The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

What a heartbreaking realization.

In short, Mr. Hearn stared at the black convertible supercar, his mind filled with nothing but a few hellish jokes about "pleasure" that had been circulating among the devils.

However, he also made full use of the existing teaching aids to demonstrate to Pandora how to use Prometheus particles to disassemble a non-biological entity from scratch, and to ensure that Prometheus particles could be used to reassemble it whenever needed in the future.

I really miss the early days when all I knew, besides annihilation, were deconstruction and reconstruction.

Students without proper teachers to guide them are truly miserable. Thinking of this, Xin Nu's nose tingled, and her gaze towards Pandora softened considerably.

Pandora was bewildered by his sudden tender gaze, and in her confusion, she could only return the same tender look.

Mr. Hearn

"Don't worry, the heartless relationship between your grandmaster and me will never happen between you and me."

"???"

The believer waved her hand, sinking the convertible sports car with the Sleipnir logo on its hood into the Sea of ​​Time, and then beckoned Pandora to follow her to the director's office.

Back in the present, the woman searched through the director's desk for a while and finally found the little trinket that Salome Reinhardt had instructed her to find.

From its appearance, this little thing looks like a Rubik's Cube made of black gold, but it is smaller than a standard Rubik's Cube. According to Salome, it is not the main research topic of this underground research institute with the questionable number, but a universal medium used to locate global coordinates, which is standard equipment for all Yale-related research institutions. Salome naturally did not expect to lead a team of about a hundred people to cross the North-South Continental Bridge from south to north, and cross a large ocean full of fresh seafood in between.

"That woman's plan is to use the Forest Elf Empire as a route through the Northern Territory, which is probably related to the Mother-Child Tree teleportation system in Ulthuan." The believer played with the black gold cube in her hand, and understood. "But this woman's audacity is outrageous. Isn't she afraid that her identity as the Child of Earth will be exposed in Ulthuan? Then her old enemies will settle all their old and new scores and give her a [Lament of a Fallen Princess].

“Mr. Hearn, it’s not just Salome Reinhardt; the remaining Earth Children in that group increase the risk of their identities being exposed.”

Pandora offered a timely reminder.

“There is no such risk.” The believer wanted to scold Pandora for her slow reaction, but then she thought that the two teams had never interacted from beginning to end, so she gave up the idea and explained, “That hundred-person team was full of pure-blooded Gozan dragons, not even half a Son of Earth, wait, Joshua counts as half a Son of Earth.”

Only then did the believer belatedly realize that Joshua the cat was actually a half-Rosetta and half-son of the earth, which explained his atavistic behavior.

Late at night, the woman stood with her hands behind her back in the backyard of the White Wood Garden, looking up at the windows of the only three rooms on the top floor of the inn, hesitating to go in.

Pandora also looked up for a moment, then nodded as if she understood, glanced sideways, and sighed slightly.

“Mr. Hern, how about you entrust the magical artifact to me for safekeeping for the time being?” Pandora pointed to the magical artifact ring on his right index finger, trying to offer a constructive solution.

The implication was that he should stay there for the night and make further plans the next morning.

"No, I didn't do anything wrong, why would I be sitting on the balcony?" The believer shook her head like a rattle drum.

“From a biological and objective point of view, Mr. Hearn, what you did tonight is equivalent to taking one girl out for a night stroll until midnight and then standing up another girl,” Pandora stated matter-of-factly.

The believer stared in shock at the girl with the charming violet eyes, as if she were seeing her for the first time. "Pandora, you still say you're not a carbon-based being?"

"It depends on how you define it. Actually, I, who am made up of Prometheus particles, initially perceived the world through the mindset of a silicon-based life form. But based on recent observations, I believe that the individual named Pandora Reinhardt is not nearly as close to carbon-based or silicon-based life forms as Mr. Hearn," the dusty little girl stated quite rigorously.

"Stop giving me that nonsense." The believer raised a hand to signal Cinderella to stop trying to pull that on him, then made a heart shape with both hands for Pandora to see. "Pandora, miracles and magic do exist, but they're not free. Do you understand that they disappear after midnight?"

“I don’t understand, Mr. Hearn,” Cinderella shook her head.

"What I mean is, if you go home after midnight, don't take any chances. If I go upstairs now, I'll definitely get hit by a magic cannon. Remember, never go home past midnight." The believer sighed and shook her head. Then, as if resigned, she took Pandora and walked upwards in the air. She instructed Pandora to shift about three body lengths to the left. Soon, the two returned to the window of the room where they had stayed.

“Mr. Hern, although I don’t understand the principles of miracles and magic, I do understand the principle that ‘talking the same thing’ + ‘being alone’ = ‘a ​​secret rendezvous’.”

""

""

""

The believer stood by the window, staring at Pandora, the little gray wolf with gray hair and purple eyes, with an expression as if she had seen a ghost. She was speechless for a moment.

The window was suddenly flung open from the inside, revealing Rosetta, the big red wolf, with the same look of utter disbelief. However, upon closer inspection, one could see that a faint blush lingered on her cheeks, and that blush was gradually transforming into a burning rage directed at the sole suspect in front of her.

"What kind of nonsense have you been feeding little Pandora?!"

"Qingzi, if I said I knew absolutely nothing about this, would you believe me?"

His answer was the oncoming torrent of annihilation, its azure radiance all too familiar to him.

PS: Sleipnir means Odin's eight-legged steed.

Chapter 119 The Moon Rises High in the Sky

It was the middle of the night, and Yonglin, fast asleep, was curled up in his comfortable bed, clutching his tail. Suddenly, his ear twitched almost imperceptibly, as if some unusual fluctuation had passed through the air. However, this subtle ripple did not wake him. In the end, the soft, jade-like white fox simply turned over unconsciously and remained soundly asleep in his warm and sweet dream.

After the azure torrent subsided, the believer closed the subspace rift that had enveloped the entire window. Seeing that everything around her was as usual and had not caused any property damage to the Whitewood Garden proprietress named Tiffany, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Aoko's anger subsided slightly after the successful attack, or rather, the last trace of blush on her face faded thanks to the time bought by the magic cannon. In any case, after her tone softened, she asked, "Nobunaga, is this how you teach your students? Don't tell me that after a hundred years, your standards have dropped so low that you would lay a hand on a little girl like your own student."

Under the white moon, the believer solemnly shook her head, then replied with a sincere expression and earnest tone, "Qingzi, you know me. I don't even glance at girls with a bust size below 85 or younger than me. I'm just a passerby in their lives at most."

"Get out! The only girl in the first eighteen years of your life who could tolerate your incurable personality was a pitiful washboard. To say something like that means you're either lying or ungrateful. Apologize to her right now! Immediately!"

"Qingzi, you really don't give me face sometimes, especially in front of me." The believer wiped away a tear upon hearing this, the reason and purpose behind it remaining unclear.

“Three!” Qingzi held up three fingers.

"I'm sorry, I have fully reflected on my actions." The believer clasped her hands together and bowed her head.

He was glad that he had switched the conversation to an encrypted channel when he opened the subspace rift. If he had woken Eirin and Deedlit up in the middle of the night to join the onlookers, he felt he wouldn't be able to continue as captain.

"That's more like it." Seeing that he was already showing signs of reflection, Qingzi nodded and then withdrew her hand.

"May I come in now? It's actually quite cold outside," the believer asked cautiously.

"Dream on. Go to the rooftop and make do for the night, Pandora. Come inside."

""

"Hmm? Me? Oh, okay."

Cinderella, who had been watching the show from the sidelines, was caught off guard when her name was called. After a brief moment of surprise, she came to her senses and pointed to herself in surprise. After receiving a nod of confirmation from Aoko, she finally understood the situation.

Soon, she was pulled through the window by Aoko, looking bewildered. She glanced back at Shinjo, her expression awkward and complicated.

Finally, with a slight creak, the emerald green window made of living wood closed once more, leaving Mr. Hearn alone outside, his right hand half-outstretched.

A moment later, the believer lowered her right arm and looked up at the roof of the White Wood Garden, which was just inches away. The intertwined living wood branches protected the roof of the White Wood Garden, and there were even small holes in some places where one could rest.

The believer remained in place for about a minute, and after confirming that no one would open the window for him, he sadly left, flew onto the roof, and became a pigeon that spent the night outdoors.

Inside the room, before the woman's figure disappeared above the window, Aoko lay back down on the bed, her complexion slightly improved.

“Mr. Hearn, they didn’t force their way in.”

Behind Aoko came Cinderella's belated confirmation.

"No need to worry. That kid's adherence to principles is one of his strengths. It's still early, go to bed and rest for a while, Pandora."

"Miss Aoko is praising Mr. Hern."

Pandora felt the bed sink slightly, and obediently followed Aoko's instructions, hanging her cloak on the clothes rack at the foot of the bed before carefully lying down on her side behind her. A series of barely perceptible footsteps echoed from the roof; it seemed Mr. Hearn had found a place to stay.

Pandora maintained the Prometheus Particle Observatory, but as always, it failed to detect any trace of Mr. Hearn.

"Ha, but his recent flaws are that he's being greedy and shameless." Aoko sighed helplessly.

What does "shameless" mean?

"How could he instill such unnecessary knowledge in a young girl like you who is not mentally mature?" Aoko clearly did not want to bring up the cryptic formula for their tryst in front of Pandora.

"Actually, that wasn't knowledge that Mr. Hearn taught me. It was just recorded in the original database. Mr. Hearn happened to mention two keywords, so I just revealed the formula to him."

"Would such useless knowledge be written in some psychology book? But whatever, I'm not angry with him for that anyway."

"If it's not because of that, is it because Mr. Hern left Miss Aoko behind and acted alone earlier?"

"of course."

"I don't understand. Judging from the difficulty assessment results afterward, both Mr. Hearn and Ms. Aoko have the outstanding ability to complete this task independently. Wouldn't it be more efficient to split up and work separately?"

“Pandora, you haven’t known him for very long, so you won’t have that feeling yet—that kid used to be a kind-hearted person who made people feel sorry for him. He was self-disciplined, rational, intelligent, ambitious, humble, and kind. He was a compassionate and kind little hedgehog. Apart from being covered in thorns and making it difficult for people to even give him a hug, he also had a fatal flaw in his personality, which was that he was hopelessly unwilling to cause trouble for others.”

"What do you mean by 'not wanting to cause trouble for others'?"

"It means doing everything alone. Even if you have reliable friends around, you will only secretly handle things on your own. No matter how much you pay or how much you suffer, as long as you are alive, when asked about it later, you will smile and say that you have solved it. Really, like an idiot. Is it so difficult to rely on others a little?"

""

Even after all these years, even before our reunion, I still sometimes wonder why he never considered relying on those around him. Was it a lack of trust in others' abilities, or a lack of trust in their hearts? Haha, I know he grew up in an environment surrounded by monstrous threats, and it was in that indiscriminate environment that he was forced to develop this withdrawn and self-centered personality. But after all these years, even after experiencing the pain of separation and death once, why hasn't he changed that bad habit? The last time was the same. I knew I would have stayed to help him if he had just asked, but he talked to me about a whole bunch of hypothetical future scenarios, successfully convincing me, and then ran away while I was still dizzy.

""

Pandora listened in silence to the fragmented, sighing stories of Mr. Hearn from years past.

She was clearly an excellent listener; she could stay awake all night listening to the witch behind her rambling on.

Actually, she had always been quite curious about Mr. Hearn's past. After all, Mr. Hearn was the first stranger she had met in the Southern Continent who was not hostile or fearful of her, and also the first friend she had since she had memories.

This friend had been trying to steer her toward a more optimistic direction, even though he never explicitly said so.

So Pandora decided to do something for Mr. Hearn.

She quietly opened the Alpha's built-in individual equipment storage space and took out a pair of battlefield standard headphones.

This kind of thing wouldn't normally be needed if the auxiliary robot were to survive.

Only after the auxiliary robot is damaged will the lone soldier bees have the opportunity to use these backup communication devices.

She tried to mimic the method Mr. Hearn used when he disassembled the car, annihilating, deconstructing, and finally reassembling the headphones in her hand using Prometheus particles.

After the reorganization, there will be no more worries about unnecessary backdoor chips inside these devices.

“Miss Aoko, that’s not how it is.”

"Ok?"

After quietly doing all this, Pandora gently stopped Aoko's self-doubt and then gently handed her the earphones.

Aoko was slightly surprised when she received the small item handed to her from behind. She quickly turned to face Pandora and lay down.

Pandora was putting the earphone in her left ear, so Aoko put the earphone in her right ear as well.

"Pandora, what is that?" Aoko asked with a hint of curiosity.

"Although this is very impolite to Mr. Hearn, both Mr. Hearn and Miss Aoko are very kind people, and I don't want you two to continue misunderstanding each other like this, so I apologize, Mr. Hearn."

As Pandora finished speaking, she plugged the earphones into the interface on her shoulder. Only when she did this did Aoko briefly recall the fact that the little girl's true nature belonged to silicon-based life forms.

A moment later, a familiar voice came through the earpiece. It was the conversation that had taken place earlier in the Yale Ruins, between the believer and Pandora, about interpersonal relationships, the past of the Far East, and the final answer.

"She is the only old friend of mine who is still alive today and on whom I am an absolute equal in spirit."

Chapter 120 The Bet (Part 1)

The following morning, in a corner of the open-air courtyard on the second floor of Shiraki-tei.

Eirin and Deedlit sat facing each other, bathed in the thin sunlight of the forest. They broke off pieces of dry bread, spread berry jam, a local specialty of the forest, and poured themselves a cup of steaming hot milk. It was a very pleasant time.

It was breakfast time for Shiraki-tei.

As outsiders in the mining town, they naturally don't need to be as busy with work as the locals. Their indifference to worldly affairs is a pleasant aspect of their lives here, as people's joys and sorrows are not shared.

Faint footsteps came from the stairwell connecting the first, second, and third floors. The two turned their heads at the same time and saw Mr. Hearn floating down the stairs with light steps, yawning as he went, looking like he was about to die from lack of sleep.

Seeing this, Deedlit smiled knowingly and smugly spread her palms. Eirin immediately cowered, dejectedly counting out five gold coins and obediently placing them in her hand, looking like a defeated dog.

After obtaining the guarantee, the young master of the Yagokoro family would naturally not be short of a few dollars, but the taste of being a loser is never pleasant most of the time, that's common sense.

"Oh, there's a trap?"

The two's little actions naturally did not escape Xin Nu's eyes. After taking some breakfast after going around, he quickly returned to his teammates' table with a wooden plate, a smile of great interest on his face.

Mercenaries, a profession that thrives on the rigors of life, are mostly scoundrels who live for the moment, except for a few honest guys who want to save enough money for their wives and coffins before retiring and settling down to get married and have children. When Xin Nu was stationed in Silver City, she had long been accustomed to the various hobbies of these guys in their spare time. If there was a gambling game that was really fun, she was willing to join in the fun herself.

Speaking of Joshua, his daily fights often become the focus of these kinds of games. However, since the first time a dark horse emerged, the odds have been almost even. Having made a profit from the first wave, he naturally didn't pay attention to the follow-up.

"Go away, it's none of your business." Deedlit waved her hand as if to shoo her away, then lowered her head as if deliberately avoiding something, and with the pleasure of a victor, happily drank a big gulp of hot milk.

Glug glug glug

"How heartless! They didn't even invite me when there was a chance to make a fortune." The believer didn't seem to mind, and just jokingly followed up on the morning's topic, then happily took a big gulp of hot milk.

Glug glug glug

“Mr. Hern, the old Chinese medicine doctor from the Far East once said that young people should know how to exercise restraint.” Yonglin, who had just lost the bet, seemed to still be a little depressed. In addition to his depression, he felt that as a friend, he could not ignore certain things. So, while breaking off pieces of bread in his hand, he reminded him in a concerned tone.

puff----

puff----

His response was two torrents of water. Because the three of them were sitting diagonally opposite each other, Yonglin was thoroughly sprayed early in the morning.

Yonglin looked at her wet hair and top, her face full of frustration.