Chapter 57: Dorian’s Decision

Chapter 57: Dorian’s Decision

Backlund, Chorwood Borough, 22 Hope Road, the Hattrick Hotel.

Dorian Gray Abraham, broad-shouldered and thick-armed, unconsciously paced back and forth inside the room, waiting for his student Forsi to visit.

No matter how calmly he had accepted things, no matter how thoroughly he had prepared himself mentally, when the final moment to face the answer truly arrived, he still could not avoid feeling nervous and uneasy.

After an unknown amount of time, knocks sounded at the door.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Dorian listened carefully to the interval and rhythm for several seconds. Then he drew a deep breath, walked to the door, turned the handle, and pulled it open.

Outside stood Forsi, her brown hair slightly curled, wearing a dark long dress and tinted-glass spectacles.

Out of habit, Dorian looked behind Forsi first. After confirming that no one was paying attention to this place, he stepped aside and allowed his student to enter.

At the same time, he glanced at Forsi’s hands and discovered that she had not brought a suitcase.

Dorian immediately withdrew his gaze, walked to the center of the room, found a seat, and pointed toward the sofa opposite him.

“Sit.”

Forsi, seeming slightly restrained, lifted her skirt and sat down. She greeted him smoothly, “Good morning, Teacher.”

Dorian did not immediately enter the main topic. After some thought, he asked, “Did you truly kill Botis?”

“Mm.” Forsi took an exquisite, slender cigarette case from a hidden pocket in her clothing. She opened it and showed Dorian what lay inside.

They were two eyeballs with deep-black pupils. Within them was frozen indescribable terror, as though, before death, they had seen something horrifying to an extreme degree.

Dorian had originally braced himself to receive a nightmare-inducing head pieced together from bloodstained fragments, just like last time. Who knew his student would arrive without luggage and merely take out a lady’s cigarette case?

That made him assume it contained some relic that could prove Botis’s identity. Yet reality again exceeded his expectations.

This was still Botis’s remains, but even less of him was left than of Louis Wayne!

Only a pair of eyeballs remained… The spiritual intuition of an Astrologer made Dorian believe that these eyeballs truly belonged to Botis.

Seeing her teacher fall silent without speaking, Forsi subconsciously explained, “His body completely collapsed and scattered. Only this pair of eyeballs remained relatively intact.”

She paused, then added, “These eyeballs contain the terror Botis felt before death, and pollution from the Box of the Great Old Ones. They are powerful cursed objects. That’s why I didn’t send them to you directly. Otherwise, the postmen who handled them might have suffered misfortune, or even died without knowing why.”

Pollution from the Box of the Great Old Ones… Dorian nodded in sudden understanding, then smiled with a sigh.

“So in the end, he died because of the Box of the Great Old Ones?

“What fate…”

Back then, when Botis betrayed the family and brought the Aurora Order in, the first item he had stolen was the Box of the Great Old Ones.

At the private gathering where the spoils were distributed, Forsi had heard Miss Hermit and Miss Justice roughly describe what had happened. She understood how splendid and dangerous the battle she had missed had been. After thinking for a moment, she said, “In a sense…

“But before he was polluted by the Box of the Great Old Ones, he had already begun losing control.”

Dorian did not find that surprising. He said to his student, “Put them away. They are your spoils.”

After Forsi closed the cigarette case and returned it to the hidden pocket, Dorian leaned forward, clasped his hands together, and pressed them briefly against the bridge of his nose.

“Botis was one of the most talented Apprentices I had ever seen. Who could have known he would end up like this…”

At that point, Dorian gave a long sigh, as though…