Chapter 298 – Cemetery Investigation
Chapter 298 – Cemetery Investigation
Maurice’s wife, Mary, stared at the letter’s cover for a long time before she took the letter opener from the side and carefully opened it.
A single folded sheet of paper fell out of the envelope, and the first thing Mrs. Mary noticed before opening the sheet was the unevenness of the back of the paper.
It was handwriting – bumpy marks that had been written with so much force that the stroke marks were clearly visible on the back of the paper.
The person who had written the letter was, I fear, in a state of great excitement.
The old woman sitting in front of the fireplace slightly adjusted her sitting position, placed the finished letter on the small round table next to her, and at the same time glanced at the date stamp on the cover of the letter from Frost in her hand.
The letter was sent on December 5th.
On the third day after the first letter was sent – just three days – the late “Brown Scott” wrote this second letter.
Mrs. Mary opened the folded stationery, and a few lines of scribbled and disheveled writing met her eyes – not at all as elegantly and neatly written as the first letter sent by the folklorist a few days earlier, but filled with the writer’s great uneasiness and trepidation:
“My friend, the situation …… is not right, I do not know how to explain to you, I am now very confused, even difficult to think, my mind is being disturbed by something, memory …… don t come to Frost! Anyway, don’t ever come to Frost! Even if you see anything else I write to you in the future and see other forms of invitations, don’t ever come to Frost!
“There is a great conspiracy here.
“Don’t come to the Frost!”
The letterhead didn’t even have a dedication at the end, and even the stamps on the envelope were crookedly affixed.
Mrs. Mary looked at the scrawled sentences as if she could imagine the scene when a folklorist whose spirit had gone out under a great cognitive tear used up the last of his sanity to write those words and then struggled into the cold wind of the frost, and with difficulty delivered the letter to the post office.
She slowly refolded the piece of paper and slipped it back into the envelope.
It was a disturbing letter, and the whole thing from beginning to end was filled with an atmosphere of horror which, under normal circumstances, would have been enough to send the person concerned running for shelter in a church.
Mrs. Mary’s eyes, however, swept over the little round table beside her, over the letter from the family of the Lost Country–the
“…… The deep-sea scion has a truly unique flavor, tastier than any unusual fish, and the captain has mastered a special culinary technique, of which Abnormality 099 – that is to say, Miss Alice – has learned the finer points, and which I should perhaps also try it ……”
The old woman silently tossed the letter from Frost into the nearby fireplace and watched as it quickly burned in the bright flames, turning to ash.
“They’ve gone ……”
She mumbled softly, then got up and grabbed ink, pen & letterhead from a nearby shelf and began to write a letter – one that would be delivered to an antique store in the lower city.
……
Churchmen in black coats walked around the cemetery, examining all traces of what remained of the place – every path, every coffin, every streetlight, all were marked and sampled in an effort to be able to recreate what had happened here last night.
Agatha, the “keeper,” remained in the keeper’s hut, and opposite to her sat the old, gloomy, stooping keeper.
After an indeterminate amount of time, the young woman, who had most of her body covered in bandages, lifted her head and glanced out the window to see that the sun was already sinking, and a slightly reddish haze was beginning to float over the entire city-state.
Evening was approaching, the guards she had brought with her had been working in the cemetery for hours, and the old caretaker before her had been silent for hours.
Strictly speaking, the old guardian was not just silent-he maintained a state of near-mind-closure, not moving, not speaking, not responding to outside stimuli, and from the time the church guardsmen had been reported to this place, he had been sitting quietly in that chair as if it were a breathing sculpture of flesh and blood.
A black-clothed guard pushed open the wooden door of the guard hut, came to Agatha’s side and bent down to whisper something, the latter nodded slightly, “I know, first send the samples to the cathedral, the scene stays as it is, this night may be critical, need to leave someone to supervise.”
The black-clothed guard nodded and led the order, but before leaving, he still couldn’t help but look at the old man who was sitting on the chair and didn’t move at all, at the time of seeing the old man’s cloudy eyes that were like frozen, there was obviously some uneasiness on this young guard’s face, “How long does he …… have to maintain this state? Really no problem?”
“Protective mind closure, he’s using it to fight and purge himself of the contamination he’s been subjected to, and possibly to protect us in the process,” Agatha whispered, “The tomb keeper must have been exposed to something far beyond his imagination last night, it’s like he’s struggling back from the brink of insanity …… But don’t worry, he’s an experienced warrior and has managed to stabilize his situation, he’ll be fine.”
Speaking of this, Agatha paused and added, “As for how long this state will last …… that’s hard to say, it might be restored the next second, or it might not be until this time tomorrow, depending on how long he’s actually been in contact with that horrible contamination.” The black-clad guard pondered for a moment, looking up at the window, and through the slightly dirty glass window, he could see the busy churchmen on the trail outside.
He withdrew his gaze again and looked at the two bodies in the hut – two intruders, already verified as Annihilationists, apparently dead at the hands of the old guard, which had been left where they were for the sake of preserving the scene, since the situation was still unclear.
They couldn’t have been the cause of the old guard’s mind closure, even if the demon behind them was out of control it wasn’t at that level.
What could it be then? Was it a more powerful spectral demon? An upper cleric of the Annihilationists? Or some other shit?
The black-clad guard voiced his question, but Agatha just shook her head, “No, it would be something more bizarre and dangerous.”
“Why are you so sure?” The black-clad guard subconsciously asked.
“Because there were really only a few traces left behind by the heretics at the scene, as well as a pile of remains of bodies suspected to be ‘Restless’ that didn’t have any residual transcendent reactions,” Agatha said indifferently, “There were no observable traces Remnants that mean ……”
“It means that last night’s Visitor did nothing, and His mere presence in this cemetery for a few moments was enough to bring my old man’s mind to the brink.”
The old man’s voice suddenly resounded in the hut, interrupting the exchange between the black-clothed guard and the gatekeeper, Agatha immediately looked in the direction from which the voice came, and a light smile finally appeared on her lackluster face, “You’ve recovered, it’s good.”
“I dare not say that I’ve recovered completely,” the old guard said slowly, stabilizing little by little the various perceptions that had shifted slightly after reopening his mind, he looked into Agatha’s eyes, consciously blocking out those jumping reimaginings behind the other party, “but at least I can tell which part belongs to reality and which part belongs to madness anymore.”
“Enough,” Agatha nodded, “What happened yesterday?”
“The corpse you sent to me suddenly stirred and spoke many words, lucid as a living being, and then four Annihilationists entered the cemetery and tried to take the stirrer – they used the power of the Phantom Demon to disguise themselves, skillful, veteran summoners, concealing it from my eyes, but did not hide it from my intuition.
“I lured the two here, finished them off, these two on the floor, and then was about to head to the cemetery to finish off the other two when the accident happened.”
The old guard raised his head and looked in the direction of the doorway.
“An unnamable …… visitor came to visit, and I locked eyes with Him for some time, or maybe only a few seconds, my time judgment is wrong, can not do accurate.”
“A visitor who shall not be named?” Agatha couldn’t help but frown, “Can you be more specific?”
The old guard tried to remember.
All that came to his mind was a confusing pile of light and shadows, and an overwhelming noise.
The hasty closure of his mind eliminated the temporary contamination he had suffered, but it also erased some useful memories.
“I can’t, only the memory of chaotic light and noise,” the old guard shook his head, “and even if I could accurately describe what I saw, it wouldn’t mean anything to you – what I saw wasn’t necessarily real, and even if it was real, it’s not necessarily what other people see as real, and as humans, we’re too limited in the way we perceive.”
“Okay, then that’s the whole answer,” Agatha nodded, “An unnamed visitor visited the cemetery in the final stages, but did not initiate any destruction …… You confirmed that you wanted to use the term the word ‘visit’? The word is on the neutral, even friendly side.”
“Confirmed,” replied the old caretaker calmly, “I had a conversation with Him, though hardly succeeded in exchanging anything – the Visitor had attempted to communicate, which is a sign of neutrality on the friendly side.”
“Understood and recorded,” Agatha nodded again, “and then what? What else?”
“After that visitor left, I vaguely saw him leave something …… left behind on the path to the entrance,” the old guard said as he recalled, “but I wasn’t able to get a good look at it, by then my vision was severely traumatized, and my cognition was so faulty that I wasn’t sure ……”
“If you’re talking about a pile of debris after being burned by the Spectral Demon Reversal, then we found it,” Agatha interrupted the old guard with a calm face, “If that’s correct, then it appears to be the Visitor’s …… ‘carrier’.”
(End of chapter)