The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

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To be honest, 6 words isn't a long chapter, but updating is hard work, so please vote actively, thank you.

Chapter 74 Bias of the Living

As night fell, a biting wind howled, and lights shone in the corridors of the old residential building.

With a slight, somewhat awkward metallic scraping sound, the brass key dug its way through the icy keyhole, but faithfully fulfilling its mission. A door opened outwards, releasing a chill that was almost indistinguishable from the outside, mixed with a stagnant, musty smell.

"Honey, I'm back."

The young man took off his fairly decent police coat and hung it on the coat rack to the right of the entrance, while calling out and closing the door behind him to keep the wind and snow out of the courtyard.

This is an apartment-style residence with an unremarkable layout and limited space. It is a typical allocated housing unit where practicality takes precedence over everything else.

However, in the dark room, there was no response; only the echo of howling wind and snow outside the living room window.

The light quickly illuminated the silent room; it was the glow of a gas lamp. The metal pipes embedded in the wall, triggered by an external mechanism, swiftly completed their functions of opening the valve to supply gas and igniting the lamp for lighting.

Under normal operating conditions, a complete internal circulation system will send the harmful gases from incomplete combustion to the outside through the exhaust pipe; but under abnormal operating conditions... that would likely be another serious gas explosion or a fatal carbon monoxide poisoning incident.

"Oh, I forgot again, I'm still single."

The young officer, whom the old sheriff had called Drake during the day, seemed to realize something was amiss and muttered to himself. He slowly changed into his indoor shoes, went to the bathroom to wash the dust and ice crystals off his face and hands, and after doing all this, he returned to the living room, slumped onto the old-looking, worn-out sofa, then picked up a tin cup and poured himself a glass of strong liquor.

"You seem uninterested." Suddenly, a soft, alluring female voice rang out in the quiet room.

"I would love to be interested, but my physical condition doesn't allow it."

"Besides that? It's a rare opportunity to play the role of a lousy detective in the steam age. I don't believe you have no interest whatsoever." A small fox burning with blue flames gradually appeared on the coffee table. With a light leap, it dragged its soft, long fox tail and settled on the armrest of the sofa.

The man instinctively reached out to pet it, but was forced back by its bared teeth.

"Don't touch me with your filthy hands!"

"Tsk." The young officer reluctantly withdrew his hand, and unsurprisingly, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye as the other man used a flame to ignite the glass of liquor that had just been poured.

A pungent, intoxicating odor quickly filled the air.

"Yuyi, you're like an old woman."

"You haven't answered my question yet."

""

The man stood up silently from the sofa, a move that seemed to require a great deal of effort. He walked slowly to the living room window, pulled back the heavy, dark gray fabric, and in the starless night, the city of Isoo, exposed to the cold wind, revealed just a glimpse of its icy beauty.

"What did you see, Feather Robe?" the man asked.

"A hard, inflexible block of ice, just like some brat."

“It’s Frostpunk! Feathered Robe, the second commandment of Knox, please.” The man waved his hand dramatically.

"Detectives can't use supernatural or bizarre methods to solve cases, or shouldn't there be magic or the like in detective novels? How come I remember that so clearly?" The little fox on the sofa yawned very intelligently.

"Don't you remember it very clearly?"

"Really? Surprised?"

"So, am I out of my mind to choose this pathetic detective career in a world where there are steel monsters who treat their heads like screws, where everything is powered by steam, where radical cults have climbed the wrong tree of faith, and where men and women speak with a Mao accent and constantly shout 'Comrade! Vodka! Thumbs up!'? Do you know what happened? The last case I helped that old sheriff with today, I thought it would be about an ordinary, pathetic father who lost his daughter... but guess what? I've never seen such a high concentration of holy light in the previous [Hive]. Compared to that bald guy, those screw-brained paladins in the Mechanicus aren't even LEDs, okay? During the police station when we were helping him with his statement, he got emotional a few times. I stood there, afraid he'd suddenly unleash a pair of wings of holy light, pull out a hammer, and smash the police station wall. Wdnmd..."

The man's exaggerated speech came to an abrupt end, and the strange thing that happened was that his right arm, which had been waved so enthusiastically several times during the speech, inexplicably slid down his sleeve to the concrete floor under his feet, making a crisp sound like frozen meat hitting the ground.

The fox on the sofa stared at him with the indifferent gaze one would give a mentally challenged child, without uttering a sound.

"What's more, I'm currently lying on a soft bed in a private room on the third floor of a ronin's inn in Sweetwater Bay, thousands of kilometers away. The climate there is humid and pleasant, the wandering foreign dancers are beautiful and have sweet songs, and you can eat seasonal delicacies for a week straight without repeating a single dish. The treasures buried deep in the primeval forests and swamps are inexhaustible. Everything is perfect except for the consent of the tomb owner..."

“But you have to go home, Hern.”

"Ah! I understand." The man let out a harsh scream, but quickly recovered, picking up the severed limb from the ground and reattaching it as he spoke.

"Of course, I have to go home. I should be comfortably lying in my own bed, enjoying Zurich's mild winter like a baby, serving one or more beautiful ladies who have sincerely come to apply for jobs with exquisite afternoon tea on a small table in the second-floor garden. Ah, I haven't forgotten my violet garden, which hasn't even been planted yet, and that mysterious maid I admire, as enigmatic as Schrödinger's fox. I must get back before the Christmas holidays end, so I still have time to put all this wonderful stuff into practice. And before that, the first thing I need to do is—go back and tear off that muscular bastard Makishima's jinxed mouth!!!"

"Excuse me for interrupting, but it's Schrödinger's cat, not Schrödinger's fox," Yu Yi pointed out at the opportune moment.

"I hate cats."

"Fine... whatever makes you happy."

"Operating on the body of an unfortunate soul thousands of kilometers away is still too limiting. Although its rate of decomposition is almost zero in this sub-zero environment, the experienced sheriff detected the strange smell on Officer Drake during the day. We must get our hands on him as soon as possible, preferably tonight."

“Hearn, I’m glad you’ve spent almost half a month among the women of Sweetwater Bay and still haven’t forgotten your mission,” the fox said with satisfaction.

"The fragments of the Divine Comedy came from a small commission from Madame Sariel, who guarded the tomb of twilight. The wheat-colored exoticism of the Sweetwater Bay dancers was indeed captivating, but compared to that elegant lady, they were merely fireflies before the bright moon. I can tell which is more important."

"I take back what I said before. You idiot, you'll die on a woman's belly sooner or later. What have you been through all these years?" The fox said with disgust.

"The coldness and warmth of human relationships."

The dying body was draped in a police coat again. He gestured to the little blue fox, which jumped onto his shoulder, though it still didn't give him a friendly look.

"Where are we going, Hearn?"

"Go find the last unlucky guy. I lied to Mr. Abel during the day. That fat man who lived a carefree life gave me a little-known document after he died. I hid it and recently learned about its contents in detail. Indeed, humans are interesting creatures. In this extreme situation of sub-zero temperatures, a group of rabble can withstand the high pressure of the Mechanicus and restore the flying machine from the last era and finally break through the frost storm and fly over the white wind."

"Why is it called the 'Mao-Gnawing Flying Machine'?" the fox asked, peeking out.

"There was a picture of an aircraft design in that record, and then I realized that with my 'Soviet first-year university' knowledge, I couldn't understand its power principle at all... These natives probably worked on it with the thought 'I think it can fly' the whole time, and in the end, they actually made it." Mr. Hearn scratched his head quite appropriately as he remotely operated the zombie's arm and muttered to himself.

"..."

……

Chapter 75 Cat and Mouse Game

Thanks to all the unpleasant and unusual experiences she had in the past, Nobunaga Hearn had a general idea of ​​the true nature of the urban legends that Makishima, that muscle-bound bum, kept muttering before leaving, such as the "Electronic Sea Disconnection Incident."

This is not something to be proud of, but rather the initial capital accumulated bit by bit after countless near-death experiences and miraculous comebacks.

Once upon a time, Mr. Hearn was a handsome young man who was so weak in front of outsiders that he couldn't even open a soda bottle cap, but behind the scenes, his older sister could crush his skull with one hand.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; a great river is formed from countless small streams. The culmination of countless terrible experiences, which I've long since stopped counting, is this: in less than a week after the start of the semester, Makishima, this muscle-bound guy, was rubbed against the floor of the school gymnasium more than three times, and he became so disheartened that he almost gave up on training his own body.

However, these are all external factors.

What truly accumulates is experience, which may sound abstract but is actually grounded in reality.

The believer's purpose on this journey is to determine the exact coordinates of this isolated ice cave on the earth's surface.

Since he fell into a deep sleep before Christmas, he has been trapped in this world for nearly half a month under the influence of urban legends on the dark side of the electronic sea. In the past week or so, he has not been idle, but has completed the phase of moving from crossing the wilderness in his pajamas to temporarily being free from worries about food and clothing. Now, like most wanderers with extraordinary skills but nowhere to live, Mr. Hearn has entered an equally primitive and unorthodox industry in a rather informal way, becoming a free mercenary who chases gold coins called Inur. He temporarily uses the wetland settlement called Sweetwater Bay as his base of operations, mingling in taverns and neighborhoods, gathering information from passing merchants, and making difficult progress.

He had the means to survive; but he had not found the way home.

Hearn had experienced lengthy [Hive] missions before, but the sheer length of linear time was not unusual for this trip. What truly made Hearn uncomfortable at first was the uniqueness and potential of this planet, which was probably called Thranheim.

It felt like the afterlife.

With the help of his old friend, Yu Yi, he could barely disguise himself as a race known to the locals called the Rosettas. This race was identified by their delicate and beautiful appearance and some harmless animal features such as horns, animal ears, and tails. Although Mr. Hearn initially mistook them for orcs, he eventually compared these tender, big-tailed foxes with the group of furry green-skinned people he had dealt with in the past, whose minds were full of "waaaaaagh," and decided to go with the flow.

Recently, the stalled exploration has made some progress. Clinging to the hope that there might still be humans left on this planet, he used a gambler's mentality, at Yu Yi's urging, to use a spoils he had obtained from a bad experience of digging up someone's grave in the past. It was a one-time trinket made from scraps of a lich's casket—its effect was to randomly control a newly dead human corpse.

This purely gamble-like operation succeeded two days ago. The magical gadget's effects were beyond their imagination, and as a result, he opened his eyes in this frozen ice city of unknown location as an unlucky young police officer, and soon after, he successfully discovered the humans living there, within his understanding and knowledge.

However, the body of the deceased is gradually returning to dust. His time is limited, and his ability to act is far less than before. In the limited time he has, he must find strong evidence to determine the exact coordinates of this frozen city without being exposed.

So that he could personally travel to this place in the future, to this desperate city.

Of course, depending on the circumstances, if the clues in the future prove that this city called Is has nothing to do with his way home, then it wouldn't be a bad idea to give up a little trinket that's been gathering dust in exchange for an interesting experience.

However, the possibility was extremely slim. After sneaking into the mountains surrounding the city of Ys before dawn the day before and witnessing the seemingly insurmountable White Wind Wall under the pale polar sunrise, Mr. Hern, who knew his luck very well, reluctantly had a premonition that he would most likely have to personally confront this extraordinary natural wonder in the future.

One of the philosophies Mr. Hearn learned from life, which he had been accustomed to bad luck for years, was to stop complaining.

"That fat nouveau riche named Sterling was secretly funding an underground society until a week ago, on the eleventh day of Frost Moon. The society was small, but it had many experts in the field of steam technology. The leader of the society was an archaeologist named Morgan Welwyn. For many years, this group had been dedicated to excavating lost technologies buried deep beneath the ruins of the Upper Ages, which was obviously illegal. It violated the ban imposed by the Upper City Mechanical Church on sealing underground ruins. The source of this ban can be traced back to the dawn of the development of Ys more than a hundred years ago. We will skip over the information that is not relevant for now. I found this manuscript among Mr. Sterling's belongings and kept it for myself. By deciphering the information in it, I learned an absurd fact."

As night fell, Hearn traversed the snow-covered streets and alleys. The joints of the undead occasionally cracked unsettlingly, but he didn't care. Instead, he explained as he hurried along.

"Since the eleventh day of Frost Moon, when some of their members successfully flew across the White Wind to the outside world, rumors have been rampant throughout Iss City. The Mechanical Church in the Upper City has deployed its purgatory forces to apprehend members of various restless private societies that have surfaced. It's a thorough cleanup, because the Church doesn't seem to have a specific list of Morgan's gang members who have been operating in the shadows of the Lower City for years. They have far too many associates, and their target is small enough. They've done a very successful job of keeping secret for many years; they're professionals. However, a very interesting fact is that when I accidentally obtained some of the names of Mr. Sterling's associates from his manuscript and matched these names with the members of Morgan's Society one by one, I noticed that the victims of the five accidental deaths reported to the Midtown Police Department in the past five days actually matched nearly half of the people on the list."

"That clever lad named Morgan certainly didn't take all the Society members with him. He abandoned them and flew across the Great Froststorm with his confidants. The remaining Society members are all in danger under the Church's oppressive measures, and they all want to lay low for a while. However, their efficiency in preparing for action varies." The fox yawned and continued, "Judging from the current results, their efficiency is indeed a bit low."

"Yes, including Sterling, there are seven members of the Society left behind by Morgan on the list, and now five of them have died in environments befitting their professions. The fluid mechanics professor, who suffered from insomnia due to years of staying up all night, died from an overdose of sleeping pills; the acrobat—to be precise, a free climber—fell from a cliff and was smashed to pieces; the senior craftsman had his upper body crushed by his own metalworking lathe, his body stuck inside, completely mangled; Mr. Downing, a steam engineer who had worked on precision mechanical piping for many years, was charred into a carbonized mess by the high-temperature gas sprayed from the dilapidated gas lamp pipe in his bedroom. Is there a more ridiculous way to die than a gas explosion? For a steam engineer. If I were in a different environment and got his death certificate, I would think he had unfortunately died in the Seven People Seven Ghosts Magic War in the Far East... As for Mr. Sterling, as the behind-the-scenes financier for many years, his death was very much in line with his identity—he died of a stroke."

"So it's definitely worth a visit to the remaining librarian, Mr. Alcott, and the other archaeologist, Mr. Valentine." The fox rolled his eyes. "Whether it's an inside job, a mole left by Morgan, or vicious competition among peers, the aircraft data they might have has become the trigger for this series of cover-ups. So visiting the two unfortunate guys who don't know whether they're alive or dead will be worthwhile, provided they're still alive."

"That is, they are still at home and haven't run away! I don't think that anyone would be an idiot hiding in their nest and waiting to die when things have come to this point."

Hearn laughed and cursed. After walking for more than ten minutes, he arrived at the residence of the young librarian named Alcott. It was a single apartment that was not much different from the staff quarters of Officer Drake. He then winked at the feather robe he was carrying.

The fox lazily blew a breath of blue flame towards the half-frozen metal door lock, which then vanished without a trace, as if it had skipped the entire process of melting, vaporizing, and even evaporating.

“Such simple convenience.” Hearn’s lips twitched. He pulled the safety off his sidearm, kicked open the metal door, casually took a police-issue flashbang from his waist, threw it inside, and let out a strange, unintelligible yell.

"FXI! Open the door!"

……

Updates are hard to come by, so please vote! I'm not done yet.

Chapter 76 Decapitation Cycle

"Hearn, we're too late."

"Hagoromo, I never imagined that someone would actually act like a quail at home..."

With one hand, the woman pried open the librarian's eyelids, while with the other, she held up an oil lamp to illuminate the dark room. The scholarly Mr. Alcott had passed away peacefully. A few minutes earlier, after the magnesium powder in the flashbang had completely burned out, the woman, wearing a feathered robe, slipped into the room and found him sitting on the sofa in the living room, an open hardcover book lying on his lap, as quiet as if he were asleep.

"The person who died this afternoon was around the time you and that old sheriff were standing on the rooftop bragging and joking. Stop showing off your lousy detective skills. Judging the time of death by the degree of pupil dilation is not as reliable as my intuition about the dissipation of the soul."

“That’s why I said don’t seek the detective’s professional experience in a strange and wonderful world.” Hearn seemed to ignore the fox’s teasing. He remained in the position of opening the dead man’s eyelids, placed the kerosene lamp steadily on the table to the side, and took out a black rod from inside his coat. He pushed it slightly with his thumb, and the tactical light source from the early 21st century illuminated the cold guest room.

"Why would you, who spent two days traversing the wilderness in a bathrobe, carry around this early 21st-century antique?" Yu Yi grinned at the wolf-tooth flashlight in his hand. "This thing was almost extinct by Christmas 2092."

"Yuyi, you know I'm a sentimental person..."

"That's not what I'm asking you! What I want to know is why you're carrying a wolf-tooth flashlight even though you're only wearing a nightgown?"

“I put it in my bathrobe pocket and forgot to take it out. You know, a bathrobe is much thicker than a nightgown.”

"That's exactly what I wanted to ask. Why did you stick a wolf-tooth flashlight in your nightgown?"

"Hagoromo, I thought you could understand."

"I don't understand."

"Ahem, Yu Yi, you have to understand, when faced with some embarrassing situations that are hard to talk about, I always have to find an excuse for the temporary irreversible deformation of my nightgown. Of course, this mainly happens when I'm dealing with some beautiful ladies that I can't do to them without a clear conscience, you know."

"How complicated is your social circle if you can deal with women you can't do to the point of being completely naked with just two layers of bathrobes between you?"

"It is sinister."

The believer revealed a look of unbearable regret and corrected, "Let's not talk about that anymore, Feather Robe, look what this is?"

"A poor wretch who's been dead for a long time, do you still want to continue your boring tricks? I'm tired of it."

“I mean, look into his eyes,” the believer explained softly, her voice heavy.

Yu Yi focused her attention on the area he illuminated for a moment, then quickly looked away. "You're just showing me this?"

"I'm sorry to have wronged you, Fox Fairy." The believer said with a sarcastic and wicked smile.

"In less than half a day, and in this freezing environment, the rate of decay is abnormally fast," the fox remarked briefly, looking away.

"I guess it was too disgusting, so you looked away too quickly, Yui. There aren't any maggots in those eyes." The Nobunaga opened Alcott's other eye, and in the dilated pupil, the wriggling marks seemed to confirm his statement, "It's a snake."

"Snakes?" Hagoromo turned her gaze back. This time, she abandoned the common notion of "out of sight, out of mind" and focused intently on the deceased's pupils. Just as the Shinjo had said, what was wriggling in the deceased's pupils were countless tiny snakes, even smaller than maggots.

"Hearth, I have a bad feeling," Yu Yi said without thinking.

"I second that, like a scene from a B-movie." The believer released the dead man's eyes, took a step back, and said as if by telepathy.

Almost the instant he took a step back, the librarian, who had been quiet as if asleep, began to tremble without warning. His "shell," with a kind of expansion movement from the inside out, literally became closer and closer to the word "skin," and beneath the skin, a faint light and shadow gradually shone...

Bang!

This sudden anomaly completed its marathon in less than 2.5 seconds, so brief that the two people inside the room had no time to escape. As a result, after Alcott's body swelled and exploded, the entire room was as if it had been painted with a ghostly blue fluorescent paint, and the room was instantly transformed, except for the direction in which the believer and the fox were standing—the wall behind them was completely covered with the outline of a human figure with a fox perched on its shoulder. As for the fate of the person and the fox who were caught in the crossfire, that is another story.

“Wonderful, I remember one year the Christmas special of Mr. Bean was filmed like this.”

“That’s a 20th-century silent film, Hern.”

"You actually knew that!?"

"Instead of being surprised that I know such obscure facts, shouldn't you be cheering for your courage to speak up? The snakes in that kid's corpse have splattered all over you, and now they're crawling all over your face! Shut your mouth, Hern!" Due to her feminine sensitivity, the fox felt she was about to scream.

"It's not just on us, it's all over the room now."

The believer smacked her lips as if she hadn't heard him, licking her tongue between words. His gaze swept up and down, quickly scanning the newly "painted" living room. What he saw was a chilling sight: the traces of snakes crawling like waves crashing against the shore, while the sofa was empty; Alcott's body had vanished.