“Oh-ho?”
Before Ophelia could even react, Old Ed’s voice cracked in Elias’s mind.
“Has the iron tree finally blossomed?”
“You actually praised someone!”
The old man was as excited as if he’d found gold in the spirit world, his tone full of gossiping fervor.
“No, old man, you don't understand,” Elias replied expressionlessly in his mind, his tone as serious as if he were discussing the fundamental truths of the universe.
“You have no idea what a sailor suit truly represents.”
That one sentence completely fried Old Ed’s brain.
A sailor suit?
Weren't those just the ragged, fish-stinking clothes worn by the poor laborers at the docks?
For a moment, in the spiritual hamster cage of the bracelet, there was only a confused old man agonizing over the definition of a sailor suit.
Out in the corridor, Ophelia was caught off guard by the sudden praise.
A faint, embarrassed flush crept onto her darkened face.
However, she suddenly realized a very serious problem.
She was suited for a sailor suit?
She looked down at herself.
The dark makeup, the thick eyebrows, the chest bound so tightly she could barely breathe to hide her feminine features, and those baggy, coarse men’s linen trousers.
She looked exactly like a rugged man who spent all year weathering the sun and wind on a ship's deck!
And he said she was suited for a sailor suit?!
Ophelia grit her teeth.
She strongly suspected this man was being sarcastic.
And she had concrete evidence.
This bastard was definitely mocking her for having zero feminine charm!
However, Elias didn't have the time to indulge her rich and sensitive inner monologue.
Leaning on his cane, he walked straight out of the room.
“Are you coming or not?”
Elias didn't look back as he threw the question over his shoulder. “If not, I’m locking the door.”
“I’m coming!”
Ophelia quickly grabbed her baggy trouser legs and followed him as if fleeing.
As she followed behind the tall man, her mind uncontrollably replayed her reckless actions from the previous night.
In the middle of the night.
Amidst the thunder and rain outside.
She had run into this man’s room wearing nothing but a thin bathrobe and stayed for a long time, only returning to her own room in the small hours of the morning.
The mere thought of it made her cheeks burn with a level of shame that was off the charts.
She was also secretly terrified in hindsight.
Fortunately, although the man named Bruce had a sharp tongue and was as cold and calculating as a block of ice...
At least he was a true gentleman.
He hadn't taken advantage of her vulnerability.
Perhaps it was because she had been through too much lately.
Her mind had been on the verge of a breakdown under high pressure, with nowhere to vent, leading her to do something as brainless and stupid as running into a stranger’s room in the middle of the night.
She really had gone mad!
...
Elias couldn't care less about the mental turmoil of the fake sailor behind him.
He familiarized himself with the red-carpeted stairs and headed toward the Bay Hotel’s restaurant.
He passed the corners of the fourth and third floors.
He didn't stop until he sat down inside the restaurant.
Memories came flooding back like a tide.
To be honest.
His memories of this hotel were far from pleasant.
The two sat in the luxurious restaurant and hastily finished an expensive breakfast.
Afterward, they hailed a public carriage and headed straight for the Wayland Shipping Company’s branch office in Hastings Port.
Along the way.
Ophelia seemed to have completely recovered from the shadow of the previous night.
Her professional instincts as a journalist kicked into high gear.
She began to probe him relentlessly, trying to uncover the background of this mysterious ally.
She asked quite a few questions about Elias.
Including, but not limited to:
“Sir, where do you live?”
“How many people are in your family?”
“What do you usually do for fun besides business?”
Facing this rapid-fire interrogation.
Elias leaned against the jolting carriage wall and answered smoothly, perfectly matching his fictional identity.
“Gotham.”
“Both my parents are dead.”
“I usually like to wander around at night.”
Ophelia was completely stunned.
Gotham?
Where was that?
Was there such a place in Velen?
She racked her brain, searching through all her geographical knowledge, and finally concluded.
It was probably some remote and obscure seaside town.
No wonder he had such an eccentric personality.
He was a poor soul who had lost both parents.
Just as her maternal instincts were flaring up and she was about to ask why he had the strange hobby of “wandering around at night,”
The carriage slammed to a halt.
They had arrived at the entrance of the Wayland Shipping Branch Office.
...
Elias hopped off the carriage and looked up.
He stared at the familiar red-brick building, the massive gear and anchor logo on the wall.
Memories of his original body surged in his heart.
Once upon a time.
The Elias who was a commoner with no supernatural abilities had come to Hastings Port for the first time, harboring dreams of making a fortune.
It was right here.
That he had signed that death-warrant of a labor contract and completed his application to be a lighthouse keeper.
The cruel gears of fate had begun to turn from this very spot.
When the two walked into the bustling lobby one after the other.
Elias had no intention of asking around.
Instead, he walked practicedly toward the office’s lounge area, found the most comfortable leather bench, and lay down.
“You go ahead!”
He waved his hand dismissively, like a master ordering a maid.
“Remember to find out whatever you can about the Octowin.”
Elias closed his eyes, acting like a total lord.
He wanted to see how this rookie journalist planned to conduct an investigation in such a heavily guarded place.
If she tried to force her way in or sneak into Wayland’s archive room...
That would be harder than climbing to the heavens.
Ophelia gave Elias an annoyed glare.
This man didn't have a shred of gentlemanly grace!
She turned away and began searching the lobby like a radar for her target.
In truth.
She had already made up her mind while tossing and turning in bed last night.
She was here today to look for old sailors waiting to conduct business.
She would ask these sea wolves, who spent their lives on ships, for any word regarding her brother or the Moon Bay lighthouse.
Although the internal Wayland documents she had obtained clearly showed...
A red cross, representing death, drawn next to her brother’s name.
However.
After returning to her room last night, she had repeatedly checked that imprinted list by the light of a gas lamp.
She discovered a tiny, extremely blurry note after her brother’s name, Ryan Moore.
It read: Whereabouts unknown, treated as deceased.
Whereabouts unknown!
That meant no body had been found!
Therefore, she still clung desperately to that tiny sliver of hope.
What if her brother was still stranded on some deserted island?
Secondly, she needed to find out what kind of shady business Wayland Shipping was really up to in Moon Bay.
Finding her brother’s specific whereabouts would likely depend on the unfathomable Bruce Wayne.
But regarding Wayland’s low-level activities.
In this office where people and rumors mingled, she could definitely dig up some major dirt.
Having made up her mind.
Ophelia locked onto an old sailor with a full beard sitting in a corner and walked over quickly.
...
On the other side.
Elias was sprawled out on the lounge chair, coldly observing the clerks and captains coming and going in the lobby.
Suddenly.
A wave of intense dizziness struck the back of his head without warning.
That familiar, viscous sensation, as if sinking into a deep-sea mire.
It was late, but it had arrived.
Damn it!
The dream demon curse was flaring up at this critical moment!
Elias grit his teeth, wanting to draw The Roaring Cane to give himself a physical wake-up call.
But he found that his fingers simply wouldn't obey.
Next.
The world before his eyes began to collapse and reorganize.
The entire branch office underwent a nauseating distortion in that moment.
It turned into a modern urban scene he was all too familiar with from his previous life.
The coarse wooden floor beneath his feet became smooth ceramic tiles.
The people of Velen around him, who had been wearing tailcoats, suspenders, and heavy dresses, had their clothes peel away like skin.
They all changed into modern T-shirts, jeans, and business suits.
The noisy voices shifted from discussing “shipping schedules” and “coal prices” to modern business communication peppered with various foreign languages.
It was as if he had been instantly transported to a departure lounge in some foreign airport from his previous life.
Not only that.
The comfortable vintage leather bench beneath him had also turned into a cold, hard metal mesh seat.
Outside the window, the carriages that should have been passing by had become speeding cars.
The piercing sound of car horns occupied his brain.
Madness.
Could this dream demon’s library of illusions actually read his deepest subconscious?
To forcibly transcode the Victorian era into a modern city?
Elias was drenched in sweat, desperately trying to break free from this dissociative sense of space-time distortion.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Perhaps a second, perhaps a century.
The glass door, which had become an automatic sensor door in the illusion, was pushed open.
A man walked in.
That person immediately drew all of Elias’s attention.
Because among all the drab modern crowds, only that person radiated wisps of eerie white light.
It was pure, highly concentrated spiritual overflow.
Elias endured the dizziness in his head and stared at the glowing man.
As the man passed by.
Elias keenly sensed it.
Beneath that man’s skin, something unspeakable and terrifying...
Was expanding wildly!
Danger!
A lethal sense of crisis instantly pierced through the barrier of the illusion, forcing Elias’s rationality back for a split second.
He suddenly realized.
That wasn't some modern person in an illusion at all!
That was a transcendent bomb about to lose control on the spot!
He lunged up from the metal mesh seat and shouted toward Ophelia with all his might:
“Watch out!”
Rate on N.U.
