Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

The porthole was nailed shut and the door had been locked for a day. It was impossible for anyone else to be in such a small place.

But I still felt like someone was watching me.

Looking at me, that sight is very familiar, how can sight make people feel familiar? I had this feeling when I first boarded the ship, and those old sailors told me that it was an illusion caused by mental tension, but this time it was different, different, completely different, this time I clearly felt that I was not the only one in this room. There were other people, here, somewhere.

I have to record everything here.

I feel my consciousness becoming blurry.

No one knocked on the door during this period. I don't know what the situation is outside. There are obviously many people on this ship, but it's as quiet as death these past two days, as if everyone has disappeared. The thing that speaks with Zanoba's voice may still be at the door, or it may have left. I don't know. If I have to, I will open the door and go out. No matter what the situation is outside, it's better than starving to death.

Am I really the only one here?

My mind is clear, sharper than ever before, my vision is wide, unobstructed by anything, I am not tired, still high even after a sleepless night, food and water are not exhausted, I still have time. I want to find that thing, the one in the room, the one I don't know what it is - not under the bed, not in the corner, not under the table, not in the empty food box.

where is it?

[The water stains soaked through the paper, making the middle pages unrecognizable. The middle part lacked ink, and it looked like there wasn't much written on it. However, the remaining recognizable parts had extremely distorted fonts, making it quite difficult to recognize.]

where is it?

Feel it. Me. There.

look at me.

Nearby. Within reach. In front of us.

correct.

there.

[The ink stops here.]

[The part further back does not seem to be stuck by water stains and dirt, and can be easily turned over.

The text behind is unusually neat.

The text behind it does not seem to be written in ink. 】

On the third Friday of the Snow Moon, the "Lady Ivita" ran aground. Why is there someone watching me on the sea of ​​clouds? The discussion among companions about the grounding phenomenon has not yielded any results, and the most urgent task is to watch me. To get out of this situation, we must be prepared to leave the cabin and confirm what is blocking our ship and preventing us from moving forward. The engine has been shut down by the machinery department, and forcing it to run will only cause a malfunction, but who is willing to watch me? Get off the ship to check in this situation? Only the outside of the airship is watching me. The pitch black is watching me. The poisonous cloud is really watching me now. Is it daytime? This airspace is watching me. It seems to be watching me. Different from what I remember, I don't know what is watching me. What's going on?

I don't understand anything anymore.

The captain stood at his seat, he had hung himself with his tie on the beam above the seat, looking at me. He had been dead for two weeks, and he was looking at me even after he died, saying "wait for rescue", and the rescue he was waiting for was looking at me. It had arrived.

Zabano is watching me. Watching me from the door of this room. He's watching me like a sack. Hanging on a post, his head hanging from a nail for paintings, he's watching me from here. Knocking on the door.

Nell is braver than us, she is looking at me. A man walked out of the damaged cabin.

Now, she's back, looking at me.

Now, here she is. Watching me.

She was looking at me from behind the lamp switch.

I saw it, her eyes were looking at me.

The light from the desk lamp was getting dimmer and dimmer, but her pupils were still reflecting that beautiful light.

Right there, looking at me.

Looking at me.

Looking at me.

Looking at me.

Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at you. Watching you. Watching me. Watching me. Watching you. Watching me. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you. Watching you.

Looking at you.

Watching You.

……

"Looking at you?"

The Danu language uses crude words, has no complicated grammar and no awkward vocabulary, and every paragraph is easy to understand.

But when they are put together, it is difficult to understand their meaning.

Among the parts that can be viewed, the handwriting is clear and the narrative is organized at the beginning. The handwriting becomes more and more sloppy and frantic as you turn the pages, which makes people doubt the mental state of the recorder. The traces of ink also become intermittent. Considering that no ink bottle or the like was found in the room, it is unlikely that the recorder was a professional who could make ink by himself. Perhaps at the end of the writing, the ink in the pen was about to run out, as if he was making a desperate attempt.

Near the end, the handwriting was so chaotic that it was beyond the bottom line of being a text. It was either huge and sloppy, more like an abstract picture than a character, or a crowded, blurry block of ink. No matter which one it was, it took a lot of effort to read it. Fortunately, at this time, the content of the record became much less than before, and the language ability of the writer seemed to have greatly decreased. Originally, even if the words were not very good, the coherence of the sentences could at least be guaranteed, and there were not many spelling errors. At this time, the writer seemed to have forgotten even the most basic knowledge of grammar. What was written was a combination of pure words, without connection or modification, only words with more or less spelling errors. The ink became lighter, and in some places, there were only deep indentations on the paper, the marks made by the pen tip.

And in the end, everything seemed to be turned upside down again.

The notes were more neat than even the first ones, written not in ink but in some darker liquid, with strange words and phrases and inexplicable repetitions.

Either way, it's hard to understand.

Incomprehensible and disturbing.

When I turned to the next page——

What appears there is not text.

Not even paper.

What appeared there was a wet, half-dissolved eyeball.

Dull and colorless.

He just stared at the person who turned the pages of the book with a dull look.

"—!"

Snapped!

Caught off guard, Lunicia's wrist trembled involuntarily, and then there was the sound of a hard object falling to the ground.

It seemed that the thing that fell to the ground was not the tattered, old, water-soaked book in Lunicia's hand that seemed to be rotting, but something else, something more solid, paler, softer, more complex, more bizarre, and more special.

What fell on the floor was not a book.

It was a male skull that had rotted away to the point that only a little scalp and an eyeball remained.

"Ella!"

Before issuing a warning cry, Lunicia had already raised the white blade in her hand - the blade of "The Avenger" trembled slightly, as if it felt something, without any emotion. Ella also drew out the purple and black swords again, crossed "Sin" and "Punishment" in front of her, and took a standard defensive stance. Only Ashethelin did nothing, as if she was watching the situation.

The place where they were was no longer a Nasaran-style corridor.

This is a narrow and dim room.

There weren't many things here, just beds for prisoners that looked like iron plates hung on the wall, rotten bedding, a crude and unusable table, empty food and water containers, completely rusted pens, and a desk lamp.

Broken lamp.

The place where the switch should be under the non-luminous desk lamp is now empty.

There was only a melted eyeball placed in the empty slot, dull and bloodless, with a dull look in its eyes.

It turned and gurgled, turning towards the direction where there were people.

Looking at you.

He said so.

Crunching! The rotten skull opened and closed its upper and lower jaws.

No, where is the rotting skull? There is nothing there, only an empty room. An empty bed, an empty table, an empty floor, an empty box, an empty pen holder, no corpse, no books, no melted eyeballs, only those inorganic and lifeless dead things. Everything seems different from the beginning. No matter how I hold the magic weapon in my hand, no matter how I pose, no matter how I let the holy power flow in my body, I can't change that feeling, that trembling feeling, the feeling that something is changing, the feeling that something is awakening.

The crow still held the handle of the lantern in its beak. The overly bright light shone on the three people, casting long, narrow shadows like cloaks on them.

——Look, look there.

The girl seemed to be lying on his shoulder, the invisible girl hooked his neck, as if she wanted to strangle this slender neck at any time, but also as if she was caressing him gently. She was not a lover, nor a stranger, nor a passer-by, but just whispered in his ear, speaking words with the temperature of fire.

Look, where?

At the instigation of the unknown words, his neck began to move like a puppet.

The line of sight also shifted to the dim and mottled wall.

There, there is a shadow.

Not the shadow of Lunitia, not the shadow of Ashlee, not the shadow of Ella Hepper.

It's a shadow standing there that doesn't belong to anyone.

Like a shadow, a person.

Chapter 15: Man-eating Shadow

The shadow of Lunicia, holding a white blade, would occasionally sway because of the dim flames jumping on the blade. The orange flames seemed to be woven into the shape of a palm, overlapping with the back of her hand, urging her to swing, to kill, and to destroy everything in front of her.

Ella's shadow carefully guarded the narrow corners, but it was just a ridiculous attempt. Their swords seemed too long in such an environment and it was impossible to wield them. What she did was just in vain, just like the shadow of the girl who hooked her arms mocked her.

Ashlee's shadow was long and steady, just like the impression her appearance gave people, too delicate, so delicate that people could not help but have the illusion that she was not a puppet made of mechanisms, but flowers and leaves carved from black iron. Her wait-and-see attitude inevitably made Ella Hepper unhappy, but the latter could not blame her for anything. After all, she herself did not feel anything either.

She didn't feel it, it was as if her sword was deliberately looking at her embarrassed expression. She could clearly tell her, but she chose to say nothing.

Something is wrong here.

Anyone could tell that in the blink of an eye, they had changed their position and returned to that strange, dark and terrifying environment. Their backs were trembling, their uneasiness was swelling, their hearts seemed to be trembling, and the black turbidity was spreading. Everything here seemed to be wrong, but so what? They could not see or hear anything. This place was extremely strange, yet extremely normal. There were no strange lights or shadows, no special noises. They, who were full of vigilance, seemed to be out of place here. Was this really the same place as before? Were there really enemies here? No one knew, and no one could give a specific answer. Where were the bodies? Where were the eyeballs? Where was the source of all the horrors?

Or maybe they never existed in the first place?

"Ella, destroy the wall!"

"clear."

Lunicia, who was always on the front line, behaved quite abnormally this time. Her body was tense and looked as stiff as the muscles in her arms. That was definitely not a normal posture. She was using too much strength to maintain an unnecessary posture. That was proof of her extraordinary vigilance, and it was also the fear itself that she herself could not recognize. The courage bestowed by God flowing in the body of the paladin can suppress fear. Its purpose is only to reduce the interference of fear on thinking ability, not to deprive fear itself. Fear is an avoidance of danger. The guidance of God is just to return it to normal, not to become food for danger. She is afraid, which means that there is a dangerous existence here.

what is that?

Even Ella couldn't figure it out.

Ella didn't think that the savior in her heart would be afraid of anything. Lacking imagination in this area, she naturally found it difficult to recognize what was happening now, so she subconsciously ignored some inconspicuous but real anomalies.

At least now, she doesn't need to worry about so many things and just needs to do what Lunicia tells her to do.

when----!

What greeted her was only the dull sound of metal collision.

The indestructible black magic sword, which could cut through any shackles or split any armor, behaved like an unopened iron rod. All it could do was shake off some rust on the door frame, leaving a mark. The recoil made Ella's wrist numb, and she couldn't help but frown at this unexpected situation.

"Mrs. Luna, I can't do this!"

"Get out first!"

The original intention was to allow Ella to widen the battlefield and make the area less restrictive, but now it seems to have completely failed.

If everything here is like this, even the most advanced magic weapons are difficult to destroy, which is undoubtedly a very bad situation for Lunicia. Her huge sword of exaggerated size will be difficult to swing if there is not enough spacious space. Normally, she can rely on her supernatural strength to forcibly cut off all obstacles in front of the blade, but if the obstacle itself is indestructible, then the original shortcomings will be magnified.

——Can the "Death Sword" make the blade become virtual? Why haven't I ever heard Sister Systin talk about how to deal with this situation?

Lunicia was complaining in her heart, but of course, she was paying more attention to the "enemy" in front of her.

But can that really be called an "enemy"?

Even though cold sweat rolled down her forehead and her body trembled slightly due to excessive tension, she still just held the sword upright, paying attention to the evacuation of the other two companions, while slowly moving her steps and retreating little by little. Compared with the clear strong enemies, dragons, liches, and evil gods, even if those existences were far superior to Lunicia, they could not make her feel so strongly uneasy. The existence in front of her that she could not understand made her even unable to think of what to do.

Just like it felt on the bridge of the Duke of Candiano.

I felt no hostility, no desire to attack, and even no sense of what was in front of me. There was only the lingering feeling of danger like a thorn in my side.

It was different from being on the bridge.

There's really nothing there.

There was only a shadow on the wall whose gender and appearance could not be determined.

The shadow was thick and dark, and it must be someone with a definite entity. If we judge by the shadow on the wall, there should be someone standing in front of Lunicia now, and that person may have come into contact with Lunicia's blade, been pierced, cut, and chopped off. But none of this happened. There was nothing there. Only the thick black shadow left on the wall could prove that something was illuminated by the light.

Not moving, not acting, not doing anything, "he" seemed only to be watching, watching with a "gaze" that contained nothing in Lunicia's sense.

How do you defeat something that doesn't exist?

How should I swing the sword and what magic should I cast?

Can this set of armor obtained from Muirand protect himself, can this sword obtained from the Divine Court cut off the enemy, and can he guarantee the safety of the people behind him?

Lunicia's thoughts were in a mess - the situation before her was not enough for her to make any accurate judgment. All she could do was to retreat as if running away, but her speed was only a few points slower than running for her life.