Mystery: Good Witch

Chapter 1403 The last step

Long before the outbreak of the world war that led to the fall of the "God of War," Hugh the "Judgment" took advantage of the death of George III and the ascension of the new king to the throne to officially join the military intelligence agency "MI9" of the Kingdom of Rune. With the help of the Tarot Society, he successfully completed many seemingly impossible tasks, rose step by step, and eventually became the deputy director.

This allows her to uncover the truth behind her father, Earl Mason Deer's, wrongful death and clear her family's name. On the other hand, during the war and the battles against enemy spies and evil cults, Hugh can also rationally digest potions, "accidentally" seize the potion materials she needs, or use her merits to exchange for corresponding rewards and complete promotions.

Now, although she is only the deputy director, she has become the highest-ranking Extraordinary in MI9. Even her superior, the director of MI9, is only a "Chaos Hunter" of Rank 3, which is comparable to Hugh before his promotion.

The general had hinted several times that Hugh should succeed him to avoid the awkward situation of a saint being the superior of an angel. However, Hugh felt that her current position as deputy director was quite good. She had a certain amount of power to protect her family without taking on too much extra responsibility. As an angel, she did not need to rigidly follow orders from her superiors and had the authority to act independently. She was in a comfortable position.

Of course, the extraordinary events that couldn't be handled by others would eventually pile up on her desk, which could be considered a small side effect of power.

The document in front of Hugh is exactly like that.

The incident occurred more than two months ago during a raid on the spy outpost established by Intis's "Eighth Bureau" in Backlund. Two intelligence agents were killed in battle against the enemy's Extraordinary Ones. However, after MI9's support arrived and defeated the enemy, they discovered that one of their bodies had disappeared.

At first, they thought the intelligence officer was trying to fake his death to escape the organization. This was not uncommon for some members of the Ninth Division after they had accumulated a lot of unexpected wealth or obtained some important intelligence. The result usually pointed to treason. However, the other members of the combat team said that the missing man's neck was broken in half and his chest cavity was shattered. With his Sequence 8 ability, it was impossible for him to survive. It was definitely not faked death.

Subsequent on-site investigation confirmed this: the "deceased" left behind a large amount of blood, including fragments of internal organs, including half a heart. If it were a planned fake death, it would be impossible to achieve this.

However, the disappearance of the body, the extraordinary characteristics that should have been extracted, and a series of bloody footprints indicating that the intelligence officer had indeed come back to life and left the battlefield on his own.

Upon seeing this, Hugh frowned.

"Now that the 'Eternal Darkness' has been born and the Underworld has a new master, the probability of the dead becoming undead is very low. Even if such an event occurs, as long as the person is found and purified, they can be buried and given compensation according to normal procedures..."

She muttered to herself, flipping to the last page of the document, and noticed with surprise the difficulties the intelligence team had encountered in this matter:

The divination and prophecy concerning the "deceased" were all disrupted, and traditional tracking techniques lost most of their clues due to an untimely downpour, as if some force was deliberately covering up his whereabouts.

After two months of various attempts to cover things up, and just when it seemed the truth was about to be exposed, the case was finally passed on to higher authorities and ended up on the deputy director's desk.

Two months... If that "corpse" had truly come back to life and possessed a normal level of thinking, it would probably have already run off to the Southern Continent. The Kingdom of Rune's intelligence network there is very weak, and the newly restored regimes are even less likely to monitor all those entering the country. With the mystical methods ineffective, there's simply no way to investigate... Hugh silently complained a few times, his eyes scanning the documents back and forth for clues, when he suddenly noticed something.

The deceased fled the scene on the very night of the "Doomsday Battle".

Could there be the influence of an Outer God...? According to information shared within the Tarot Society, more than one Ancient One possesses the ability to resurrect those who have recently died. Could it be that the intelligence agent has secretly become a believer in the "Great Mother" or "Destiny"?

Hugh subconsciously denied this possibility. After all, the "ceasefire agreement" had only just taken effect. Since the Outer Gods hadn't turned against him then, it was unlikely that they would do anything to disrupt the short-term peace now.

But as someone in charge of an entire intelligence department, she knew that sometimes, just because a superior wants something doesn't mean the subordinates will completely obey orders. For example, this "resurrection of the dead" incident would be much easier to investigate if it had been handed over to her immediately after it happened.

In other words, even if those ancient beings do not want to restart the war, their followers may not be able to refrain from causing destruction within the Earth.

In short, matters concerning Outer Gods should be reported to Mr. Fool, and also to several angels in the royal family and the military. However, the Director should not be informed, as he is only a Sequence 3 and is not yet suitable to understand matters concerning Outer Gods... While pondering, he prayed to "Follower" in his office and reported that the deceased was suspected of being affected by the abilities of "Rebirth" or "Ring People".

A moment later, she opened her eyes in surprise.

Mr. Fool's voice still echoed in her ears:

"This is not the work of an Outer God, there is no need to worry."

The fact that a divine oracle was delivered so quickly suggests either that Mr. Fool is omniscient and omnipotent, instantly understanding the truth of the matter, or that the matter itself is related to Him, or other Great Old Ones on Earth… perhaps it was caused by a transaction or friction between great beings?

Having figured this out, Hugh immediately picked up a pen and wrote a few lines at the end of the document.

The case has been transferred to the Church of the Night for further investigation. The intelligence officer will be treated as a combat casualty as usual... That's fine. How could a little angel like me get involved in the affairs of the Old Ones... She closed the file and threw it into the desk drawer, leaned back in the recliner that completely enveloped her, and stared blankly at the ceiling.

After being promoted to angel and becoming the deputy director, she actually had less to do than before. Most of the operations did not require her participation, and the few cases that might involve conflicts with angels from other countries were mostly acquaintances, so it was difficult for actual battles to occur.

I might as well quit and let Fors take me on a world tour. She's been leaving early and coming home late lately, and she even asked me recently if it would be better if I changed careers and became a painter. Could it be that she's made some new friends outside...? Thinking of this, Hugh jumped up from the recliner, pushed open the office door, and walked through the quiet corridors and stairwells. He quickly arrived at the ground floor of MI9, then went up to the attic and reached a secluded room at the top.

As soon as he pushed open the door, a slightly noisy cacophony filled Xiu's ears: the swishing sound of sharp objects scraping through paper, the crackling of electricity, and the rumble of irregular mechanical collisions.

More than a dozen neatly dressed civilian staff members either sat in front of the massive equipment wearing headsets to listen to the telegrams, or flipped through codebooks through the holes in the paper tapes ejected by the machine. No one noticed the arrival of Hugh, the deputy director.

This is MI9's newly established "Radio Monitoring Group," responsible for monitoring the increasing number of radio communications throughout the Backlund region that do not belong to the military or major churches.

Unlike telegraphs, which required laying cables and prior registration and were limited to point-to-point transmission, the wireless transceivers that have emerged in recent years are much smaller, more convenient, harder to trace, and unregulated. They quickly spread from pirates and adventurers across the five seas to the northern continent, becoming popular in major cities. Many teachers and students of technical universities, believers in "steam" and amateur enthusiasts purchased or assembled their own telegraph machines with transceiver capabilities, capable of broadcasting over a radius of tens of kilometers, and began engaging in unregulated "remote chatting."

They also organized a "radio enthusiasts' alliance" to share technology and even began to study secret communication, forming isolated and undisturbed groups.

If it were just that, it wouldn't have been a headache for MI9, but they soon discovered that spies, wild extraordinary beings, and even ordinary criminal organizations hidden in Backlund and Loen had begun communicating via radio.

Therefore, they had to set up a completely new team specifically to monitor and crack radio signals in Backlund and the surrounding area, hoping to glean some intelligence from the occasional glimpses of mundane conversations to help MI9 solve criminal cases. Judging by how busy they were, this team would soon need to expand... The development of new technologies isn't necessarily a good thing for intelligence agencies, especially when we don't have that technology... Hugh sighed a few times, about to turn and leave, when a civilian employee sitting by the door noticed him. The latter looked delighted, took a few steps forward, saluted, and said:

"Sir, I have two things to report to you."

After receiving Hugh's approval, the middle-aged man, balding and so overweight that he could completely conceal her, continued:
"First of all, the radio direction finding towers that were secretly installed around Backlund last month have been completed. After testing, the method proposed by Ms. Melissa is completely correct. As long as three signal towers receive the signal at the same time, the sending location can be locked in a sufficiently accurate position, which is of great help to our intelligence work!"

"The team leader wants me to ask you whether we should make further contact with that Ms. Melissa Moretti. I mean... keep her under control as we usually do, to prevent these technologies from being..."

Upon hearing that name, Hugh felt an invisible force gripping his scalp, and his whole body went numb.

That's a sign of nervousness.

The image of the bronze table of the Tarot Society and the figures of two members who had become great beings instantly appeared in her mind.

“No, no need.” She immediately interrupted him, then took a deep breath, adjusted her mood and tone, and continued, “You can secretly contact her, no, her mentor, under the guise of the military, and provide some research funding, but don’t disturb that lady, don’t follow or monitor her, and definitely don’t try to ‘control’ her, understand?”

Her serious tone startled the man, who nodded and said, "I understand."

I hope you truly understand, otherwise, not only me, but even His Majesty the King cannot save you… Xiu let out a long sigh before continuing to ask:
"What's the one more thing?"

The man handed a telegram to Hugh and explained:

"This is a radio message I just received. It was sent in plain text and doesn't contain much information, but it uses several languages. Because the content is very strange, I used the latest radio direction finding to try and locate the source, but I couldn't find the other party at all... It's too far away, and it might not even be on the Northern Continent."

"Strange, with current technology, it's impossible to transmit radio waves over such a long distance..."

Listening to his subordinate's rambling, Hugh took the telegram and looked at the contents written in Rune script:
"Hello, New World."

It wasn't until the next Tarot meeting that Hugh learned the telegram came from the Western Continent.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

At midnight, Angel Gray appeared in the mist-shrouded port of Bansi.

It seemed a storm was about to break, but as soon as she looked up at the sky, the fog miraculously dissipated, and the already pale moon peeked out, casting its cool moonlight upon the silent island.

Every building in the port had collapsed, covered with charred marks. It looked more like it had been ravaged by lightning and thunder than burned down. The residents had long been relocated, and the entire island had become a paradise for wild animals. Various creatures could be seen wandering through the ruins, unafraid of the sudden appearance of Grey.

The latter walked step by step through the ruins, followed the path leading up the mountain beside the port, and finally arrived at the summit where a section of the mountain had been cut off and the whole thing was in a collapsed state. He stood next to an altar engraved with complex runes.

This is one of the locations where the power of the "City of Calamity" leaked through the seal when its main body was sealed in the Western Continent. A weather sorcerer from the Medici family ascended to a higher level here and left behind a sacrificial ritual that could communicate with the source matter and summon the power to change the weather. For thousands of years afterward, the native inhabitants here used this sacrificial ritual to quell the extreme weather left by the angel's ascension until it was completely destroyed by the Church of Storms.

Angel Granger first gained the power of the Source here, when a Storm Church bishop attempted to manipulate a ritual to control this power, triggering the "Calamity" spell. This spell infused Angel with the power and sent her to the Trier Catacombs, thousands of miles away, another leak point of the Source power.

Thus, Angel discovered the unique characteristics of this "time travel":

Because the "City of Calamity" is a symbol of the "Root of Calamity," it signifies the convergence of all disasters at different times and places. Even the cities in the mirror world are a collection of urban landscapes from various eras, including ancient cities before their destruction.

Based on this characteristic, after Angel teleports from the source energy leakage point in Bansi Port to Trier at the same time, and then returns from the leakage point there after three days, he can return to the "present" time point, with a difference of only about 10 minutes.

This is not true time travel, but rather a "retrospection" that utilizes both the characteristics of the "City of Calamity" and the uniqueness of the person in the mirror. What appears in Trier is essentially a mirror image of Angel. She only becomes her true self again when she returns to Bansi Port. Therefore, the two will not and cannot truly meet, nor will they create a conflict with the principle of uniqueness in mysticism.

This is also why Grey has been unable to use this kind of "time travel". She came to this timeline by using "rewind", so how could she travel through time again?

So, I've never been a part of this world, and now it's time to go back... Her gaze swept over the uneven, complex patterns on the ground, finally moving upwards and settling on the bright moon.

This is a completely different vision from that hopeless future.

"Do you remember what the final step was each time we traveled through time via the power leak points in various places of the 'City of Calamity'?"

Gray asked the question as if talking to himself, then chuckled and answered himself:
"Of course, we should go back to the starting point and form a closed loop..."

In that future where the barrier shattered, outer gods invaded, and Earth was on the verge of destruction, the "Lord of Mysteries," Klein, who lacked full power, and "God," Grisha, worked together to send her back to this point in time, ultimately saving everything and ending the apocalypse in what could be considered the best possible outcome.

But on another timeline, everything remains the same. When she returns, she will only face a shattered Earth, rampaging Outer Gods, and the fallen gods she knew.

That's my world, my future... Gray muttered to himself, just about to step onto the complex runes representing the power of the "City of Calamity," when he suddenly looked up at the sky.

Several familiar figures appeared at the same time, blocking out the moonlight.

(End of this chapter)