Mystery: Good Witch

Chapter 1242 Before the Wedding

Monica walked into the prayer hall of the church and found that it had been decorated like a wedding scene. Many flowers were placed next to the originally large and bright windows. The iron black candlesticks that symbolized solemnity were replaced with new brass candlesticks, and the candles that added to the atmosphere were also newly purchased.

The benches that originally faced the altar and the holy emblem, with only a walkway in the middle, were moved to both sides, leaving a wide red-carpeted walkway in the middle. Many people sat on the benches, including locals from Yharnam and curious tourists, both men and women, young and old, all dressed very formally.

Monica looked around and was about to find an empty seat to sit down when she suddenly spotted an acquaintance she had just met. After hesitating for a moment, she walked over and sat down next to the thin young man with strange white hair. She greeted him:
"Good morning, Mr. Alesu."

The latter looked at her in surprise, and just as he was about to shout, he realized something and lowered his voice:
"Ms. Monica, I didn't expect you to come to this wedding."

"I'm here to collect folk songs. How can I be absent from such an occasion?"

She answered, waving the notebook in her hand.

"Me too," Alesu smiled and replied, "I have long wanted to use a wedding as the plot twist and climax of the adventure novel I was about to publish. Unfortunately, no one in the city has gotten married in the past few months, so I can't find suitable material. I didn't expect there to be a group wedding all of a sudden..."

Novel material…Monica was stunned.

She had met Mr. Alesu in a bar three days ago, when she was chatting with a few locals and trying to find out stories that could be used as content for a travelogue. The young man, who claimed to be a novelist, joined in the conversation and began to promote his unpublished adventure novel.

But those stories sound like Ms. Fors Wall's long series. Isn't this suspected of plagiarism... Monica thought to herself and took over the conversation:

"Will this make your story too complicated? I remember you said that this novel contains daily stories in small cities, political conspiracies and huge crises in the capital of a great country, as well as adventures at sea, grudges with pirate generals and kings, treasure hunting, training subordinates, building a fleet, and even a plot of returning to the capital to take revenge on the nobles... Are you planning to write a series?"

Based on Monica's experience of writing third-rate romance novels, she knew that such an overly complicated story would not be liked by most readers, or in other words, it was not "popular" enough.

The white-haired Alesu shook his head and said excitedly:

"No, this is just the content of the first book. I will decide whether to write three or seven parts depending on how popular it is. Of course, it would be even better if I could sign a long-term serialization contract..."

One... Monica opened her mouth, not knowing what to say.

But out of their brief friendship over the past few days, this former novelist and current travel writer still gave some tips:
"I think it's too compact to put such complex content in one movie, and it's easy to lose the focus. You can write these plots separately into... well, seven parts. The first part is a small city, such as the daily story of Yharnam, and then slowly add adventure plots. In the end, after the protagonist sacrifices many companions and barely defeats the villain, he discovers a bigger conspiracy, which leads to the subsequent story.

“Then you can have the protagonist go to a big city to gain experience and pursue the truth behind the conspiracy…go out to sea to avoid being hunted down, make friends, look for treasures, and make more enemies…after growing up, return to the big city to seek revenge, and finally kill the enemy with the help of new and old friends, and end the whole story in a grand wedding!”

Asule's golden eyes sparkled and his expression became more and more surprised:
“Ms. Monica, you are really… I don’t know how to describe it, this plot arrangement is really great!

"Do you mind if I use this as the plot line for my novel?"

"Of course I don't mind. I hope to see your masterpiece published soon."

Monica replied calmly that she had such crude inspirations at random, but she lacked the writing skills, patience and opportunity to write them into concrete content. If she could help a new writer with this, she would be happy for it.

Seeing Alesu writing quickly on his notebook with his head down, she looked around and found that more and more guests were attending the wedding, including many people she had no impression of and who did not seem to belong to Yharnam City.

Strange, isn't this a local group wedding? Why are there so many outsiders participating... Fortunately, most of the people are locals... Her eyes stayed on a young girl in a plain white dress, with her legs dangling in the air in front of a bench, looking up and chatting with another woman next to her. It took her a while to remember that these were the sisters Huang Nini and Huang Beibei who lived on the same street as the "Iris" hotel and inherited the grocery store of their missing father.

……

Feeling the gazes coming from every corner of the prayer hall, the "Mysterious Queen" Bernadette frowned slightly, regretting showing up at the wedding.

If Sister Annie hadn't come too... She secretly glanced at the girl next to her who was a head shorter than her but ten times her age. She found that she was staring ahead, so she looked over there curiously.

Wearing a well-tailored suit to cover his fat belly, a silk hat on his head, and a brass-framed monocle in his right eye, Geldruf Amon was sitting on another bench, admiring the huge murals on both sides of the hall with interest.

Noticing Anne and Bernadette looking at him, he pushed up his glasses that were about to fall off and said with a smile:

“I really just came to check it out.

"The mural that was stolen the day before yesterday was not stolen by me, and look, isn't it back where it was?"

I haven’t asked anything yet… stolen murals?

Bernadette shook her head and looked away, then whispered to Anne:

"Sister Annie, the natives of this city don't seem to have real lives."

After being promoted to "Sage", she gained a new understanding of the existence of the world and could easily discover the essence of things around her. But even so, she only had doubts about the existence of the thousands of residents in this city of Yharnam, and could not really confirm that they were all "false" existences.

"Most of them are secret dolls, but there are also real humans. This may be required for some kind of ritual."

Anne replied calmly, her eyes left Amon and looked towards the church door, waiting for the protagonist of today's wedding to appear.

Suddenly, a middle-aged man of medium build and bronze skin, which was rare locally, walked into the wedding scene. He took off his hat and tucked it under his arm, raised his head to glance at the holy emblem deep in the church, found an empty seat and sat down, blending into the crowd.

Another angel... Anne, who could identify the specific "location" of Beyonders, frowned, then relaxed and recognized the other party.

The hatred of the past has long been eliminated in the long river of time, and now everyone is just a guest at the wedding.

Moreover, the angels present could not be counted on one hand, not including this one.

Compared to this matter, she was more looking forward to her contractor's appearance today.

……

The "Archon of Death" Azik Eggers sat down on an empty seat on the bench near the door, smiled at the person who made room for him, and then swept his eyes across the entire hall, lingering on several guests for a moment, and recognized many familiar faces.

There was Adele Trunsoest, the “Balancer”, who blocked the advance of the “Death God” army with her lone ship during the “Pale Disaster”; there was Bernadette Gustave, the “Mysterious Queen” who may have become an angel; there was Antigonus, the “Half-Fool”, who covered his wolf-haired face with a hood; there was a red-haired man who looked like a fallen archangel from the Fourth Epoch…

Some of these people didn't have a good relationship with each other, some had a high reward on the wanted list, and some had long since disappeared from Azik's memory, but appeared here miraculously. It was all because of them... Thinking of this, Azik's mouth curled up slightly, revealing a gratified smile.

The next second, his smile disappeared from his face, the light around him dimmed, and a dark-haired woman wearing a simple linen robe and a bark belt around her waist appeared beside him.

She stood out like a crane among chickens, but no one reacted to her except Azik.

"Ms. Arianna."

Azik picked up his hat, pressed it to his chest, bowed slightly and greeted him.

The angel of the Church of Evernight had pursued him for a while, but suddenly gave up after expelling him from Backlund. It was not until he saw the god in the mausoleum of the "God of Death" Salinger that Azik began to understand the arrangements behind everything and no longer had any hatred for the angel.

"Mr. Azik Eggers, I'm glad to see you awaken from your sweet dream instead of being immersed in it."

Arianna responded calmly.

"No matter how beautiful a dream is, it is just a dream. And what I dreamed of is about to happen. How can I miss it?"

Azik smiled and said.

He hurried here from the Southern Continent just for this wedding that he had experienced countless times in his dreams but that always left him with regrets.

As for what happened to the body of the previous "God of Death" Gray Carrie in the depths of the kingdom of the dead, although it was important, it was not urgent and could be dealt with later.

Hearing his answer, Arianna nodded slightly, and her figure disappeared as if erased by an eraser. The dimness beside Azik that absorbed the light also quickly dissipated and returned to normal.

Just then, a young couple walked into the church arm in arm, causing many people to quickly look away, only to find that they were not the newlyweds at today's wedding.

Even so, everyone's eyes stayed on them for a moment. The tall and thin man's romantic temperament like a poet and his appearance like a magazine cover character made many women present fantasize about him. The young woman he was holding had sweet features and a slim figure under her long skirt that made all the men stare at her.

……

Unexpectedly, as soon as she entered the church, she attracted almost everyone's attention. Sherman blushed and lowered her head. Leonard beside her quickly glanced around and found an empty seat. When he was about to take Sherman there, he suddenly found a familiar middle-aged man sitting on the bench by the door.

It took him a while to find the other person's identity in his memory: Azik Eggers, Klein Moretti's history teacher when he was at the University of Tingen.

If it weren't for the fact that the Tingen Nighthawks had a brief contact with this teacher during the incident in which the Antigonus family notes caused the deaths of several students, Leonard would not have had any impression of him at all.

But since we met, we couldn't go without saying hello. Leonard came up to the bronze-skinned man with some Southern Continent ancestry and greeted him:

"Mr. Eggers, are you also coming to this group wedding?"

He was somewhat confused. He came here to attend the wedding of "Dwayne Dantès" and "Christine Theresa" because he had received a notice from Klein and had just finished handling a case involving cult followers, so he had a two-week vacation. But how could the other party know that the newlyweds were Klein and Angel?
You know, these two are still buried in Raphael Cemetery in Tingen City!
"Yes, there are people I know here."

The history teacher in formal attire nodded slightly and replied, then he looked behind him and Sherman and said:
"Your colleagues didn't come?"

"Who?" Leonard asked in surprise.

"Dunne, Frye, Siga, Coenle, Roxanne..." Leonard's expression became more surprised every time Azik said a name. "Hehe, they may not know me, but in a certain dream, they and I are all good friends."

In the dream... Leonard chewed on this word carefully, and after a moment he forced a smile and said:
"They all stayed in Tingen and didn't know about the wedding."

Unless Klein and Angel confirm that his "resurrection" will not pose a threat to them - he added in his mind, and then hurriedly said goodbye to the teacher who behaved a little strangely, and took Sherman to sit in the empty seat.

In his mind, the old voice of Pales Zoroast said jokingly:
"I didn't expect that this 'Archon of Death' would also come to attend the wedding... Take a closer look, there are quite a few angels here. No wonder you were allowed to attend this wedding. Even Amon now would not dare to disturb this wedding, otherwise I would have a chance to return to Sequence 1 again."

The Archon of Death... the angel that the Tarot Club Investigation Team has been looking for... are there other angels here? Leonard's expression was a little stiff, causing Sherman beside him to look over curiously and ask softly:
"What's wrong? What's the problem with that gentleman just now?"

"No, no problem," Leonard replied immediately, his voice as soft as a whisper, "I was just thinking... after your Miss Angelica gets married, should we also consider this matter..."

As he spoke, he straightened his back and sat upright.

The saint of the Church of Night had a tense expression in the eyes of the angels, as nervous as a newcomer who had just joined the Night Watchers.

……

Looking at Leonard, who was as quiet as a quail, and Sherman, who looked bewildered, Angel chuckled and looked at Klein, who was dressed as a wandering magician, and said:
"Everyone is almost here, can we start?"

"Of course, Vivian."

Klein pretended to be serious and spoke to the female assistant with long brown-red hair, wearing a women's vest and knee-length skirt. He took a breath when the other party suddenly kneaded the soft flesh on his waist. He quickly strode out from the corner of the church and walked to the center of the red-carpeted hall. He said loudly:
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! I am the wandering magician Merlin Hermes. I believe that you have already known me and seen my clumsy magic performances during this period.

"Invited by the mayor and the Archbishop of the Church of Fools, I am responsible for creating some popular moments for today's grand wedding...

"First of all, let us welcome today's newcomers!"

As he finished speaking, the cane in his hand pointed toward the main entrance of the church, and everyone's eyes naturally looked there.

But no one appeared outside the open door. Only the pigeons that could be seen everywhere in the town square kept jumping around beside the fountain, looking for lost grains of wheat.

Dove... dove?
Everyone's puzzled gaze returned to the church, looking at Merlin, who was wearing a windbreaker and a top hat with a ribbon on it.

Suddenly, a flash of fire appeared before their eyes and they heard the crackling sound of explosions.

One after another, figures appeared on the red carpet following the firelight.

(End of this chapter)