Including Us

Stephen Sven.

A native of the city of Noran in the Seler Republic on the Old Continent, daughter of Jeff Sven of Sven Farm in the outskirts. In her youth, she traveled across the Old Continent and Middle Earth alongside her elders. Later, she returned to settle in her hometown of Noran, making a living by treating ailments and expelling evil spirits. She died in May of the year 684 of the Third Age during a ghoul invasion at thirty-one years of age.

This was the profile on Stephen Sven provided in the records from the Church of Suffering.

Originally, there had been no such record. It was documented during the two previous test runs organized by Madam Dess. In truth, even the small city of Noran had failed to leave its name in the annals of history, let alone Stephen, an ordinary victim among those slaughtered in the city.

The testers from the previous two excursions had not interacted extensively with the natives in the memory either, noting down only a handful of citizens. Dr. Stephen Sven was noted in passing merely because she served as the anchor vessel carrying the memory itself.

Too much had been omitted from the report. At the very least, it hadn't recorded that this doctor took pleasure in beating “little creatures” in broad daylight on the street.

The bruised and battered “little creature” limped away in tears, making Lynch feel that this educational method ought to be vigorously promoted back in King District.

After listening to Judy's translation, Ms. Sven stared at the four of them for a few seconds before letting out a cold huff. Just as Lynch was wondering if she was about to lash out at them, her expression softened. “Come stay at my place, then. The other inns might not have space. I've got a few spare rooms meant for patients. Not many patients around lately anyway, so I'll give you a discount.”

“Why—huh?” Lynch suddenly realized that she had switched languages. The pronunciation and vocabulary bore a resemblance to the official language of Lande. Through guesswork and intuition, he could actually make out most of it. “You speak our language?”

“Your clothes are odd, and so are your accents, but it sounds a lot like the languages of the nations founded by those pioneers on Middle Earth. It's quite different, but I can guess what you mean.”

Right, this lady has traveled across Middle Earth. It seems modern Lande language evolved from the languages of those pioneer nations.

“I like the outside world, and I like people from outside. So, I'll give you a discount.”

“That sounds wonderful. I like that word,” Lynch said. He glanced at the ring on Ms. Sven's finger, signaled to the other three that he had a plan, and pulled out a silver bead about the size of a pinky tip. “We haven't exchanged for your local currency, though. All we have is this.”

This was also provided by the Church of Suffering, packed together with the seeds of the human-faced fruit—five for each person. Lynch had wanted more, but Mrs. Nightingale had shooed him away, which made him deeply sorrowful.

“Such a large silver bead,” Dr. Sven remarked, quite surprised. “In that case, I'll cover your room and board for the next few days. It's getting late—follow me.”

With that, the woman let out a fierce roar at the surrounding onlookers, scaring away all the bystanders. Even the bratty kids who had been jeering at the mad old man scattered in fear. Only then did she accept the silver bead Lynch offered and gestured for the four to follow.

“Ms. Sven, earlier you mentioned that the other lodgings in town might be full. Have there been a lot of travelers coming through lately?”

“Things have been a bit chaotic outside the city lately. Quite a few people have spotted ghoul activity. Travelers passing through the area don't dare to keep moving. At least the city has walls for protection and is relatively safe, so everyone has been stranded here. Didn't you hear about it on your way here?”

“Even if they told us, we wouldn't have understood. It's not everywhere you meet a worldly lady like yourself, and our translator doesn't have much interest in these matters.” Lynch winked at Judy, only to find the girl already daydreaming, so he could only add in mild chagrin, “Is it serious? Has no one asked for outside reinforcements?”

“Actually, there's a ghoul tribe nearby, and we see ghouls from time to time, but this time I keep feeling like something isn't right. Maybe it's just my imagination.” Dr. Sven shook her head and changed the subject. “To be safe, the city lord sent someone yesterday to the capital to request reinforcements. They should arrive in four or five days. There's nothing to worry about. Just rest easy and stay for a few days. Once the reinforcements arrive, everything will be fine.”

Lynch sighed inwardly. In reality, the reinforcements had only arrived after everything was over—failing to even assist with the aftermath, arriving only in time to collect corpses. Just as he was musing over this, the voice of the mad old man drifted over from afar once again:

“The undead scourge is upon us! The ghouls are right beside us! We are all abandoned wretches! Whether you are a native or an outsider, we are all the same! Every single one of you will die! Die!”

Though faint and distant, the voice cast a dark shadow over their hearts.

Dr. Sven's clinic wasn't far from the city center, and the four soon arrived before a stone-and-wood building.

While it couldn't compare to the heavy masonry structures of the Victorian era, compared to the other crude wattle-and-daub houses around here, it was practically a mansion.

Most importantly, the door and window frames were decorated with creeping vines and floral touches, giving it a rather tasteful flair that looked quite unique in this frontier border town.

As they walked along, the four had already gotten to work. While committing the path to memory, they had secretly tossed five seeds of the human-faced fruit into the bushes along the roadside.

These seeds looked like shriveled, miniature human heads with a thoroughly eerie appearance, so the group hadn't dared let Dr. Sven see them. Fortunately, they took root the moment they touched soil, making planting remarkably easy. Next came daily maintenance, the most crucial part of which was watering them once every night after dark with water mixed with Lynch's blood, without fail.

The four had discussed it beforehand: they would spend two days planting all twenty seeds across different locations so that, at the latest, the final batch of seeds would mature and bear fruit before the memory ended automatically. With twenty samples, no matter how bumpy the process turned out to be, at least a few would bear fruit in the end.

A single plant bore four to six fruits, and bringing back just five would be considered exceeding expectations for this mission; if things got truly dire, bringing back even one would be marginally acceptable.

Two days prior, Lynch had asked Mrs. Nightingale why this thing was necessary in the first place, and whether it could be replaced with something else.

The elderly woman had stared at him for a long time with an unsettling, eerie gaze before speaking in a haunting tone: “It can. Why don't you cut off your own head and put it in instead? The two are interchangeable, though the original works better—one would be enough.”

Considering he wouldn't be able to grow a second head anytime soon, Lynch resolved that he absolutely had to bring back the human-faced fruit, as many as possible. Not only for compounding medicine, but also as a substitute in case those two ladies suddenly took an interest in his head later on.

Thus, he sowed seeds with exceptional diligence, finally tossing out all five of his by the time they reached Dr. Sven's doorstep.

Dr. Sven lived alone. Her father, Jeff Sven, lived on the farm outside the city. It was precisely because her father was growing old and she was his only child that she had cut her travels short and returned to her hometown to care for him. However, stubborn old Sven still spent most of his time on the farm tending to the fields. This time, only by using the excuse that the ghoul disturbance made it too dangerous outside the city did the old man promise to finish up his farm work in a few days and come stay in the city for a bit.

The second floor of the Sven house served as living quarters, while the first floor functioned as a rudimentary clinic. There were quite a few guest rooms—seven or eight in total. Lynch had very much wanted to rent just one room, but evidently, he was the only one who thought so, and his suggestion was ruthlessly suppressed. On the bright side, they had found shelter before nightfall on their very first day, complete with beds, blankets, and hot food. Compared to their first experience inside an uncontrolled mystery relic, this place was practically paradise.

“Those little bastards only understand one language: the harder you hit them, the better. The rest of the people in this city are the same—crude and vulgar. If you're not fierce with them, who knows what they'll try.”

Considering that she was a woman living alone, it truly wasn't easy for her. No one passed judgment on what had happened earlier. In the fading light of dusk, they sat patiently around the dining table, watching as Dr. Sven transformed from a violent assailant into a homemaker, serving up five portions of stewed vegetable soup and white bread.

It was even simpler than the dinners at 221. Lynch wondered if Miss Diana could stomach it, and he glanced at her, only to see her naturally scoop up a spoonful of vegetable soup, just as—

Thud, thud, thud.

The closed front door was suddenly pounded upon, the knocking rapid and forceful, filled with urgency.

“Sven, @#￥! @#￥!”

The frantic shouts made it obvious something had gone wrong. The four exchanged glances and set down their utensils as the female doctor stepped over to open the door.

Outside stood a soldier in leather armor, speaking at a rapid pace.

“Did something happen?” Lynch, having lost his appetite, had already followed her to the doorway.

Dr. Sven nodded with a dark expression. “Something happened to Kemitt.”

“Who's that?”

“The soldier sent by the city lord to request reinforcements. Suspected ghoul attack. We... won't be getting reinforcements for now.”

Huh?

The group exchanged glances, doubt rising in their minds.

Something is wrong.

The reinforcements had definitely arrived in the past; the testers had witnessed their entry into the city with their own eyes, with identical results both times.

The memory within a mystery relic was a fixed piece of history. It wasn't supposed to change unpredictably—like a filmed drama whose plot remained constant on every replay. How could a sudden deviation have occurred?

“I'll go take a look. Hopefully, he can still be saved. Go ahead and eat first.”

Dr. Sven had no way of understanding their confusion. She went upstairs to fetch some medicine, closed the door, and left with the soldier, leaving the four lodgers in the house. Before she departed, Officer Natalie gave Lynch a meaningful glance, silently asking if they should find an excuse to follow along, but Lynch shook his head.

Following her now would easily arouse unnecessary suspicion. It was better to wait and see, then find a way to probe for information once Dr. Sven returned. Besides, there was a more important task at hand.

Reading the suppression conditions.

Originally, Lynch had thought there was no rush since they had to wait at least three days for the fruit to ripen before they could withdraw. But this unexpected development carried the scent of danger. It served as a reminder that in the future, when suppressing an uncontrolled mystery relic, regardless of how urgent things seemed, he had to read the suppression conditions first. At the very least, he needed to know his exit route; otherwise, encountering such an anomaly could easily catch them off guard.

“Still, it really is strange. Have any of you encountered—or rather, heard of—a similar situation before?”

Of the three ladies, one was a professional mystery hunter, one a theoretical occultist, and the other an apostle of an evil god. All three possessed a profound understanding of the occult world, yet each shook her head. A fixed memory suddenly shifting was indeed unheard of.

“My father once told me that a relic's memories aren't entirely immutable. In fact, suppressing a relic is essentially altering the course of the memory; once the deviation reaches a certain scale, the memory naturally terminates,” Officer Natalie said hesitantly. “The people inside a memory are fundamentally normal people. Their reactions change based on our actions, and the greater our impact on the memory, the greater the changes. I suspect this situation might be related to that—for instance, our contact with Ms. Sven.”

“But... we haven't done anything yet,” Lynch rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “And the timeline doesn't add up. Working backward, when the messenger was attacked, we hadn't even entered or had only just arrived. There's no way we could have influenced it in time.”

“Perhaps original history was like this all along, and some unexpected incident later allowed reinforcements to arrive after all,” Miss Diana surmised. “It's too early to conclude the memory changed solely based on the messenger being attacked. It's safer to assume this is how history was supposed to unfold, and only dig deeper once we have concrete evidence.”

“Uh, true. The lack of reinforcements was only Ms. Sven's assumption; it might not turn out to be true. I might be overreacting,” Lynch said with a self-deprecating smile. “Still, just to be safe, I'll start reading now. It will take forty-five minutes to an hour. Natalie, keep watch for me.”

“Then Miss Judy and I will take a walk outside,” Miss Diana said. “We'll plant another five seeds of the human-faced fruit around this building, and plant the remaining ten tomorrow morning and evening.”

After this interruption, though they temporarily set aside their doubts, no one had any appetite left. In just a few minutes, they hastily finished dinner without tasting a thing. Lynch sat cross-legged directly on the floor, pressed his right index finger against the ground, and entered a state of deep reading.

Seeing that Lynch had begun, Miss Diana and Judy wasted no time, taking their seeds and departing the Sven house.

The moment they stepped outside, they felt something was off.

Night had already fallen. According to the experience from the previous two tests, due to the threat of ghouls, the first few nights here were supposed to be quiet, with virtually no one going out. Yet now, Miss Diana noticed several squads carrying torches patrolling the streets in crisscrossing routes in the distance, making the atmosphere increasingly tense.

This doesn't match the profile. Has a change truly occurred?

Miss Diana felt a trace of doubt in her heart, but regardless of any anomalies, the primary mission still had to be completed. The two carefully avoided the patrolling citizens, circled the Sven house several times, and dropped the seeds into various spots.

The most troublesome aspect of this plant was that the cultivator had to water it with their own blood for it to survive, which was why Lynch had to come in person; as for who physically planted the seeds, that didn't matter at all, as long as it was human.

After finishing the planting in haste, the two hid in the shadows to eavesdrop on the patrollers' chatter. It seemed that precisely because the messenger Kemitt had been attacked, the city lord and the general felt threatened and had intensified patrols.

Hearing Judy's translation, Miss Diana's suspicion deepened. However, seeing that enough time had passed, the two had no desire to linger and quickly retreated back into the Sven residence.

Upon entering, they found that Lynch had already regained consciousness and was sitting opposite Officer Natalie, both of them staring blankly.

Seeing Diana and Judy return, Lynch didn't even wait for them to ask before speaking directly: “The results are out.”

“What is it?”

“Terminate the ghoul transformation ritual.”

“Whose?”

“Everyone in the entire city.” Lynch gave a bitter smile and pointed at himself. “Including us.”