The Furthest Distance

Nightgulls are a notorious species of bird in the Kingdom of Velen.

They look like crows but have white bellies like seagulls; though they are ordinary creatures, they are said to possess a strange heat-sensing ability.

They can precisely sense the heat radiating from the top of a human head and possess an extremely strong anti-social urge.

They specifically choose people who have just washed their hair or are wearing light-colored hats to defecate on.

In the slang of Velen, "being targeted by a nightgull" is basically synonymous with "having terrible luck."

And Old Ed using the oath "lying like a nightgull egg" at this moment showed that he had truly lost his cool.

'Can you use your brain for once?'

Edmond's voice roared in Elias's mind.

'Look!'

'I'm a spiritual body without even the ability to act on my own, trapped in this spirit world hamster cage!'

'What benefit would I get from lying to you?'

'If I trick you to death, do I get to keep staying in this damn prison bracelet?'

'Besides, look, did I lie to you about the spirit vision potion?'

'It was the real deal, wasn't it?'

'Did I lie to you about the promotion ritual?'

'I didn't, did I!'

Listening to the old man's series of soul-searching questions, Elias rubbed his nose.

He had a point.

But that black haired lady also seemed to be helping him.

On one side was a down-and-out old ghost helping him survive, and on the other was a deep and mysterious powerhouse; it made things difficult for him.

'What if you, old man, screw me over at a critical moment?'

Elias decided to keep the verbal upper hand and try to bluff the old ghost while he was at it.

'Like, if you need to possess me to be reborn?'

'Or if you need to sacrifice my soul to something in exchange for your freedom?'

'How could I screw you over?!'

Edmond almost laughed in anger.

'You're being ungrateful!'

'And I'm threatened by you every day with being thrown into a cesspool!'

'Do I even have the guts to trick you?'

'Alright, alright, alright!'

Elias quit while he was ahead and hurried to soothe him.

'Don't get excited.'

'Let's just say that lady was the one lying to me, okay?'

'A woman?'

Old Ed, who was on the verge of a rage a moment ago, had his attention instantly diverted.

'Is she pretty?'

'...'

Elias was speechless.

'Cough, Old Ed, stop talking nonsense.'

Elias lowered his mental voice as if afraid of being eavesdropped on.

'She is a Scale Seven.'

'If she has some way to listen in from a distance, we're both finished.'

The effect of those words was comparable to a silence spell.

His mind went instantly quiet.

It took several seconds before Edmond let out an exclamation that sounded like he was being strangled:

'My Moon Lord... Scale Seven?!'

'A Saint?!'

'Are you sure? You, a kid, can recognize a Scale Seven?'

'The bishop of the Ascetic Society said so; he said he felt a Scale Seven spiritual fluctuation,'

Elias explained.

'Then it's over...'

Edmond's voice instantly withered, carrying a sense of despair.

'How could someone like that know about me?'

'What did I, Edmond Russell, ever do to deserve the attention of a Saint?'

'I don't think I offended anyone when I was alive, right?'

The old man even began to rummage frantically through his memories, trying to recall if he had unintentionally bumped into any ordinary looking passersby in the past.

But after thinking for a long time, there was nothing.

The greatest achievement of his life was becoming a Scale Two Firebearer and then dying at his post.

'She said she was your colleague,'

Elias reminded him.

'A colleague? That's even more impossible!'

Old Ed said categorically, his tone certain.

'When I was a Firebearer, I was basically an ascetic.'

'The same three places: the lighthouse, Hastings Port, and Arlington.'

'Of course, I have met other fellow Firebearers.'

'Was there a lady with black hair and blue eyes among them?'

Elias took the opportunity to ask.

'Very beautiful.'

If he could confirm the other party's identity, it would be a good thing.

At least he would know if she was friend or foe.

'Black hair and blue eyes...'

Edmond fell into deep thought.

After a moment of silence.

'No, there wasn't,'

Old Ed replied regretfully.

'In my memory, there's no such person.'

'If there really was such a beautiful colleague, I would definitely have a deep impression.'

Elias sighed.

The clue was dead.

Currently, the situation had become somewhat blurred for Elias.

The other party warned him that Old Ed was lying and explicitly stated Edmond's name, which meant she definitely knew Edmond.

But for now, in terms of objective logic and interests, Old Ed had no reason to lie.

Furthermore, she only said Old Ed lied to him, but as a talkative spiritual body, Old Ed had said a lot; was it everything?

Or one specific sentence?

There was no way to trace it.

And don't forget that he was the one who needed help and was completely dependent on the bracelet as a vessel.

In contrast, that mysterious lady had an unknown origin and unknown purpose.

Although she gave him the bone flute, it didn't mean he could fully trust her.

The kindness of a high-level existence was sometimes scarier than malice.

On the contrary, her words were the ones that needed careful scrutiny.

Who exactly was lying?

Or was there some misunderstanding in all this?

But she knew about the offering ritual offerings...

Elias touched the hard bone flute against his chest.

Since she knew the offerings were wrong and gave him new ones, it meant she knew everything about his Audience, and might even understand it better than Old Ed.

Was that little girl working with her?

Was the one he met really not the Moon Lord?

Did they spiritually hijack him during the Audience?

But the promotion was successful.

Elias felt like his brain was going to explode.

He discussed it with Edmond in his mind for a long time but couldn't analyze anything concrete.

Seeing that he had reached the edge of the city, the lights outside the window gradually became denser.

Elias hailed a public carriage and returned to the hotel.

'Is it possible you have amnesia?'

Amidst the jolting of the carriage, Elias suddenly had a flash of inspiration and proposed a hypothesis.

'After all, you've been dead for fifty years, and your soul has been cooped up in the bracelet for so long. Maybe some memories were lost?'

'Get lost.'

Old Ed was concise.

'I remember everything clearly, even which bedsheet I wet when I was four years old.'

'My memory is absolutely complete!'

Just like that, the depressed Edmond didn't speak to him again until the carriage stopped in front of the Bay Hotel.

The Mental Message was also cut off at some point.

After paying the fare, Elias stood in front of the Bay Hotel.

He took a deep breath.

He had repeatedly checked his Rational Circuit along the way to ensure his spirituality was perfectly contained in the deepest part of his consciousness.

He confirmed it once more before walking into the hotel lobby.

Arriving here, Elias, who had retracted all his spirituality, felt a wave of intense discomfort.

The hotel lobby, which was usually quiet, was now filled with people.

There were guests, hotel management, and some strangers.

Some were talking, some were planning to leave, and some were going upstairs to their rooms.

That transparent, sharp perception he once had now felt like it was covered in a thick layer of mud.

The sounds of conversation and footsteps in the hall became muddy and flat.

It gave him the feeling of being an ordinary person again.

Although this feeling was safe, it made him feel extremely insecure.

This was probably what they meant by "it's easy to go from rags to riches, but hard to go from riches to rags."

'Stay calm, don't look around,'

he warned himself internally.

Elias lowered the brim of his hat and blended into the crowd.

He tried to make his pace look natural and tired.

He followed the stairs upward.

As he passed the third floor.

Although he tried his best to restrain himself, he couldn't help but glance at the end of the hallway out of the corner of his eye.

The door to Room 302 was ajar.

A rough hemp rope was stretched across the entrance, with several wooden signs hanging on it that read "No Entry."

There was also an investigator in a uniform standing guard outside.

He could vaguely see several figures busy inside the room.

Even from a distance, and even with his spirituality retracted, Elias could still smell the blood and disinfectant wafting out.

They seemed to be processing the various pieces of the Kingdom of Velen's people inside the room.

Clearly, this was the reason there were suddenly so many people in the hotel lobby.

Most of them should be guests from the third floor, but because this wasn't the actual crime scene, they hadn't cordoned off the hotel.

The Seventh Agency was not the police, after all.

Elias's heart skipped a beat, and he didn't dare pause his steps as he continued up the stairs.

That's right!

The people from the Seventh Agency wouldn't all go out to track his whereabouts.

Some people needed to stay here to investigate the scene and determine the nature of the case.

As long as he didn't walk into their line of fire and didn't expose any spiritual fluctuations, he should be able to blend in.

Thinking of this, Elias's spirituality constricted even tighter, almost to the point of suffocating himself.

He tried to naturally follow some guests from the fourth and fifth floors toward the rooms.

Because his room was exactly Room 406.

Although it was only one floor above the crime floor, this one floor of vertical distance was a safe zone between life and death.

As long as he could get through this, he would check out and run to the train station first thing tomorrow morning.

And for the other guests on the fourth and fifth floors, someone dying was just someone dying; the police wouldn't reimburse their room fees.

This kind of thing wasn't anything new in Velen.

One step, two steps.

The fourth floor landing was right in front of him.

Victory was in sight.

Elias's hand already touched the room key in his pocket.

However.

Just as he stepped onto the carpet of the fourth floor hallway and was about to walk quickly toward his room.

From behind him, a very clear voice suddenly rang out.

"Wait! Sir!"