The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

He shifted his gaze back and looked around at what was in front of him.

A blue-haired girl in a green dress stood with her arms crossed, a happy expression on her face.

"Idiot, you're finally here? I've been waiting for you for ages!"

A white-haired girl in white glanced sideways, her expression slightly annoyed.

"Tsk, why did it take you so long to die? We've been waiting for you for ages."

"?"

Two girls helped him up and led him to the other side.

"Once you cross this river, you won't have to think about any more of your worries."

The girl in green laughed heartlessly.

"Let's go, everyone's waiting for you."

The girl in white urged reluctantly.

"Ah, oh"

On the other side of the river, bright red flowers also bloomed, but the sunlight, unlike at this time of demonic possession, seemed to be permeated with an eternal peace.

Should we go or not?

Should we go or not?

Let's go together!

Let's go together!

Mr. Hearn was delighted, and immediately smiled and strode off.

However, a force pulled him from behind, hindering his movement.

Mr. Hearn turned around and saw a little girl wearing an old gray cloak, barely taller than his waist, with gray hair and purple eyes, looking anxious and almost in tears, clinging tightly to his hem.

In his other hand, he was holding a toothbrush and a cup of mouthwash.

"Mr. Hearn! Can't you rest yet!"

"!!!!!!"

"!!!!!!"

When I opened my eyes again, the ceiling looked more familiar and normal this time. It was the traditional green color scheme of the forest spirits, and the natural wood grain was perfectly formed.

The current posture is to lie properly on the sofa, with a toothbrush carefully moving around in the mouth, and a warm towel being applied and wiped on the face from time to time.

Seeing the purple-eyed Cinderella anxiously manipulating her, the believer was speechless for a moment.

Hmm, she's considerably bigger than that little girl in the illusion, Pandora.

He could only remain silent, because the toothbrush, which was only meant to clean out the remaining sugar, was still moving around in his mouth, and he risked spitting out the mouthwash if he said anything!

Yonglin moved a stool and sat down in front of the sofa, close to the top of Xin Nu's body, and expertly took his pulse by pinching his wrist.

Upon seeing Mr. Hern open his eyes, Yonglin's face immediately lit up with joy.

"He's awake! Hearn's awake!"

"Are you finally awake?"

“Mr. Hearn, please bear with it, you can’t speak yet.” Pandora pulled the toothbrush back from Mr. Hearn’s mouth and turned to reach for the washbasin next to her.

The believer patted her arm to indicate that she didn't need to, turned to face the back of the sofa, opened a subspace rift, and spat the mouthwash directly into a corner of the subspace.

call!

It's like being reborn!

"Mr. Hearn, the towel."

Pandora then handed her a hot, damp towel.

"Thank you, Pandora, you're a devil."

Mr. Hearn sat up, took the hot towel to wipe his face, and almost burst into tears when half of his face was hidden behind the towel.

What a gentle and understanding girl! If anyone dares to bully her in the future, he will surely scatter that person's ashes and chew up even their soul until there are no crumbs left, and then immediately deposit the ashes into Shi Hai's account as phone credit!

"Mr. Hearn, is 'devil' a compliment?"

Pandora tilted her head slightly, seemingly puzzled.

“To me, it’s a positive term. Also, remember, ‘angel’ is a negative term.” The believer nodded.

“I see. Then I’m relieved, Mr. Hearn.” Pandora then gave a warm smile, like the first snow melting.

That innocent smile was imprinted in Mr. Hearn's eyes, making him momentarily lost in thought, feeling as if warm sunshine and a spring breeze were shining down on him.

Waaaaah, Pan Bao, Mommy loves you.

With all the eccentric women he'd encountered in his life as a point of comparison, Mr. Hearn, holding a towel, was deeply moved and seemed poised to become a male mother on the spot.

Aoko, watching from the sidelines, felt a chill run down her spine and immediately intervened before the situation completely spiraled out of control.

Yonglin's eyesight has improved a lot recently. When she saw Miss Tian Lanlan enter, she immediately stood up, patted Mr. Hearn on the shoulder, left him with the doctor's advice to walk around more, drink more hot water and get more sun if he was feeling well, and then took her leave and slipped outside to pretend to look at the scenery.

"What are you up to so early in the morning?"

"?"

"What?!"

"You're so embarrassed to ask?"

Seeing that Aoko was still pretending to be stupid, Mr. Hearn suddenly became furious.

"You almost drove me to the River of Three Crossings, and you still have the nerve to ask me what's going on?"

"That's just an illusion based on the customs and culture in your mind. Let alone the River of Three Crossings, which underworld would dare to accept you? Aren't you the highest-ranking person in the underworld yourself?"

Qingzi didn't fall for his act at all and exposed him on the spot.

"Am I talking to you about hallucinations? I'm talking to you about that fruit salad!"

Mr. Hearn angrily changed the subject.

"Oh ho? Now you dare to yell at me, huh? Why didn't you dare yell at your wife earlier? And why didn't you dare to skip the sugar before eating?"

Even if the method bears 99% of the responsibility, don't you also bear the remaining 1% of the responsibility for instigating it?

"You two are really working together like a united front now! I feel like no matter who you side with, you're going to get stabbed!"

"Stop giving me that repetitive talk and answer my question!"

"Of course not!"

"Teachers don't lie to their students!"

"Uh"

"Teachers don't lie to their students!"

"I mean"

"Teachers don't lie to their students!"

"You idiot, just drown in your ex's memories for the rest of your life!"

Snapped!

Bang!

He rushed out the door, his footsteps fading into the distance.

"What do you think if we had put on a show like that for those two spies outside?"

Aoko closed the notebook in her hand and asked.

The voyeurs naturally refer to Eirin and Deedlit.

The believer turned her head and made a gagging gesture.

"Are you kidding me? The plot is disgusting, especially since you're the one he's acting opposite. Just hearing about it makes me want to throw up."

"Is it really that exaggerated? Love triangle novels in roadside bookstores in the 80s were all written like that."

The believer remained silent upon hearing this, then opened the small notebook in her hand and spoke instead.

"Oh ho? How about I improvise a scene for you, a timid little puppy living a life of licking the feet and fawning over a thousand-year-old witch who treats human life like dirt, walking a tightrope in fear every day, while secretly cultivating his skills and eventually transforming into an invincible little wolf in battle, loyally protecting his master, stunning everyone, smashing the enemy, and dying happily with his mistress?"

"Are you kidding me? The plot is disgusting, especially since you're the one he's acting opposite. Just hearing about it makes me want to throw up."

Aoko tilted her head and made a gagging gesture.

"Is it really that exaggerated? That's how it's written in the erotic novels in roadside bookstores in the Far East."

What exactly did you look at in bookstores when you were a teenager?

What exactly did you look at in bookstores when you were a teenager?

At this moment, the group was on their way to a secret realm inside Ulthuan. In addition to the five-person sightseeing adventurer team that the believer brought with her, there were also about a hundred Gozan dragonmen marching in formation. Of course, Joshua was also mixed in with them. The group was large and lively.

The princess from the Far East sent a summons in the morning. Miss Jiang Xue, as the Far East envoy representative of the Gozan Empire, reached an agreement with the Lin Jing that had been drafted in the past.

Just as the believer had predicted when she obtained the black gold cube, Salome Reinhardt indeed had no intention of crossing the ocean that stretched between the northern and southern continents, nor did she want to waste time dealing with those seafood. Her plan was to head north through the World Tree Nexus of Ulthuan.

That's why we're in this situation now.

After the somewhat lengthy march finally came to a stop, the Gozan people from Silver Harbor gathered in a tree-lined space about half the size of a football field.

As far as the eye can see, the walls are covered with lush green roots. Countless roots intertwine and intertwine at the very center of this "tree hole," forming an almost oval shape resembling a bird's nest.

Above the bird's nest, there remains an unknown egg that shimmers with an emerald glow as if breathing.

Soon, the proprietress from the clouds stepped forward from the crowd and walked hand in hand with another silver-haired bean sprout dressed in priest's robes onto the stage, where they began to take an oath and deliver a speech to the relevant people present.

The speech was very similar to a principal's speech at a primary school opening ceremony. The girl listened attentively and was drowsy. Naturally, she only extracted the key information and automatically skipped a lot of diplomatic language.

That's roughly the gist of it—

The forest spirits stated: "In the early stages of civilization's reconstruction during the Quaternary Resurgence, we received many favors from the Far Eastern Gozan people. Therefore, we wholeheartedly support your request to use our hub to travel to the Northern Continent. However..."

Ms. Jiang Xue's voice was as gentle and pleasant as ever. Even when she used the word "but" to insult someone, she spoke it with such profound knowledge and refined elegance.

The forest spirits continued: The Northern Continent is extremely dangerous. We haven't received any letters from other divinely created civilizations in the Northern Continent for a very, very long time. As for planting saplings capable of teleporting through the World Tree Hub to establish outpost city-states in the Northern Continent, that's simply impossible.

The Dragon People below the stage were probably about to start cursing by now. The first-class guard with a sword, whom I vaguely remember being called Old Chen, was cursing the loudest. He started with a string of local dialect words with a strong regional accent, and then he went on to say a bunch of things like char siu, rice noodle rolls, and fish balls. If you didn't know better, you would think he was reciting a menu. Basically, there was no need to worry about the Lin Jings understanding him.

Fortunately, the Forest Spirits finally came up with a solution: Since our friends from the Far East are determined to go to the Northern Continent to die—no, to go sightseeing—we, based on our nearly two-hundred-year-old friendship, will make an exception and help you out. Sleeping inside this dragon egg is our Forest Spirit clan's guardian demigod, the Emerald Dragon King Serama II. His supreme power can help you enter the Emerald Dream's secondary space. As long as you can provide a valid [beacon], we can comfortably transport you to the Northern Continent through the Emerald Dream—no, to go sightseeing. Of course, since we can't possibly send the great Emerald Dragon King Serama II to the Northern Continent for sightseeing, this sightseeing train is naturally a one-way ticket.

The enthusiastic speech ceremony concluded successfully amidst Ms. Jiang Xue's gentle voice and the swearing of a group of irritable Dragon men below. The only exception was when the Dragon man surnamed Chen, after speaking in his native dialect for a long time, finally asked a question in the common language in a rough voice.

"We understand the reasoning, but why is your demigod Emerald Dragon King, who possesses supreme power, still an egg called Seramai II? Where is his father, Seramai I?"

It would have been better if they hadn't asked. Upon hearing the question, the bean sprouts present couldn't help but turn pale. Some of the younger bean sprouts even swayed, their faces showing sorrow as they covered their faces and remained silent.

Joshua most likely received a secret order from the princess who was mixed in with the group, and pushed through the crowd to pull the man surnamed Chen away, signaling him not to cause any more trouble, which quelled this unexpected diplomatic incident.

"Pandora, do you know why?"

Out of curiosity as a tourist, the believer asked Cinderella a question in the encrypted channel.

"Mr. Hern, please wait a moment. Okay, we found it. According to the records, the guardian demigod Seramay I of the forest spirits was captured by the Yale people in the early Tertiary period and taken to a laboratory for dissection to study an alternate dimension channel called the Emerald Dream. After achieving the expected results, the remains of the Emerald Dragon King I were made into specimens and displayed in the Epic Creatures section of the Imperial Museum in Yale's capital. The ticket price at that time would be equivalent to about 10 silver coins in today's gold standard."

After consulting the database, Pandora relayed the above information to Mr. Hearn, and thoughtfully used cyan particles to recreate the specimen photo of the former demigod and a first-edition commemorative ticket for him.

"It's so easy, comfortable, and boring for a civilization that has reached the star realm to beat up the natives of the feudal era."

After looking at the photos, Xin Nu rolled her eyes and handed the photos and tickets to Qing Zi beside her. In her mind, she reclassified the demigods that the natives called "demigods" from "demigods" to "large endangered animals" with some individual talent and good hand-to-hand combat ability. The little bit of awe that had risen in her heart when she first arrived had vanished.

However, since we're here for tourism, it's good to broaden our horizons.

Thinking this way, the believer felt much happier.

"Well, if I hadn't gone to hell with you, this kind of mythical creature that clearly possesses divinity would have become a rare and precious mystery that a large group of magicians would have flocked to if it appeared in my hometown. As an opponent, it would also be a very troublesome enemy. After all, mystery is about the ancient being crushed by the even more ancient. All modern magic would lose its effectiveness when it encounters this kind of mythical creature, the darling of nature. Of course, that was only in the past. Now, it really is like visiting an endangered zoo."

After carefully examining the ticket and the specimen photos, Qingzi casually commented.

"Qingzi, could you please speak a little softer? And please show some basic humility and respect for the traditional culture of the Lin family!"

The believer scoffed with a look of disgust.

"Believer, aren't I speaking in an encrypted channel? Besides, don't think I didn't notice the disdain that flashed across your face just now, even though you're saying such nice things!"