novelraw Chapter 668: The Last Letter
Chapter 668: The Last Letter
Anna explained that once they entered Khimfast, she would have to conceal her aura and power, which meant she couldn't carry Selika Daler. The task would fall to Lu Li.
Lu Li didn't refuse. After pinning his investigator badge to his coat, he approached Selika Daler.
"Thank you..." Selika Daler whispered, climbing onto his back.
Perhaps it was the damp morning chill, but the body on his back began to tremble slightly once more.
Prolonged malnutrition had made Selika Daler incredibly light—probably less than 80 pounds. Even after a mile, Lu Li's breathing remained steady.
The sparse line at the wooden wall's gate soon took notice of the trio: a mysterious black-haired man, a woman with a sunken jaw wrapped in strange bandages, and a cloaked figure with a face hidden in shadow.
A guard with a detector-watch headed toward them. Perhaps due to the city's proximity, Selika Daler had stopped trembling on Lu Li's back.
As he drew closer, the guard watched the detector intently. To his relief, the strange trio didn't cause any change in its readings.
During registration, however, the chief of the guard noticed and recognized Lu Li's investigator badge. After confirming his identity, he asked if he should contact the Exorcist Association.
Lu Li politely declined and passed through the gates into Khimfast.The bustling street crowds made Selika Daler tremble again. Since his last visit, the construction scaffolding had vanished, replaced by ugly shacks squeezed between the neat, original buildings.
Having taken in a million residents, Khimfast had become noisier, but carriages and steam vehicles were now a rare sight.
They had become scarce after the "incident where hungry citizens attacked a nobleman's carriage and tore the horses to pieces."
After passing through the outskirts, they came to a wide crossroads teeming with people.
"Every child born is a gift from Heaven," young couples chanted in unison after a priest.
Bypassing the crowd, Lu Li stepped into a roadside clinic.
The air was tinged with the faint smell of disinfectant. There were no patients—the poor could rarely afford a doctor, and the rich avoided such establishments. A middle-aged doctor brightened at their arrival and extended a hand to help Selika Daler sit down.
Perhaps because of her jaw injury, Selika Daler regarded the man with suspicion and shied away from his help.
When he treated the wound, however, she didn't resist, silently enduring the stinging pain of the alcohol.
"The wound is serious, but it seems it's already been disinfected?" the doctor noted. "The bandaging is also professional. The main thing is to avoid infection."
He sighed, pitying the unfortunate woman, then crouched down to examine her right leg.
"She..." he began, but a shadow slipped into his own silhouette.
Memories flooded into Anna's consciousness—flickering images and warped knowledge that made her want to retch. She gritted her teeth, but then, she sensed something else.
...
The estate loomed nearby. Sunlight scattered in pearlescent glints, and a light midday breeze caressed the skin.
Enni gently swayed her emerald crown. Beneath the tree's canopy sat an ancient figure.
The Rope of Descent, old Miklos.
That night in the hut, old Miklos's true body had appeared at the threshold, and Anna's ritual had touched him.
"Why are you here?" Anna asked coldly, staring at the figure's back.
The head under the tree slowly turned. The face did not belong to old Miklos—it was constantly changing. Sarah, Adam, old Miklos, a beggar, a woman crying for help, a rat, the doctor...
The faces shifted one after another, flickering through the images of everyone Anna had ever possessed, until, as if stopping time, they froze into her own likeness.
"You should call me..." The clothes turned to rags, scattering like butterfly wings, revealing an identical white dress beneath.
"...another me."
...
"...She has a sprained ankle. A few days of rest and it will heal," the doctor said after a pause, removing his hand from her ankle.
Selika Daler silently pulled her pant leg down, hiding the goosebumps on her skin from the doctor's touch.
"Let's go to Aunt Mary's," Anna said softly.
Lu Li nodded and lifted the suddenly tense Selika Daler. As they reached the exit, he remembered. "How much do we owe?"
The doctor stood frozen by the kerosene lamp, his shadow stretching long and thin behind him. "...150 shillings."
Lu Li paid and, with Selika Daler on his back, headed with Anna toward the Terraces district.
After they left, the clinic sank back into its previous silence.
Motionless as a statue, the doctor suddenly stirred. He tore a sheet from a notepad, wrote something, and, as if in a dream, walked to the door and locked it.
Turning around, he opened the medicine cabinet, took a bottle of sleeping pills from the bottom shelf, and, carrying the lamp, went into the bedroom.
Placing the lamp on the nightstand, he unscrewed the cap. On the wall, his shadow swallowed the pills, which fell one by one into its throat and dissolved in its stomach.
Soon, the doctor collapsed onto the bed, falling into a deep sleep.
The shadow detached itself from his body and glided across the floor in the lamplight. It snatched the written note from the table and disappeared into the crack under the door.
In the clinic's bedroom, the sound of steady but gradually fading breathing filled the air.
He would sleep for a very long time now. Perhaps he would remain in the world of dreams forever.
...
"Please, don't leave me..." Selika Daler pleaded when Lu Li suggested taking her to a church. "Let me come with you a little longer... I'll leave on my own when you leave Khimfast!"
"Let's take the poor thing with us," Anna added, her voice full of sympathy.
Lu Li silently agreed and carried Selika Daler toward the Terraces district.
They found the local administrator and asked about Aunt Mary. The official replied with a puzzled look that the owner of the house had not returned.
Accompanied by the administrator, they went to house number 66. After the keys had been handed over to the city, three families had moved in: a couple with a child, an elderly couple, and a young woman.
They thanked Lu Li and Anna for providing them shelter, but they also knew nothing about Aunt Mary's return.
In the study on the second floor, everything remained untouched, except for Aunt Mary's personal belongings, which lay in cardboard boxes in the corner.
"We haven't touched anything in here," the elderly couple said from the doorway.
Lu Li sat Selika Daler down in a chair by the desk and looked at the windowsill.
The letter wasn't there, but Anna found it on a bookshelf.
Lu Li unfolded the note and began to read.
Selika Daler, at the desk, remained calm, as if she were also listening.
But deep in her eyes, a flash of genuine terror flickered.
This was not the last letter she had prepared!