The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

"what happened?"

A moment later, Morgan stood in the cockpit and asked the rest of the crew, with Igor standing carefully beside him. The young man now held the learned professor in high esteem.

“About five minutes ago, an unknown signal source entered our channel. We received a message, but the text translated by the machine is still unrecognizable to us.” The pilot in the co-pilot’s seat handed Morgan a piece of paper. “It doesn’t look like text at all.”

Morgan took the paper, his gaze sweeping over the short, dense symbols, a slight smile playing on his lips. "This is Morse code, a common 'writing' widely used in the early Tertiary period. It's not encrypted. I've encountered this 'writing' in my research. Give me some time, and I'll decipher it completely..."

"Wait, what's this?! The radar shows something is catching up! It's almost six times faster than our aircraft!" the pilot suddenly shouted a warning.

"How is this possible? We're thousands of meters above the ground! Could it be the Mechanical Church of Isu? Do they also have the technology for flying vehicles?" Igor rushed to the back of the passenger seat and looked at the radar.

"That's impossible. If they also possessed flight technology, it's impossible that Isu would have been trapped in the etheric storm for nearly two hundred years without expanding outwards. If they continued to stay in that hellhole, it would eventually face destruction!" Morgan shouted. "All crew members, stay calm! Ensure the aircraft operates stably. I'll decipher that communication immediately. Give me two minutes."

"Yes, everyone, don't panic. Think positively. The other side is using Morse code, which is widely used by humans in the Third Era. This means that they are also our compatriots. It is very likely that they are descendants of the Twenty-Fourth Brigade from the Southern Great Plains!" While Professor Morgan was concentrating on deciphering the code, Igor tried to calm everyone down. Two minutes wouldn't be too long.

"But the radar signal shows that the other side is coming from due east!" the co-pilot shouted in his high-pitched voice.

"Can't people just fly a plane for a short while? You idiot! How did you become a pilot with that kind of mentality?!" Igor snapped.

"Isn't that obvious?! There haven't been any flying machines in the entire Isu for the past two hundred years. Today is the first flight since the Frost Calendar began! This is the first time any of us are piloting one, because you said that test flights and training would attract the attention of the Mechanicus!"

"What was I thinking, agreeing to board such a flying machine..." The young man felt as if a thunderbolt had struck him. As if waking from a dream, he brushed a handful of hair from his forehead, which was soaked with cold sweat, and began to shut his mouth and reflect on his life.

"Quiet down! The Morse code has been deciphered. Listen to what I'm about to read!"

Two minutes is indeed not a long time. Morgan's calm and composed voice invigorated everyone in the cockpit, even bringing Igor, who was deep in thought, back to his senses.

"Ahem, esteemed Sons of Earth... What does 'Sons of Earth' mean? I don't know, but since they call us 'esteemed,' it means they mean no harm... What comes after that? Oh, right," Professor Morgan hadn't actually finished deciphering it. Seeing the situation in the cockpit was about to spiral out of control, he spoke up urgently to calm things down. Now, the professor's brain was working at lightning speed, everyone was listening intently to his speech, and he had to decipher this communications briefing on the spot!

"...This is the 11th Air Squadron, Yoyo No. 7, under the direct command of the 667th Division of the Central Hive. In accordance with Article 116, Paragraph 3 of the Omnesia Treaty, this aircraft will escort your aircraft to the nearest airport... Did you hear that? They're going to escort us to the nearest airport!"

"awesome!"

"Scared me."

Praise be to you, my God.

"It's not over yet, everyone. Let me continue deciphering." Morgan gestured for the celebrating crew members to calm down, easing his own pressure. He then announced loudly, "...Thirteen seconds ago, this aircraft completed a scan of the entire crew's physical bodies. The results show that none of your crew members possess the [Crown of the Azure Sky]. According to Article 741, Section 6 of the Omnesia Treaty, the escort order is now revised as follows—from this moment forward, this aircraft will focus all its efforts on shooting down your aircraft and subsequently requisition the brains of all your crew members, sending them to the [Central Hive] research facility. Correction complete... What the hell is this? Dean! Speed ​​up the aircraft to maximum! We're in trouble!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Dean! What are you standing there for? I told you to speed up! What are you thinking, taking your hands off the levers?!"

“Professor Morgan… I think there’s no need to speed things up any further. Look up through the sunroof…”

Igora grabbed the professor's arm, looked up at him, her gaze blank.

"What could be more important than escaping for your life... God!"

Morgan's body trembled as he tilted his head back, his blue-gray eyes filled with the shadow of a mysterious creature that had been sung about in myths and epics since ancient times, a shadow that was majestic and solemn, ancient and alien.

It remained relatively stationary with the aircraft, which was less than a quarter the size of its forepaws. Its wide wings shimmered with the bright glow of plasma arcs, and its cold red eyes stared at the people inside the cockpit. Various scanning rays swept over its body like a typhoon.

A giant, sea-gray mechanical dragon—this was the last thing they saw.

……

Chapter 66 The Silence of the Lambs (Part 3)

The forest was silent after the rain. The afterglow of the setting sun refracted through the raindrops on the branches and leaves, creating a mesmerizing rainbow. Beneath the shade, emerald moss and lichen covered the surface of protruding rocks, and where there was soil, low shrubs grew in abundance. In the shadows of the forest, where the fiery sunset could not illuminate, some tall ferns unfurled their clustered stems into umbrella shapes, emitting a faint blue fluorescence. An ancient and dilapidated building lay half-buried deep in this dense forest, its shape remarkably similar to the Colosseum in ancient Rome. Ivy-like vegetation covered the crumbling walls, draping over one ancient courtyard after another. As the sun completely dipped below the horizon and night fell, tiny fireflies, also a type of bioluminescent plant, bloomed from among the flowers on their vines.

Deep within the ruins, a campfire flickered. A Rosetta girl with pale yellow cat ears and a cat tail carried a green bamboo basket filled with fresh fruit and hot porridge. She emerged from the depths of the Colosseum's corridors. Her fluorescent yellow pupils appeared even more elongated than in the daytime due to the falling night. The dim lighting did not affect her sense of direction. After stepping onto the soft, rain-soaked grass, she took a moment to discern her surroundings before quickly finding her target.

A moment later, she stopped beside a large rock protruding from the forest, gently placed the bamboo basket in her hand on the green grass, then took a step back and bowed deeply in the custom of Rosetta, saying, "Miss, this is a small token of our appreciation. After dawn tomorrow, the village's procession will continue its eastward migration. We are very grateful for your help."

As expected, she received no response after she finished speaking.

The cat-eared Rosetta girl slowly took two steps back, took a deep look at the tall figure sitting by the fire under the giant rock, and said softly before disappearing into the night in the forest, "Please rest assured, the food is not poisonous. I have personally tested every single one. Please forgive me for being the only one who came to thank you, because everyone is afraid of your kind... Goodbye, kind lady."

Having said that, the Rosetta girl bowed deeply once more, then completely disappeared into the night.

A moment later, a small, strange contraption that looked like a smooth black brick, with two small mechanical arms attached to its bottom, flew out from beside the fire. It came to the basket of fruit and food, and two white dots lit up on the black panel, like eyes. Several scanning rays were projected from the "eyes," which repeatedly scraped the basket of fruit on the ground. After confirming that everything was in order, it used the mechanical arms to lift the basket and flew back to the campfire.

"There are no chemical toxins, no time bombs, and no nanotech viruses. The other side couldn't possibly possess these, so this basket of 'food' is safe. The only problem is that its valid definition as 'food' is limited to carbon-based life forms." The black, brick-like thing placed the basket by the campfire and asked, "Should we throw it away?"

The response was a brief gesture that signified a denial.

A hand encased in a long, black glove adorned with openwork patterns gently picked up an orange from the basket and slowly brought it to its lips.

"As the dedicated auxiliary robot of this precious prototype, I feel it is necessary to remind you... Oh my god, intelligence indicates that the fruit of this plant should be peeled before consumption, and its juice is slightly acidic, which will make your standard combat suit difficult to clean."

"..."

"..."

"In the future, please report such prompts as briefly and promptly as possible. Otherwise, I will consider disassembling some of your parts. Auxiliary model 013."

"Please do not do this, Yoyo-type No. 1."

“I thought I had completely gotten rid of that code name.” She stood up from the campfire and looked straight ahead.

In the firelight, there were piles of limbs and fragments, like small hills. From the still intact parts, it could be seen that they belonged to several young men and women of different builds. The only thing they had in common was that their limbs were covered with similar styles of black combat uniforms. The men's uniforms were fitted and practical with many straps, while the women's uniforms looked like heavily modified ballet dresses.

A design with ambiguous meaning.

There was no nauseating smell of blood in the air, nor was there a river of blood on the ground. The only unusual thing was the faint smell of burning in the wind, not the smell of burnt meat, but the smell of burning electrical circuits. The clean cuts of the severed limbs seemed to have been made by a sharp blade. The outer shell, which looked no different from the skin of a living person, did not contain flesh and bones, but rather a semi-molten metal skeleton and electronic circuits.

"In fact, no," replied "Black Brick," codenamed Auxiliary Model 013. "Yoyo Type 1, unfortunately, your machine is still connected to the [Central Hive]. [Omnisiah] watches over each of its fledglings equally, including you, who have already committed actual defection—however, your machine is a precious Alpha Nanomachine prototype, the only one that survived self-destruction after successfully mounting the psionic reactor, a miracle of survival. The [Central Hive] is still collecting your dynamic data in real time. The research institute initially believes that psionic energy caused you to have thought processes and self-awareness obstacles similar to those of carbon-based life forms. They are trying to decipher the deep principles behind your defection motives, to accumulate mature technical theories for the future mass production of stable Alpha-type soldier bees. The previous series of pursuit teams lost are considered necessary losses that can be tolerated in collecting dynamic data."

"Haven't I already successfully removed the observation module from my body?"

“Indeed, your last self-modification was very successful. However, similar observation modules are not only found within your machine… I think you understand.” Black Brick 013 detected the annihilation reaction precursors so close at hand through its visual acquisition system, but ignored them, and continued to ask, “So, YoRHa Type 1, what is your choice?”

"A total of 12 years and 351 days, including 12 years and 302 days of service and 49 days of defection. Thank you for your cooperation and care over the years. Assistant Robot No. 013."

"Your decision has been received by 013. We also thank you for your years of cooperation and for your care. Before destroying this machine, Yorozumi-type 1 received a war mobilization order issued directly by the [Central Hive] one minute ago. Its command scope covers the entire Hive area, but only the Central Direct Divisions are urgently mobilized. Please consider whether to answer the call."

"Please use language similar to that of a carbon-based biological conversation, and describe the topic in the most concise and clear way possible."

"Received. So, in short—a few idiot carbon-based lifeforms escaped from the etheric storm that had protected them for nearly two hundred years. They were captured and had their brains extracted by the YoRHa Type 7 mass-produced Dragons of the 11th Air Squadron under the 667th Division of the Central Command. The Central Command's research institute successfully located the vague coordinates of the [Crown of the Sky] by deconstructing their memories. At this very moment, the 665th, 666th, and 667th Divisions of the Central Command are on an emergency march to the northern border of Thranheim, codenamed [Silver Ridge], while the remaining divisions continue to maintain the joint front against the alien races in the southern border."

"The exploration activities of those carbon-based life forms are meaningless. The other twenty-six exiled groups of Assyria were wiped out 170 years ago. Okay, I understand. I will not go to the Silver Ridge in the North. The matter between the [Central Hive] and the [Children of Earth] is none of my business. Let them do what they want. Next, I plan to go to... well, you still maintain a connection with the Hive. Farewell, 013, my friend."

"Your machine... no, it's you who has decided to forgo your last chance to rejoin the team. Farewell, YoRHa Alpha/Type 1, my friend..."

……

At one o'clock in the morning, the entire city of Ys was asleep in the snow and darkness. In order to conserve electricity as much as possible, Ys only kept the lights on in the six thermal power plants that were vital to the city's lifeline, as well as a small number of police outposts and administrative offices after nightfall.

Pandora woke up from her sleep and struggled to sit up in her small bed in the second-floor bedroom. The burning sensation in her lower back, as if it were rotting from the inside, made it difficult for her to fall into a deep sleep.

She moved out of bed with the slightest movement possible, trying not to aggravate the wound on her lower back, but it was no use. In the dazed state of just waking up and in the dim indoor light, after slipping her feet into her cotton slippers, she stood up without any warning. A sharp, tearing pain struck her like lightning, shattering her previous drowsiness.

She fell onto the cold floor in front of the bed, her small, delicate body curled up like a boiled shrimp in agony. Her hoarse throat burned with a silent wail, her bangs were wet on her forehead, and she was drenched in cold sweat. The bandaged wound on her lower back was stiffened with thick, scarlet blood, and the fall had torn the scabs open again.

Frost month 11th, year 198 of the Frost Calendar: A terrible day.

Five years of hard work went down the drain due to betrayal. During the evacuation from the shutdown platform, she encountered the Steel Paladin of the Mechanical Church who rushed to the scene. She was alert and escaped through the ventilation duct, but she could not completely avoid the fragmentation grenade that was thrown in right after her.

Even though there were more than ten horizontal pipes in the middle of the ventilation duct with an inclination angle of nearly 75 degrees, the fragmentation mine that was delayed in its deployment still exploded less than 3 meters below her vertically. One of the sharp metal fragments, after penetrating the horizontal pipe wall, still carried away a piece of flesh from her lower back. It was fortunate that her spine was not injured. After a simple bandage at the scene, she returned to her home in the downtown area as quickly as possible through another alley. She pried open the back door of her neighbor Dr. Robert Gwen's clinic and used everything she could find in the clinic to disinfect and stop the bleeding.

It's now the 19th day of Frost Moon, and at one o'clock in the morning, neither her father nor Dr. Gwen has returned. Today is a special day; the Lower City General Labor Union has urgently convened a meeting of representatives from various industries. She heard the announcement repeatedly over the loudspeaker when she left home this morning, so she remembers it vividly.

After the pain subsided slightly, Pandora realized she had a high fever, her mind oscillating between hazy and lucid thoughts, and the wound on her lower back had begun to fester and ulcerate. In a region as frigid as Ys, where even bacterial growth is difficult, the probability of wound infection should have been extremely low. But how could those half-human, half-machine monsters not have considered this when throwing fragmentation grenades? Those metal fragments were soaked in other materials beforehand.

The situation was dire. If she continued to hold on until her father and the others returned tomorrow, there was a high probability that she would suffer brain damage and become a silly girl who could only drool and make stupid laughs, or she might face the unfortunate fate of being paralyzed from the waist down. Her father's meager income was far from enough to hire a priest from the Mechanical Church to treat her. Besides, that would be like throwing a lamb to the slaughter. The other party would inevitably match her, who happened to be injured, with the escaped thief.

In Ys, the crime of secretly participating in the development of aircraft was enough to warrant her being hanged ten times on the cliff of the Highland Church, for the entire city to see, as a warning to others.

Regardless of the outcome, Pandora felt she might not survive the winter. She was not yet thirteen years old, and her biggest childhood dream was to escape Ys and go to the warm south. Ancient maps of the Upper Ages recorded that there were fertile plains with spring-like weather all year round, and flowers blooming everywhere—but that dream was shattered yesterday.

She didn't want to die, didn't want to die in this hopeless, frosty hell, so she had to do something before she became completely immobile.

It doesn't matter how great the risks are, since the outcome can't be any worse than it is now.

Pandora endured the excruciating pain of her wound tearing open, moved her body slightly, wrapped several more layers of gauze around her waist tightly, put on her cotton-padded coat, draped a tattered gray cloak over her shoulders, and went out the door leaning on her father's cane.

……

The wind and snow were fierce outside at midnight. Without the support of the heating system, the low temperature was enough to freeze any homeless person who collapsed on the roadside to death. Every now and then, people in the lower city of Ys would find frozen corpses in the streets and alleys in the early morning. Pandora had also encountered one—the man was holding an empty wine bottle in his arms, with a vain and happy smile on his face in his final moments. Lady Vanessa blindfolded her and told her that her uncle had gone to heaven.

Pandora had no idea what difference Vanessa made between going to heaven and hell after death, because in her view, living in a hopeless place like Ys was the worst thing in the world, and neither going to heaven nor hell would be worse.

The gentle female teacher always looked at everything around her with kindness, even treating a naughty child like Pandora with gentleness. To be honest, this made Pandora feel ashamed, because most of the rumors about her were not unfounded. However, she did not regret it.

If lying could save her from a beating, she would gladly lie.

If stealing could prevent her from going hungry again, then she would secretly steal.

If secretly deciphering ancient documents would allow her to leave Ys, she would be willing to risk being hanged ten times over.

In reality, she was just a gray mouse rolling around in the gutter in the lower city of Ys. Apart from being able to understand some foreign languages ​​by nature, she was just as ordinary as the other little mice rolling around in the gutter.

Turning a familiar street corner from her memory, Pandora, leaning on her cane, walked into the depths of the alley. Each step aggravated the wound on her lower back, and her thin body hunched slightly from the pain. She descended the abandoned stairs at the end of the alley and entered the basement of an old building where the ground floor had long since collapsed and no one had renovated it. The basement was pitch black, so she picked up her small kerosene lamp to illuminate her surroundings and finally stopped in front of a broken wardrobe.

She weighed the size of the gap in the wall directly behind the cabinet and the maximum pain she could endure. Finally, she gritted her teeth, threw down her crutches, forced herself to stand up straight, and squeezed sideways into the gap in the wall.

……

After the short but arduous journey, Pandora felt her shoes land on the cold, hard floor tiles. She picked up her lantern and illuminated her surroundings. The space in front of her was very limited, showing signs of human construction rather than being a natural cave. A staircase leading to the lower level was right in front of her, covered in dust and cobwebs on both sides. She carefully crouched down and descended the steps.

After descending the last step, the view suddenly opened up. There was the sound of wind blowing in. In the dark underground world, various giant luminescent fungi growing on the rock walls emitted different colors of fluorescence in the darkness, like stars in the night sky, their brightness fluctuating. Melted snow water flowed out from the hollows of buildings of all sizes, along broken ancient corridors, turning into small waterfalls at the edges of the corridors, and finally flowing into the huge cavity directly below.

The underground ruins belonging to the Grey Elves were built around a bottomless abyss-like underground cavity. Due to the violent excavation in the early years of Ys City, the entire lower city had as many entrances connected to the ruins as there were before. After realizing that there was such a terrible cavity directly below their home, the people of Ys wisely stopped the plan to continue digging downwards, and felt deeply fortunate and fearful. The layout of the entire upper and lower city of Ys was thus set.

The Mechanic Church of the Upper City once organized a large number of exploration teams to conduct archaeological excavations in the underground cities of the Grey Elves, seemingly believing that there might be some lost technology from the previous era there. All knowledge and technology were sought after by the Church. Pandora's father once mentioned that "gold rush" era, which was around the 27th to 30th year of the Frost Calendar. That generation was called the "short-lived" generation, a name that was exceptionally vivid and concrete. Few members of the archaeological teams that went deep into the underground ruins of the Grey Elves lived past the 30th year of the Frost Calendar. In the winter of that year, they ended their lives in various public places in Ys in a series of bizarre ways. Among them were even clergy members of the Church. This deeply alarmed all the residents of Ys. The Mechanic Church had to order a ban on all archaeological activities in the underground ruins. For the next 168 years, no one in Ys ever mentioned anything about the underground again.

However, there seem to be quite a few crazy people in the public who are willing to take risks. Cyrus Morgan is one of the best among them. His design blueprints for his ancient flying machine were unearthed here.

That hypocritical and untrustworthy scum, hopefully the Great Froststorm will cripple their aircraft.

Pandora stood at the edge of the ruined corridor, trying to regulate her breathing and ignore the futile resentment in her mind as much as possible. She glanced deeply at the bottomless abyss below, and an instinctive fear made her take two steps back. However, as she retreated, the tearing pain in her back and the warm, damp sensation of her clothes slowly seeping down forced her to overcome her fear and return to the end of the corridor.

The blood had almost soaked through her trouser legs.

"Pandora, don't be afraid, just like usual..." she whispered to herself, continuing to try to calm her breathing. But every time this happened, her heart would beat uncontrollably fast, like a drum. Her brain, which was already blurred by blood loss, became slightly clearer under the external stimulus of fear.

Pandora didn't know the term "final burst of energy," but that didn't stop her from feeling that she was about to die.

God, she was just a little girl not even thirteen years old. Why did God have to give birth to her in such a cold hell, to suffer so much? Sometimes she really wanted to die. Once she was dead, she wouldn't have to think about anything anymore. She wouldn't be cold, hungry, or beaten. But God also made her able to understand those ancient texts that others couldn't. After reading those documents and learning that there were so many beautiful things in this world that didn't exist in the icy wilderness, a tiny spark called "hope" would always pull her back from the last moment of suicide. Not for any other reason than her unwillingness to accept it.

She had to keep living, even in this freezing, snowy, and perpetually gloomy ditch, even if it meant hiding like a gray rat, groveling before hypocritical and untrustworthy adults, holding back tears even when beaten, and smiling and saying thank you even when bullied by her peers, knowing she could always find a chance to get rid of them later; the lower city of Ys was such a place, where dignity was abandoned, emotions were suppressed, and ruthless methods were employed… Even so, even so, she had to keep living until she left this place, to a warm place, a place where she could cry and laugh out loud to her heart's content.

Just as she remembered, Pandora took a few steps back, ran up, jumped, and leaped into the bottomless abyss.

……

The wind whistled past her ears, and the glowing specks of light from the luminous fungi flashed by in her vision. Pandora's perception of time had long since become blurred. Ironically, in this near-suicidal madness, in the ever-accelerating descent, she absurdly caught a whiff of freedom.

Of course, she didn't know what freedom tasted like, nor did anyone in Ys. She simply felt that the agonizing experience of being swept away by the howling wind was very much like a flight without anyone's blessing—free yet lonely, and destined for a tragic end. Mrs. Vanessa had said in class that good people go to heaven after they die. At that moment, another child in the classroom raised his hand to ask a question. The boy's nose was very red; his name was Yod. He asked Mrs. Vanessa, "Do good children go to heaven after they die?"

The kind-hearted female teacher naturally wouldn't overthink the child's seemingly unintentional words. Although the question was somewhat sad and abrupt, she still gently answered the children in the classroom, "Yes, good children also go to heaven after they leave this world."

"So bad kids go to hell when they die, right?"

“Yord, no one told you to think this way.” The female teacher frowned, but the atmosphere in the classroom quickly slipped out of her control.

Because of Vanessa's gentle nature and impartial attitude, Pandora rarely skipped the teacher's class, although she would still sometimes drift off into her own thoughts—when she came back to her senses, the whole classroom was warm and cozy, with an atmosphere as lively as a festival.

"Did you hear that? Lady Vanessa has already admitted that bad children don't go to heaven after they die."

"Only nasty people don't deserve to go to heaven."

"Pandora will only go to hell after she dies."

"Go to hell."

"Go to hell, go to hell, go to hell..."

"Go to hell!"

"..."

Every journey eventually comes to an end.

After falling into a vast, dark blue fracture zone that was clearly visible even in the darkest abyss, and then quickly emerging from it, Pandora snapped out of that obscure memory.

From that day on, she rarely went to school, because she didn't want to embarrass Mrs. Vanessa. As for why she was ostracized by the children she had shared a room with since childhood, she herself didn't know the reason. Everyone had been very friendly and affectionate when they were young, often going to and from school together, and sometimes visiting each other's homes to play. She had never played the role of the class leader; the class leaders were always Jeanne and Jode. Most of the time, she was just a background figure. When she was seven years old, the school invited an older boy from a photography studio to take some group photos of the whole class. This older boy, named Igor, not only knew how to take photos but also how to retouch them with a film camera—a lost technique from the past—which made the developed photos look better than the originals.

Igor called it "P" photos, his unique skill. He said that any image that is not real is called a "P" photo. "P" means beautification, embellishment, and also falsehood. A few days later, when Igor came to the school to deliver the photos, he quietly told Mrs. Vanessa when collecting the remaining half of the payment, "You have a group of very lovely and studious children. They will be the hope of Isu's future. But please pay attention to that girl named Pandora. She is so lonely that she looks like she was "P" on."

Pandora happened to be passing by and overheard everything. The two adults were embarrassed and avoided eye contact, so she pretended not to have heard and quickly walked away.

Igor also boarded the aircraft and transformed into an untrustworthy adult.