Chapter 283: “Hunters of Knowledge”

Chapter 283 “The Hunters of Knowledge”

The slightly undulating waves gently lapped against the outer wall of the cabin, a slight creaking sound came from the depths of the deck from time to time, the ship’s lamp fueled by whale blubber burned quietly not far away, and in the bright flames, a pair of eyes that were either curious or expectant were reflected.

Maurice spread out the work on the folklore of the city-state in front of him, relaxing his mind a little, weakening the protection of his self-will, leaving his mind open to knowledge, and allowing the power of the book to submerge his mind a little.

He could feel that his own unguarded mind was emitting an increasingly attractive “flavor” from this vast, infinite sea.

A seeker, a reckless, unsuspecting seeker, opened his mind on the sea, and the hungry shadows that roamed the depths of the world must have sensed the bait – the dumb, blind shadows couldn’t resist the lure, but they still hesitated, their barely sensible, slightly enlightened minds in pursuit of knowledge were not interested in the bait. Their barely sensible, slightly enlightened minds were instinctively resistant to the environment on the Lost Country, and this kept them hesitating.

But they wouldn’t always hesitate – those things lurking in the Spirit World, in the Profound and even in Subspace, had no real intelligence.

Morris slowly turned the page, his eyes running between the words.

Folklore knowledge, this was the thing that most attracted the attention of those shadows; folklore held together the fear, awe, and simple knowledge of nature that mankind had accumulated over a long span of time, a roughly processed version of humanity, sweetened emotions and congealed knowledge best suited to be feasted upon by those who were hungry chasers of knowledge.

Another page turned, a fine dust fluttering between the pages as they undulated and fluttered, the light tilting through the curved paper, tracing jumps of light and shadow between the paper and the text.

The cabin was quiet.

The captain stood silently at one side, gazing at the spread out books, and the sun shard stood at the other, watching the air for movement.

Maurice looked to the next line of text and saw that the edges of that text were shaking slightly.

The intruder was getting closer.

The invisible knowledge hunter finally pressed its way to the edge of the real world, its tentacles were sniffing Morris’s mind through the pages of the book and began to disguise itself in the likeness of the text, and unfamiliar symbols were surfacing little by little on the otherwise normal pages of the book.

Those were words that did not exist, depicting knowledge that did not exist.

A skillful hunter will often disguise himself as the prey, and the pursuers of knowledge will often disguise themselves as “knowledge” when luring the seekers, and reading them is the first step to fall into the trap.

Morris looked at the lines of unrecognizable characters that emerged on the paper, felt the power that escaped from those characters and lured him to read them, and said softly, “It’s coming.”

In the next second, as if the “hunter” hidden in the pages and words suddenly sensed something, a sharp and chaotic scream suddenly entered everyone’s ears, and immediately after that, the pages of that big book began to turn wildly, and the black characters on the pages jumped up one by one as if they had an independent life, and struggled to turn into ink! The black words on the pages even jumped up one by one as if they had an independent life, struggling to turn into ink, wanting to break free from the yellowed paper!

Duncan saw this and revealed a smile.

His “fishing” has succeeded, in the face of knowledge hunters, using historians to hit the nest is really effective.

A cloud of smoke poured out from the pages of the book, and the words that were separated from the pages quickly merged into the smoke, and hissed and rushed out of the book, turning into a vortex of smoke that swirled up into the air, and then, something dark began to coalesce and take shape, and in the blink of an eye, it turned into some kind of skeleton like structure – a large pile of extremely chaotic, twisted, black bone fragments crackling and crackling. Pieces of pitch-black bone crackled onto the floor beside the dining table, and in the blink of an eye pieced together and assembled into something very familiar to everyone present:
An ugly, hound-like creature made of stacked black bones.

Dog, who was on full alert next to him, was dumbfounded at the sight and looked up at the people around him, “I don’t recognize it.”

“You don’t recognize it then.” Duncan said casually, and then stepped towards the Profound Hound that had just coalesced its form and seemed to still be in a state of confusion, and the latter finally reacted at this time, and it raised its head violently, red light exploding from its empty blood-colored eyes, and endless pitch-black flames rose up from the cracks in the skeletons all over its body right afterward in a gesture of defiance!

However, its resistance was over before it began – the moment the black flames rose within the Profound Hound’s body, its gaze met Duncan’s, and in the next second, every strand of flame that burned out of its body was tinted with a layer of ghostly green.

The intruder from the depths lost control of its own flames in a second, and became a sacrifice under the captain’s watchful eye, its chaotic mind perhaps not even able to comprehend what was happening before it was wrapped up in the burning flames of the spirit – a mournful, chaotic hissing that instantly shattered the peace of the Lost Country, and the explosion of the flames consuming the skeleton. The popping sound of the flames burning through the bones and the eerie ripping sound resounded through the dining room!

Good hunters tend to present themselves as prey – but very good hunters really do become prey.

What happened next was too much for Dog to bear to see, its entire dog shivered into a ball, holding its head behind Shirley and shivering, looking at the fire dancing in front of him while listening to the commotion coming from his ears, the red light in his eyes flickered: “Hey …… ugh I’m going to this …… hey mom this burning …… hey this bone broken …… hey this howling …… hey mom can’t look at it ……”

The restaurant was quiet. A mass of broken bone fragments have been completely indistinguishable from the details scattered on the floor, bone fragments over the smoke curling, some remnants of the green sparks in the pile of debris jumping between, devouring the “knowledge hunter” remaining in the reality of the dimension of the last bit of power.

Duncan frowned, the development of things is a bit unexpected, the speed of the end is also a bit unexpected.

He stepped forward and kicked the pile of broken bones, which still had some heat left in them, with his toes, and raised his head to look at Dog, who was not far away.

“Why is it a Phantom Hound?”

“I …… don’t know ……” Dog shivered momentarily, his voice sounding shaky, “I’ve never read a book before either, and I don’t know any words, and didn’t even have much sense before I got to know Shirley, and I don’t know why an …… old countryman came out of nowhere.”

At this time the side of the Morris stood up, this old scholar’s calm voice finally helped Dog to solve the problem: “Theoretically, the ‘evil spirits’ attracted while reading books will be random, usually from the spirit world’s invisible shadows, but there are also a few cases that will be from the profound depths to run out of the ‘demons’. ‘Demons’, the Profound Hounds carry the meaning of ‘hunt’ and ‘chase’ from their name, and in fact they are indeed a type of knowledge hunter… …And quite a powerful one at that.”

“A fairly powerful kind?” Duncan raised his eyebrows at that and subconsciously glanced at Dog who was shivering at Sherry’s feet, “Really?”

“…… Under normal circumstances, a person reading a book at sea is sneak attacked by a Spectral Demon that suddenly runs out of the book, that’s almost impossible to survive,” Maurice’s expression was a bit odd, “Worse case scenario. A Profound Demon that invades the real world through this route would quickly grow and get out of control, slaughtering the entire ship in no time at all …… Not every ship is the Lost Country.”

“Well,” Duncan nodded, quickly scratching the strength formula in his head, his tone somewhat subtle, “if the strongest invaders summoned while reading the book are ‘hunters’ like Dog, that doesn’t seem to be not very dangerous ……”

With that, he glanced at Nina, “Nina, you can do your winter vacation homework on the ship from now on, and if something does get out, you can just beat it up yourself – just be careful not to burn anything.”

Nina burst out laughing, “Oh!”

Then Duncan glanced at Dog, “Say, are you surprised you don’t even know you’re a ‘hound in pursuit of knowledge’ yourself?”

“I don’t know,” Dog shook his big ugly head, his voice muffled, “I’ve said it all, I used to be muddled ……”

Shirley, on the other hand, frowned and thought for half a day before suddenly popping up, “Then if you put it this way, all the Profound Hounds are just as illiterate as Dog, so what are they chasing after knowledge for?”

“Alice also studies cooking,” Duncan said casually, “It’s probably just a hobby.”

Shirley nodded plausibly, and looked down at her partner again, who silently burrowed under the table next to her, huge paws cradling her head as she spoke in a muffled voice, “Don’t ask me, I don’t know anything …… It’s too damn scary this place… …”

Duncan couldn’t help but shake his head with a grin, suddenly feeling that the atmosphere on the ship was really getting better by the day with so many more people on board – now that there was already this delightful daily routine, he really didn’t know what the place would be like when Vanna got on board.

With a cheerful mood and some anticipation for the future, he went up and kicked the pile of black skeletons on the floor that had gradually cooled down.

It was just a heartless spectral demon, nothing like Dog.

“Alice, clean up the pile.”

……

The bright, warm sun shone, but Vanna, who was walking in the church atrium, suddenly felt a chill and subconsciously shivered.

She raised her head and looked at the atrium path under the sunlight for a long time before she sighed deeply.

What should come, always comes.

(End of chapter)