Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

How do adventurers live in the doomsday, what is the fate of the people, what is hidden in the lost history, and what is the world facing.

There are many things I want to say this time, so please look forward to it.

Chapter 2: The Confused Border

Lunitia Aguerre, twenty-one years old - such things are not important.

He was born in the pollution of Arkham's "Void" disaster, lost in the exile of New Arkham, and later adopted by Sieli, the current high priest of the Glorious Temple. Since then, he has been living in the atrium of the Central Cathedral, which is completely isolated from the outside world. As a holy knight, he has honed his martial arts and abilities, learned knowledge, and grown steadily.

Almost everyone who enters and leaves the Central Cathedral knows that there is a girl living alone in the atrium. However, almost no one knows that her true identity is not only a holy warrior of the Temple of God, but also the "Holy Maiden" of the Temple of Glorious God.

The position of the Saint of the Glorious Temple is not an inherited status, but a symbol of a randomly appearing "capable person" - they are actually humans or humanoids who can hear the words of the gods. Elves, dwarves, halflings, or dragonborn may all become saints, but this situation is extremely rare among the rare group of saints.

As people who can hear the whispers of God, their duty is to become a bridge of communication between God and man, to record God's words and convey them to man, or to express man's will to God. It is precisely because of this significance that they are often infused with virtues and kept away from filth and the temptation of power. People who know the existence of saints respect them, but this does not mean that their status is lofty. It can be said that they are a subtle and peculiar existence.

People respect the gods more than the middleman in front of them.

Even among the saints, Lunisia was the most peculiar existence—the average saint could only listen to the whispers of the gods in their own temple, but she could hear the voices of all twelve gods. Of course, only she knew about this, and the gods other than the three gods of the Glorious Temple never asked her to convey anything.

For Lunicia, this kind of life ended not long ago.

She didn't know when it started, but the voices of the twelve gods gradually became weaker and weaker. In the end, only Zelti, the god of light and thunder, and the Lord of the Glorious Temple were still talking to her. After the divine revelation of "going to the Waterwheel Canal", even Zelti's voice completely disappeared from her ears.

She could no longer hear the gentle whispers of the gods.

She reported the situation truthfully to her exclusive recorder, except for the sentence that made her deeply uneasy: "The gods themselves will eventually be unable to avoid the fate of extinction."

As a result, she lost her ability as a saint and was personally assigned by Zelti to lead the team to Shuichequ without knowing what she should do, and then the previous events happened.

……

The knights actually did not bring much luggage. As it was a secret mission, they were asked to travel as light as possible, and they did not receive many supplies along the way. These things were originally the subject of complaints by the knights during the journey, but they unexpectedly brought them convenience - if it were not for such requirements, they would probably have difficulty just transporting their luggage to the village entrance.

"Stop!" Several soldiers came out from the sentry post. They pointed their spears at the group of people without restraint. "What do you do? What are you doing here?"

They seemed aggressive on the surface, but both the inexperienced Lunicia and her knights could see at a glance that those soldiers were weak inside - they had no firm will flashing in their eyes, and the way they held their weapons was crooked. There was no doubt that they were just doing their job with a bad attitude.

"We are here on the orders of the Central Cathedral. Although this place is not a place favored by Zelti, we should still give you our full cooperation."

——Well, just say something like that...

Lunicia stepped forward, took out a document from her waist bag and handed it over. The man who looked like a squadron leader of the soldiers took it and unsealed it. He found that it was a very formal document of free passage from the Glorious Divine Court. Below it was the signature of the highest priest Sieli. You could vaguely see the golden holiness flowing on the signature. It was not something that could be forged.

Although she looked very serious, Lunicia was actually quite nervous. After all, it was her first time doing such a thing.

"Oh, sorry, sorry."

As if to cover up his own gaffe, the captain of the soldiers clenched his right fist in front of his mouth and then coughed heavily.

"You, uh, you can bring your men in and out of this...small village as you please. Even if you cause any commotion, uh, we will pretend not to see it."

"Hmm?" Lunicia frowned.

"Ah, no, it's nothing. In short, you can stay in a hotel in the village, or camp outside the village. If anything happens, we will try our best to cooperate, um, as much as possible..."

"Sir, you seem to have something to hide?" The Elf Knight April walked over from the team and asked in a polite but somewhat sarcastic tone, "If this village encounters any difficulties, our Zelti Knights are very willing to provide assistance. After all, helping others is the most important teaching of the Lord God."

This sentence made the captain's face turn ugly. When he was hesitating, the sentry next to him wanted to join the conversation: "Actually..."

"Actually!" The captain of the soldiers interrupted him quickly, "Uh, um... ahem, if possible, please don't report this matter to the lord, otherwise the situation of us ordinary soldiers stationed here will become not good..."

"No problem." Lunicia shook her head and adjusted her long black hair that fell on her cloak. "As long as we can solve the problem here, we don't need to report it to the lord here. So, you look so nervous, what problem did you encounter?"

"The story begins a few months ago..."

"You don't have to start from so long ago, just get to the point."

"Ah, so... strange things have been happening in this village recently, and the 13th Day of the Resurrection is coming soon. We have limited manpower stationed here, after all, this is a rural place, so... um..."

"Strange thing? The Thirteenth Day of the Resurrection?" Lunicia tilted her head. She was concerned about the former but simply confused about the latter. She had always lived in the temple and had never heard of such a festival.

"It's a traditional festival in the Marie region." Another knight, "Wise Man" Andy, took over the conversation. "It is said that in the tradition of the Principality of Marie, on the thirteenth day of the Snow Moon every year, the road leading to the Corridor of the Reincarnated in the cemetery will be opened, and the souls of the dead who have not yet been reincarnated will temporarily return on this day. Therefore, people will hold a celebration around the cemetery on this day so that these dead souls will not be too depressed when wandering in the world."

"I see... Andy, you really know a lot."

"I just read a lot of miscellaneous books." Andy shook his head modestly and returned to the team.

"And what is this strange thing?"

"Uh..." The captain of the soldiers seemed to be in a state of difficulty in expressing himself, but he finally gritted his teeth and answered: "In fact, during the pilgrimage week in preparation for the Thirteenth Day of the Resurrection Festival, it seems that someone in this village has disappeared..."

"Ok?"

She couldn't help but think of the conductor who had turned into a pool of rotten water.

"Many people have gone missing." The soldier next to him shook his head and sighed uncontrollably. "We think the missing people must be dead, but we can't find any bodies anywhere. We can only smell a strong stench of decay in some places. Even children..."

"Say less!"

The captain of the soldiers quickly hit the soldier's helmet hard with the butt of his gun.

"The child is also...missing?"

There was a hint of anger in Lunicia's voice. It was obvious that kidnapping or even killing children was an unforgivable crime in her eyes.

"Ah... well... some villagers told us that their children were working near the village, like fetching water or pulling weeds, but they didn't come back. So we considered them missing... We really sent people to look for them! But we found nothing, and the same was true for the previous missing people and the children..."

"That's not right, Captain. Didn't you find something?"

"Aren't they just some empty clothes? They stink and no one wants to pick them up. Do you think that's found?"

——Empty clothes...

After hearing this, Lunicia was basically certain that the people who caused the disappearances in the village and the people who just killed the driver were undoubtedly the same person, or the same group of people.

This made her even more annoyed.

"Alas... We can't solve this matter right now. If you want to intervene... it's up to you."

The timid captain of the soldiers couldn't help but sigh. It seemed that the situation during this period had made him exhausted. He returned the pass to Lunixia, and then asked the soldiers to put away their weapons. He left some people to continue to stand guard while taking the others to lead Lunixia and her group.

As she stepped into the village, Lunicia's intuition seemed to be triggered by something, and she couldn't help but turn her head back.

Someone seemed to flash by on the treetops.

Perhaps it was an illusion caused by excessive mental tension. When Lunicia looked closely, she found that it was just a visual effect caused by the mottled shadows of the trees. There was no one there.

She always felt like she had just looked into a mirror and saw another self on the other side of the mirror.

But when did the carriage that had just been parked there, unmanned, disappear from there?

……

The group of eight knights left their luggage at the inn and then began to move around the village separately, hoping to figure out the layout of the waterwheel canal, or preferably find some clues about the missing people, before the time turned from day to night... or from the solar eclipse to night.

Normally, they would not have the leisure time to carry out their secret missions and investigate the constant disappearances in the village at the same time.

However, the reality is often more bizarre than the theory.

The group of people led by Lunicia, who nominally came here with a mission, actually had no clear mission at all. They just came here following the guidance of Revelation, but were not told what to do. In this case, what actions should be taken depends entirely on the orders given by Lunicia, the captain.

This delicate situation made Lunicia feel quite confused. She had only received a simple revelation from God, telling her to go to the Waterwheel Canal to meet her fate. She didn't know what she should do, nor did she know what she would face. As a bird that had flown out of a cage for the first time, as a bird that had the opportunity to choose its own destiny for the first time, she felt at a loss.

She could only consider it from other angles.

For example, since no orders were given, then it should be "do it the way she likes"?

After changing her understanding to this angle, Lunicia commanded the knights without any psychological burden to thoroughly investigate the disappearances currently occurring in the village - regardless of whether the other party was committing murder or robbery or human trafficking, she felt obligated to drag the other party out and tear him into pieces as a warning to others.

This village was much larger than she had imagined, and the population was much more complex. She had seen humans, strong Highlanders working in the fields, half-elves selling handicrafts, halflings lying on the rooftops basking in the sun, and even a figure who looked like a dragonborn sitting in the tavern. This place seemed much more complex than she had imagined.

"Have you heard? The little daughter of the Hayes family seems to be missing too..."

"……is that so?"

"Just now, they asked the little girl to fetch water for cooking, but by lunch time she hadn't returned yet, and we couldn't find her..."

"Well, if they are missing, then they are missing. There have been quite a few people missing in recent times..."

"That's right... it's really not something worth worrying about..."

This cold and numb tone made Lunicia's heart skip a beat.

She turned her head suddenly, but found that the two villagers who were talking before were no longer there.

——Did he blend into the crowd?

The villagers around seemed to be quite busy, carrying heavy wood or transporting boxed food. It seemed as if they were preparing for some important celebration, perhaps for the day called the Thirteenth Day of the Resurrection. In such a busy occasion, it was only too normal to lose someone because of a careless mistake.

Lunicia did not take this matter to heart. Instead, she felt that she had discovered a clue worth paying attention to.

Of course, she was inexperienced and completely immature, so she had no idea what problems were hidden in these so-called clues.

Chapter 3 Bloodstains

"...Anyway, we can search along the river to see if we can find any suspicious traces."

Lunicia proposed to gather the knights who were gathering intelligence in the village.

"This is a practical suggestion." Andy placed his right hand on his chest and saluted to Lunicia. As a knight born in Letoni, he was quite familiar with this affirmation method passed down from the Sorcerous Kingdom of Gunasalan. Then he continued, "My colleagues and I have roughly inquired about the disappearance in the village. The villagers here are a little wary of us, but they have not concealed the disappearance."

"They probably also hope to solve this problem, but they don't seem to be that enthusiastic. The garrison here... as you can see, Captain, is completely unreliable, so they push this job to outsiders like us." Knight Morgan took over Andy's words, and the other knights seemed to agree with this view.

This kind of evaluation made Lunicia feel a little uncomfortable.

She did not deliberately try to gather information, but just inadvertently overheard the conversation between the villagers, and the tone of their voices could not be simply summarized as "not very concerned" - it was a mixture of numbness and coldness, and they did not care about the lives of the missing at all. I am afraid that only people with deep hatred can have such an attitude, let alone strangers.

——Is there something wrong with my judgment? Or is it...

Andy nodded and continued, "According to the brief intelligence I just gathered, missing persons usually go missing when they are alone, especially when they are alone with no more than two people. Children and young adults can go missing, but there don't seem to be any cases of elderly people going missing... People who are alone at home don't seem to go missing either."

"That is to say, if the criminals are human, they have no intention of invading the village."

April looked down at Andy and made this judgment.

"I think so."

"In short, let's do as we said before and search along the river. If the information you have collected is correct, then the riverside is also a place where disappearances are frequent, and we should be able to find some clues there."

Lunicia simply gave orders to the inexperienced knights, but she had no idea whether she could find any useful clues by the river.

The basis for her judgment was simple. Although she did not understand the lifestyle in this rural area, she knew that they had to go to the river to fetch water every day. Of course, she had only just learned this not long ago. Even if they took the disappearance seriously, for the people who lived here every day, they might go to the river together at first, but after a long time, they would go out alone, which would give the criminal another chance to strike.

Although she didn't know what the other party's purpose was, the fact that they attacked young children was enough to make Lunicia extremely angry.

She was about to follow the team, but suddenly, as if she felt something, she turned her head abruptly and looked towards a bunch of dead branches outside the village. However, there was nothing there, only a few wild birds perched on the branches, tilting their necks and making hoarse calls.

When she passed through the head, the wild bird's eyeballs fell off with a "pop".

Before it could fall to the ground, it turned into a pool of rotten water.

……

Starting from the waterwheel channel, the group walked along the trampled dirt road. They had only walked less than a kilometer when they heard the sound of gurgling water. In the dim light of the solar eclipse, Lunisia could see something special. Stone sculptures lay in a mess among the withered bushes. Compared with the dead branches stained with a strange blood color, those gray and white things were too conspicuous.

At first glance, you can't tell what it is. The stone creations seem fragile in the flow of time. Most of the bumps and grooves have been smoothed out by the years, and they are covered with brambles and moss. However, if you look closely, you can see a little bit of it - maybe it is a stone waterwheel, but for some reason it has been abandoned and lies together with the completely indistinguishable stones next to it, becoming the waste of history.

This may be the origin of the name Shuichequ.

"Wait, what's here!"

Daniel Fistram's voice immediately attracted the attention of the other knights. They quickly gathered around and cast their eyes towards the place where Daniel's finger was pointing.

On the grayish-white, carved stone, there was a dark red, wet mark left. It looked like it had been there for some time, no longer flowing, but half-solidified like jelly. The rusty smell was more familiar to them than the stench of decay. It was undoubtedly the smell of blood.

"It's not just one trace." Andy squatted down and reached out to push away the dead branches covering the ground. "Look here, there are more."

As Andy pushed the dead branches to both sides, a road-like trace made up of small bloodstains appeared. The color of these sticky blood traces was similar to that of the dead branches. In addition, the dead branches themselves obscured the view. If one did not look carefully, it was easy to mistake them for dark dead branches and ignore this clue.

"The bloodstains didn't stay there for long, and there's no sign of them being cleaned up... It seems like the criminals are fully aware of the situation in the village, which is why they're so bold. We can't let them go."

Knight Kyle Onsares's expression was not good. His mood was similar to Lunicia's. The behavior of these prisoners seemed to have made him feel quite bad.

"Let's search along the river first. If they don't hide such an important clue as the bloodstain, other traces should be discovered quickly."

rustle--

It was like the sound of something passing over the treetops.

Lunicia raised her head sharply and looked towards the place where the sound came from, but still saw nothing, only wild birds perched on the branches.

She didn't look closely, it was just a wild bird after all.

Even the wild birds seemed to be looking at her, staring at her, watching her.