Chapter 113: Messenger (Seeking monthly votes)

Lu Mian carried the carbide lamp and went up along the stone steps layer by layer.

Not long after, light appeared in front, and noisy human voices came.

For someone who walked out of the silent underground, this was like the whole world coming alive at once.

Lu Mian quickened his pace and used his right hand holding the suitcase to twist the valve on the surface of the carbide lamp, so that the water droplets on the upper cylinder would no longer drip into the pile of carbide below.

As the acetylene gas burned out, the flames at the metal trumpet mouth gradually extinguished.

At this time, the scene outside also came into Lu Mian's view:

Those buildings, whether high or low, seemed to have solidified at the moment they were about to collapse, maintaining a state of either tilting or crumbling, yet stubbornly standing tall.

The clothes of the pedestrians on the street were either old or tattered, and there were people arguing and scolding each other everywhere, and the noise brought by this seemed to never subside.

Lu Mian stood at the exit of the underground area, looked left and right, and found a five-story building called "Golden Chicken Hotel."

The top two floors of this brown-yellow building seemed to have been built later, completely different from the style of the first three floors, which preferred using wall pillars, arches, large windows, and decorative patterns during the Roselle period, looking as simple as if they had been moved from Kordu Village.

Lu Mian, carrying his suitcase and carbide lamp, passed through the children squatting on the ground looking for orange peels and the adults arguing loudly, and walked to the entrance of the "Golden Chicken Hotel."

He looked up and found that there was yellow phlegm, shredded paper, spilled tomato sauce, and stains with the smell of alcohol on the ground of this hotel, and a large number of bedbugs passed by in line on the ceiling and walls.

If he weren't holding things, Lu Mian would definitely have applauded such a scene a few times.

The old tavern in Kordu Village was much cleaner than this!

He searched for a route without filth and walked to the front desk at a pace that was neither fast nor slow.

There sat a slightly fat middle-aged woman, her gray-white dress stained with quite a bit of oil, and her brown hair simply coiled behind her head.

She raised her head, scanned Lu Mian with blue eyes, and was not surprised at all by the disgust and resistance he showed on his face:

"In Chaos Street, in the market district, this is the best and cheapest hotel, but the boss is a disgusting miser who is reluctant to hire a few fixed cleaning maids, and only finds people to clean it once a week."

"Is he also stingy with your salary?" Lu Mian asked back with a green and curious tone.

The middle-aged woman became angry instantly:

"Are you going to rent a room or not?"

"Yes." Lu Mian seemed to be frightened, indicating his attitude with a quick speech, "I want to know the price."

The middle-aged woman eased her emotions:

"It depends on what kind of room you want. The top two floors are 3 Ferkins a week, and the bottom two floors are 5 Ferkins a week. If you still think it's expensive, you can go up and knock on the doors one by one, asking who is willing to share half their bed with you, or sublet the empty space on the floor to you, which is about 1 to 1.5 Ferkins a week."

"Give me a room on the bottom two floors." Lu Mian chose this reason because whether jumping out of the window or taking the stairs, it was more convenient to escape than the top two floors.

The slightly fat woman looked at Lu Mian twice:

"If you choose to prepay the rent for the whole month at once, you can only pay 15 Ferkins."

"Why can it be so much cheaper?" Lu Mian deliberately showed the ignorance of a country farmer arriving in a big city for the first time.

The middle-aged woman sneered:

"Because too many people only lived for one to two weeks and had to move to other places, or left Trier.

"This is heaven, and it is also hell."

Lu Mian took out the stack of banknotes just now and pulled out three light blue banknotes from inside.

Their face value was 5 Ferkins, with the bust of the first president of the Intis Republic, Levankes, and working farmers and herdsmen on the front, and the Hornacis Mountains on the back.

After receiving the rent for the whole month, the slightly fat woman's expression eased significantly. She took out two brass-colored keys strung together and threw them up to Lu Mian:

"Room 207 on the 2nd floor, there is a small restaurant on the first floor, and the basement is a tavern. There is sulfur in the drawer of the room table, which can help you drive away those damn bugs. My name is Fels, you can come to me if you have any questions."

"Thank you, Madame Fels." Lu Mian took the keys, carried his suitcase and carbide lamp, and walked toward the second floor along the stairs.

On the way, he saw that many places on the walls were pasted with newspapers or that kind of very cheap pink paper, pasted layer by layer, but some paper had loosened, revealing the cracks covered by them and a large number of bedbugs.

There were eight rooms and two washrooms on the second floor. Each room was very narrow. On the right was a sleeping bed, and the table by the window was against the edge of the bed on one side and close to the wall on the other, with a chair with broken legs in front.

Apart from these, there was no furniture, but there were rows of bedbugs crawling on the ceiling.

Lu Mian, who had become accustomed to cleanliness and tidiness with Aurora, put down his suitcase and carbide lamp, pulled open the drawer, took out some sulfur, and lit them with matches.

In the strong and pungent smell, those bedbugs moved away from this room and transferred to other places.

After a few seconds, Lu Mian sniffed and smelled the same sulfur smell coming from the next room.

Almost at the same time, some bedbugs returned to his room, searching for a peaceful pure land.

Lu Mian thought for a moment and roughly understood what was going on:

He used sulfur to smoke the bedbugs to the next room, and the tenant there tried to use sulfur to drive these bugs back.

Lu Mian couldn't help but smile, bent down to open the suitcase, and took out washing items.

Aurora's dark witchcraft notebooks were lying quietly at the bottom of the box.

On the way to Trier, Lu Mian had roughly flipped through them and didn't find anything worth suspecting. After all, Aurora was not a person who loved to write diaries or record moods and various trivial matters. Her witchcraft notebooks were really just notes, filled with various mystical knowledge, copying many spell incantations, symbolic patterns, and material selection principles.

It might be that Aurora loved bookkeeping; most of these spells were marked with when, where, and with what money or items they were exchanged.

This let Lu Mian know that the "Curly-Haired Baboons Research Society" should have multiple interest groups. Aurora most often participated in the "Academy" gatherings, and many spells were exchanged from "Academy" members. In addition, she occasionally participated in exchanges with other groups, for example, she obtained some mystical knowledge and spells from "April Fool's Day."

Given that these notes didn't seem to have any problems, Lu Mian could only continue to investigate the truth from the two aspects of receiving treatment from psychologists and searching for the parish priest and Madame Pualis.

Of course, he also knew that his sister would never mention the notes at the last moment without reason; there must be some important information she wanted to convey hidden inside.

Looking at those dark notebooks, Lu Mian decided to start learning what his sister recorded in reverse order from tonight.

Although for a "Hunter," even if he really mastered a certain spell, he could hardly apply it to actual combat, at least it could help him identify whether the corresponding mystical knowledge had problems and whether anomalies existed.

Simply tidying up his luggage, Lu Mian heard the rumbling of his stomach.

He stood up, looked at the window, and through the twilight glass, vaguely saw his own appearance:

His hair was dyed golden and grew a bit longer. He didn't do much processing on his facial features, but paired with a white shirt, black vest, dark suit, and an indifferent and calm expression, he suddenly matured by several years. Even if parish priest Guillaume Bénet met him, he would likely only feel a sense of familiarity.

Lu Mian patted his face, let a smile appear bit by bit, and then opened the door and walked out.

PS: Double period has started, seeking monthly votes, there will be additional updates tomorrow and the day after~

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 114 =====

Immediately after, Lu Mian switched to Hermes:

"I summon in my name:"

"The spirit wandering in the illusory, the benevolent upper-realm creature to humanity, the messenger belonging solely to the 'Magician'."

Amidst the whistling wind, the candlelight took on a ghostly blue hue, and the surroundings became eerie and cold.

Lu Mian stared intently at the candle, waiting for the 'Magician' lady's messenger to appear.

He waited for several seconds, but there was no further change there.

Just then, the letter he had placed on the altar—the wooden table—floated up and drifted into mid-air.

Lu Mian looked up in astonishment and saw a 'doll' the size of an adult man's forearm sitting on the top of the carved window.

The 'doll' had long golden hair, light blue eyes, pale skin, and an exquisite light-gold dress; its features looked very much like a real person's, yet slightly exaggerated, quite bizarre.

The next second, the letter landed in the 'doll's' smooth, clean, and skin-textureless hands.

"Are you the 'Magician' lady's messenger?" Lu Mian asked, as if confirming.

The 'doll' slowly lowered its head, and its light blue eyes, lacking focus and luster, reflected Lu Mian's figure.

It said in an ethereal and angry voice:

"Change to a cleaner environment next time!"

As soon as the words fell, the 'doll' disappeared with the letter.

Lu Mian was stunned for two seconds, then muttered to himself:

"Didn't Aurora say that keeping the altar neat and clean was enough?"

Almost simultaneously, he saw a large number of bedbug corpses lying on the ground.

There were no longer any insects in his room.

"This is more useful than sulfur..." Lu Mian rubbed his chin and ended the summoning ritual.

He habitually tidied up the room, squatted down next to his suitcase, and took out his toiletries from inside.

Aurora's dark-colored witchcraft notebooks were lying quietly at the bottom of the case.

On the way to Trier, Lu Mian had already flipped through them roughly and hadn't found anything suspicious. After all, Aurora wasn't someone who loved writing diaries or recording her moods and trivial matters; her witchcraft notebooks were truly just notebooks, filled with various occult knowledge, transcribing many spell incantations, symbolic patterns, and principles for material selection.

Perhaps because Aurora loved bookkeeping, most of these spells were marked with when, where, and how much money or what items were exchanged for them.

This let Lu Mian know that the 'Curly-Haired Baboons Research Society' likely had multiple interest groups. Aurora most often attended the 'Academy' gatherings, and many spells were exchanged from 'Academy' members. Additionally, she also participated in exchanges with other groups from time to time; for instance, she obtained some occult knowledge and spells from 'April Fools'.

Given that these notebooks seemed to have no problems, Lu Mian could only continue to investigate the truth from the two aspects of receiving treatment from a psychologist and searching for the parish priest and Lady Pu'alis.

Of course, he also knew that his sister absolutely wouldn't have mentioned the notebooks at the last moment without reason; there must be some important information she wanted to convey hidden within them.

Looking at those dark-colored notebooks, Lu Mian decided to start from tonight, learning the things his sister recorded in reverse order.

Although for a 'Hunter', even if he truly mastered a spell, it was almost impossible to apply it in actual combat, but at least it could help him identify whether the corresponding occult knowledge had problems or if there were anomalies.

After simply packing his luggage, Lu Mian heard his stomach growl.

He stood up and looked toward the window, vaguely seeing his own reflection through the dusk-lit glass:

His hair was dyed gold and had grown longer; his features hadn't undergone much treatment, but paired with a white shirt, black vest, dark formal suit, and an indifferent, calm expression, he suddenly looked several years more mature. Even if the parish priest Guillaume Bénet encountered him, he would likely only feel a sense of familiarity.

Lu Mian patted his face, letting a smile appear bit by bit, then opened the door and walked out.

PS: Double points have started, asking for monthly votes. There will be extra updates tomorrow and the day after~

(End of chapter)