Chapter 322 – A Snowy Day

Chapter 322 – The Day It Snowed

A small figure was standing at the entrance of the cemetery – it was a girl who looked to be about eleven or twelve years old, wearing a dark brown tweed jacket with a black skirt, as well as warm little cotton boots and thick gloves, she seemed to have been waiting at the entrance of the cemetery for a long time, snow was falling in the Frost City State in the evening, and the girl’s grey woolen cap on her head had already fallen with quite a few snowflakes, and there was a subtle heat rising through the twilight snow.

The little girl stomped her feet gently in place, occasionally probing the ramp across the cemetery, and when the caretaker appeared, she burst out laughing and waved her hand vigorously in this direction.

“…… Here we go again.”

The old caretaker couldn’t help but grunt after seeing the girl, his tone seemed to be a bit impatient, but he still slightly accelerated his pace and came to the girl.

“Anne,” the old man frowned, looking at the girl in front of him, “You’ve come running alone again – how many times have I told you that the cemetery isn’t a place for a young child like you to come alone, especially near dusk. ”

“I already told mom,” the girl known as Annie responded with a grin, “She said I’d just be home before curfew.”

The old guard gazed silently at the young girl who was beaming before him.

Most people here didn’t like the guards of the cemetery, much less being near this treacherous and dangerous place, but there were always accidents in the world – like, for example, a little girl who wasn’t afraid of her.

“Grandpa Caretaker, is my dad here yet?” Annie tilted her head back, looking expectantly at the hunched, black-clad old man in front of her in the snowflakes falling in the dusk, the cloudy eyes that made the vast majority of people cringe not making her nervous.

“…… No,” replied the old caretaker, as always, his voice as cold and hard as the wind that swept back through the cemetery, “he won’t be arriving today.”

Anne wasn’t dismayed, just smiling as usual, “I’ll ask again tomorrow then.”

“He won’t be here tomorrow either.”

Annie still tilted her head, “But he always comes, right?”

This time, the old man, whose manner was always cold and hard, was finally silent for a moment, until the snowflakes fell on his eyebrows, and the cloudy, dark eyes turned slightly, “The dead will eventually converge in the cemetery and be in eternal peace across that gate-but not necessarily the earthly cemetery, and not necessarily this one cemetery.”

“Oh,” assented Anne, but she did not seem to take it at all to heart; she only turned her head, and, with a glance at the locked barred gate, inquired curiously, “May I go in and look around? I’d like to have a fire in your cabin ……”

“Not today,” the old man shook his head, “Cemetery No. 3 is in a special situation, with church guardians stationed in it, and it’s closed to the public today-it’s time for you to go home, girl. ”

“…… Okay,” Anne nodded a little dejectedly, and immediately afterward, she dug around in the small bag she had with her, pulling out a small packet wrapped in rough paper and handing it to the old man, “Then this is for you — it’s cookies that mom baked, she said I can’t always be a nuisance.”

The old man looked at what was in the girl’s hand and at the snowflakes on the other.

He held out his hand and took the cookies, then casually tapped his hand on the other man’s woolen hat to flick the snowflakes off, “I’ll take it, you go home early.”

“Okay, Grandpa Watchman.”

Annie smiled and nodded, straightening her scarf and mittens before striding towards the path that led to the residential part of the city.

But just as she hadn’t taken more than a few steps, the old caretaker suddenly turned around, “Annie.”

“Huh?”

“Annie, you’re twelve years old,” the old man stood in the twilight, gazing calmly into the girl’s eyes, “Do you still believe what I told you when you were six?”

The girl paused and looked a little dully at the caretaker of the cemetery.

The dead all came to this cemetery – no matter how adrift and separated they had been in life, Bartok’s foyer would be the place where they would finally be reunited.

The words were written in the canon of the Church, yet faced with the same aphorism, an adult and a six year old child would always interpret it differently.

Twelve-year-old Anne stood frozen for a long moment as the black-clad cemetery caretaker stood like a cold, hard iron statue at the towering, locked gate, a fine snowflake fluttering between them as the winter chill filled the dusk.

But suddenly, Anne smiled, and grinned as she waved her hand at the old man, “Then you can take it that I’ve come to see you specially-Mother said that old people of advanced age need someone to talk to more often.”

The little girl turned and ran away, floating as lightly as a swallow sparrow across the path that was gradually accumulating snow; she slipped at the end of the ramp, but immediately got up, patted the snowflakes and dust from her skirt and thermal pants, and flew away. “…… Older old man ……” the old guard watched the girl’s departing back and waited for the other to run away before cooing, “The kid has got a bad intentions too.”

“Pushing through a child’s expectations is a little worse than that,” a young and slightly husky female voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting the old guard’s muttering, “You didn’t have to say that just now-a twelve year old, she already gradually understands what she should understand. understand has grown on her, and sometimes it doesn’t take us hard-hearted grown-ups to poke holes in what’s true.”

The old guard turned around and saw Agatha, the “gatekeeper” dressed in black with bandages underneath, standing at the entrance of the cemetery at an unknown time, and the previously locked gate of the cemetery had also been opened.

He shook his head: “Let her continue to expect her father to be sent to this cemetery, and then she ran to this hell of a place alone on a snowy cold day?”

“No good? At least you seemed to have some warmth when you were talking to the boy.”

“…… That doesn’t sound like something a keeper should say.”

Agatha shook her head and said nothing, turning towards the inner paths of the cemetery.

The old caretaker followed, first turning to lock the gate, then going to his own caretaker’s hut to put away his purchases, and completing the handover to the daytime caretaker, before making his way to the mortuary area of the cemetery, and finding the “caretaker”, who had already made his way here first.

Compared to before, the current mortuary is obviously much emptier, most of the stone platforms are now vacant, only a few plain coffins are placed on a few platforms at the edge.

Around those few coffins, there were at least two church guards standing next to each platform, and black canes could be seen everywhere in the open space between the platforms – black canes were the signature equipment of the guards of the Church of the Reaper, who inserted their canes into the ground nearby, and hung sacred lamps at the top of the canes, as a way to maintain a small area of the “Sanctuary”, which can be effective against those contaminating forces from the higher beings.

At this moment, dusk was already deep, the snowy day even made the sky a lot darker than this time of the day, in the increasingly darkened cemetery, those hanging on the top of the cane lamps like phosphorus fire quietly burned, releasing a kind of quiet but eerie atmosphere.

“We’ve done a lot of preparations here, but it doesn’t look like the ‘Visitor’ has any intention of returning here in the near future,” Agatha said casually when she saw the old caretaker appear, “Do you confirm that the ‘Visitor’ has returned to the cemetery? “Do you confirm that the ‘Visitor’ has revealed any information that he will be coming back?”

“You should trust the hypnotic skills of a professional psychiatrist,” the old guard shrugged, then added after a pause, “I can’t remember most of the events of that day, and the buzzing and rumbling noises are fading from my mind, but after several hypnosis sessions, I can slightly recall a few things …… the clearest of which was the intention to revisit revealed by that ‘visitor’ before he left.”

Agatha was silent for two or three seconds, thinking before she said softly, “But there is another possibility, for a superior being like that, it is highly likely that His concept of time is not the same as that of mortals – the revisit He spoke of could be tomorrow, it could be a few years from now, or it could be even more likely that it would be after your death, in a some way of contacting you beyond life and death.”

“…… Can you wish me well?”

“This is the result of a discussion in the Pontifical Council of Advisors.”

The old guard grunted noncommittally, his gaze sweeping over the black-clad guards in the cemetery and the tiki lamps that burned silently at the tips of their canes.

“…… I only hope that these arrangements do not anger the ‘Visitor’ and are not perceived by Him as some kind of offense or ‘trap’ –in the final analysis, we know too little about Him.”

“All of these arrangements are just our self-preservation,” Agatha said, “After all, even though you said you had caused yourself to fall into a state of uncontrolled psychic vision because you had inhaled too much incense, none of us know whether that ‘Visitor’ ‘ has the tendency to actively release spiritual pollution or not – to face the Upper Transcendent head-on, we should at least ensure our own sanity.”

The old guards did not comment, and only changed the topic abruptly after a slight pause, “Have you reached any conclusions from the investigation of those samples you took away earlier?”

“Do you mean those cultists, or that pile of ‘corpses’ that melted into mud?”

“Both.”

“There’s not much to say about those cultists, minions of the Annihilation Cult, transcendents who have become deeply symbiotic with demons – not bad strength, the average church guard would be dangerous against them, but unfortunately those heretics obviously lack good luck, and as for those ‘ Mudbloods’……”

Agatha paused at this point, her expression a little odd.

“Their ‘evolution’, as a matter of fact, hasn’t stopped until now, as of the time I left the cathedral, those things were still taking on new forms and properties, and for some time in the past they even briefly took on a state similar to that of metal and rock, giving the feeling of …… actually seems like one of those things that the Annihilationists often mention in their heresies.”

The old guard slowly frowned, “You mean …… ‘primordial’?”

“The true essence, the purest and holiest substance, the ‘Drops of Truth’ given to the earthly world by the Profound and Holy Lord – that’s how that group of heretics describes it,” Agatha’s tone of voice did not hide her disgust and sarcasm, “beautiful words, it’s still sickening for them to use.”

(End of chapter)