The old man's tone was very calm, as if he was telling a story calmly, and he just happened to appear in this story for a while.
"Sorry, it's easy to talk too much as you get older," the old priest smiled, looked at Vanna and said, "Do you have friends from other sects?"
"...I have a good friend, she is a priest of the Academy of Truth," Vanna thought for a moment, "but she doesn't tell me much about the precepts of Lachem, the God of Wisdom."
"Believers of the God of Wisdom... this is normal. Their creeds usually require a college degree or above to understand, and sometimes they also need to pass an advanced mathematics test." The old priest nodded matter-of-factly, "Apparently.
In contrast, it is the followers of the God of Death who are the easiest to deal with - after all, we are always going to die."
Having said this, the old man paused and looked at the neatly arranged files behind Vanna with some curiosity: "Your Excellency, Judge, can you tell me what you are looking for?"
Fanna suddenly hesitated.
She didn't know whether she should tell the old priest in front of her that secret. The hidden fire most likely pointed to a very dangerous shadow, and she couldn't be sure whether that "shadow" was monitoring the city-state through some way, or whether
He was not sure whether the old man in front of him could really help him. If he told the truth rashly, he might alert the enemy.
But after a brief hesitation, she decided to reveal some information.
This is the deepest part of the Deep Sea Church, a sanctuary blessed by the Storm Goddess, and the old priest who guards the archives is a determined warrior. He stays here to help visitors in this situation.
.
"I'm looking for a file - it's not accurate to say a file, because it probably didn't exist from the beginning," Fanna said slowly while thinking about it, "Strictly speaking, it's a clue, what happened
It may have pointed to a fire in June 1889, but the relevant information has been erased."
"The fire of 1889?" the old priest thought, "I don't remember any fire..."
He suddenly stopped and looked at Vanna thoughtfully.
"So, the erased data also includes our memories, right?"
"At least it includes people's memories," Fanna nodded lightly, "I don't have enough evidence. Apart from my own 'cognition', I have no way to prove the existence of that fire, and I'm not sure what kind of power it was.
I’m manipulating this matter, I’m just doubting it.”
She suddenly felt a little embarrassed. As a judge, she was used to questioning and investigating, but this time the situation was completely different from the past. She didn't know who the target of her suspicion was, and she wasn't even sure whether the target was a human or a ghost. She
Launching an investigation based solely on her own ideas was completely inconsistent with her usual calm and steady style.
However, the old priest in front of her just nodded calmly: "Your piety and character are evidence, Your Majesty the Inquisitor."
After the words fell, the old priest quickly walked to a pillar between the nearby bookshelves and tapped a few specific bumps on the pillar with his mechanical prosthetic hand. The next second, a low roar came from deep in the floor.
The squeaking sounds of gears and connecting rods could be heard from everywhere.
The door to the archives was closed, and some of the bookshelves in the archives began to move slowly. Some of the bookshelves came closer and closed. In the free area, pillars depicting many complex runes slowly moved one after another.
Rising from the floor.
As those pillars rose, the sound of the waves softly echoed in Vanna's mind.
"...There is no need to mobilize troops like this," Fanna was a little confused by the old priest's actions, "It's just a preliminary investigation now..."
"Past experience tells me that there is no 'preliminary' investigation into huge threats," the old priest slowly walked towards Vanna. He raised his mechanical prosthetic hand made of brass, "and I think a
Something that can interfere with cognition on a large scale, or even erase specific historical events, is a 'huge threat'."
"…But your rash move to block the archives may cause a lot of concern."
"No, the archives will be randomly blocked several times every month to allow the sacred devices and bookshelves here to move." The old priest laughed, showing a mouth of jagged teeth, "'Don't let the ancient
The book has been quiet for too long, that's the rule."
"Then I have no doubt."
"You have checked a lot of information just now. Judging from your expression, you must have discovered something, right?" The old priest nodded, "I can help."
"I found some records about 'heresy worship' - although they are not directly related to the events I want to investigate, and the records themselves are very scattered, I feel something is not right," Fanna said frankly, "Those heresy worships have the characteristics
Common characteristics, and concentrated in the first half of 1889, and ended abruptly after the factory leakage incident in the Sixth Street..."
The old priest listened carefully to Vanna's description, and then found the corresponding file information under the other party's identification.
"That's it," Fanna pointed to the documents that were found, "the sacrificial ceremony that should be invalid, the substantial mental damage, although the scale is small, they are all real acts of heresy worship. All cases
The closing report looks normal, and those who should have been arrested were arrested, and those who should be sentenced were sentenced, but I think that in fact, each of these cases... was not properly investigated."
"For a case of this scale, arresting and trying those involved is equivalent to a complete investigation, but you are right, when several similar incidents are added together... the situation is different," the old priest said
Looking through the files, he frowned and said, "All the people who held sacrifices were 'inexplicably bewitched', but the source of the bewitchment cannot be found..."
He muttered and suddenly raised his head.
"Your Excellency, you only examined the files from 1889, right?"
"Yes," Fanna nodded, and then responded, "What do you mean..."
"The incident you are paying attention to did indeed happen in 1889, but have you ever thought that these weird cases of heresy worship did not necessarily start in 1889," the old priest said quickly, and then looked up
Looking at the other rows of the bookshelf, he said, "The earlier records are here, in the three rows from bottom to top, and you can read them all."
Vanna immediately walked towards the files and started checking the records in the files with the old priest.
But a moment later, they almost simultaneously found similar records of heretical worship events in the case files they were looking through.
In 1888, 1887, and even all the way back to 1886.
"There is also a record here...the sacrifice incident that occurred in the port area, and here, there is only two months between the last record!"
Fanna quickly flipped through the file book in her hand, feeling her heart pounding. She raised her head and told the old priest what she had discovered, but suddenly she found that the old priest was standing still in front of the bookshelf, motionless.
Staring at a certain place.
"Did you find anything?" Fanna immediately frowned and asked nervously.
"There is no record of 1885," the old priest said softly, as if muttering to himself. "It should be here, in this row, after 1884... But now after 1884, it is directly 1886...
"
…
"Let's just stop here." At the edge of the Sixth Street, Duncan looked back at the direction he and Shirley came from, exhaled slightly and said, "There shouldn't be any more gains from investigating here."
They were delayed in that small church for a long time, but their current level of mysticism, "the two of them combined are not as good as a dog", was obviously not enough to crack the strange time-space blocking phenomenon in the underground temple.
Before they left, the underground church returned to its original state. The nun between ashes and a living person was still praying devoutly in the main hall of the church and had no reaction to the departure of Duncan and Shirley.
.
The exterior of the church is still dilapidated, and the area around the church is still deserted.
But Shirley doesn't really care about the secrets in the church anymore.
"I...can I really go home?"
She looked at Duncan quite nervously, her tone of uneasiness mixed with an inexplicable hesitation.
"Of course, I have never restricted your freedom to leave," Duncan smiled and ruffled the other person's hair. Although Shirley was similar in age to Nina, he couldn't bear the girl's petite and thin body.
Zhu treated her as a younger child, "Today's investigation is over, you can go home."
Shirley subconsciously turned her head and glanced in the direction of home, and wanted to move, but suddenly hesitated: "Then... shall we continue the investigation after that?"
"Of course, this matter is far from over," Duncan raised his eyebrows, "What? Are you reluctant to leave?"
"Ah no no no!" Shirley waved her hands quickly after hearing this, "I just... just next time I investigate..."
"I will find a way to contact you. You can also take the initiative to come to me," Duncan smiled again and rubbed Shirley's head. "And it's not just for investigation. If you encounter any other difficulties, you can also come to me directly."
Please help."
Shirley blinked, always feeling that something was strange, but in the end she nodded slightly, but before turning and leaving, she couldn't help but asked curiously: "Then... what are your plans next?"
?”
"Me?" Duncan was stunned, then thought for a moment and said, "I'm going to buy a bicycle this afternoon."
Shirley was stunned: "...Huh?"
"Buy a bicycle," Duncan repeated seriously, "I have promised Nina for several days, and it's time to fulfill my promise today. What's wrong?"
Shirley opened her mouth for a long time before finally holding back a sentence: "Ah... Agou said, no matter what, you have to do something about subspace invasion..."
Before she finished speaking, a shadow suddenly appeared in the air next to her, and Agou's broken voice hurriedly shouted in the shadow: "I didn't say it!!"
The shadow disappeared in the next second - apparently Agou was afraid that others would see him if he showed his head outside.
Duncan: "..."
He held it in for a long time, and finally suppressed a helpless smile: "Okay, now the subspace invasion is going to buy a bicycle for his niece - let's say goodbye."