Chapter 3850

"Thorn Bay" is located southwest of the Karas Mountains, about 300 miles from Mount Karas. All the deceased here were hired from different villages near the bay; they traveled here by train to work, only to die here inexplicably.

The most useful information the deceased could provide is the number of people and the timing. There were a total of 23 workers laboring here, yet Xia De and Danister found only 12 bodies in this cave.

The 23 people arrived successively between the 3rd and 5th of the Month of Wind-Rising in 1853, while the time of death for these 12 people was the night of the 16th.

"Isn't today the 16th of the Month of Wind-Rising?"

Xia De asked Danister, and the sorceress nodded without commenting on this coincidence:

"This style of operation is very much like the 【Truth Society】—hiring ordinary people from afar to do manual labor for them, or tricking them into becoming experimental materials."

"Did the 【Truth Society】 kill these people?"

"No, the 【Truth Society】 wouldn't be so crude in their methods. Besides, one look shows that the work of these deceased was not yet finished; the 【Truth Society】 would not waste human resources like this."

Although both were curious about what was originally being dug here, since the Ringed Shushi of the 【Truth Society】 chose not to use magic to excavate, and did not even choose to continue digging after the tunnel collapsed, Xia De and Danister did not continue to extend this tunnel for the time being.

However, since 12 out of the 23 people died here, perhaps the bodies of the remaining 11 are also nearby, and among them, someone might know more.

The investigation of the bodies was conducted by Danister. Centering on the tower foundation on the highest cliff, they discovered new bodies at two o'clock in the morning beneath the cliff. The bodies were not in the tower ruins, but in the soil deeper within the tower's debris.

Xia De unearthed the bodies one by one, trying his best not to touch the tower ruins. The damage to the total of 7 bodies was extremely severe, and many of the skeletons even had marks from being gnawed on by wild beasts.

The subsequent spirit communication successfully summoned the souls, but this batch of souls was quite ignorant, and the information provided was intermittent. Xia De finally summarized:

"The time of death for these seven deceased was between the 23rd and 30th of the Month of Wind-Rising in 1853. After the first batch of 12 people were buried due to a safety production accident, the remaining people could not rescue them and were unwilling to continue digging in that dangerous cave."

"So they were assigned other tasks, which was to try to re-excavate a cave in another location. As a result, seven of them successively contracted an unknown disease and died during this period. To prevent the plague from spreading, the foreman decided to bury the seven of them in the forest under the cliff."

Xia De dispersed the last soul:

"It looks like those bodies were later dug up by wild beasts, and then smashed back into the mud when the tower collapsed, which is why they look so broken."

"Four people are still missing. What do you guess they would do?"

Danister asked Xia De, and Xia De said quite firmly:

"If it were me, I would definitely choose to quit this job. Out of 23 people, only 4 are left; this is too terrifying. And although this place is remote, the path down the mountain is not hard to find. Once you get down the mountain, there is a train home in the town. If you really want to leave, you can always find a way."

"That is, provided no one intercepts them... Let's continue the search."

The discovery of 19 bodies originally made Xia De and Danister think they would soon be close to a deeper secret, but until dawn on Tuesday morning, they could not find any other meaningful traces.

Danister was not discouraged:

"Last night was just the first, roughest search. Starting tonight, I will combine astrology and moon phases to try to crack the uniqueness of this place. Didn't you speculate that on the back of the normal tower, there exists a hidden Moon Tower that can only see one moon? I will find it."

The two ate breakfast while talking, and only then did they crawl into the tent to begin sleeping. Xia De slept very lightly and woke up after three hours. At this time, Danister also had her eyes open; clearly, she was not as unconcerned as she appeared.

Xia De comforted Little Mia, and seeing that no one wanted to rest, he took Danister to the small town at the foot of the mountain for lunch. Regarding the tower collapse on the mountain two years ago, the people in town had heard some rumors, but investigating them that afternoon yielded no practical significance.

Dinner was also eaten in town. Seeing that Danister was in a somewhat low mood, Xia De did not rush to return to the mountain with her, but instead went with her to the "dating spot" recommended by the enthusiastic restaurant owner—the town's clock tower—to take a look.

The scenery here was not very good, but the concern Xia De showed truly made Danister feel much better.

Thus, the investigation continued on Tuesday night. Regarding the 23 people brought by the 【Truth Society】, the investigation could not continue for the time being. Danister planned to arrange for correspondence students near Thorn Bay to investigate whether any of those who went out and did not return two years ago had luckily returned:

"Or perhaps, after the first batch of people died, the Truth Society found a second batch of people to come here. Although this clue is not easy to find, I believe there will be results."

And that night, Xia De touched the remaining parts of the ruins brick by brick, hoping to discover anomalies.

Danister observed the stars and moon phases; she even took out a small folding astrolabe from her portable suitcase. Xia De remembered Luweiya saying that the price of such things was very high.

But the second night of exploration yielded nothing. Xia De even pressed the remaining bricks of the tower onto the "Book of Destiny," but the divine arts had no reaction.

Xia De's state of mind was still stable; after all, he had other methods in mind. But Danister, who had been busy for more than ten years for Miss Carter, was clearly unstable when the time reached Wednesday midnight.

She knew she shouldn't be like this, and although she tried hard to hide it, this worry was still discovered by Xia De:

"It doesn't look like there will be any results today either. Why don't we rest first? You can't sleep at all during the day."

He proposed, but the sorceress shook her head:

"No, we can't waste time. I'll go verify the correlation between the changes in moon phase patterns and local elemental fluctuations. You go rest."

Xia De kissed her, and Danister appeared somewhat angry:

"Xia De, what do you mean by this? Do you think I would stop the work at hand because of this?"

But not long after, when the cat sleeping in the tent was woken up, it could give an affirmative answer to the question above. The blanket was spread on the ground beside the campfire, and the moon under the starry sky merged with the moon, colliding with each other again.

Although this method was somewhat "despicable," at least Danister was successfully coaxed to sleep by Xia De at dawn. The price was that after the two woke up on Wednesday morning, the shy librarian complained about Xia De's behavior, but when she patted Xia De, it wasn't even as forceful as Little Mia's meow.

"Since conventional methods don't work, we can only use unconventional methods."

When Danister was eating with Xia De by the campfire, wearing a newly changed dress and draped in Xia De's coat, Xia De said this.

At this time, the goat milk sealed in the card had been heated and placed in front of the cat, and Xia De displayed what was in his hand:

"Look."

Danister saw the red liquid alchemical material that looked like blood:

"Philosopher's Stone? Is this the reward you and Luweiya received when you helped the church turn destiny into ink? What do you want to do?"

"High-Efficiency Casting: Breath of Time. Now, this miracle of mine can reverse the time of an object by three years. Very fortunately, it has only been two years since this tower collapsed. Since I can't find clues in the collapsed state, I will restore the tower."

"Fortunately, although this tower is large, after inspection, it only used ordinary building materials. So, only a small amount of Philosopher's Stone is needed to support me in performing this spell."

"But be aware, once I successfully cast the spell, there is no way to restore the tower to its current state. Even if I accelerate the time of the tower afterward, I can only let it accelerate according to the standing state; there is no way to make it as broken as it is now."

Xia De meant that perhaps there were clues in the collapsed tower that did not exist in the complete form. Although the probability was very low, after considering it, Danister still planned to investigate for one more night according to the current form on this Wednesday night:

"If there are still no new clues tonight, you come to cast the spell to restore the tower on Thursday evening."

Of course, they also considered the possibility that the clues only existed during the day, so they didn't go to town on Wednesday during the day, but continued to search, and as expected, they gained nothing.

However, at least Danister's mood had improved quite a bit. After dinner on Wednesday, she even took a walk in the nearby forest with Xia De.

But after returning to the camp, she turned her back to Xia De and bent down to pick up the notebook she had been looking through while eating by the fire, which immediately made Xia De "harbor evil intentions" on this night of a lone man and woman.

This led to them being unable to carry out investigation work before midnight. However, Danister did not blame Xia De; instead, afterward, she leaned in Xia De's arms and watched the stars with him, chatting about the stories between her and her teacher in the past.

"Meow~"

Little Mia was not disturbed by them and slept sweetly on the pillow in the tent.

At one o'clock on Thursday morning, the two began tonight's work. Danister let Xia De go to the tower foundation ruins to pray and see if it had any effect. After confirming that the relics she brought still failed to show any results, she took out a series of special items related to the "moon" and looked around to see if they could trigger a special reaction.

But the result of Xia De praying all night was only that he found his spirit was exceptionally good and his spirit was exceptionally full when dawn arrived. The effect of praying devoutly to the moon could even be comparable to using the miracle 【Moon Dream】 to sleep.