Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

The sound of dripping water suddenly became extremely clear, no longer as vague and indistinguishable as through a layer of mist.

A highly decomposed corpse was suspended from the ceiling, its limbs stretched out, tied up with thick and barbed wires, and pulled outward as much as possible. The corpse's clothes had been soaked with rotten juice, as if covered with a layer of dark red mixed with gray-green mud, and the original color and style could no longer be seen. Its skin was almost completely dissolved, leaving only pits of rotten muscles. The dripping sound was the blood mixed with dissolved body tissue, along with the green water produced by corruption, dripping down drop by drop, leaving a strange and terrifying pool of water in the stone pit.

Lunicia didn't make a sound and didn't retreat, but she felt as if all the blood in her body had frozen and she couldn't move.

Corpses were nothing new to her. Her mental endurance was strong enough to prevent her from feeling too uncomfortable when facing a corpse for the first time, and she was even less likely to become so at a loss in such a situation. Her mind became clearer than usual, and she knew very well that the current situation was not due to physical fear, but the influence of some external force.

She tried to struggle, but found that her consciousness and body were disconnected, as if she was in a dream, and she could hardly control her body. At the same time, her body began to move on its own, not much, but she raised her neck stiffly, looking straight at the corroded face.

Lunicia's first thought was that she didn't recognize that face.

Then she realized that her thinking was not right.

She saw the corpse open its almost completely dissolved eyelids, and a pair of extremely distinct black and white eyeballs began to rotate, one to the left, the other to the right, they did not intersect, but finally pointed in the same direction. The pair of distinct black and white eyes stared directly at Lunicia.

Can you see anything? Nothing. It's like the eyes of a real corpse, moving but without emotion or thought, illuminated by the fire but without any brilliance, like two wax balls.

No, that's not right.

Lunicia stared into the corner of the corpse's eyes.

There, droplets of a mixture of rotten water and blood were condensing.

——Is that... tears?

Snapped!

The crackling sound of burning wood came from the torch, and sparks popped out, which was like a morning bell, awakening Lunicia's consciousness from her sleep, and she suddenly found that she could control her body again.

Just as she drew her sword and prepared to stab into the air, she realized that there was no rotting corpse there. There was no hanging corpse, no sound of dripping liquid, no hanging wires. The compartment in front of her was no different from the other compartments, except that there was a curled up skeleton in the corner.

Chapter 18 Diary

Lunicia was stunned for a moment, and then she remembered that the hallucination she had just seen should have more than just visual meanings. She should analyze the connotation of the hallucination she had just seen from other angles, such as psychoanalysis.

Being tied up with barbed wire and gradually rotting, these should be the elements that indicate "torture"... Lunicia thought about it, squatted down, and used her sword to pry open the layer of cotton cloth wrapped around the skeleton's torso.

The yellowed cotton cloth looked like it had been there for a very long time. With a slight touch, it scattered like a fluttering butterfly. The body wrapped in it was still wearing the clothes it had worn in life. It was a formal dress with an exquisite shape. The material was difficult to distinguish due to the passage of time, but it was still obvious that this dress could only be worn by women who were dignified enough.

The body covered by the clothes has become deformed, and those traces can be clearly identified from the bones: its spine has been elongated, the shape of the ribs has also changed, weird and meaningless growths continue to emerge from various parts of the bones, these growths should pierce the flesh and cause great pain, its limbs bones have also been elongated, but have not been strengthened as they should, resulting in multiple extremely serious fractures.

The owner of this skeleton must have experienced quite painful deformation during his lifetime, and because he was unable to adapt to this deformation, he soon died in torture.

Lunicia sighed, closed her eyes, and while observing a moment of silence, she used her right index finger to make four dots on her chest, symbolizing thunder, and then drew a circle to wrap it, symbolizing the sun, as a token of sympathy and mourning for the deceased.

——I’m sorry, I can’t change your fate.

She continued to recall the hallucination just now. In that hallucination, the remaining thoughts of the owner of the corpse gave her a very obvious indication. It looked into her eyes. Eyes are windows to the soul, and eye contact also means communication of the soul itself. It did not actively ask for anything from Lunicia. In other words, the owner of the corpse should have something he wanted to convey to her?

——What could it be?

After thinking about it, the only thing that could possibly be hiding something would be the dress on the corpse. Lunicia apologized quietly while groping at the dress - high-quality fabric not only means decency and comfort when wearing, but also means quality of preservation. Even after such a long time under such unfavorable conditions, the dress still did not become fragile at the slightest touch and still had a certain degree of elasticity and toughness.

Not long after, Lunisia found a hidden pocket at the corner of her clothes. After unbuttoning it, she took out a key.

Strangely enough, the metal ring used to hang the key had become rusty. Organic matter, oxidation, and corrosion over time had coated it with a rough dark red color that could be broken with just a little force. However, the key itself appeared to be in good condition. Apart from the wear marks from long-term use, it looked as if it had been carefully maintained, reflecting a dazzling glow in the light of the torch.

Lunisia understood what was going on, so she held the key in her hand and walked out of the bathroom.

The ticking sound that seemed to be everywhere had completely disappeared, and the building returned to silent silence. Not only that, the strange atmosphere seemed to have dissipated as well. However, these were not the focus of Lunicia's attention.

In her eyes, the corridor, which was originally extremely dark and could hardly be penetrated by light, had become a little brighter at some point, as if moonlight was shining everywhere through the gaps in the wooden boards. In fact, it was indeed the case. The blockade of those wooden boards was not enough to completely cover every corner of the windows. A little bit of the red moonlight could be cast into each window, so that the place was not in darkness where one could not see one's hand in front of one's face without a torch.

Not only that, the corridor itself seemed to have changed. It no longer looked endless, but one could see the clear end at a glance. A double door that looked much larger than the other rooms stood there quietly, not collapsed or damaged. Apart from being covered with a layer of dust, other places seemed to be no different from the original.

She looked at her hands thoughtfully.

The key that looked quite old had disappeared, leaving only a pool of rust that could not be seen in any shape. The rust looked like a small box that could be opened, but Catherine was unwilling to risk damaging it by opening the lid of the small box. She simply strung it with a rope and hung it on the inside of her breastplate in case it could be used for anything else.

She recalled the corpses hanging downstairs and said nothing more, as if to show respect for the silence in the building. Then she took a step and walked straight to the end of the corridor.

Holding the door handle, there was no jam, proving that the door was not locked. The expected sticking sensation did not come, indicating that the inside of the door lock was not rusted to the point of being difficult to use. Lunicia easily pushed open the double door in front of her, stirring up the dust inside and raising a light mist.

Lunicia frowned but did not cover her mouth and nose. The dust and fog were not as thick as before.

The room in front of me was quite tidy, with several cabinets on both sides filled with leather folders, a spacious desk facing the door, and a huge and wide gray glass floor-to-ceiling window. It looked like someone had just left here, the oil lamp switch was still turned on, the pen cap was not tightly closed, but casually placed aside, and a few unsigned documents were scattered on the table, the contents were just some ordinary official documents. There was a photo frame hanging on the wall behind the desk, the photo seemed to be a couple and their one son and one daughter, the wife's image was already covered by dust, while the other three people could still be seen clearly, even so, their faces were also marked with a big cross with a red marker.

Time here seems to have stood still, and only the thick dust can reveal the passage of time.

There was no need to pay attention to the bookcases on both sides. The books and documents there were not what Lunicia needed right now. She walked directly to the desk, stretched out her hand and pulled the largest drawer - it was stuck at first, and then there was a "click" sound, as if the lock was opened, and the drawer was easily opened by Lunicia like the door.

The drawer also appears to be in good order, with office supplies such as stamps, pens and ink neatly arranged, enough to show that the owner here is a person who likes order.

Apart from the neatly arranged office supplies, there were only two things in the drawer.

One was a photo of the two of them. There were two men standing side by side in the photo. One of them looked like the mayor, but he was younger than the one in the photo of the family of three. The other was a young man with a gloomy expression and a slightly hunched back, but with a genuine smile on his face. In addition to that, there was what Lunicia was looking for, the diary that belonged to the mayor.

She couldn't wait to take the hardcover book out of the drawer, spread it out on the table, then walked around to the table and opened the diary directly to the last few pages with records.

sand--

“…The Bright Moon has passed, the Snow Moon has arrived, but the messengers we sent out still show no signs of returning.

It is only three days' journey from here to Smoker. Even if the messenger is rejected by the defenders in Smoker, he should go to Sarothun for help as planned. There is the Church of the Goddess of Night, and the clergy there will not sit idly by and watch evil expand on the earth.

But a month has passed, there has been no reply, and no one has returned from outside the forest. It's as if this place has been cut off from the world.

I have been busy with government affairs recently. Although I haven’t been to other cities during this period, it seems that things have not decreased at all. I haven’t been out for a walk for a while... I don’t know if it’s my illusion, but the lighting seems to be not very good recently, even though there are more sunny days recently. "

Lunisia tilted her head. There was no record of the year in this diary. It was just separated by some special bookmarks from different years. This way, she couldn't tell which year this diary was written.

sand--

“…I discussed it with my wife and she laughed at my lack of information, but of course I wasn’t upset about it.

According to her, the nearby trees grew wildly in the summer, and those responsible for planning were unable to allocate staff to prune them, so the overgrown branches blocked the lighting here.

This is indeed a very serious problem, but we cannot spare more manpower. Now the residents of the entire Shuichequ have already taken action. In addition to their daily work, they are also building fortifications everywhere under the dispatch of the planners. In this case, it is too much to ask them to trim the branches, and there is not enough budget.

Fortunately, the weather has been good recently, which can offset some of the impact of the trees.

Anders, I remember you were good at trimming these branches and leaves. Even if that was not your main job, you always cared about those trees... I haven't seen you for a long time. Where have you been?"

sand--

"…The fortifications are in good condition. The newly built walls are strong enough to make it difficult for the cultists to climb up with ladders. I went to see them today. These militiamen who were temporarily recruited from civilians were also able to quickly counterattack during the exercise. This is thanks to the efforts of the design team.

Originally, a trench should have been dug under the city wall, but there seemed to be no time, so they simply set up some obstacles, such as barbed wire, which was better than nothing... At least it could be used to block the advance of the zombies. Goddess of Prosperity, why would they use such evil magic to prevent the dead from returning to the earth? "

sand--

"...We still know nothing about the followers of the cult. We only learned about their calling themselves the Holy Family by chance. This is not only because they rarely talk to each other and always act in silence, but also because they are impossible to capture as prisoners. Once we control one of them, the other party can use evil secrets to turn his head into a bomb. It is impossible to defend against it, and we cannot leave any survivors.

At present, we still don't know how to stop this magic from working, so there is naturally no way to get more information.

I felt uneasy. The time was getting closer. According to my idea, the 13th Day of Resurrection should be cancelled this year. Even though the cemetery was within the protection of the city wall, we should not be too unvigilant. However, this matter was not something I could decide alone. When others questioned me at the public meeting, I was speechless and could not refute it. I did not have enough reason to cancel the 13th Day of Resurrection. They thought I was just overreacting. My sense of responsibility as the mayor made me feel a sense of crisis that did not exist, so the festival would continue as planned.

I can only comfort myself that our fortifications are perfect enough. The cultists are not strong enough to break into our neatly built stone walls. They lack combat power other than zombies and enchanted weapons...

Even though I told myself this over and over again, I still felt uneasy, and I couldn't understand where that uneasy feeling came from. Anders, where are you? If you were still here, I wouldn't be so uneasy. I could rest assured that I would hand over the work to you, and then we would save this town together like before.

I really miss you, you have been missing for too long, I really hope you are still alive.

Goddess of Prosperity bless you.”

sand--

"...Tomorrow is not only the day of the Thirteenth Day of the Resurrection, but also my wife's birthday.

Three full years have passed since I met her. Thirty-six years of days and nights now seem so precious. I feel I should send some gifts to celebrate this special day. However, in order to subsidize the temporary financial gap, I have recently invested most of my liquid assets in the construction of fortifications.

After much thought, I decided to give her the family heirloom ruby ​​brooch.

That ruby ​​brooch has been passed down in the family for hundreds of years, and its color is still bright and unchanged. It is said that it carries the gift of the goddess of death, blessing generation after generation in the family. If I give her this miraculous treasure, she will definitely be as happy as when she accepted my confession.

I have never given her a gift, even back then, I was just self-righteous and let promises replace gold and silver jewelry.

Come to think of it, even the most austere woman would not resist a gift.

What’s more, it is the first gift in this marriage.

Maybe I should ask a craftsman to buy a special gift box and put the brooch in it as a surprise?

I still felt a little uneasy, but that uneasiness had been almost dispelled by joy. The weather observer told me that tomorrow would be an unprecedented sunny day. I didn't know if this had any special meaning to him. After all, he was smiling very happily. Perhaps this year's Thirteenth Day of the Resurrection seemed more grand to him.

I thought about Anders again.

Every time at this time I will think of him - I love Judy deeply, but every time I think of what happened back then, I will feel that he actually loves Judy as deeply as I do. Maybe I understood this from the beginning, but I was just deceiving myself, pretending that such a thing did not happen, pretending that I didn't know what he was thinking.

Anders, it's so dangerous out there, I hope you're doing well.

May the goddess of prosperity bless him, my good friend Anders.

May the goddess of prosperity bless her, my dear Judy, and may the god of marriage bless our love."

sand--

The remaining pages seemed to have something written on them, but when I turned them over, I saw only jumbled and disorganized things that looked like scribbles.

sand--

Boom, boom, boom.

--Um?

Lunicia turned her head sharply.

A pale and huge claw was swinging towards her!

Chapter 19: Crossing Roads

"Andy, where are we now?"

April frowned as she asked Andy.

As a half-elf, he inherited some of his mother's bloodline and knew how to use the power hidden in his own blood, that is, to obtain some information that ordinary people could not perceive by listening to the sounds of nature.

This ability is too mysterious even for the owner himself to be well controlled. Not only can it not be turned off actively, but the content of the information that can be obtained cannot be guaranteed. However, information such as "one's current location" can still be easily obtained.

However, at this moment, April found that he was completely unable to obtain any useful information from the feedback from nature.

Although it is not exactly the same, if we use anthropomorphic terms, it feels like the statement is vague.

Although he was surrounded by dense forests and his feet were on mud, in an environment that completely met the definition of "nature", he could not even know where he was. This was the first time for April to have such an experience - even in the well-built holy city of Amblissburg, he could get the most basic response, unlike now when there was almost no news at all.

Andy glanced at him in the firelight, but did not ask any more questions: "We are still following the captain's trail, and we haven't deviated from the direction so far."

April could see this, but he felt something was wrong. He looked at Jesse the Shield and asked, but the latter remained silent and shook his head. It seemed that he also felt something was wrong, but he didn't know what it was. Andy obviously felt the same way, which could be heard from his tone, but he didn't want to talk about it, so as to avoid any accidents caused by talking too much.

Just when April was about to say something to boost morale, he was suddenly stunned and stopped in his tracks.

"what happened?"

"No, does this place..." He thought for a moment and organized his words, "...does this place look familiar?"

Andy frowned and was about to refute, but then he remembered that the other party was a half-elf whose natural intuition was far stronger than his, so he looked around carefully - he still found nothing. It was normal. In this extremely dim environment, with only a little firelight in his hand, he didn't think he could see anything. The most he could do was to move forward along the traces left by Lunicea.

Seeing that no one responded to his words, April groped his way forward, following the footsteps left by Lunicia while pushing aside the branches and bushes around him. After a while, he called the other two to come over.

"Look at this."

He pointed at the not-so-thick covering.

"Those are the footprints we left when we came here."

There, a row of footprints was arranged in the opposite direction of Lunicia's footprints. April would never confuse those with other people's footprints. The footprints they left had very obvious characteristics: eight people in a group, and all were marks left by armor. As far as it can be seen, no one here can fake the same traces as them.

Next, he pushed aside the dead branches nearby and found the follow-up of the row of footprints: they led straight to the direction from behind them, and after reaching a certain position, they spread out. This corresponded exactly to what they had done before, that is, after discovering the traces of the cultists, they spread out according to Lunicia's instructions and prepared to ambush the enemy.

Andy pursed his lips tightly and said nothing. He did not raise the possibility of "Maybe the captain himself is also walking back", because this was impossible anyway. For such a thing to happen, not only would Lunicia herself be overwhelmed by the battle and not realize that there was something wrong with this direction, but the remaining three people would also not be able to figure out which way to go to get back to the Waterwheel Canal.

This incident was so strange that none of the three spoke for a while, and the forest fell into a strange silence.

"...I think we should just keep going along this path."

After a moment of silence, April, as the acting captain, took the lead in making the decision.

The other two had no objection to this. If this road finally led to the waterwheel canal, they would just be taking another path from the previous choice, and there was still a way to think about it. If not, then they would still be chasing the traces of Lunicia, and there would be no difference from the original purpose.

This sudden change made people feel uneasy, but when they took a step forward, the view in front of them suddenly became clear.

Through the obstruction of the woods, under the glow of the blood moon, they could faintly see the light.

It was not an evil or cold strange light, but a normal light, which made them relax a little, but then they immediately became nervous.