look like he's being respected and admired by his juniors. It's disgusting."

Likes and dislikes...

Mr. Hearn was struck dumb upon hearing this, and even his neatly styled hair seemed to stand up as if by static electricity, with a few stray hairs sticking up.

In stark contrast to Mr. Hearn, who was stunned into a state of mental breakdown by the harsh reality, Little Red Riding Hood was taking off her cloak.

As she did this, her figure and appearance returned to normal, shedding that temporary sense of naivety and throwing away the deliberately cultivated image of a well-behaved junior.

The sweet, adorable, and considerate Little Red Riding Hood has ultimately disappeared, or perhaps it would be better to say faded away, because she never existed in the first place.

A petite girl draped in a fluffy cloak appears in the forest like a fairy from a fairy tale, guiding lost travelers to a hunter's cabin where they can stay for the night, protecting them from the unknown dangers of the midnight forest, and allowing them to sleep peacefully.

Such legends about kind fairies are often sung in many similar versions in the forest-filled northern lands.

After the traveler falls asleep, the petite girl removes her cloak, revealing her terrifying true form and sharp fangs and claws, easily tearing the sleeping traveler's throat and drinking his blood... This is another story that circulates in the forests a little further east.

After her gaze returned to the level of the believer, Chloe still did not let go of his hand. Instead, she sniffed his fingers with the practiced elegance of a gray wolf on the hunt. This olfactory exploration began from his fingertips, gradually moving upwards, passing over the carotid artery in his neck where blood flowed, and finally stopping at his lips.

"The scent ends here... I see."

"Ok?"

“Mr. Hearn, you kissed [her].

"..."

……

Chapter 170 Revenge (Part 2)

"Ahem, to be honest, I'm still completely confused, Chloe..."

The believer's voice was soft, dry, and lacked confidence. The girl standing close to him was carefully examining his cheek, as if searching for some mark.

Boom!

As the words suggest, a faint wail emanated from the rock face.

Without even seeing it with her own eyes, the believer already knew that a section of the rock wall to her right had sunk in.

It was Chloe's fist that destroyed it, even though it had now turned into a palm.

Boom!

This was the faint thud of the believer's back against the rock wall.

As the words suggest, he was now cornered with no way out, his back pressed against the wall.

He even felt a hand gripping his lower back, and a third leg wedged between his legs.

To his shame, he was very familiar with this desperate situation and had done it many times in the past. The only difference was that this time the positions were reversed, and he was the one who was forcefully pinned against the wall and left with nowhere to go.

This is an unprecedented and brand-new experience; it's completely incomparable to dancing the ballroom steps or anything like that.

"Uh, shouldn't we set off immediately for the Gray Elf temple to explore the mystery of the flourishing underground civilization?"

Mr. Hearn, caught between a rock and a hard place, tried to offer constructive suggestions.

"Take care of those little things later."

However, the proposal was coldly rejected in an instant.

"So...we are now..."

"No marks on the left cheek... Hmm, very good. The right cheek is fine too..."

"Chloe?"

"Phew, just how childish does one have to be to compete with another woman over a game like [the number of slap marks left on a man's face]? That self-righteous woman, I was planning to kill her while you were away looking for Salome Reinhardt back in the clouds. Coincidentally, she also had some complaints about me using your abilities, but then I thought, why should I get angry with a childish girl?"

"..."

"However, I still feel quite uncomfortable, Mr. Hearn. As part of an equivalent exchange, can you pay a corresponding reward to buy away this unpleasant feeling?"

"Can I use the answers to my previous questions about Golden Retrievers as leverage?"

"As for that piece of leverage, I've already offset it with my answer regarding 'what kind of person would have done your nails,' so I think the presentation should be above average."

"No, no, no, no, it's more than just above the passing grade. It's so vivid, expressive, and perfect that it's almost identical to the original. If someone had actually done my nails, they must have been a devilishly charming girl."

Mr. Hearing this, Mr. Hearn shook his head like a rattle-drum. He tried to force a smile and steer the conversation away from the intimate yet serious atmosphere to the pleasant realm he was good at, or in short, to laugh it off.

However, it was as if they had seen through his intentions, or perhaps it was precisely this attempt to bluff his way through that made the other side, who was so close at hand, even more displeased...

It could even be described as anger.

Boom!

This is the fourth unusual sound here.

The reason it's the fourth tone instead of the third is because it simultaneously contains the sounds of the back of the believer's head hitting the rock wall and the sound of his forehead colliding with Chloe's forehead.

The warm, bluish-green liquid, faintly glowing, was the mingling of their blood, forming a fleeting stream that flowed down their brows, swayed under the influence of gravity, passed the tip of their noses, and finally reached their lips, stopping there.

At such close proximity, where even their breaths mingled, within the Shinjue's sight, the girl on the other side unexpectedly extended her tongue. Her delicate, rosy tongue easily severed the blue stream, and the instant her tongue touched that unusual crimson hue, her lifeless, withered violet-like eyes transformed into a molten, fiery gold.

【Hmm, no problem. Don't underestimate me, okay? These scheming little sprouts are 4.6 billion years too early to cause me any trouble! Also, keep a close eye on that immoral bastard for me. If necessary, give him a good beating, understand? GoldenRetriever.】

The previously recorded audio was simultaneously played on a secret channel. The latter half of the audio seemed to contain some cognitive distortion. However, based on common sense, it can be inferred that the speaker mistook the person for a Golden Retriever and then used a canine-like phrase like "have a bite" to instruct the person to remind or warn someone at an appropriate time. Such simple and easy-to-understand words.

However, at this moment, this simple and easy-to-understand advice has been imbued with a different meaning.

A mingled flow of blood, warm, moist breath, a girl with her hood removed, a ferocious monster with menacing fangs…

The blood-stained little tongue first playfully smeared the bluish blood on the believer's lips, and then, without any resistance, easily sent the blood into his mouth.

In the eyes of the believer, the azure color that was often seen, reminiscent of floating ice on the distant sea, also receded like the tide, leaving only the dazzling color of molten gold.

Aoko often teased him for wearing colored contact lenses everywhere, but several old friends knew his true color.

The story of Hua Xin mentions more than once that he was originally a monster who could not emit light or heat, but because he borrowed the light of a certain girl, he was able to live a life similar to hers.

Later, after emerging from the thicket of thorns and traveling alone, during a bitterly cold winter, he did the same thing she had done, trying to use the lingering warmth from her body to revive a snake that was about to freeze to death.

Ultimately, cyan is the color of the sun that the dragon loves most, not the color of the dragon itself.

Unexpectedly, the snake that was saved mistook blue for the color of the evil dragon, and mistook the evil dragon, which did not emit light and heat, for the blue sun in the abyss. It tried its best to paint its own color as the color of the evil dragon that it thought it was.

As her body slowly slid towards the ground, her consciousness gradually returned. The woman felt a slightly deliberate stinging pain from her right carotid artery, and a familiar, strange sensory feedback as her blood slowly flowed away.

Finally, he sat leaning against a corner of the underground world—a corner only dimly illuminated by the faint blue fluorescence from the luminous plants.

When the stinging sensation completely transformed into a subtle, relaxing, tingling feeling, like a slight electric shock, he finally remembered many details that he had deliberately ignored in the past.

Why did he subconsciously make a joke about court ladies in Hungary bathing in the blood of young girls to maintain their youth when he first heard Salome Reinhardt mention her ancestor known as the "Red-Blood Princess"?

Why would he believe Salome's wishful thinking about how the emperor used cryopreservation to preserve his unfortunate little daughter in the hope that one day advanced science would cure her old ailment?

Yale's decline stemmed from the collapse of its laws. In the historical process of the complete loss of civilization, how could there be enough energy left to sustain the freezing facility for hundreds of years? Moreover, that facility had already been dismantled by later generations and used as part of the Rhine royal family's property to embark on a journey of exile in search of Eden.

Even in the business report about Charlotte's last losing deal, why were there so many flawed plot points in the fabricated story of the "gray rat going to hell," which was so belatedly exposed by the heroic girl who sacrificed herself to restart civilization?

What a pitiful girl who could wander around in temperatures as low as -150 degrees Celsius wearing only a cloak...

What kind of thief can move freely between the ground and the underground world using only simple tools...?

What about the fact that she was afraid of being sent to become a child prostitute by her cruel father if she grew up too fast, so she only managed to eat the bare minimum every day in those harsh conditions...?