It was a face hard to describe—neither distinctly wolf nor dog. A rubbery skin seemed to cover it, marred by festering, ulcerated patches, while the mouth was lined with razor-sharp teeth, drool dripping down the corners.
Lynch felt wave after wave of spasms in his stomach, holding back with all his might to keep from truly throwing up. In his dazed state, he only felt a firm, unyielding hand gently patting his back, slightly soothing his churning stomach.
Fortunately, the overwhelming urge to vomit quickly subsided. As his mind cleared, Lynch gasped for air and weakly asked in his mind:
‘Neighbor, what's going on? It made sense that I felt sick when Simon burned to death or when Granville turned to ash, but while the thing in this photo is ugly and repulsive, it shouldn't trigger such an extreme reaction. It's nowhere near as bad as most horror movies—I shouldn't be this fragile.’
【This is not a normal physiological response. It occurs when a bizarre image beyond common sense impacts your consciousness, severely affecting your sanity. Nausea and madness are both instinctive defense mechanisms spontaneously generated by your brain to protect itself and diffuse the mental strain. Once your willpower successfully withstands the shock, the reaction will rapidly fade.】
“Thanks, I'm fine.” Lynch pulled his focus back and waved his hand at the female officer. “I saw a very bizarre photo. I'm not sure if this counts as the psychic impact of a mystery document on one's mind, but I've recovered now. I'll keep going, and you can look later.”
Saying that, he pressed down on the photograph to steady his nerves and glanced at the monster in the picture once more.
He still felt a tremor of dread, but at least the visceral, physical reaction was gone.
Moving on, then.
In the subsequent photos, the situation changed. Torches and other people appeared inside the cave, all dressed like hillmen. Their expressions when photographed were fairly friendly, and some even posed for photos with the pretty girl.
Lynch found it strange. Given the monster captured earlier, why had this girl continued forward so calmly, even daring to take pictures with the locals? Had she not noticed the monster when taking the shot...? No, wait, that was it.
A few photos later, Lynch spotted several masks hanging on the rock wall—identical to the monster seen earlier. Beside the masks were matching claws and leather garments, looking like tribal totems or ritual costumes. One shot even showed someone wearing the mask.
Phew. Looks like it was just a hillman wearing a costume mask, not a monster at all. No wonder she could still smile.
Lynch chuckled wryly to himself, looking up to describe his findings to the female officer.
“Yet you didn't have such a strong reaction when looking at the later photos.”
The smile froze on his face. Lynch immediately realized something was wrong and hurriedly pulled out the monster's photo, placing it side by side with the one showing the masks hanging on the wall.
They looked very similar, yet gave off completely different sensations.
Although repeatedly looking at the monster photo had dulled the shock, the suffocating sense of terror never truly left. The photo with the masks, however, felt completely ordinary—just a normal picture.
Without needing to consult Lady Luna or the female officer, Lynch realized the reason himself: the figure in the first photograph was definitely not a hillman in a mask. It was a genuine monster captured on film.
And the pretty girl had subsequently mistaken it for a hillman costume, which was why she could interact with the hillmen without the slightest fear.
Does that mean there really was a monster in that cave?
Feeling a twinge of concern for the heroine of these photographs, Lynch paused his reading to take a one-minute breather before continuing. However, the cave journey lasted only a few more photos before abruptly cutting off, with no further shots taken for some reason. But holding the final photo taken inside the cavern, Lynch felt his scalp prickle with numbness.
In the photograph was an elderly hillman with a faint smile, his eyes so deep they seemed capable of sucking one's soul right in.
Lynch would never forget this man for the rest of his life.
A few days ago in the gray fog zone, atop a tall tree outside an abandoned factory, he had witnessed the old man's might firsthand.
A hillman powerhouse of at least rank six authority.
So all of this really connects.
Lynch stared blankly for a long while until the female officer, suspecting something was wrong, stepped forward to snap him out of it. Shaking his head, Lynch continued flipping through the photos.
The subsequent photos turned out to be shots of documents. Judging by the main headings, they were detailed intelligence on the Norin-Rhine Railway, including the files the two had seen at the city hall and the Hall of Order records they hadn't seen.
Lynch's eyes lit up; this was precisely the information he was searching for.
Yet after just a couple of glances, he slammed his fist into his thigh.
The photographic technology of this era was downright atrocious. Even though taken up close, the fine print and tables were so blurry that not a single word was legible. It was as infuriating as waving the truth right in front of his face, only to snatch it back.
Mentally uttering a heartfelt greeting in his homeland's dialect, he cursed the damn steam technology and the damn Victorian era. Where was high-definition digital photography? Why couldn't they hurry up and invent it already?
He quickly flipped through the blurry photos of documents until the final dozen or so, where his pace finally slowed.
These were legible because they were diagrams—blueprints of various sections across the Lande railway network.
Lynch recalled that he had seen similar schematics among the city hall files, but nowhere near as detailed—those only covered the design for the single Norin-Rhine line, whereas these photographs encompassed the entire railway network.
Setting down the last photo, Lynch looked up at the bright flame flickering from the gas nozzle on the ceiling, feeling that the mysteries in his mind hadn't diminished at all—instead, they had only multiplied. Lowering his head, he offered the female officer a reassuring smile and pushed the photos over to her.
“Take a look. It really doesn't seem like a mystery document; it's quite safe. Aside from that one photo of the monster, all of them are fairly ordinary. Check and see if I missed anything while I look through the other pieces of evidence you found.”
Placing his pocket watch beside him to ensure he could track the time and remind the female officer every minute, Lynch retrieved the other items from the evidence bag.
In truth, there were only three items: a letter, a photo frame, and a newspaper.
The letter was tucked inside an envelope, written by Maya to Donnie. It had no stamp or address and was dated the 12th, likely delivered by little Martha along with the photographs. The contents were fairly straightforward: after returning from Bester Mountain, she had been feeling constantly unwell, submitting her draft in haste before even finishing her follow-up investigation. Suspecting she had encountered some bizarre incident in the mountains but unable to look into it personally due to her poor health, she forwarded all the photos documenting her recent experiences to Donnie. She hoped Donnie would reach out to that shopkeeper he had once mentioned—the one knowledgeable about strange occurrences—to ask what was wrong with her body.
The newspaper was indeed the issue from the 13th, half of its second page taken up by Maya's report. It detailed the hillmen and their clashes with the railway project extensively, yet glossed over the subsequent bloodshed and its underlying causes in a single stroke, leaving an abrupt, anti-climactic impression that corroborated the poor condition mentioned in her letter.
Nonetheless, reading through it gave Lynch his first detailed understanding of the hillmen's origins.
These people were the indigenous inhabitants around Bester Mountain in the Carlos Mountain Range. Accustomed to dwelling in caves, they lived relatively independent, primitive lives. Worshipping Gaia, the Lord of the Earth, they held deep reverence for the mountains, which made them fiercely opposed to tunneling and led them to try various means to stop it.
They had even convinced the construction workers who entered the mountains early on to build supporting infrastructure that doing so would anger the gods and bring down an immense catastrophe. After several fatal accidents, most of the workers came to believe it, joining the hillmen in protests to demand that the government change the plans and reroute the railway.
Had he not seen those photographs, Lynch might well have believed the report. But having witnessed the monster in the photos, Lynch was convinced matters were nowhere near as simple as the article portrayed. For now, they had to uncover the true root of the conflict, clarify each side's stance, determine what each party stood to gain, and ultimately identify the underlying objective of the Shadow Alliance.
Even without Duke Vane's commission, he intended to strike back hard at them. Lynch had always been one to hold a grudge and had no intention of letting an organization that plotted against him off the hook easily.
One step at a time. This chess match of ours has only just begun.
Lynch let out a cold, inward sneer. Putting down the newspaper, he picked up the final photo frame, letting out a soft sigh the moment he saw it.
The photo showed a man and a woman standing in front of a small wooden cabin. The man was dressed sharply in formal attire with a stern expression, while the woman wore a calf-length skirt rarely seen in this era, leaving her ankles exposed. Her face beamed with a bright, radiant smile, completely unbothered by the camera.
The man was the deceased Donnie, and the woman was the heroine from the previous photos—undoubtedly the missing Maya. The wooden cabin seemed to be nestled in the woods, surrounded by lush foliage with towering mountains visible in the distance.
A thought struck Lynch. Recalling a common habit of many people, he immediately took the photo out of the frame and flipped it over.
Sure enough, a single line of small handwriting was written on the back.
“May our friendship endure forever and never fade. 1398, taken at our secret base.”
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