Chapter 368 – The Legacy of Shelter

Chapter 368 – The Legacy of Asylum

Those eyes were filled with blood, and within them was an overwhelming madness and fear, and even when the gatekeeper’s words soothed the woman’s spirit and brought her back from the brink of collapse, they failed to completely soothe the shadows of fear that lingered in her mind.

Agatha had seen this look many times before, so she simply met it calmly, calming the woman further with her gaze before she spoke, “By ‘he’, you mean your husband, do you not? He’s back home again – but as you know, he died a few years ago.”

The woman’s shoulders shivered violently, and she lowered her head, clawing at her hair as if she dared not continue to stare at Agatha, only repeating one after another, “He’s back …… He’s back …… But I know it’s not him……”

“How did you …… kill ‘it’?” Agatha frowned and asked again, “Do you remember exactly what happened?”

While saying that, she reached out and touched a potion bottle from her bosom, and after pinching open the cap with one hand, the tranquilizing aroma in the bottle quietly diffused and gradually enveloped the surroundings.

The gatekeeper’s potion produced an effect, the long haired woman on the sofa’s breathing appeared to be much calmer, she slightly raised her head, her eyes looking out from between the gaps in her hair, her voice was low: “I …… I hit the back of that thing’s head with a hammer behind it and then it fell down, but even if the head deflates down that big chunk, it didn’t die, instead it struggled back up, so I kicked it further inside and closed the bathroom door …… It was banging around in there, letting out scary shouts, it was the wee hours of the morning, and it kept shouting for ten minutes before it stopped …… “

The woman paused and calmed down for a few more seconds before continuing, “And then, and then I snuck open the crack in the bathroom door …… and the thing was gone ……”

Agatha nodded her head gently and asked again as she recreated the events in her mind, “And how did ‘it’ appear? Do you remember how he ‘came back’?”

“I …… don’t know,” the woman shook her head with panic in her tone, “He …… it suddenly appeared in the house! The door to the house was locked, but I heard movement in the living room, and when I came out of the bedroom I saw the thing …… dressed in my husband’s clothes from when he was first buried, walking around the living room, with a rotting slime like sound coming from inside his body …… “

Agatha’s expression suddenly became serious as she turned her head sideways, and before she could say anything, one of the guardsmen reported next to her, “We checked the entrances and exits of the house, all the doors and windows show no signs of vandalism, and all the windows are unlocked from the inside.”

The doors and windows were closed, the locks were not tampered with, and the “fake” appeared directly in the residents’ home.

Than the open and aboveboard “invasion” and “attack”, this phenomenon as if out of thin air like …… more than her heart alert rise steeply.

And today’s case is worth caring about more than these points.

Agatha lowered her head and looked at the woman on the couch.

She remembered the cases she had come across before today, especially the one found at 42 Fireplace Street – the death-returned folklorist and the female apprentice who was too heavily cognitively contaminated to realize it – and in a typical case like that, the surviving party had simply failed to distinguish between the immediate ” fake”.

But the woman in front of her did.

She wasn’t affected by cognitive pollution?

“Ma’am,” Agatha spoke up, weighing her words, “how did you discern that the ‘monster’ was not your husband?”

“It’s not necessary to ask? My husband …… he died years ago, that thing was all wrong, how could it be my husband?” The woman got a little agitated, “What’s more …… what’s more that thing is still heading towards my child …… my child, he pointed at that monster and called his father, he… . he was taken over by that monster, must have been taken over by that monster, he ……”

“You thought your child was controlled by the monster, so you choked him?” Agatha frowned and asked again, “You knew you were ……”

“I didn’t choke him! I just tried to pull him back, I didn’t choke him!”

The woman became completely agitated and even jumped up from the couch as if she was going to pounce on the keeper in front of her, while her bloodshot eyes once again resumed their previous look of fearful madness, so much so that even her sanity seemed to evaporate into thin air – the first reaction of the guardsmen standing nearby was to try to hold down the poor woman who had lost her mind, but Agatha’s reaction was a step faster.

The Gatekeeper lifted his cane and gently tapped it on the woman’s forehead.

The latter instantly fell asleep.

“She’s frightened,” the female captain with short black hair shook her head, “this kind of thing is just …… too much for ordinary people”

“No, it’s not just shock, it’s another form of sanity contamination – she’s in a state of temporary insanity, she’s just retaining the basic ability to converse,” Agatha shook her head, her brow always furrowed, “she’s not affected by cognitive and memory interference, and while I don’t know exactly why, she clearly recognized that ‘fake’ for what it was, but ‘seeing through the truth’ is an impairment in itself for ordinary people.”

While saying that, she raised her head and looked around the not-so-large residence.

“Where is the child?”

“Taken to a safe place for now – shocked and experiencing a brief asphyxiation, he may not be available for questioning.”

“Well,” Agatha instructed, “Separate the mother and child for the time being, keep them well guarded and psychologized, especially the child, comfort and reassure them, and report to me at the first opportunity if the mother and child recall any valuable information.”

“Yes.”

Agatha nodded, then took another step through the living room to the tiny lavatory-cum-bathroom.

The markings left by the guards after their forensics could still be seen on the floor near the showerhead. The fake had been kept in this bathroom, but in the end …… it had left less than a test tube of “samples”.

This is not normal.

The forgeries themselves may be strange in nature and of mysterious origin, but at least one thing is clear: they are also made up of a certain amount of solid matter, and even if they disintegrate, this solid matter will not just disappear into thin air.

Agatha frowned slightly as she circled the cramped lavatory twice, and suddenly, she stopped, her gaze fixed dead on one spot.

Located in the corner of the wall, the entrance to the rusty sewer pipe.

She darted over to that floor drain and tapped the end of her pewter cane on the cast-iron grate, overlooking the darkened hole within.

The darkness inside the downspout was unseen, as if it buried all the truth.

“…… No way …… Damn!”

Agatha suddenly took a deep breath, realizing a possibility that made even her hands and feet go a little cold.

“Evacuate this building and move all residents to the nearest neighborhood churches and public shelters,” she darted back into the living room, giving orders in a very fast-talking voice, “Go contact the neighborhood municipal office and shut down this building… . no, shut down all secondary piping connected to this building, both sewer and water – and send a team to the nearest sewage treatment station immediately to check the settling tanks and screens!”

The junior captain was taken aback upon hearing this flurry of orders, but she did not raise any questions; the instinct to follow orders made her immediately tense up, “Yes! Your Excellency the Gatekeeper!”

Agatha finished giving her orders and then went to the sleeping woman beside the couch.

How was it that this woman had not been affected by the cognitive and memory disturbances, but had seen through the truth of the “fake”?

Even at this point, Agatha was still very concerned about this matter.

At that moment, a guardian who had been investigating the clues in the other rooms suddenly ran into the living room, holding something in his hand.

“Your Excellency the Gatekeeper! We found this!”

Agatha immediately followed the sound and saw that what the other party was holding turned out to be a small plaster statue that looked quite a bit older.

It was clearly a sideways statue of the Frost Queen.

“A statue of the Mad Queen?” Immediately, one of the other guardsmen in the room whispered, “I didn’t realize that this was still here.”

Agatha’s expression was serious as she walked forward to receive the half-body side statue that was about a dozen centimeters tall, carefully observing the details on the statue.

“…… It’s an authentic product from that year, and the bottom of the sculpture carries a special anti-counterfeiting mark,” she judged briefly and raised her head, “Where is this thing kept?”

“In a hidden door deep in a closet,” the guardian who had found the queen’s sideways statue immediately reported, “Coins and souvenir books from the queen’s time were also found inside, and it looks like …… are the ones who still secretly miss the Frost Queen. ”

Agatha didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared fixedly at the plaster statue in her hands.

Frost Queen …… Even today, half a century later, there are still citizens in the city-state who secretly honor the Queen, and the matter itself doesn’t actually surprise her.

That was, after all, a glorious era, and that was, after all, a once-great queen – a mere fifty years of waning time was not yet enough to erase all traces of the Queen’s era from the city-state, and some of the old people who had lived through that era, as well as their descendants, were still deeply affected by it.

There were sporadic supporters of the Queen among the people – fifty years ago, such surreptitious commemorations would have been enough to result in hanging, but now, fifty years later, the ban on this had in fact become considerably more lax, and Agatha had heard of it more than once during her years as a Gatekeeper.

For the most part, today’s guards and magistrates don’t go overboard if it’s just spontaneous “souvenir collecting”, sometimes even pretending not to see it or just giving verbal warnings.

This family’s collection of a bust of the Queen, a few coins and a pamphlet is no big deal.

But when she thought about the strange changes that had just occurred in this residence, Agatha couldn’t help but think about it.

The person involved in this incident was not affected by the cognitive interference, but instead recognized the truth of the “fake”, could …… have something to do with the Queen’s memorabilia here?

(End of chapter)