Chapter 52: Deep into the Ruins

"It's all your fault!

"It's all your fault!

"Damn it!

"Son of a bitch!"

Guillaume Bénet kept punching the air in front of him, as if an invisible creature were standing there.

His expression was full of hatred, and the emotions in his heart were vented without any concealment.

Aurora deepened the darkness in her eyes and guided "White Paper" to look at the void that the parish priest was striking.

There was nothing there; no indescribable creature, no transparent, illusory existence. Apart from air, there was nothing.

"This is someone who has been dissatisfied with someone for a long time but doesn't dare to express it to their face." Lu Mian "tsk"-ed from the side. "Who is he blaming?"

Aurora shook her head and answered casually:

"It could be the bishop who has been suppressing him, not letting him advance to a divine artifact or obtain extraordinary power, or it could be someone who lured him into converting to a hidden existence, hoping to obtain a gift to become stronger..."

She felt that the parish priest, as a deputy assistant priest of the "Eternal Blazing Sun" church, a person of real power presiding over a village church, couldn't easily rely on his own efforts to establish a connection with a certain hidden existence.

For events involving extraordinary power, he would definitely request assistance from the church in the Dariège region. The corresponding magical artifacts and witchcraft notes must also be handed over to the Inquisition for safekeeping or even sealing, and would not remain in the church in Cordu village. More importantly, it would be good if he could master Ancient Futhark; Hermes, Elvish, and other languages that could mobilize supernatural power were not things a deputy assistant priest could come into contact with. And Aurora had long since confirmed through the "Eye of Mystery" that he wasn't the type of person born with high spirituality who would attract evil things if he wasn't careful.

So, without the "teaching" of someone, what did the parish priest have to come into contact with a hidden existence?

Of course, Aurora didn't rule out the possibility that Guillaume Bénet had accidentally obtained mystical items and hadn't handed them over.

Hearing his sister's words, Lu Mian laughed:

"Doesn't it allow the parish priest to scold that hidden existence?

"He even dared to let Saint Siss feel wronged; it's not impossible that he would blame that hidden existence behind its back for luring him."

After mocking Guillaume Bénet, Lu Mian analyzed seriously:

"I was wondering before why the parish priest would suddenly fall. Thinking about it, I feel there are two suspects—uh, suspected persons. One is Madame Pualis. She is clearly very powerful. Whether it's Louis Longde giving birth in the castle or the woman suspected to be her surrounded by undead in the wilderness, it all shows she is very simple. She involves abnormal paths and hidden existences. And as one of Madame Pualis's affair partners, it's very normal for the parish priest to be lured by her."

"By the way..."

Lu Mian slapped his head forcefully.

"What's wrong?" Aurora didn't know what her brother had associated with.

Lu Mian answered with a serious face:

"Do you think the parish priest has given birth to a child for Madame Pualis?"

"..." Aurora was now full of regret, regretting that she had believed her brother's performance and thought there was some important discovery.

She retorted irritably:

"Who told you that Louis Longde's child is Madame Pualis's?"

"What if it's Administrative Officer Béost's? What if it's some hidden existence's? No, it's not. If it were, you, who saw that scene, would have exploded and mutated into a monster at the time."

"I just feel that when the administrative officer and Madame Pualis are together, Madame Pualis is clearly more dominant." Before the loop started, Lu Mian felt that this person, Administrative Officer Béost, was a bit weak, neither able to manage the butler well nor able to keep an eye on his wife. When appearing with Madame Pualis, he always carried a feeling of trying to please the latter.

Lu Mian originally thought it was because the administrative officer loved his wife very much, but now he had a new guess:

"Do you think the administrative officer might be another reproductive tool for Madame Pualis?"

"Perhaps." Aurora supported her forehead. "The mystical world really opened my eyes. Many plot points that only existed in novels and imagination have been realized like this, in a twisted way..."

After sighing, she muttered to herself:

"It seems it's not just one or two giving birth in the castle. Where did those children who were born go?"

Lu Mian thought for a while and indicated he had no way to guess.

He also didn't dare to suggest sneaking into the castle to do a detailed search. After witnessing Louis Longde and the things in the wilderness, he subconsciously wanted to avoid the line of Madame Pualis.

Aurora was the same. The siblings both had deep fear of Madame Pualis.

At this time, the parish priest, who had vented for a while, walked to the table in the room, poured a small glass of red wine, and gulped it down.

He exhaled a long breath, put down the tall glass, and walked toward the bed.

It wasn't until the parish priest's breathing became steady and he seemed to have fallen asleep that Lu Mian mocked:

"Sleeping so early?

"I thought he would find another mistress. Hmm, he doesn't smoke in private either."

This was inferred from the fact that no cigarette boxes, pipes, or other items were found in the bedroom.

"He only sips alcohol, and everyone says he's very normal." Aurora laughed "hehe."

She let "White Paper" observe for a while longer, and seeing there was no harvest, she ordered it to return, while she turned her head to Lu Mian:

"You only mentioned one suspect just now. What about the other?"

"That sneaky owl that only knows how to peek!" Lu Mian stated his speculation. "It might have guided the parish priest to find the legacy of that wizard in the legend."

"Mm." Aurora felt the possibility was not small.

Lu Mian then suggested:

"Next time that owl comes to look at me, let's catch it and interrogate it under torture."

"Are you sure you can beat an owl that has lived for who knows how many years?" Aurora laughed.

"Don't I have you?" Lu Mian flattered his sister.

Aurora "heh"-ed:

"If the two of us are added together, the hope of success won't be very great."

"Uh... but we can try. Doing nothing means discovering nothing, which is equivalent to wasting the little time we have. Hmm, provided it doesn't affect the arrival of the Twelfth Night; that is the key among keys."

Lu Mian nodded forcefully.

Seeing that he was already full of exhaustion and his face was pale, Aurora reached out to catch the returning "White Paper" and ordered:

"You practiced Spirit Vision too many times today. You can go to sleep, nurture your spirit well, and continue tomorrow."

She thought for a moment and added:

"Tomorrow morning, I'll teach you Hermes, which is relatively the simplest among those supernatural languages. In the afternoon, you go find Pierre Béry and have him treat you to a drink. I'll take the opportunity to go to his sheep pen and communicate with those three sheep to see if I can obtain useful intelligence."

She felt this was the line easiest to investigate currently.

"Won't that be too dangerous?" Lu Mian, who had already stood up, asked.

Aurora smiled and comforted her brother:

"Rest assured, I'm not going to fight, nor do I intend to immediately find a way to help them recover their human state, so it shouldn't trigger any potential alarms. I'm just preparing to communicate with them using Highland language; they should know some things."

Lu Mian nodded:

"Tomorrow afternoon after going to the old tavern, I intend to 'get to know' those three outsiders. They count as helpers who can be trusted."

Of course, the premise was not to expose the siblings' identity as wild Beyonders.

"Good." Aurora agreed with her brother's choice.

…………

In the faint gray fog, Lu Mian woke up on the bed in the dream bedroom.

He unsurprisingly discovered that the gold coins, silver coins, copper coins on his body, and the axe, steel fork, and other items beside him had all disappeared.

The dream ruin also began a new round of the loop.

Have to pick them up again... Lu Mian muttered as he left the bedroom and entered the study.

He picked up the little blue book on the table and flipped through it casually, seeing many traces of words being cut out inside.

"Sure enough, it was the distress letter I mailed..." Lu Mian had no emotional fluctuation regarding this.

Moreover, he suspected it was "mailed" under Aurora's guidance. After all, at that time, he, who had no mystical common sense, would likely have chosen to find a reliable courier or wait for the postman.

Thinking of the postman, Lu Mian realized that the guy who came once a week wasn't in the loop.

He pondered for a while and felt this was also normal. After receiving the distress letter and confirming that Cordu village had anomalies, the authorities should find some excuse to prevent ordinary people from entering Cordu.

Lu Mian flipped through the surroundings casually, wanting to see if there was any box that could store letters missing, but he didn't remember how many similar things Aurora had collected, so he quickly gave up the attempt.

Without affecting his actions, Lu Mian added some clothes and pants, brought that iron-black axe, left home again, entered the wilderness full of cracks, and walked toward the ruins surrounding the dark red "mountain peak."

With previous experience, he easily solved the two monsters he was familiar with, shouldered the hunting rifle, hung the cloth bag containing lead bullets, and put away various coins.

Lu Mian sneaked forward cautiously, deliberately not choosing the road he had walked before, and changed direction to go deeper—he felt that he likely still couldn't deal with that monster with three faces on one head.

When passing through buildings collapsed in the faint gray fog, he, who had been concentrating his spirit, twitched his nose.

He smelled a very faint bloody scent.

After a little thought, Lu Mian sneaked along the shadows to the place where the bloody scent came from.

Not long after, he hid in a concealed space on the top of a semi-collapsed house and looked toward a certain place in front through a relatively large gap between several stones.

On the wasteland without weeds, between several completely collapsed and messily stacked buildings, a mass of flesh and blood was wriggling there.

This flesh and blood was mixed with some yellow fat, and as a whole, it looked like some creature had been crushed by a fallen boulder.

It actually still had vitality and was slowly wriggling toward a certain building.

"How should this kind of monster be solved? Cut off its head? It doesn't even have a head..." Lu Mian fell into deep thought.

Just at this time, several deep black, obviously elastic, meat-membrane-covered "thick ropes" drilled out from somewhere and bound that mass of flesh and blood in one go.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 53 =====