Ashes Of Deep Sea-Chapter 363 - 367 The Remaining Shelter
Chapter 363: Chapter 367: The Remaining Shelter
Chapter 363: Chapter 367: The Remaining Shelter
The eyes were filled with blood, swirled with uncontrollable madness and fear. Although the gatekeeper’s words had soothed the woman’s spirit and roused her from the brink of collapse, they couldn’t completely smooth over the lingering shadows of fear in her mind.
Agatha had seen this look many times before, so she simply calmly met the woman’s gaze. Once she had further calmed the woman, she spoke, “The ‘he’ you mentioned, you’re referring to your husband, right? He has returned home—but you know, he died several years ago.”
The woman’s shoulders shook violently, she lowered her head, grabbing her own hair as if afraid to maintain eye contact with Agatha, merely repeating over and over, “He came back… he came back… but I know that wasn’t him…”
“How did you kill ‘it’?” Agatha frowned and asked, “Do you remember the details of what happened?”
While speaking, she reached into her bosom and pulled out a bottle of medicine. After she unhandedly popped open the cap, the tranquil scent from within softly diffused, gradually enveloping the surroundings.
The gatekeeper’s concoction had its effect, and the long-haired woman on the sofa’s breathing became much calmer. She lifted her head slightly, peeking through the gaps in her hair at the outside, her voice very low, “I… I hit it with a hammer from behind, on the back of its head, then it fell over. But even though its head was caved in, it didn’t die; instead, it struggled to get up again. I kicked it further inside, and then closed the bathroom door… It banged inside, shrieking terrifyingly. It was around midnight; it shrieked for about ten minutes before stopping…”
The woman paused, steadied herself for a few seconds, then continued, “Later, I sneakily peeked through the bathroom door… and it had disappeared…”
Agatha nodded slightly while mentally reconstructing the sequence of events and asked again, “How did ‘it’ appear? Do you remember the process of him ‘coming back’?”
“I… I don’t know,” the woman shook her head, her tone filled with terror, “He… it suddenly appeared in the house! The doors were locked, but I heard noises in the living room. When I came out from the bedroom, I saw that thing… wearing the clothes my husband was buried in, pacing in the living room, with a sound like rotting sludge coming from inside its body…”
Agatha’s expression suddenly turned serious; she turned her head and, before she could speak, a guardian brought a report from the side, “We have checked the entrances and exits of this house, all doors and windows are intact, and all windows are locked from the inside.”
The doors and windows were tightly shut, the locks undamaged; the “counterfeit” had directly appeared inside the resident’s home.
Compared to an overt “invasion” or “attack,” this sort of phenomenon, seemingly materializing out of thin air… heightened her vigilance all the more.
And today’s case held points of interest that were not limited to just these.
Agatha lowered her head, looking at the woman on the sofa.
She still remembered the cases she had encountered before today, especially the one discovered at 42 Fireplace Street—a folklorist who had returned from the dead and his severely cognitively contaminated, oblivious female apprentice. In such a typical case, the surviving individual hadn’t been able to detect the “counterfeit” before them.
But this woman had recognized it.
Had she not been affected by cognitive contamination?
“Madam,” Agatha began, carefully choosing her words, “how did you determine that the ‘monster’ was not your husband?”
“Isn’t it obvious? My husband… he died years ago. Everything about that thing was wrong. How could it be my husband?” the woman grew somewhat agitated, “Besides… besides, that thing even approached my child… my child. He pointed at the monster and called it daddy. He… he must have been controlled by that monster, he…”
“You think your child was controlled by the monster, so you grabbed his neck?” Agatha furrowed her brow and asked, “Do you realize what you did just then…”
“I didn’t grab his neck! I was just trying to pull him back. I didn’t squeeze him!”
The woman became completely agitated and even jumped up from the sofa as if about to pounce on the gatekeeper before her. Her blood-filled eyes once again reflecting the previous madness and fear, to the point where reason seemed completely evaporated—a nearby guardian immediately reacted, intending to restrain the irrational, unfortunate woman, but Agatha was faster.
The gatekeeper raised her staff, lightly tapping it on the woman’s forehead.
The latter instantly fell unconscious.
“She’s terrified,” the female team leader with black short hair shook her head, “This sort of thing is really beyond what ordinary people can handle…”
“No, it’s not just simple fright; it’s another kind of mental contamination—she is in a temporarily insane state, retaining only the basic ability to converse,” Agatha shook her head, her brows still tightly furrowed, “She wasn’t affected by cognitive or memory interference; although I don’t know the specific reason, she clearly recognized the essence of that ‘counterfeit,’ but ‘seeing through the truth’ is itself a harm to ordinary people.”
While saying this, she raised her head, surveying this not-so-large abode.
“Where is the child?”
“He’s been taken to a safe place—overly frightened and having experienced a brief suffocation, he might not be able to undergo questioning.”
“Hmm,” Agatha instructed, “Keep the mother and son separated for now, ensure proper care and psychological counseling, especially for that child. Comfort him well, and if either of them recalls any valuable information, report to me immediately.”
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“Yes.”
Agatha nodded and then walked through the living room to a small combined washroom and bathroom.
On the floor near the shower head, one could still see marks left by the guardians after they gathered evidence.
The fake had been confined in this bathroom but in the end… it left behind nothing more than a “sample” the size of less than a test tube.
This was highly abnormal.
While the fake itself was of a mysterious nature and origin, one thing was clear: they were also made of a certain amount of physical substance, and even if it disintegrated, that substance wouldn’t just disappear into thin air.
With a slight frown, Agatha walked around the cramped washroom twice and suddenly stopped, staring intently at a spot.
It was a rust-stained drain in the corner.
She quickly walked over to the drain, tapped the cast iron grate with the end of her tin cane, and peered into the pitch-black hole.
The darkness within the drain seemed to bury all truths.
“…Can it be… Damn it!”
Agatha suddenly took a deep breath, realizing a possibility that even made her feel a chill in her hands and feet.
“Evacuate this building, move all residents to the nearby street church and public shelters,” she commanded swiftly upon returning to the living room, “Contact the district city office, close down this building… no, shut down all secondary pipework connected to this building, including sewage and water lines—also, send a team immediately to the nearest sewage treatment plant to check the sedimentation tanks and filters!”
The squad leader was taken aback by this flurry of commands but did not question any; the instinct to obey had her stand at attention immediately: “Yes, Gatekeeper!”
Having issued her orders, Agatha then moved to the side of a woman sleeping on the couch.
Why hadn’t this woman been affected by the cognitive and memory interference, but had instead seen through the truth about the “fake”?
Even now, Agatha was very concerned about this issue.
At that moment, a guardian who had been investigating other rooms suddenly rushed into the living room, holding something in his hand.
“Gatekeeper! We found this!”
Agatha immediately looked in the direction of the voice and saw that the object in his hand was a somewhat antiquated small plaster statue.
It was unmistakably a profile statue of the Frost Queen.
“A crazy queen’s statue?” another guardian whispered in the room, “I didn’t expect to find this here.”
Agatha, with a serious expression, walked forward, took the 10-centimeter-tall bust and carefully observed the details of the statue.
“…It’s a genuine artifact from that era with a special anti-counterfeiting mark at the base,” she assessed briefly, then looking up, asked, “Where was this placed?”
“In a hidden door deep in a wardrobe,” reported the guardian who found the queen’s profile, “We also found coins and a commemorative album from the queen’s era inside. It looks like…someone is still secretly cherishing the memory of the Frost Queen.”
For a moment, Agatha said nothing, only staring fixedly at the plaster statue in her hand.
The Frost Queen… even half a century later, there were still citizens in the City-State secretly commemorating the queen, which didn’t surprise her at all.
After all, it was a glorious era, she was once a great queen—merely fifty years were not enough to erase all traces of the queen’s era from the City-State. Some old people who had lived through that era, and their descendants, were still heavily influenced by it.
There were scattered queen supporters among the people—fifty years ago, such clandestine acts of remembrance could lead to hanging, but today, fifty years later, the bans had significantly relaxed. In her years as Gatekeeper, Agatha had heard of such things more than once.
In most cases, if it was just spontaneous civilian “collecting of memorabilia,” today’s guardians and sheriffs would not pursue it too aggressively, sometimes even turning a blind eye or merely issuing a verbal warning.
This household merely collected a bust of the queen, some coins, and an album—not a big deal.
But given the recent abnormalities in this residence, Agatha couldn’t help but overthink.
The individual involved in this incident hadn’t been affected by cognitive disruption but had instead uncovered the truth about the “fake.” Could it be…related to the queen’s memorabilia here?
