Chapter 1 The Elderly Priest

The old man's tone was very calm, as if he were simply telling a story, and he just happened to appear in it for a while.

"Sorry, I tend to ramble when I get old," the old priest said with a smile, looking at Vanna. "Do you have friends from other sects?"

"…I have a friend who is a cleric at the Academy of Truth," Vanna said after thinking for a moment. "But she doesn't talk much about the teachings of Rahm, the God of Wisdom."

"A follower of the God of Wisdom… That's normal. Their creeds usually require a university degree to understand, and sometimes you even need to pass a test in advanced mathematics," the old priest said with a nod, as if that were perfectly reasonable. "In comparison, the followers of the God of Death are much easier to deal with – after all, we're all going to die."

At this point, the old man paused and looked curiously at the neatly arranged files behind Vanna. "Inquisitor, could you tell me what you're looking for?"

Vanna suddenly hesitated.

She didn't know if she should tell the old priest the secret. The fire that had been covered up might point to a very dangerous shadow, and she couldn't be sure if that "shadow" was monitoring the city-state in some way, or if the old man could really help her. If she rashly revealed the truth, she might stir up a hornet's nest.

But after a brief moment of hesitation, she decided to reveal some information.

This was the deepest part of the Deep Sea Church, a sanctuary blessed by the Storm Goddess, and the old priest who guarded the archives was a staunch warrior. He was here to provide assistance to visitors in this kind of situation.

"I'm looking for a file—or rather, it's not quite a file, because it probably never existed in the first place," Vanna said slowly, choosing her words carefully. "Strictly speaking, it's a lead. It happened in June of 1889 and may point to a fire, but all the related information has been erased."

"A fire in 1889?" the old priest mused. "I don't remember any fire…" He suddenly stopped and looked at Vanna thoughtfully.

"So, the erased information also includes our memories, right?"

"At least it includes people's memories," Vanna nodded gently. "I don't have enough evidence. Apart from my own 'cognition', I have no way to prove that the fire existed. I'm not sure what force is manipulating this, I'm… just suspecting."

She suddenly felt a little awkward. As an Inquisitor, she was used to questioning and investigating, but this situation was completely different from the past. She didn't know who she was suspecting, or even if that target was a person or a ghost. She had launched the investigation based solely on her own thoughts, which was very different from her usual calm and composed style.

But the old priest in front of her just nodded calmly. "Your piety and character are proof enough, Inquisitor."

As he finished speaking, the old priest quickly walked to a pillar near a bookshelf and tapped several specific protrusions on the pillar with his mechanical prosthetic hand. The next moment, a low rumble came from deep within the floor, followed by the creaking of gears and connecting rods.

The gate to the archives closed, and some of the bookshelves inside began to move slowly. Some of the bookshelves moved closer together and closed, while in the vacant areas, pillars covered with complex runes slowly rose from the floor.

As the pillars rose, the soft sound of waves gently echoed in Vanna's mind.

"…There's no need to make such a fuss," Vanna said, a little flustered by the old priest's actions. "This is just a preliminary investigation."

"Past experience tells me that there's no such thing as a 'preliminary' investigation when it comes to a great threat," the old priest said as he slowly walked towards Vanna, raising his mechanical prosthetic hand made of brass. "And I believe that something that can interfere with cognition on a large scale, even erase specific historical events, is a 'great threat'."

"…But your rashly sealing off the archives may attract a lot of attention."

"It won't. The archives are randomly sealed off a few times every month to allow the sacred devices and bookshelves to move around," the old priest said with a smile, revealing a set of uneven teeth. "Don't let the ancient scrolls stay still for too long – that's the rule."

"Then I have no further questions."

"You've been looking through a lot of information. Judging from your expression, you must have discovered something," the old priest nodded. "I can help."

"I found some records about 'heretical worship' – although it's not directly related to the event I'm investigating, and the records themselves are very scattered, I feel like something's wrong," Vanna said frankly. "Those heretical worships have common characteristics and occurred mostly in the first half of 1889, and stopped abruptly after the Sixth Block factory incident…"

The old priest listened carefully to Vanna's description, and then found the corresponding files at her direction.

"These are them," Vanna pointed to the documents that had been found. "Sacrificial rituals that should be invalid, substantial mental damage, although the scale is small, they are all real acts of heretical worship. The closing reports for all the cases look normal, those who should be arrested were arrested, those who should be sentenced were sentenced, but I think every one of these cases… was not investigated thoroughly."

"For cases of this scale, arresting and trying the people involved is already equivalent to a thorough investigation, but you're right, when several similar incidents are superimposed… the situation is different," the old priest frowned as he flipped through the files. "All the people who performed the sacrificial rituals were 'inexplicably bewitched', but the source of the bewitchment couldn't be found…"

He muttered, then suddenly looked up.

"Inquisitor, have you only checked the files from 1889?"

"Yes," Vanna nodded, then immediately realized what he meant. "Are you saying…"

"The event you're concerned about did happen in 1889, but have you considered that these strange heretical worship cases may not have started in 1889," the old priest said quickly, then looked up at the other rows of bookshelves. "Earlier records are here, the three rows counting from the bottom up, you can browse through them." Vanna immediately walked towards those files and began to check the records in the case files together with the old priest.

Vanna immediately walked towards those files and began to check the records in the case files together with the old priest.

And after only a moment, they almost simultaneously found similar records of heretical worship incidents in the case files they were each browsing.

1888, 1887, and even all the way back to 1886.

"There's a record here too… a sacrificial incident in the port area, and here, only two months apart from the last record!"

Vanna quickly flipped through the case file in her hand, feeling her heart pounding, she looked up and told the old priest about her findings, but suddenly found that the old priest was standing still in front of the bookshelf, staring at something.

"Have you found something?" Vanna frowned immediately, asking a little nervously.

"There are no records from 1885," the old priest said softly as if talking to himself, "It should be here, in this row, after 1884… but now after 1884 it goes directly to 1886…"

"Let's stop here," Duncan said, turning his head to look in the direction he and Shirley had come from at the edge of the Sixth Block, taking a slight breath. "There probably won't be any more gains from investigating here."

They had lingered in that small church for a long time, but with their level of occult knowledge, which was "worse than a dog's" when added together, it was obviously not enough to break the strange space-time lock-in phenomenon in the underground sanctuary.

Before they left, the underground sanctuary returned to its original state, and the nun who was between ashes and a living person was still praying piously in the main hall of the church, with no reaction to Duncan and Shirley's departure.

The exterior of the church was still dilapidated, and the area around the church was still empty.

But Shirley didn't really care about any secrets in the church anymore. "I… can I really go home?"

She looked at Duncan rather nervously, her tone hesitant but mixed with an indescribable ambivalence.

"Of course you can. I've never restricted your freedom to leave," Duncan said with a smile, rubbing the girl's hair. Although Shirley was about the same age as Nina, her overly petite and weak body always made him treat her like an even younger child. "Today's investigation is over, you can go home."

Shirley subconsciously turned to look in the direction of home, wanting to move her feet, but suddenly hesitated a little. "Then… then will we continue to investigate afterwards?"

"Of course, this matter is far from over," Duncan raised his eyebrows. "What? Are you reluctant to leave?"

"Ah, no, no, no!" Shirley quickly waved her hand when she heard this. "I just… I just want to know about the next investigation…"

"I'll find a way to contact you, and you can also take the initiative to come to me," Duncan rubbed Shirley's head again with a smile. "And it's not just about the investigation, if you encounter any other difficulties, you can come to me for help directly."

Shirley blinked, feeling like something was a little strange, but finally nodded gently. However, before turning to leave, she couldn't help but ask curiously, "Then… then what are your plans next?"

"Me?" Duncan was stunned, thought for a moment, and said, "I'm going to buy a bicycle this afternoon." Shirley was immediately stunned. "…Huh?"

"Buy a bicycle," Duncan repeated very seriously. "I promised Nina, and it's been many days, today I should fulfill my promise. What's wrong with that?"

Shirley opened her mouth for a long time before finally squeezing out a sentence: "A… A Gou said, you have to do something that a subspace invader should do…"

Before she could finish speaking, a shadow suddenly sprang out of the air next to her, and A Gou's broken gong voice hurriedly shouted in the shadow: "I didn't say that!!"

The next second, the shadow disappeared into thin air—obviously A Gou was afraid of being seen if he showed his face outside.

Duncan: …

He held it in for a long time, finally squeezing out a helpless smile: "Okay. Then the subspace invader is going to buy his niece a bicycle—we'll say goodbye here."