Chapter three hundred and forty seventh fear before death
Shade played with the ugly little wooden sculpture in his hand, and the priest suddenly stopped and motioned to Shade to look aside:
"Here we are."
No. 12 Hangleton Garden Street was the original residence of the Freeman family. Now the family has moved away. The priest who visited them, relying on his strong personality and charm, actually borrowed this house that has not yet found a buyer.
key.
The family seemed to have left in a hurry, and the garbage from the move was still scattered in the garden where weeds had grown wildly due to neglect. But they had not moved away for too long, so the place only looked a little messy.
The priest took a bunch of keys and opened the iron lock wrapped around the fence. He walked along the path for more than ten steps and arrived at the door. During this period, neither Shade nor Priest August felt anything strange.
"Judging from the information available so far, except for Mr. Freeman, no one else in the family has suffered an accident. Mr. Freeman's death also went through a very long cycle, so I don't think the danger here is particularly great.
.”
The priest took the key and said to Shade who was looking at the garden:
"But don't let down your guard. Whether it's an evil spirit or a relic, it has the ability to kill us directly, so we must be cautious for a while."
"I understand, priest."
The old man nodded, lowered his head and closed his eyes and prayed quietly to [Mr. Dawn], then held the holy symbol hanging on his chest to confirm that this magical item with the ability to exorcise demons was OK, and then used the largest key in the key chain.
That one opened the door to the house.
I didn't smell any strange smell after entering the door, but because the house had been closed for a period of time, after suddenly opening the door, I could see fine dust floating in the air under the sunlight.
Shade closed the door smoothly, then reached out to touch the wall and turned on the gas light in the foyer.
At this time, Priest Augustus held up his Holy Emblem and rotated it around at a uniform speed, muttering words. So Shade also used thaumaturgy [Echo of the Past] and [Echo of Blood] to check the surrounding situation. The former was just
He heard the voices of his neighbors as they passed by the street outside, but the latter could not see any obvious blood stains.
"Probably not an evil spirit, but there must be something evil here."
The old priest frowned:
"If it is really a relic, then we may be in trouble. In this way, I will first take you to the place where Mr. Freeman died. After he fell from the trap door of the attic, along the road connecting the third floor and the second floor
He fell down the stairs and unfortunately broke his neck."
Even though it was daytime, the place seemed very safe, and the two of them had no intention of moving separately and searching separately. It was safest to walk together in such a dangerous place.
The house has almost been emptied out, with some debris scattered on the floor and traces of dust from picture frames placed on the walls all year round, showing that this was originally a warm home.
There was no trouble in the process of going upstairs. At the corner of the stairs leading up to the second floor, Shade's eyes finally saw a clear blood-red light. The blood stains on the ground were scattered in patches. It should be that Mr. Freeman was hit when he fell to the ground.
Blood from the broken place.
The old priest squatted down, and a corner of the life ring behind him was revealed. After the [Necromancer] spirit rune radiated spiritual light, the priest touched the floor with a hand that was slightly emitting gray light. Shade continued to use the spell and looked up.
What is very strange is that clear blood stains not only remain on the platform at the corner of the stairs, but also on the stairs, and they spread all the way down from higher places. Although the amount is not large, it also shows that Mr. Freeman rolled down
The stairs had been injured before.
"Were you injured when you fell from the attic to the third floor, or were you injured in the attic?"
Shade speculated in his mind, and Priest August also stood up at this time:
"I felt the fear of the soul. He experienced great fear before death. It was not fear of death, it was completely different from that feeling."
"How was Mr. Freeman's body disposed of?"
Shade asked, if there was a corpse, he could actually use [Soul Echo] directly.
"According to the wishes of the family, he will be cremated and buried in the public cemetery in Tobesk."
The priest said, looking up with Shade. In fact, even if it is not a cremation, according to the current weather, the corpse may not be enough to support Shade's channeling.
"We continued walking up and I saw some blood."
Shade suggested.
So we went to the third floor, and the blood stains indeed extended from the trap door leading to the attic. Shade found the small mechanism that activated the trap door from the window. Amidst the sound of gears turning inside the wall, a square shape appeared on the ceiling.
At the entrance of the cave, an iron ladder was lowered.
The two still couldn't feel any trace of any element, so Shade walked in front and the priest followed behind, and climbed into the attic together.
The attic has also been emptied, leaving only some cardboard boxes on the wall. The blood stains appeared from the right side of the attic, but now that the place has been cleaned up, it is useless to see the blood stains.
"Actually, I had doubts."
When Shade knelt down to look at the cartons, Priest August suddenly said:
"I once suspected that Mrs. Freeman was behind all of this. She made some noise at home to threaten Mr. Freeman, and then used drugs to affect Mr. Freeman's mental state. Finally, she avoided
Everyone pushed Mr. Freeman down from the attic, creating the appearance of an accidental death."
This kind of speculation was a little too scary, more like a plot from a palace political novel. Shade turned his head to look at the priest with some surprise:
"Do you have any evidence?"
"No, I'm just guessing based on the darkest side of people's hearts... just think that I raised a possibility."
But this possibility does exist because they really didn't find anything suspicious in the house.
In the box in the corner of the attic are the paintings of the dead Mr. Freeman. It is impossible for an artist to sell every painting, not to mention that the drawings used for practice are not valuable at all to a young artist.
The drawings in the box are considered to be Mr. Freeman's relics, but I don't know why they were not taken away by Mrs. Freeman.
The paintings themselves are ordinary objects, and the specific time of painting is written on the back of each painting. The earliest one was painted half a year ago, and the most recent one was completed in the past week or two, which is what Mr. Freeman claimed
A time when there were problems at home.
In this world, the artist's profession is not as dangerous as that of folklorists, but it is more dangerous than that of ignorant ordinary people. Mental problems will greatly affect the painter's creative style. Mr. Freeman originally tended to use strong
The colors are used to depict the scenery under the sun, but the three oil paintings in the recent period are almost all cold-toned drawings, and there are some strange things in the paintings.
"Priest, look at this."
Shade pointed to one of the paintings, which was a work made by Mr. Freeman a week before his death. The picture was the garden of the Freeman family, and he painted his house from an upward angle. He almost painted his house into a haunted house, and in the second
A very blurry person was clearly standing at the window of the building.
"Is this something strange he saw, or is it just a family member who happened to be at the window?"
The priest was also very puzzled.
In another painting before Mr. Freeman's death, he painted the living room of his home. At that time, wood carving equipment already appeared in the picture, and next to it was a small wooden sculpture of a priest given to him by Priest August.
, it seems that Mr. Freeman wanted to use it as a reference for carving.
"So, why is he fascinated by wood carvings?"
The oil painting Mr. Freeman made two weeks before his death shows some wooden boxes stacked in the corner. During this period, his mental problems were not serious, and the colors and composition methods he used were relatively normal.
Shade looked at this third oil painting and asked Priest August:
"Priest, look at these boxes. Are they the wooden boxes used by the Kingdom Post Office to transport goods?"
No one has sent anything other than letters to Shade, so Shade doesn’t know much about it. But Priest August knows:
"Yes, it's a box shipped by the post office. You see, he even drew the metal fixing corners used to prevent the wooden boxes from falling apart during transportation. This black fixing corner means that these are valuable items. The red above
The label indicates that it was shipped from Kasenlik at this time."
"Has Mr. Freeman been exposed to anything strange in the past two weeks?"
Shade came up with a conjecture, and then pointed to the content on the oil painting:
"Such as these things sent from afar."
Priest Augustus frowned and nodded:
"There is a possibility. When I go to return the key later, we can ask together. However, we still need to search carefully to see if there are any other problems with this house."
In this way, the time came to eleven o'clock in the morning, and it was still foggy outside. Shade and Priest Augustus finished their final search of the garden, left the garden, locked the fence, and planned to return the key to Fernando by car.
Mrs. Liman.
There was nothing unusual about the whole house. Shade touched almost every inch of the wall with his hands, but he could still feel no traces of elements or spirits. The priest even suggested searching the corners of the garden to prevent anything from being buried in the ground.
, but in fact they were overthinking it.
They wasted two hours but got nothing, which made both of them a little frustrated. But after all, they came out to try their luck for 15 credits, and it was expected that they would get nothing.
So they first had lunch together at a restaurant in a nearby neighborhood, where they talked about the truth about the painter's death accident and joked about how it could provide inspiration to Dorothy. After eating, the two took a carriage to the place where Mrs. Freeman and the children temporarily rented a hotel.
Apartment to live in.
The apartment is also in the East District of Tobesk, and you can walk to your destination in 20 minutes. This is an ordinary street in the city, with shops and apartments for rent along the street. At noon on Thursday, people were coming and going.
It's very lively, and it's only three streets away from Dr. Schneider's psychological clinic.