Chapter 152: Chapter 156: The Missing Years
The old man’s tone was very calm, as if he was telling a story with which he just happened to have been involved for a while.
“Sorry for being talkative, old age makes one prone to chattiness,” the priest smiled and said to Fenna, “Do you have friends from other religious sects?”
“…I have a good friend who is a cleric at the Academy of Truth,” Fenna thought for a moment, “but she doesn’t talk to me much about the precepts of the God of Wisdom Rahm.”
“Believers of the God of Wisdom, eh… That’s normal. Their creeds usually require a college degree to understand, and sometimes even a passing score in higher mathematics,” the priest nodded as if it were a matter of course, “By contrast, the followers of the Death God are the easiest to deal with—after all, we all have to die.”
With that, the old man paused and looked curiously at the neatly arranged files behind Fenna, “Judge, can you tell me, what are you looking for?”
Fenna suddenly hesitated.
She didn’t know whether she should reveal that secret to the old priest before her. The hidden fire could very well point to a very dangerous shadow, and she was not sure if that “shadow” was somehow monitoring the City-State or if the old man could actually help her. Speaking rashly might startle the quarry.
But after a brief hesitation, she decided to reveal some information.
This was the deepest part of the Deep Sea Church, a sacred place under the care of the Storm Goddess, and this old priest guarding the archives was a steadfast warrior. He remained here to provide help to visitors in such situations.
“I’m looking for a file—not exactly a file because it might never have existed,” Fenna began cautiously, “Strictly speaking, it’s a clue, from June 1889, possibly pointing to a big fire, but all the relevant information has been erased.”
“A fire in 1889?” the priest pondered, “I do not remember any fire…”
He suddenly stopped, thoughtfully looking at Fenna.
“So, the erased information includes our memories as well, right?”
“At least the memories of the people,” Fenna nodded slightly, “I don’t have enough evidence, other than my ‘cognition.’ I have no way to prove the existence of that fire, and I am unsure of what force is manipulating these events, I… am just doubting.”
She suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. As a Judge, she was accustomed to questioning and investigating, but this situation was completely different from the usual. She didn’t know the target of her suspicion, not even sure whether it was human or ghost. She had launched her investigation based only on her own thoughts, which was entirely unlike her usual calm and steady style of behavior.
However, the old priest before her just nodded calmly, “Your devotion and character are evidence enough, Judge.”
As the priest finished speaking, he quickly walked to a column between the nearby bookshelves and knocked on several specific protrusions with his mechanical arm. The next second, a deep rumble came from beneath the floor and the squeaking and creaking sounds of gears and connecting rods followed suit.
The doors of the archive closed, and part of the bookshelves began to move slowly. Some drew closer and converged, while in the cleared area, pillars engraved with many complex runes slowly rose from the floor.
With the rising of those pillars, the soft sound of waves gently resounded in Fenna’s mind.
“…There’s no need to go to such lengths,” Fenna was somewhat taken aback by the priest’s actions, “It’s just the preliminary investigation…”
“PAST experiences tell me there is no ‘preliminary’ in investigations against a great threat,” the priest slowly approached Fenna, raising his brass-forged mechanical arm, “and I believe a thing that can interfere with cognition on a large scale, even erasing specific historical events, is a ‘great threat.’”
“…But your hasty sealing of the archive could draw a lot of attention.”
“Not at all, the archive is randomly sealed several times a month to ensure that the sacred devices and bookshelves here get some exercise,” the priest laughed, showing his uneven teeth, “‘Do not let the ancient scrolls be quiet for too long,’ that’s the rule.”
“Then I have no more questions.”
“You’ve looked at many records just now and from your expression, you must have found something,” the priest nodded, “I can help.”
“I found some records about ‘heretical worship’ – although they don’t directly relate to the incident I’m investigating and the records themselves are very fragmented, they didn’t feel right,” Fenna spoke frankly, “These heretical worships have common characteristics and were predominantly occurring in the first half of 1889, then abruptly ceased after the leak incident in the 6th district factory…”
The priest listened intently to Fenna’s description and then, with her guidance, located the corresponding archive materials.
“These are the ones,” Fenna pointed to the documents that had been unearthed, “Rituals of sacrifice that should be ineffective, substantial psychological damage, though all small in scale, they are indeed acts of heretical worship. The closing reports of all the cases seem normal, with the culprits caught and judged, but I believe that each of these cases… was not thoroughly investigated.”
“For cases of this scale, capturing the involved and putting them on trial would normally be considered sufficient investigation. But you’re right, when several similar events stack up… the situation is different,” the priest flipped through the archives, furrowing his brow, “Everyone involved in the sacrifices was ‘mysteriously beguiled,’ yet the source of the beguilement can never be traced…”
He muttered to himself and suddenly looked up.
“Judge, did you only check the archives from 1889?”
“Yes,” Fenna nodded and then quickly realized, “You mean…”
“What you are interested in did indeed happen in 1889, but have you considered that these bizarre cases of heretical worship might not have started in 1889?” the old priest spoke quickly, immediately looking up to another row of shelves, “The earlier records are here, the third row from the bottom upward; all of them are available for review.”
Fenna immediately approached those archives, joining the old priest in examining the records within the case files.
Shortly thereafter, they nearly simultaneously discovered similar accounts of heretical worship events in the case files each was perusing.
1888, 1887, even as far back as 1886, there were incidents.
“Here’s another record… a sacrificial event in the port district, and over here, just two months apart from the last entry!”
Fenna flipped through the casebook in her hands, her heart pounding rapidly. She looked up at the old priest to share her findings, only to notice him standing still as a statue in front of the bookshelf, staring intently at a certain spot.
“Have you found something?” Fenna immediately furrowed her brows, asking with a hint of nervousness.
“There are no records for 1885,” the old priest muttered as if speaking to himself, “They should be right here, in this row, right after 1884… but now it goes directly from 1884 to 1886…”
…
“Let’s stop here,” on the edge of Sixth District, Duncan turned to glance at the direction he and Sherry had come from and let out a sigh, “Further investigation here probably won’t yield anything more.”
They had spent a long time in that small church, but with their combined knowledge of esoteric studies being less than that of a dog, they were obviously not capable of unraveling the mysterious space-time lock phenomenon in the Underground Sanctuary.
Before they left, the Underground Sanctuary had returned to its initial state, and the Nun, suspended between ashes and the living, continued to pray devoutly in the main hall of the church, seemingly unaffected by Duncan and Sherry’s departure.
The church’s exterior remained dilapidated, its surroundings still desolate and empty.
However, Sherry wasn’t too concerned about the secrets within the church anymore.
“I…I really can go home?”
She looked at Duncan with a nervous manner, her voice revealing a mixture of trepidation and an indistinct hesitance.
“Of course, you can. I never restricted your freedom to leave,” Duncan smiled, ruffling her hair. Although Sherry was about the same age as Nina, her frail and delicate stature always made him treat her as if she were a much younger child, “The investigation for today is over; you can go home now.”
Sherry subconsciously turned to look in the direction of her home, wanting to step forward but hesitating, “Then… will we continue the investigation later?”
“Of course, this matter is far from over,” Duncan raised an eyebrow, “What? You don’t want to leave?”
“Ah, no, no!” Sherry quickly waved her hands in denial, “I was just… wondering about the next investigation…”
“I’ll find a way to contact you, and you can come find me anytime,” Duncan smiled again as he ruffled Sherry’s hair, “And it’s not just for investigations, if you run into any sort of trouble, you can also come directly to me.”
Sherry blinked, feeling something odd, but eventually nodded lightly. However, before she turned to leave, her curiosity couldn’t help but win out as she asked, “So… what are your plans next?”
“Me?” Duncan was momentarily startled before replying, “I’m going to buy a bicycle this afternoon.”
Sherry was taken aback, “…Huh?”
“I’m buying a bicycle,” Duncan repeated seriously, “I promised Nina, and it’s been several days. I need to keep my word today. Is there something wrong with that?”
Sherry opened her mouth, struggling to speak, before finally managing to say, “Ah… A-Dog said you were supposed to be doing things related to a Subspace invasion…”
Before she could finish, a shadow suddenly burst out of the air next to them, with A-Dog’s gruff voice urgently shouting from within, “I didn’t say that!”
The next second, the shadow vanished as if it were smoke blown away—clearly A-Dog was terrified of being seen if he showed his face outside.
Duncan: “…”
He held back a reply for a long time, finally releasing a resigned laugh, “Alright then, now the invader from Subspace is off to buy his niece a bicycle—we’ll part ways here.”