The Secret Code of Monsters.

Chapter 1020 Ch1019 Sailor, Ship's Doctor, Tom Linus

Chapter 1020 (Ch.1019): Sailor, Ship's Doctor, Tom Linus

Roland thought it was a routine task.

Deloz too.

The petite girl carried a heavy leather bundle on her back, her gaze sweeping from left to right and right to left across the street—this was the first time in the past two weeks that she had officially stepped out of Daniel's workshop: since the outbreak of the epidemic, Charles Babbage and Mr. Daniel had strictly forbidden anyone from going out, even food and drink had to be delivered to the door.

The artisans were drunk all day long, so they had an endless supply of whiskey.

"It sounds very cheerful."

Roland helped Delos up, and the two quietly walked around a rotting corpse in the corner: his daughter was clinging to his maggot-infested arm, her lips cracked, staring longingly at the two who had pulled him past.

Roland guessed that she wanted to say, 'Please give me some money,' but she didn't know what to do with the money.

The streets were filled with family members accompanying the corpses, or corpses accompanying the corpses of their family members. They waited for the bird-faced man from the Bureau of Inspection to blow his whistle at some point, and then, as if gathering souls, carry a lantern and a powder jar to turn the streets white again.

The scene was very oppressive.

At least Deloz felt a bit nauseous.

"...Will things get better?"

"what?"

“I mean, us. Roland. Will we be alright?” The girl had read many newspapers. The impassioned, dramatic print wasn't as impactful or real as reading reality with her own eyes—the newspapers only said that the citizens of London were ‘united’ and ‘everyone had mustered the courage to fight the disease’—

They didn't muster up their courage.

It was just that they weren't prepared and weren't quite at ease facing death.

“I don’t know, Deloz.”

Roland lowered his voice.

The sound of their shoes treading on the stone path seemed like a desecration of the quiet and sorrow: when those numb or bewildered eyes looked over, Deloz felt as if he had been shot, and all the joy he had felt after seeing Roland vanished completely from the leaky hole in his forehead.

"...The newspapers called for the 'cutting away' of the 'rotten' parts of the city."

The girl moved closer to Roland and whispered.

"Drive them to the suburbs."

“I don’t think they’re joking, Deloz.”

"Yes, I don't think so either—my sister wrote to me, telling me to 'stay put' at Daniel's workshop... If I really get sick, even if I survive, I'll be tortured to death by the people in the newspapers..."

At this point, Roland thought of Deloz's sister, Gilles Fonseca.

Didn't Fernandez take her to court?

"Thank goodness you're not the presiding judge."
-
Why do you say that?

"That's a courtesan."
-
What's the difference between an executive officer and a CEO?
"You're a really good executive."

One of the most frequently appearing names in the newspapers lately is 'Falcon Potts'—the deputy director of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. He himself has called on the police, the city government, and even newspapers to order the Queen to swiftly 'cut away the rotten flesh' of London and protect those who have not yet been infected.

His 'mercury vaporizer' could delay the time it takes for poison to kill him to some extent, and that alone was enough to elevate his name above Williams Jenner's.

“…Mr. Daniel lost his temper and said some very hurtful things,” Deloz sighed.

Most of the people in the workshop are from the Grey Party faction.

And the recent actions of the Grey Party…

They're not that popular.

Merchants in London raised prices on almost everything they could hoard and inflate. Before mercury and lime even had a chance to "shine," their prices had already skyrocketed—even a research-obsessed girl like Deloz wouldn't believe that this wasn't foreshadowed by Falcon Potts.

That is impossible.

"If I were the queen, I would hang him up, strip him naked, and whip him!"

“I remember you said that the Grey Party is ‘more advanced’ than the Secret Party in every way, Miss Congressman,” Roland teased her.

"...I regret it now." What's the difference between them? It's just that the progressive harms people and the conservative harms people.

Deloz paused suddenly as he spoke.

"Roland—?"

At the end of the long street, after two more turns, you'll reach the church fountain.

A loose, low ponytail, gray hair and gray eyes like a galaxy.

Roland saw someone he knew.

"Mr. Linus?"

He called softly to the man who was standing with his hands behind his back, staring blankly at the church spire.

Tom Linus.

The fortune teller encountered in the "Severed Club," the ritualist on the path of "destiny."

He stared intently until Roland called his name repeatedly, at which point he slowly turned his head, just as surprised as Roland had been to him.

“…Collins…Mr. Collins?” He frowned, trying to recall Roland’s surname. Fortunately, the other man’s face was so rare that it was unforgettable at first glance. “Mr. Roland Collins, I hope I haven’t misremembered your name…that would be worse than a disaster.”

Roland led Delos forward and gently introduced his friend to him.

What are you doing here?

“Fortune-telling, Mr. Collins. What can we, these ants swept forward by the waves of fate, do if we want to struggle?” He was unlike the 'standard gentleman' Delos had ever seen, respectable yet different from the 'rough men' in the workshop—

Elegance and eccentricity are the opposite of neatness; the disordered rise and fall of the notes is like a tuneless piano.

Those eyes were misty.

"I hope for a good outcome," Roland replied dismissively.

Even now that he understands the existence of "fate," he still doesn't really like it.

“That depends on whose ‘good result’ it is—for the citizens of London, I think it is certainly an eye-opening result…Where are you going?” Linus stared at him, thoroughly intrigued.

"Business, church."

"Then I won't bother you any longer..."

Roland thought for a moment, then added, "You should go home and wait until the plague is over before coming out again. We haven't yet determined the transmission route and source of the toxin..."

Tom Linus suddenly brought up the church, pointing to the spire in the distance.

"If the sun is a creation of God, it should shine forever in the despair of mortals... right?"

"Mr. Linus?"

Tom Linus smiled meaningfully: "We all have to do our duty as sailors on the waves. May you overcome it, accept it... Do you prefer being a sailor or a ship's doctor?"

Even after Roland led Delos half a block away, the girl would occasionally turn back to look at that straight shadow.

"...I don't really like him."

Deloz muttered.

That man's eyes were different from Roland's.

Like a cold, thin moon and a warm, sunny sun.

A bit...

Scary.

"All those who perform rituals on the path of 'destiny' are like this."

“Fate? Roland, you say he has the ability to ‘predict the future’? Those mystical pronouncements?”

"Maybe."

Roland gazed at the pretty girl in front of the church, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"But precisely because we don't know the future..."