"You're talking about that woman up ahead, aren't you?"
Elias turned his head and asked.
Just to be safe, he decided to confirm.
If he had made a mistake and hurriedly told the driver to turn around, the scene would have been somewhat embarrassing.
Wouldn't that make him, Elias, look like a coward?
As someone who had seen great storms on the lighthouse, he still had to maintain appearances occasionally.
"Yeah."
"What on earth are you doing?"
"Buddy, I stole their stuff! Don't do anything rash!"
John's voice carried a tremor, as if he had just survived a disaster.
"Eh? You've become a transcendent?"
"You finally put your faith in the Three-Phase Moon?"
John suddenly leaned in and spoke.
"Mm-hmm."
Elias admitted it noncommittally.
"Then that's perfect!"
"The stuff I hid—we'll split it fifty-fifty!"
Hearing John say this, Elias's eyes instantly became a few degrees brighter than the gas street lamps outside.
Back in Hastings Port, he had casually rummaged through a cultist's luggage and found an elemental revolver of considerable value.
And this guy John had stolen a carriage used by the agency to transport confidential materials.
If that carriage didn't contain some transcendent materials or priceless transcendent equipment, it wouldn't deserve to be called a confidential transport.
Although he was already calculating how many gold crowns he could exchange it for, he still maintained a cold and deep professional integrity on the surface.
He didn't have the driver return to the house on Ash Street.
John was an outsider after all; it was better to be as cautious as possible in these matters.
He knocked on the wooden panel of the carriage and directed it toward St. Mary's Park on another street.
At the same time, he quickly established a Mental Message with John in his mind.
Fortunately, the creaking of the wheels over the cobblestone road and the sound of horse hooves were noisy enough to mask the sound of the two of them talking earlier.
Otherwise, if the driver heard the sound of two people chatting when only one person was sitting in the back, he might be scared to death.
"John, I didn't know you looked like this!"
Elias looked at the man in his thirties sitting beside him through Spirit Vision and made small talk.
John's spiritual body looked quite respectable, wearing a well-tailored dark suit with a meticulously tied bow tie; he looked like any decent gentleman in the Kingdom of Velen, without a single trace of a thief.
"That's right, I thought he was a lively young lad when we met last time."
At this moment, Old Edmond's voice joined the conversation, carrying a senior-like, uncomfortable sense of scrutiny.
'A lively young lad...'
Elias's mouth twitched slightly.
He even suspected Edmond was doing it on purpose.
He really felt a sense of shame for John.
That term didn't have a very good connotation in his past life.
Unfortunately, these two ghosts didn't understand why he was finding it so hard to keep a straight face right now.
"Oh, isn't this another brother?"
Old Edmond had clearly established a mental channel with John as well.
"Are you still hanging around with Elias?"
John had clearly not been a simple character when he was alive; he was currently turning his slightly ethereal head, trying to search for Old Edmond's location in the narrow carriage.
But just like the last time on the island, he was destined to fail.
"Stop looking."
Elias interrupted his movements.
"His situation is special; you can't see him."
"I was wondering when you planned to meet up with me."
"You said yourself back on the island that you'd find me in Hope County."
"I've been waiting for you for ages!"
John interrupted him.
"But as soon as you stepped out of the station, you were followed by an investigation commissioner from the Seventh Agency!"
"Buddy, that's the Seventh Agency!"
"How would I dare go over and talk to you? If they decided to exorcise me on a whim, who would I complain to?"
"That investigation commissioner... you've seen her?"
At this point, Old Edmond's voice became a bit more serious.
"A brief encounter, back in Landon City."
"She's a very troublesome woman."
John didn't seem to want to dwell on this topic.
"Let's get back to business. That woman's carriage has gone far, but I still feel like there's a lingering, unsettling ripple of spirituality in the air."
As the conversation got back on track, the carriage happened to arrive at the park entrance.
In early spring, the park looked a bit desolate; the tree branches had only just sprouted new buds, making everything look quite bare.
Elias jumped down, pulled a few coins from his pocket to hand to the driver, and told him to wait a moment by the roadside.
Then, one man and one ghost walked deep into the park along a quiet path.
"I did some scouting a while back. The stuff I asked you to help me retrieve has now been moved to the Lily of the Valley Convent."
John lowered his voice and spoke.
Hearing this place name, Elias actually breathed a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, the guy wasn't asking for the Golden Rose.
Captain Crowley wanted him to get something from the Golden Rose.
And the Lily of the Valley Convent... although it wasn't exactly a good place, at least it didn't clash.
The Lily of the Valley Convent was a sanctuary in Hope County established by believers of the Mother Goddess of Destiny.
The believers of the Mother Goddess of Destiny had two factions; one was the Life School, known as the Life Scholars.
The other was the Necromancy School, known as the Hand of Necromancy.
These corresponded to the two divine offices fulfilled by the Mother Goddess of Destiny.
One side represented new birth and life, while the other represented death and peaceful sleep.
Just like the ascetics, except these believers weren't as united as the ascetics.
Ascetics simply distinguished between different schools corresponding to the three phases of the Moon Lord, but these believers of the Mother Goddess of Destiny were different.
They had directly split into separate families.
And the Lily of the Valley Convent was established by the Life Scholars.
It was located in the West District of Hope County.
Behind the convent was a massive public cemetery.
"A cemetery?"
Elias raised an eyebrow, and countless classic horror movie scenes instantly flashed through his mind.
"So, what exactly is it?"
"You'd better give me a reasonable explanation for making me go to a convent to dig through a cemetery."
"It's not your corpse, is it?"
Old Edmond asked with interest from the side, in a tone that suggested he was enjoying the show.
"Not that, but something on my corpse."
John corrected him, an awkward expression appearing on his ethereal face.
"Are you sure?"
Elias's gaze became suspicious; he even subconsciously looked over the torso of John's spiritual body.
"It's not one of your limbs, is it?"
He couldn't help but associate it with something called an "execution line" from a certain country in his past life.
If John wanted him to dig up a severed hand to assemble some kind of "flesh mecha," he wasn't doing it.
"No! Don't overthink it!"
John waved his hands hurriedly, trying to dispel Elias's wandering thoughts.
"It's a very important small item. It's just that due to certain accidents, I could only store it in the most secure place."
"The most secure place?"
Elias gave a cold laugh.
"How is that secure?"
"Whether the thing is even there is probably an unknown."
"Setting aside where you died."
"It's impossible that the thieves across Velen would have left it where it was."
"Oh, I forgot, you're a thief yourself."
"You can rest assured about that."
John guaranteed, a hint of pride showing on his face.
"The item is very safe!"
"Extremely safe!"
"What place could be safer than inside my stomach?"
"?"
The expression on Elias's face froze.
You're actually damn proud of it?
Is this something to be proud of?!
John didn't care about the expression on Elias's face at all.
"When you go, remember to bring a handy knife."
Rate on N.U.
