Chapter 52: Deep in the Ruins

It’s all your fault!

It’s all your fault!

Damn it!

Bastard!

Guillaume Béné kept punching the air in front of him, as if an invisible creature stood there.

His expression was filled with hatred, his inner emotions spilling out without restraint.

Aurora deepened the darkness in her eyes, guiding the “Blank Paper” to look toward the empty space where the parish priest had struck.

There was nothing there—no unspeakable creature, no translucent phantom—only air.

“He’s venting at someone he’s hated for a long time but daresn’t confront,” Lu Mi muttered, “Who’s he blaming?”

Aurora shook her head and replied offhandedly:

“Maybe the bishop who’s suppressing him, preventing him from ascending to the Divine Rank and gaining transcendental power—or maybe someone who lured him into worshiping a hidden entity, hoping he’d receive blessings and grow stronger...”

She felt that as the assistant priest of the Eternal Sun Church and the de facto leader of a rural chapel, the parish priest wasn’t easily able to establish contact with a hidden entity through his own efforts.

In any matter involving transcendental power, he would have requested aid from the Church of Dariel, and any miraculous artifacts or witchcraft notes would have been handed over to the Inquisition for storage or sealing—not left in the church of Keldu Village. More importantly, even mastering Ancient Fursac was already impressive; languages like Hermesian or Elvish, capable of invoking supernatural forces, were far beyond the reach of an assistant priest. Aurora had already confirmed through her “Eye of Secrets” that he was not someone with naturally high spirituality who might accidentally attract evil entities.

So without someone’s “teaching,” how could the parish priest possibly contact a hidden entity?

Of course, Aurora did not rule out the possibility that Guillaume Béné had secretly kept a mystical artifact without reporting it.

Hearing his sister’s words, Lu Mi chuckled:

“Why can’t the parish priest just curse the hidden entity itself?”

“He’s bold enough to make Saint Sis suffer, so it’s not impossible he secretly blames it for tempting him.”

After mocking Guillaume Béné, Lu Mi analyzed seriously:

“I’ve been wondering why the parish priest suddenly fell. After thinking it over, I think there are two suspects—well, suspects—one is Madame Pualis. She’s clearly powerful: whether it’s Louis Lund giving birth inside the castle or that woman surrounded by undead in the wilderness, both point to her being far from ordinary, tied to abnormal paths and hidden entities. As one of Madame Pualis’s lovers, it’s natural the parish priest was seduced by her.”

“By the way...”

Lu Mi suddenly slapped his forehead.

“What is it?” Aurora didn’t know what her brother had just remembered.

Lu Mi answered seriously:

“Do you think the parish priest ever fathered a child for Madame Pualis?”

“...” Aurora now regretted believing her brother’s performance, thinking he’d made some important discovery.

She snapped back:

“Who told you Louis Lund’s child was Madame Pualis’s?”

“What if it was Administrative Officer Beostr’s? What if it was some hidden entity’s? No—wait, if it were, you’d have exploded and mutated the moment you saw that scene.”

“I just think when Administrative Officer and Madame Pualis are together, she clearly dominates.” Before the cycle began, Lu Mi had already felt Administrative Officer Beostr was weak—unable to train his steward, unable to keep his wife in check, always looking submissive when with Madame Pualis.

Lu Mi had originally thought it was because the administrative officer loved his wife deeply. Now he had a new theory:

“Could the administrative officer be another breeding tool for Madame Pualis?”

“Maybe,” Aurora rubbed her temple. “The mystical world really opens my eyes—so many plots only found in novels and imagination are being realized, twisted and all...”

After her sigh, she murmured:

“It seems more than one person gave birth inside the castle. Where did all those children go?”

Lu Mi thought for a while and admitted he couldn’t guess.

He dared not suggest sneaking into the castle for a thorough search; after witnessing Louis Lund and the scene in the wilderness, he instinctively wanted to avoid Madame Pualis’s trail.

Aurora felt the same—the siblings both held deep fear of Madame Pualis.

At that moment, after venting, the parish priest walked to the room’s table, poured himself a small glass of red wine, and gulped it down.

He exhaled deeply, set down the stemmed glass, and headed for the bed.

Only when the parish priest’s breathing grew slow and steady, as if asleep, did Lu Mi sneer:

“Going to bed this early?”

“I thought he’d find another mistress. Oh, he doesn’t even smoke privately.”

This was deduced from the absence of cigarette packs, pipes, or other smoking items in the bedroom.

“He only sips wine lightly. Everyone says he’s normal,” Aurora chuckled.

She had the “Blank Paper” observe a while longer, and when she saw no further results, ordered it back. Then she turned to Lu Mi:

“You only mentioned one suspect. What’s the other?”

“That sneaky, only-peeping owl!” Lu Mi revealed his theory. “It might have guided the parish priest to the wizard’s legacy.”

“Hmm.” Aurora thought the possibility was significant.

Lu Mi immediately proposed:

“Next time that owl comes to watch me, we’ll catch it and torture it.”

“Are you sure you can beat an owl that’s lived for who knows how many years?” Aurora laughed.

“Don’t you have me?” Lu Mi flattered his sister.

Aurora snorted:

“Even together, our chances of success wouldn’t be high.”

“Hmm... but we could try. If we do nothing, we’ll find nothing—it’s just wasting our limited time. Of course, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the arrival of the Twelfth Night—that’s the key.”

Lu Mi nodded firmly.

Seeing his face pale and exhausted, Aurora caught the returning “Blank Paper” and ordered:

“You’ve practiced Spirit Sight too many times today. Go sleep. Rest well—we’ll continue tomorrow.”

She paused, then added:

“Tomorrow morning, I’ll teach you the simplest of those transcendental languages—Hermesian. In the afternoon, go to Pierre Béri, get him to buy you a drink, and I’ll slip into his sheep pen to talk to the three sheep—see if I can get useful information.”

She felt this was the easiest lead to investigate right now.

Lu Mi, already standing, asked: “Won’t that be too dangerous?”

Aurora smiled to reassure him:

“Don’t worry—I’m not going to fight or kill anyone, nor am I trying to restore them to human form immediately. I won’t trigger any possible alarms. I just plan to communicate with them in Highland Tongue. They probably know something.”

Lu Mi nodded:

“When I go to the old tavern this afternoon, I’ll get to know those three outsiders. They’re trustworthy allies.”

Of course, on the condition that the siblings’ identity as unaffiliated transcendentalists was not revealed.

“Good,” Aurora agreed with her brother’s choice.

…………

In the faint gray mist, Lu Mi woke up on the bed in his dream bedroom.

As expected, he found all his gold, silver, and copper coins, along with the axe and steel fork beside him, gone.

The dream ruins had begun a new cycle.

Gotta collect everything again... Lu Mi muttered as he left the bedroom and entered the study.

He picked up the small blue book on the desk, flipped through it idly, and saw many words had been cut out.

“So it really was my plea letter...” Lu Mi felt no emotional shift anymore.

Moreover, he suspected it had been “sent” under Aurora’s guidance—after all, back then, with no mystical knowledge, he’d likely have chosen a reliable courier or waited for the postman.

Thinking of the postman, he realized the man who came once a week wasn’t part of the cycle.

He thought for a moment and decided this made sense: after receiving the plea letter and confirming anomalies in Keldu Village, the authorities would have found some excuse to block ordinary people from entering.

Lu Mi casually glanced around, wondering if there was a box for storing letters that had vanished—but he couldn’t recall how many similar items Aurora had collected, and soon gave up.

Without hindering his movement, Lu Mi added some clothes and pants, took the iron-black axe, and left home again, entering the wasteland full of cracks, heading toward the ruins surrounding the dark red “mountain.”

With prior experience, he easily dealt with the two monsters he knew well, slung the hunting rifle over his shoulder, hung the cloth bag filled with lead bullets, and stowed all the coins.

Lu Mi crept forward cautiously, deliberately avoiding the path he’d taken before, heading deeper in another direction—he figured he was still no match for the monster with three faces on one head.

As he passed through the collapsed buildings half-swallowed by the thin gray mist, he suddenly sniffed.

He smelled a faint trace of blood.

After a brief pause, he followed the shadows toward the source of the smell.

Soon, he hid in a concealed space atop the roof of a half-collapsed house, peering through a wide gap between some stones toward a spot ahead.

On the weedless wasteland, between several completely collapsed and jumbled buildings, a mass of flesh writhed.

The flesh mixed with yellow fat, resembling some creature crushed under a falling boulder.

Yet it still had life, slowly crawling toward one of the buildings.

“How do you kill a monster like this? Cut off its head? It doesn’t even have a head...” Lu Mi fell into thought.

At that moment, several deep black, visibly elastic, membrane-covered “thick ropes” emerged from nowhere and instantly bound the mass of flesh.

(End of Chapter)