Chapter 100: After the celebration (Seeking monthly votes)

A group of young people surrounded Ava, singing and dancing as they arrived outside Lu Mi's house.

Guillaume, the little one from the Berry family, walked to the door and banged on the gate.

He was a friend of Lu Mi, Raymond, and Ava, with slightly curly brown hair, obvious freckles on his face, and blue eyes that were smaller than an average person's, as if he were always squinting.

With a creak, Aurora appeared before them.

She had pinned up her blonde hair and was wearing a quite formal, light-colored, ruffled stand-up collar dress. She was full of energy, her face glowing with radiance, showing no signs of the fatigue from having been on watch for most of the night and not sleeping well in the morning.

Ava, wearing a laurel wreath woven from branches and flowers, stepped forward and sang:

"I am the Spring Elf,"

"My face is lovely and pretty,"

"..."

"Sing it out, dance it out,"

"Only then can we have a harvest..."

Aurora listened quietly until the end, took the leaves, and handed a small ceramic jar containing animal fat to Ava.

"Harvest! Harvest!" those young people cheered.

As the "Spring Elf" parade team set off for the next location, little Guillaume from the Berry family deliberately lagged behind and asked Aurora:

"Where's Lu Mi? I haven't seen him for the past two days. Is he not participating in the Lenten festival celebration?"

Aurora smiled:

"He's sick."

"Sick?" Little Guillaume was slightly surprised. "He gets sick too?"

In his impression, Lu Mi was always full of energy, at most getting bruised or scraped during pranks, suffering only minor injuries.

"If he didn't get sick, I would be afraid instead," Aurora responded jokingly. "Humans all get sick."

Seeing the "Spring Elf" parade team getting further and further away, little Guillaume hurriedly waved at Aurora:

"Tell Lu Mi, after the Lenten festival, I'll come to visit him!"

Aurora nodded lightly, watching little Guillaume sprint toward the parade team that had already stopped in front of the next building.

"How was it?" Lu Mi poked his head out beside his sister.

Aurora pondered for a moment and said:

"They are still normal for now, but I don't know what they will become when the celebration ends."

Thinking of the bloody scene at the end of the celebration where Ava was decapitated, and thinking of how the young people in the parade team were stimulated by some strange atmosphere and the events that occurred at that time, either entering a state of madness to cheer the "Spring Elf" away or having their bodies and minds completely collapse, collapsing onto the ground, Lu Mi felt that no one would be spared.

He silently looked at Ava singing at the neighbor's door and little Guillaume and the others surrounding her, slowly withdrawing his gaze.

Ryan, Lyra, and Valentine also came to the first floor, looking outside through the window.

"We need to be especially careful from now on." Once the "Spring Elf" parade team left this area, Ryan said in a deep voice.

Aurora nodded:

"Okay."

Taking advantage of the fact that the celebration hadn't ended yet, they quickly prepared lunch and filled their stomachs.

Dong, dong, dong, the classical wall clock on the first floor struck the sound representing twelve o'clock noon.

Lu Mi and the others, who had already tidied up the dining room, looked at each other, all uncontrollably tightening the strings in their minds.

If the Lenten festival celebration had gone smoothly, it should have ended by now.

And if the ritual to send the "Spring Elf" away were truly completed, who knew what Cordu Village would become.

Because it was a semi-underground building, Lu Mi needed to lift his head slightly to see the situation outside the window:

The sky was azure, white clouds drifted, and the sun was bright; there were no dark clouds, mist, or dim light as he had imagined.

Lyra walked back and forth near the stove, the small silver bells on her veil and boots constantly making ding-ding-dang-dang sounds, not intense, nor soothing.

Seeing Aurora looking at her, she began to interpret:

"We are already in danger, and it is a long-term danger, but for now, it is at a manageable level."

Aurora went "Hmm" and didn't ask further.

Ryan, on the other hand, sighed softly:

"If it stays at this level until the twelfth night, that would be great."

Aurora blinked, feeling embarrassed to tell this "Dawn Knight" of the "Mechanical Heart" not to say such things, as it easily brought about the opposite effect.

Although Lu Mi was heavy-hearted, he still wore a smile on the surface and replied to Ryan:

"We have a proverb in the Dalie region: 'Fortune and misfortune are all determined by fate; things are predestined.' No matter how much we worry, we can't change what happens next."

What he didn't say was:

The only thing one can do is summon the courage to face it.

In the intermittent conversation, the five of them remained vigilant against the potential mutations, but whether it was the weather or the birds, everything was so normal that it frightened them.

After nearly half an hour, they simultaneously cast their gazes toward the door.

There were footsteps approaching.

Not long after, the doorbell of Aurora's house was pulled, and the ding-a-ling sound echoed throughout the first floor.

After looking at his sister, Lu Mi cautiously walked to the door and looked outside through the peephole.

The one pulling the doorbell was a man, their neighbor, Louis Bedek.

"Is something the matter?" Lu Mi opened the door and asked with a smile.

Louis Bedek had black hair and blue eyes and was in his forties. He had been injured while harvesting wheat in the fields when he was young, and only three fingers remained on his left hand.

He was wearing a gray-blue short jacket and dark trousers, and said timidly:

"I want to borrow your oven. It's the Lenten festival, and I need to bake some fresh bread for the children."

As he spoke, he lifted a flour bag and kicked the bag of low-quality coal placed to the side.

Lu Mi hesitated for a moment and looked back at Aurora.

Aurora nodded, signaling him to let Louis Bedek in.

She had just discussed it in a low voice with Ryan and the others, intending to observe at close range what changes the villagers who had finished participating in the Lenten festival celebration had undergone.

"Just baking bread? I thought you would make some smoked meat for your children." Lu Mi stepped aside and teased Louis Bedek with a smile.

Louis Bedek answered cautiously:

"If there's a harvest this year, I should be making quite a bit of smoked meat."

His eyes were full of anticipation, as if he felt that a harvest was something that would inevitably come.

After entering the door, Louis Bedek greeted Aurora and walked toward the oven, busying himself on his own.

Lu Mi and the others felt increasingly strange the more they observed.

Louis Bedek didn't even glance at Ryan, Lyra, or Valentine, as if they didn't exist at all!

It was like a person who had turned into a monster trying hard to pretend they were normal, but as soon as they encountered things beyond their original memories, they would show obvious abnormalities or simply ignore them.

Lu Mi instantly recalled the assistant priest, Michel Garique:

He seemed fine at the beginning, but recently, he only had daily behaviors like eating and sleeping and a desire to have people pray, ignoring everything else!

Under the gaze of the three outsiders, Louis Bedek baked bread like a programmed machine, occasionally chatting with Lu Mi and Aurora.

This was normal; this was very abnormal.

When Louis Bedek left with the baked bread, Aurora looked at Ryan and the others and smiled bitterly:

"Everyone who participated in the Lenten festival celebration must have turned into this."

"It's like being replaced bit by bit by monsters," Lyra sighed sincerely.

She no longer deliberately maintained the smile on her face.

Lu Mi had already adjusted his mindset and raised a question:

"For people like this, if we want to save them, how should we save them?"

"The only thing I can think of is 'purification'," Valentine answered with a slight sigh. "But if the abnormality has already been tightly integrated with the human themselves, the final result might be being purified together."

Just then, two more villagers passed by outside the window.

One of them was a regular at the old tavern, Pierre Guillaume, who had bummed absinthe off Ryan in the last and second-to-last cycles.

He was chatting with his companion, laughing very happily, as if discussing the liveliness of the Lenten festival celebration.

When passing by Lu Mi's door, they turned their heads in unison and looked into the house, their expressions both exceptionally gloomy.

After looking for only a second, they withdrew their gazes, their faces piled with smiles again, and continued their previous topic.

If Lu Mi and the others hadn't been observing outside whenever someone passed by, they definitely wouldn't have discovered that fleeting change in expression.

The more obvious the laughter and joy coming from outside, the more depressed they felt.

Silence replaced discussion.

After a while, when the two villagers had moved away, Aurora sighed and said:

"This is no longer being replaced bit by bit by monsters. I suspect the entire village, except for us, are monsters wearing human skin."

Is this the complete Lenten festival celebration? Lu Mi couldn't control himself and whispered to himself silently.

Ryan reminded them solemnly:

"The days ahead will be harder than the last. Everyone, hold on."

From noon to night, they were constantly on guard against attacks from the alienated villagers on this house, but apart from people passing by occasionally, looking in with gloomy or cold expressions, nothing happened.

This brought immense pressure to Aurora and the others.

Ryan scanned the room and said gently:

"There are still several days until the twelfth night. Don't be so tense."

"After dinner, we will split into two groups to take turns resting. We must maintain a good mental state."

With such an experienced, calm, and powerful Beyonder making arrangements, both Aurora and Lu Mi were clearly a bit calmer.

Twelve o'clock at night.

Aurora and Lu Mi, who had finished their night watch, woke up Lyra and the others and returned to the bedroom.

Lu Mi looked at the door and lowered his voice:

"That mysterious lady still hasn't appeared. Should I find an opportunity to go out tomorrow and check the old tavern?"

"In the village now, everyone could be a monster. Once you go out, it will be very dangerous." Aurora didn't quite approve.

She thought for a moment and said:

"Wait a bit longer. If that mysterious lady still hasn't appeared tomorrow morning, I'll accompany you to the old tavern in the afternoon."

Lu Mi hesitated but nodded.

He planned to discuss with his sister tomorrow morning whether to ask Ryan and the others for help, so all five of them could act together.

…………

In the bedroom filled with faint gray mist, Lu Mi opened his eyes.

He turned over and sat up, checking his body, and found that the heavy injuries from before had completely healed.

He was just about to sigh when he suddenly heard a "ding-a-ling," "ding-a-ling" sound.

"Is someone pulling the doorbell?" Lu Mi subconsciously had this thought flash through his mind, habitually about to go down to the first floor to see who was visiting.

Just as he took a step, his whole body suddenly froze.

This was in the dream ruins!

How could anyone be visiting?

ps: Seeking monthly votes~

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 101 =====