Rhodes Island does not exist.

"I see."

The Doctor nodded.

The bishop's words reassured him somewhat about Levini's fate.

“Well then, if you have no other questions, I should take you to your lodgings for tonight and the dining area for dinner,” the bishop said, maintaining his usual smile.

"Okay, I'll bother you then."

The doctor stood up and gave a slight bow to the bishop.

Seeing the doctor's reaction, the bishop turned around and prepared to guide him to his next destination.

But the moment he turned around, the doctor noticed something unusual.

It was a dull gray feather, gently drifting down with the buoyancy of the air.

"It must have fallen from the bishop's body?" The doctor picked up the feather, muttering to himself, and then put it into his pocket.

Chapter 79, Chapter Seventy-Eight: Deep Sea Tales - The Last Supper

The trial was scheduled for noon on the following day.

This is what the doctor heard from a priest while he was having dinner.

Amen!

The priests would offer a prayer before the meal, and then begin their meal in a quiet atmosphere.

The food served here is basically everyday dishes from the Iberian region; it's not luxurious but not bland either, and the flavors can only be described as quite subtle.

However, as long as there's food, that's fine, that's what the doctor thinks.

However, halfway through the meal, the doctor suddenly discovered some problems.

He had assumed that the church provided communal meals, with everyone eating the same things at the table, but this preconceived notion seemed to be incorrect.

On his plate was a roasted steak, while at the next table a priest had a pile of green stuff in front of him.

The green things clung together like seaweed, and every now and then two wet, slippery leaves would peek out and cling to the edge of the bowl, as if trying to escape.

"Gulu..."

The bald priest ate the unidentified object in his bowl in a slurping manner, making some rather unrefined noises as if he were a reincarnated starving ghost.

"Carlos."

"Carlos!"

The priest sitting opposite him stopped drinking and eating, his face expressionless, and called his name in a low voice.

"Mmm...?"

The bald priest known as Carlos raised his bloated face, which was piled high with food, and looked through his narrow eyelids at the stern-faced priest in front of him, clearly unaware of why he had been summoned.

"How many times have I told you? You should eat properly." A hint of displeasure crept onto the priest's stern face. "Don't play with your food, and don't use your utensils too roughly, making a mess of the food everywhere."

"Table manners, table manners! The Lord is watching over everyone from heaven, and every meal is a gift from the Lord. What kind of behavior is this!"

The stern-faced priest criticized him sternly.

His stern voice drew the attention of many priests in the dining hall.

"Mmm...uh-huh."

Carlos swallowed his food indistinctly, nodded as if he understood, and then lowered his voice to continue eating.

This time, his movements were much smaller.

The doctor withdrew his gaze.

"I'm sorry you witnessed such an unpleasant scene." The silver-haired priest sitting opposite the doctor gave him an apologetic smile. "That brother has some intellectual disability, so he has always needed the care of other brothers and sisters in his life."

"I see." The doctor understood the question that had been nagging at him. "Was he raised by the church?"

“Yes.” The silver-haired middle-aged priest nodded. “He was found by a brother in the church when he was a baby. After realizing that he had been abandoned by his family because of a congenital defect, the brother and sister in the church took him in and raised him. The brothers and sisters in the church also shared some of the responsibilities.”

"It sounds like a very heartwarming story," the doctor praised.

He felt that the church's good deeds were in line with his own beliefs to some extent, and that he might seek their help or learn from their spirit in the future when it came to helping infected people.

"The one who just criticized him is the brother who took him in back then," the silver-haired priest said after glancing at the still stern-faced priest. "Seventeen years have passed since then."

"He is truly a great man," the doctor reiterated his praise.

After all, someone who takes in a mentally challenged orphan and treats him as their own must possess a noble spirit.

Thinking of this, the doctor felt much more at ease.

If everyone in the church possessed such compassion, then tomorrow's trial of Levini would surely be lenient.

And so, dinner ended in a warm and peaceful atmosphere.

However, even by the end of dinner, the professor was still unable to answer the question that had first arisen in his mind.

What exactly did Carlos eat?

-

late at night.

The doctor's accommodation was located in a side room in the backyard of the cathedral.

The room has a skylight, so you can see the stars and the night sky even when you're lying in bed.

Incidentally, it wasn't just the doctor's room that had a skylight; according to his observation, it seemed that all the accommodation rooms here were equipped with skylights.

However, he was somewhat aware of this.

Because the priests in the church must have done evening prayers every night before going to bed, and during the evening prayers they must have been looking at the stars or the moon.

probably.

Anyway, it has little to do with him.

"Clap."

Just as he was pondering the purpose of the skylight, a small but clear voice reached his ears.

However, he could not discern the source or direction of the sound.

"Clap, clap."

Then, just like a listening test that had been played several times for fear that the test takers might not have heard it, the sound rang out twice more.

This time, the doctor discerned its source—southeast.

In other words, it's in the backyard garden.

It's not unusual for sounds to come from the garden, but these sounds were undeniably eerie.

It's like someone wearing wet slippers dancing a slow-paced tap dance in the garden.

"what."

Then, the doctor realized what could be making such a sound and recalled where he had heard a similar sound before.

The vegetable market in Longmen.

During his short stay in Longmen, he observed at the local fish market how fishmongers would take the fish out of the tank, stun them on the cutting board, gut and dismember them into pieces, and then bag them for customers.

The sound of live fish splashing on the cutting board is very similar to the sound coming from the garden right now.

"Even though Iberia is a coastal city, it's unlikely that live fish would jump out of the sea and land here," the doctor thought to himself, his mind wandering to all sorts of random thoughts.

No, maybe there really is.

I've heard there's something called a flying fish that can leave the water and fly; it might even be able to fly directly to the shore.

But that was just hearsay.

However, before coming to Iberia, the existence of the sea was only something I had heard about, so we can't deny its existence so quickly.

So what should we do? Should we get up and go take a look in the direction of the garden?

"Clap, clap."

The eerie sound continued to serve as background noise for the doctor's contemplation.

Think about it, if you go to the garden and see fish, that's fine, but what if it's not fish?

A slightly unnatural thought rose up the doctor's spine.

I guess I should just go to sleep and pretend I didn't hear anything.

Chapter 80, Chapter 79: Deep Sea Tales - Fifteen: A Calm Night

How could I possibly fall asleep?

The doctor sat up in bed with a slightly depressed feeling and began to get dressed.

If you didn't hear the sound at all or didn't pay special attention to it from the beginning, that's fine. But once you make a point of paying attention, it's hard to forget it.

Just like what a doctor I know once said.

Human breathing is natural, but if you start paying special attention to your breathing, then all your breathing becomes deliberate.

This is the current situation.

"Clap, clap."

The sound of the fish slapping the ground was insignificant against the backdrop of the night, but to the doctor at this moment, it was like thunder, impossible to ignore.

"Shuffle..."

After putting on his coat and tying his boot laces, the Doctor switched from sleep mode to action mode and picked up an Originium lamp used for lighting in the room.

It is 11:30 p.m. now.

The doctor stood up, rubbed his hands together, walked to the door of the room, and twisted the handle.

"Phew, the nights in Iberia are really chilly."

The coldness of the metal sent a shiver down his spine.

"squeak--"

The old hinges made a low groaning sound, and although the doctor opened the door gently enough, the noise was still unavoidable.

"Phew." The Doctor glanced at the empty corridor before him, praying that his voice wouldn't wake the monks who were already fast asleep.

"Well then, it's time to head to the garden."

The doctor, carrying the Originium Lamp, gently closed the door behind him.

-

The side rooms in the backyard are not usually inhabited by any cultivators. Their main purpose is to provide guest rooms for outsiders, so there are actually many vacant rooms.

Even so, the doctor still tiptoed all the way to the main gate of the side house, which faced the garden.

"Clap, clap."

Once you get there, the sound becomes exceptionally clear; you can hear it even without concentrating.

Without a doubt, the sound originated from the direction of the garden.

"Can't see anything."

Through the glass of the gate, the doctor gazed toward the garden, but found nothing.

The waist-high bushes blocked the view, making the view from a distance not very clear.

Since that's the case, the only way to find out is to go there in person.

Feeling this long-lost sense of tension, the doctor left the side room and went into the courtyard.

"Clap, clap."

After leaving the building, the sounds in the garden blended completely with the night sky, indistinguishable from each other.

The doctor held his breath and quietly walked toward the source of the sound.

"Clap."

The sound of slippery water became particularly noticeable at this distance.

"Clap."