Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 23 Church Physician
The screen flickered.

This was after the great plague had ended.

The plague ultimately did not break the man; it at least left him with a last glimmer of hope, namely his daughter.

……

In the aftermath of the plague, in the city of Nanwei, which was in dire need of rebuilding, Robben worked even harder than usual.

Two years later, he and his wife saved up enough money to take over a shop and became a butcher in the neighborhood. Because of his honest and simple nature, his shop had a good reputation among the neighbors.

Life is getting better day by day.

Robben was grateful that he did not give up during the pandemic, and his daughter, as his only source of emotional support, helped him get through the most difficult period.

Robben takes his daughter to church in the city every week. In his mind, this family, which should have been broken apart, was saved by the church. Without the healing provided by the church, his family might have died long ago.

Like the vast majority of the people after the plague, Robben became one of the most devout believers in the church.

He donated all of his income, except for the portion he saved for his daughter's education, to the church.

Moreover, Robben strictly adhered to church doctrines. He was self-disciplined, neither smoking nor drinking, and did everything possible to reduce his personal expenses to provide his daughter with the best living conditions.

……

But then one day, my daughter fell ill.

Robben took his daughter to find the church doctor from the time of the plague.

After a series of examinations and treatments, the doctor told Robben that his daughter was fine and there was no need to worry too much.

When Robben got home, he found that his daughter was like a different person. She didn't speak or eat, and just sat blankly in the room. No matter how Robben and his wife tried to comfort her, she didn't react.

That night, a heavy rain fell in Nanwei City.

Robben delivered the ingredients ordered by the law enforcement office as usual, and then hurriedly returned home in the rain.

The moment he pushed open the door, he witnessed a scene that felt like a nightmare.

……

Then, the daughter lunged at Robben with a ferocious expression.

Robben grabbed her and smashed her to death.

He went mad from that moment on.

……

He spent several hours cleaning up all the bloodstains in the house and disposing of and burying his wife's remains.

Afterwards, Robben carried his dead daughter back to the room and, as usual, lulled her to sleep.

He then went to the church that very night to find the doctor. He told the doctor that his daughter had fallen ill and begged the doctor to save her.

After the doctor visited Robben's home and assessed his condition, he told him to stay home and wait for news.

……

Late at night the following day, the doctor took the initiative to visit Robben and led him to an abandoned shelter on the outskirts of the city.

In front of Robben, he dragged the largest corpse out of the pile of mummies and injected it with some kind of scarlet liquid.

Soon after, the mummified corpse came back to life.

"See? I can cure any disease, as long as you follow my instructions."

These are the original words of the church doctor.

……

From then on, Robben followed the doctor's instructions completely.

He dug out that hiding place in the sewers and, following the list provided by the doctor, worked with the Shroud Monster to hunt down innocent citizens time and time again.

In Robben's delusional mind, his daughter was not dead, but just sick. He believed that as long as he did what the church doctor instructed, his daughter would recover.

Almost all of the murders were committed by Robben and the Shroud Man working together.

The carriage murder case.

The person driving the carriage at the time was not a coachman from the law enforcement office, but Robben himself.

The real groom has already been buried on the outskirts of the city.

On the outskirts of the city, the Shroud Man stopped the carriage and kidnapped Daisy.

Robben, acting as a butcher, gutted the horse, using the smell of its blood and entrails to distract the hunting dogs.

Throughout his series of crimes, Robben showed no mercy to any of his victims.

But that day on the outskirts of the city, as he was about to kill Daisy, he saw the image of his daughter in her. It was in that moment of confusion that the last shred of reason in his mind controlled the knife in his hand.

In the end, he couldn't bring himself to do it, and only ordered the strange man to kidnap Daisy.

By the time he brought the scent of horse blood deep into the wilderness on the outskirts of the city and returned to the abandoned shelter, Milo and Rebecca had already rescued Daisy, and Robben had come up empty-handed.

……

Then came the murder in the archives.

Robben maintained a regular relationship with the chefs in the law enforcement office kitchen, providing them with ingredients on a regular basis and frequently visiting the office.

On the day Daisy was brought back by Rebecca, Rebecca cleared out everyone on the second floor of the law enforcement office to prevent Milo from having too much contact with law enforcement officers.

It was precisely this arrangement that gave Robben an opportunity.

He broke into the law enforcement office's archives.

This time, Robben decided not to hesitate any longer.

He repeatedly told himself that no one in the world was more important than his daughter, and he was willing to pay any price to save her life, even if it meant harming innocent children...

But when he stood in the archives facing the trembling Daisy, he hesitated once again.

It was that moment of hesitation that caused them to miss the best opportunity to act. Rebecca and Milo arrived at the law enforcement office.

"Don't make a sound."

This is Robben's menacing threat to Daisy.

He then hid in the gaps between the stacks of file boxes in the archives.

Through the narrow gap, he saw Milo and Rebecca enter the room and ask Daisy about the situation.

Robben was already prepared to fight to the death. Once Daisy pointed out his presence, he rushed out and left Milo and Rebecca in the room.

To Robben's surprise, his threats worked.

Daisy didn't say a word from beginning to end, she just stared intently at Milo.

Even Milo eventually left the room because he couldn't stand Daisy's strange gaze.

……

What happened next was bloody and disgusting.

Having hesitated twice before, Robben finally made up his mind and took the knife to Daisy.

...

"grass!!"

"Cough cough cough cough!!!"

The somber scene slowly faded from Milo's view.

He knelt in front of the grave, coughing and vomiting incessantly, feeling as if he were being hoisted up and swung around countless times, his brain spinning endlessly inside his skull.

The view he saw from Robben's perspective finally settled on the door that had been closed after he and Rebecca left.

……

Milo didn't know why he could see Robben's experiences after he died, but after reviewing the events of that night in the archives from a completely unfamiliar third-person perspective, his mind was filled with endless frustration.

What if I had been just a tiny bit less dramatic back then?
What if I took Daisy out of the archives myself?
I doubt the ending will turn out like it did in reality.

……

"Plop, puff, puff..."

Milo could hear his heart pounding, and he could even feel every blood vessel in his body throbbing in rhythm with his heartbeat.

However, the psychological discomfort far outweighed the physical sensations.

Although Rebecca had told him about Daisy, that the little girl was out of danger and would never have to worry about food or drink again, she was ultimately completely blind.

……

By this time, the white candles in front of Robben's tombstone had burned down to almost half their original length.

Milo wiped it out cleanly this time.

Even though he knew that Robben had gone completely insane during the last month of his life, and that Robben at that time was not the same Robben who delivered supplies to the shelter every day five years ago.

But as the Day of the Dead proverb says, death is a reflection of life, a supplement to the meaning of life.

Robben's death cannot erase the sins he committed during his lifetime.

Milo had no obligation to light the candle at his grave.

Suddenly, his eyes flashed.

"It's this totem."

After the candle was extinguished, the grotesque totem on the tiled surface, which was in the shadow of the candlelight, became clearly visible. It was painted by Milo himself before he fell into the bizarre dream. At this time, the totem was covered with a new layer of dew, and the totem was gradually destroyed by the squeezed water droplets.

The real manipulator behind Robben, the faceless church doctor, what he really wanted was this totem.

He used Robben to organize the ceremony.

Robben's daughter had long since died.

As for the true use of totems, Milo has already experienced it firsthand.

He saw the deceased's past.

Regardless of the underlying principle, Milo truly "saw" the tragic life of the grave's owner, Robben.

……

The problem is that in this dream, Milo was unable to see the church doctor's true face during his pursuit, because the man always wore a mask and a church official's cloak, making him completely unrecognizable.

"At least one thing is certain: the church is definitely not a good thing."

Milo muttered to himself.

The truth behind this series of murders was far more bizarre and convoluted than any possibility he had previously considered.

Great plague, blood therapy, church, ritual.

These factors are present throughout the entire event, and their presence can be found upon careful examination.

Why would Robben's daughter, a plague patient who had successfully recovered from the plague five years after the Great Plague ended, suddenly turn into a mad beast?

"hiss!"

Whenever Milo pondered for even a moment, the scene from Robben's perspective that he had just witnessed would flash through his mind, followed by a sharp, stabbing pain.

This was many times more intense than the stinging sensation he had experienced after dreaming of the murder scene.

"I can't believe it... Oh my god."

He staggered to his feet. By then, people on the open ground below the hillside had lit a bonfire, and many people were sitting around it.

Milo walked a few steps toward the campfire, then turned back and wiped away the totem on the tile panel in front of the tombstone.

(End of this chapter)