Chapter 31: A “Forest” of Miracles

Chapter 31: A “Forest” of Miracles

Bang!

Erik, the highly vigilant captain of the Red Gloves team, felt his body tremble for no reason. He saw the wandering magician who called himself Merlin Hermes explode directly behind the astronomical telescope.

However, no blood or flesh splattered out. The shattered limbs vanished rapidly into the air like soap bubbles.

“…” Erik and the team members who had turned toward the sound all fell into a stunned state, unable to understand why such a change had suddenly occurred.

One second later, Erik said in a deep voice,

“Evacuate!”

He wanted to take advantage of the fact that the danger had not truly spread yet and lead the team out of the apartment.

At that moment, another figure walked in through the open door of Room 403. Astonishingly, it was Merlin Hermes, who had just exploded into nothing.

This wandering magician wore a tall top hat and a black robe. As if nothing had happened at all, he said to Erik and his team members,

“The root of the problem is indeed that astronomical telescope.”

As he spoke, Klein walked to the balcony area and lightly patted the astronomical telescope with his right hand.

With another bang, the astronomical telescope suddenly shattered into specks of metallic light, releasing a small amount of foul-smelling bluish-black gas.

Grayish-white fog appeared and vanished. The stench disappeared, the bluish-black gas faded away, and the room returned completely to normal.

“…What exactly happened?” Erik forced himself to forget the matter of the other party dying and then appearing again. After weighing his words, he asked.

As a fairly experienced Red Gloves captain, he had already made certain guesses regarding the truth of the entire incident. The purpose of asking was mainly to seek confirmation.

Klein smiled.

“To put it simply, for some unknown reason, this astronomical telescope underwent a mutation, causing the room’s owner to see things he should not have seen.

“If you want more detailed information, you will have to gather clues yourselves. I do not know very much either.”

Erik nodded slightly and cast his gaze toward his team members, signaling them to continue the investigation.

After a period of busy work, Erik said to Merlin Hermes,

“There aren’t many clues left in the room. We can only confirm a few things.

“First, John was a local resident. He served in the war, and his mental condition seems to have suffered certain problems because of it. Second, he had long been an astronomy enthusiast. After the war ended, he joined an academic organization called the Celestial Study Society, but we had not previously collected any information about that organization. Third, John seemed to be searching for a way to see the true starry sky.”

When he spoke the word “starry sky,” Erik paused slightly, as if he had received warnings from the upper ranks of the Evernight Church.

After the war ended, he joined an organization called the Celestial Study Society… searching for a way to see the true starry sky… Combining this with the “experience” he had just had, Klein gained a certain grasp of the situation. He nodded lightly.

“You should all know that the ‘starry sky’ means danger. It cannot even be understood casually.”

“We will report this case to the archbishop as quickly as possible and define the Celestial Study Society as a dangerous organization.” Erik spoke as if he were communicating with a superior who did not directly manage the Nighthawks.

Klein gave no response. As he walked toward the door, he sighed and said,

“The war truly has had irreversible effects in every respect…”

After the God of Combat fell, the already precarious barrier left behind by the Original Creator lost part of its support. The Evernight Goddess had not yet fully grasped the corresponding Uniqueness, and as for becoming a Great Old One, no one knew how long that would take. Under such circumstances, the Outer Deities’ corrosion of this world naturally deepened, merging with the war trauma suffered by vast numbers of ordinary people.

Klein suspected that during this period of postwar reconstruction, quite a few cult organizations pointing toward the “starry sky” and different Outer Deities had already quietly appeared across Loen. If they were allowed to develop believers and carry out all kinds of highly dangerous attempts, the apocalypse would certainly come early.

Amid that sigh, he walked out of Room 403 step by step. His figure quickly blurred, turned transparent, and vanished.

Inside a hotel near Playa Street, Klein, who had checked in long before, picked up the coffee before him and took a small sip.

While it was still early, he went out again, took a carriage, and arrived in the outskirts of Constant City’s riverside district.

There was a cemetery here, with stone tablets standing in rows like a low forest.

Klein walked through the cemetery. Relying on his spirituality to “point the way,” he found one particular gravestone.

The owner of the grave was named:

“Welch McGovern.”

This was a university classmate of Klein’s original body. Because he had bought the notebook of the Antigonus family, he had died mysteriously in Tingen. That had indirectly led to Zhou Mingrui’s “transmigration.”

Welch McGovern’s father was a banker in Constant City. He had spent money to bring his son’s body back to his hometown and bury it in this cemetery.

Klein stared at the photograph on the gravestone for a few seconds. Then he bent down and placed the pure white bouquet in his hand before Welch’s grave.

He was just about to turn and leave when he suddenly stopped. Twenty or thirty seconds later, an elderly man holding a black cane walked over from another direction.

Klein recognized him. He knew this was Welch’s father, the banker of Midseashire who had once treated him and his classmates to a grand meal.

Compared with several years ago, however, this gentleman had aged a great deal. Originally, he had been an energetic middle-aged gentleman. Now his hair was already half white, and many wrinkles had appeared at the corners of his eyes, around his mouth, and across his forehead.

“Who are you?” Welch’s father looked toward the stranger before the grave and asked with both confusion and vigilance.

Klein sighed.

“Uncle, I’m a friend of Welch’s. I happened to pass through Constant recently.”

Welch’s father nodded slightly and said in a low voice,

“He was someone who liked making friends. I only knew some of them.”

That sentence was actually explaining why he had not invited the guest before him to attend the funeral back then. He felt quite apologetic about it.

Klein did not say much. He glanced left and right.

“Is there anything you need help with? Or rather, do you have any wish you would like fulfilled? I hope I can offer some strength.”

Welch’s father looked around and smiled bitterly.

“Can you make all the dead here stand up again?”

It isn’t exactly impossible, but it wouldn’t be the kind of standing up you want… Klein sighed inwardly and shook his head.

“Then can you restore Constant to its original state?” Welch’s father asked again with a bitter smile.

Without waiting for Klein’s response, he sighed and continued,

“There is no need to offer help. What can be done, I can do myself. What cannot be done can only be entrusted to the gods.”

As he spoke, the banker passed by Klein, walked to his son’s gravestone, bent down, and placed the pure white bouquet in his hand before it.

Klein looked at his back and said softly, as though speaking to himself,

“I will do my best.”

With that, he turned and left the cemetery.

…

Constant, inside a bar decorated in a style from the previous century.

A man wrapped in a thick jacket held a beer and walked to the wooden board beside the counter, attempting to look through the papers posted there for part-time jobs.

Suddenly, he saw an unusual commission:

“I am a reporter and wish to collect all kinds of stories that occurred during the war from different people. It would be best if they were personal experiences. The reward I can offer is the free fulfillment of your wish to repair or rebuild your home. I have sufficient resources in this regard.

“Merlin Hermes.”

The man instinctively frowned. He felt that this commission was too strange, almost like a prank.

“Can you understand the words on it?” A thin man sitting beside the wooden board seized the opportunity and asked.

Among the patrons who came and went in this bar, only a very small number were literate. Even if they wanted to find work or accept commissions, the vast majority could not understand what was written on the papers posted on the board. As for the bartender, he could remember only the few with the highest pay.

Under such circumstances, the thin man relied on the fact that he had once attended a free school and learned common Loenese words, providing explanations for others at the price of a quarter penny each time.

This was how he survived.

The man shook his head, indicating that he could read Loenese. Pointing at Merlin Hermes’s commission, he asked,

“Is this real?”

“It’s real. That reporter gentleman is sitting in that corner. He’s wearing a very tall top hat.” The thin man eagerly pointed out the direction.

That reporter had promised him a quarter penny for every person he introduced.

The man holding the beer fell silent. He hesitated for more than ten seconds before walking toward the corner and finding the reporter named Merlin Hermes.

“You… will really help me rebuild my house?” he asked, somewhat nervous and worried.

Klein pointed to the document on the small round table.

“We can sign a contract.”

“…There’s no need. Even if you only provide some materials, I would already be very satisfied.” The man sat across from Klein, rather restrained. “I don’t have a very vivid story.”

“As long as it is true, that is enough.” Klein nodded slightly, offering encouragement.

The man lowered his gaze and stared at the tabletop.

“I am a local of Constant. I once had a fairly decent job and bought a row house on Light Tide Street. Later, the war broke out. My house turned into ruins during a bombing. My eldest son—the child who had only just entered elementary school—was buried inside…

“We had no choice but to rent another two-bedroom place. Then the Feysacians occupied Constant. They… they dragged away my wife, and she never came back…

“Some time ago, someone notified me to identify a body. I couldn’t recognize her anymore. She had rotted beyond recognition, but in the pocket of her remaining clothes, there was… there was still our water bill…

“When she was living in the rented place, she was always thinking about our home. So was my little daughter. I don’t have much money now. I can barely maintain my life, but I hope I can slowly rebuild that house.

“To be honest, I truly dislike telling others about my misfortune. I would rather remain silent. But if I can really receive help in rebuilding…”

Klein held a pen and paper, pretending to take notes. Hearing this, he nodded lightly.

“Your wish will come true. Tomorrow, go to the ruins of that house on Light Tide Street and wait for me.”

At the same time, he pushed a one-soli note across.

“This is for you to have a drink.”

The man’s eyes flickered, as though he wanted to refuse. In the end, however, he still picked up the banknote.

The next day, after sending his little daughter to the Church school, he followed the familiar road back to the familiar Light Tide Street.

Then he saw that familiar house.

Its chimney, its windows, its front door, the weeds on its walls—none of them had changed in the slightest. Everything was so familiar that it seemed, in the very next second, a beautiful mistress of the house would open the door and lead two children out to welcome their father home.

The man stood frozen there, unable to believe it was real.

But even if it was only an illusion, he was willing to sink into it.

…

Several days passed. After fulfilling one similar wish after another, Klein pushed open the hotel window and, amid the thin fog of dawn, raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

In a fairly elevated district of Constant, Welch’s father had woken early as usual because he had dreamed of his dead son and relatives. He walked toward the balcony, preparing to breathe the morning air.

In the light of dawn, he suddenly saw chimneys and blast furnaces standing like a forest. He saw one tall building after another.

The Constant City that had once existed was completely reappearing before his eyes, bathed in the orange-red glow of morning.