The moment the candle was blown out, the light around Christina became dim.
The only illumination left was the White Candle in Dorothy's hand, which was still glowing dimly and softly. The tourists in front had long gone. On both sides were narrow corridors and countless tombs and skeletons. There were even weathered white bones lying on the corner of the corridor from unknown sources on the ground, which were outlined by candlelight in a vague outline.
At this moment, the coldness I felt when I first walked into Underground Catacombs seemed to have returned to Tina. There seemed to be countless monsters hiding in the dark area that could not be illuminated by candlelight, trying to catch her who was about to fall into darkness into the depths of the cave and make her "missing" completely.
Suddenly, an angry shout came:
"What are you doing!"
This was not Dorothy's complaint, but came from behind Tina. Immediately afterwards, a figure rushed out from that direction. He held a lit candle in one hand. The fire swayed in violent movements. One of them quickly approached the candle in Tina's hand and relit it, letting the warm firelight surround her, Dorothy and the stranger.
What's going on... I saw a ghost?
Tina was startled, and quickly protected Dorothy behind him, and swung the newly lit candle at the opponent like a dagger.
Under the light, there is a young male face. He looks to be about twenty years old. His short black hair is messy and he is thin. He is wearing a Intis common combination of shirt, vest and trousers, with his lower legs hidden in the darkness.
No legs...Tina immediately lowered the candle, letting the candlelight illuminate the opponent's body. He secretly breathed a sigh of relief until he saw a pair of pointed leather shoes.
After confirming that the other party was not a ghost, emotions other than fear gradually came to her mind, and she asked half confused and half angry:
"What were you doing just now?"
"I'm just asking you what you are doing! Why did you put out the candle just now? Even if you didn't listen to the warning of the tomb administrator, you should have seen the sign at the door of Underground Catacombs, right?" The young man frowned and looked at the candle that had just been relit by Tina. "Don't you know that you must stay within the light of the candle here, otherwise something will easily happen?"
The tour guide just now turned out to be the administrator of the tomb. No wonder he gave away the candles for free and did not charge us any money... But Genie said that lighting candles was just a ritual need, not a real taboo... Tina muttered in his heart, shook his head and said:
"But I just blew out the candles and nothing happened."
"That's because you're lucky and there's no problem." The black-haired man, who was holding a candle in one hand and with a somewhat funny posture, said his tone was no longer as serious as before, but still very formal. "If you are completely separated from the light of the candle, even if you are holding an oil lamp and wearing the latest battery-operated headlamp, you may disappear quietly into the darkness."
"At that time, your family will forget you, your friends and classmates will forget you, even the person next to you will forget you, and only remember that you came to Underground Catacombs alone, not with you."
As he said that, the man pointed at Dorothy.
After hearing this, the latter first tried to cover the candlelight with his other hand to prevent it from being extinguished by the breeze, and then asked in confusion:
"If people who extinguish candles and are not protected by candlelight may disappear completely and be forgotten by everyone, how can we confirm that doing so is dangerous? People who are lucky enough to survive will think that lighting candles and entering the cemetery is just an ancient and useless ritual. Those who are unlucky and disappear completely cannot leave Last Words to tell other people..."
This is a paradox.
"..."
The man obviously didn't expect that a girl who looked to be thirteen or fourteen years old had such clear thinking. She immediately found the loophole in his words. He was speechless for a long time. In the end, he could only smile to himself and nodded:
"You're right. If there were only two endings, 'nothing happened' and 'disappeared and then forgotten by everyone', no one would know that a lit candle could save their own life. Most people would only follow this as a ritual to enter the tomb, while a small number of people would disappear silently... Unless, someone has experienced this kind of thing before, being submerged in darkness and forgotten by everyone, but finally returned to reality."
As he spoke, he slowly began to walk deeper into the tomb. Tina and Dorothy held candles and followed him, following the directional black lines drawn on the ceiling toward their destination—the entrance to the next level of the tomb.
"You want to say that this is who you are?"
Tina asked curiously.
How to be "forgotten by everyone" and then crawl back to reality from the dark abyss, this is just like the protagonist in Adventure Novel!
Isn't this person a fraud?
Thinking of this, Tina looked at the back of the black-haired man warily, feeling that his body outline circled by candlelight was very suspicious.
The other party didn't seem to be aware of it. He walked among the tombs and bones and said:
"I am a college student from Trier Higher Normal School, my name is Pierre.
"What about you?"
"I am Christina, she is my sister, Dorothy. "Tina introduced himself politely and then asked, "You also extinguished the candles at Underground Catacombs, and then unfortunately became one of the missing?"
Pierre said "Hmm", slowed down, turned his head to look at Tina, stared at her for a moment as if to confirm something, and said:
"To be precise, it's not just me. Since the opening of Underground Catacombs, there have been thousands of people who either actively or accidentally extinguished the candles, causing themselves to 'disappear'. I am just one of them.
"That day, I, the Solitary One, entered Underground Catacombs. I wanted to go to the third floor, which most people would not go to, to find the one Miss who haunted me... Now that I think about it, I should not be the Solitary One, but several other fellow travelers had 'disappeared' before me.
"I accidentally got lost on that floor and even entered a non-open area that had not been cleared by the tomb administrators. There was not even a black line indicating the exit direction, let alone anyone passing by.
"I scurried around like a headless fly until the two candles I carried with me were all exhausted... The moment the candlelight went out, the cold darkness surrounded me, making my consciousness blurred and my body inoperable. It was as if I had entered a half-awake state, lying like that and falling asleep... When I woke up, I had returned to the ground and appeared in the corner of the underground street of Market District."
Why does it sound like sleepwalking... Could it be that he accidentally fell into Underground Area where there was no air circulation, passed out, and then was rescued and sent out of the tomb... Tina subconsciously thought about it from a "scientific" perspective.
Dorothy obviously had similar views and asked:
"Is this what you mean by being 'forgotten by everyone'? Could it be that he just inhaled underground swamp gas, became confused, and forgot part of what happened after he was rescued?"
"If only it were that simple..." Pierre shook his head with a wry smile, stared at Tina for a while, and suddenly frowned, "I've just felt that you look a lot like the Miss I know from Loen who came to Trier for travel... How old are you this year? What's your mother's name?"
Look alike? More than one person has had this reaction today... Is he talking about Ms. "Chariot" or mom? Tina Many thoughts suddenly burst out in his mind, and he hesitated for a moment before answering:
"I'm 13 years old, but I won't tell you my mother's name. Why don't you tell me what I call the Miss from Loen."
Hearing her answer that clearly didn't trust him, Pierre was not angry, but smiled:
"Being vigilant is a good thing in Trier.
"The lady's name is Angelica. She has long light blond hair and purple eyes. She is about the same height as me. She is prettier than all the female stars and actresses in Trier I have seen... If she hadn't gotten lost in the catacombs and given me the opportunity to help her, I'm afraid there would have been no intersection between us.
"Counting the time, that was 18 years ago. That's why I want to know your age to see if you might be her daughter."
From the description, it seems that she is the mother, but Angelica... isn't the protagonist of "The Great Pirate Series", the "Golden Queen" who collapsed the cliff in Bayam and possessed the terrifying Ghost Ship?
Did Pierre really meet her mother? Or in Underground Catacombs of Trier?
Tina was lost in thought, but Dorothy beside her frowned and asked in a probing tone:
"18 years ago? That was 1350, right? Aren't you a college student at Trier? Are you over 40 years old?"
Although the black-haired man's face was a little unclear under the candlelight, he didn't look like a middle-aged man.
Could it be that there was finally a flaw in the story he made up?
"This is the most incomprehensible part of the whole thing," Pierre said with an intriguing smile on his face. "I just said that I appeared in Market District's Underground Area, unscathed, and even the money in my pocket was Koppe, but when I got home, I found that it was completely different."
"My parents still live in that old house, but the streets and neighbors are different from before. There are steam-powered cars running on the road, wires are pulled in the alleys, and the gas lights have switched to electricity... The most important thing is that my parents are old. My brother who is two years younger than me has married a wife and has a child about the same age as you. The first time they saw me was not shocked, but confused.
"They asked me who I was."
Speaking of this, Pierre's tone was mixed with bitterness, as if he was recalling the day when he returned to reality and returned home.
"No matter how I explained it, my parents couldn't remember that there was another member in the family. It was not that they had forgotten it because 18 years had passed, but that it didn't exist at all... There was no room for me in the house, no trace of my life, and my younger brother was their only son... I could only apologize, leave in despair, and wander the streets until I was found by two members of Church of Steam.
"They told me that there are not just one person like me, but thousands. Like me, some of them have disappeared from Underground Catacombs for various reasons in the past few decades and have been completely forgotten by people. Some of them accidentally entered this area from ancient underground tombs a hundred years ago and were swallowed directly by darkness. It can even be traced back hundreds of years to the Sauron Dynasty that Roselle had not yet appeared... Until one day this year, these people began to appear in batches at various locations in Trier, as if they were brought back to reality from hell and the abyss...
"What all of them have in common is that they have been forgotten by their families, have lost their identity, and are homeless.
"Steam, the church rescued us and arranged a new identity and residence for us. I re-entered Higher Normal School and became a college student. I occasionally participate in social welfare activities, such as maintaining the order of Underground Catacombs, helping tourists like you, and preventing you from making the same mistakes I did..."
Having said this, Pierre sighed again, the half-confused and half-sad expression on his face faded away, and he smiled and said:
"If I hadn't seen that you look so similar to Miss Angelica, I wouldn't have said this. Although the church has not issued a gag order, this kind of disappearance and return to reality for more than ten years is too bizarre. Even if I make up a story and send it to "Lotus" and "Esoterica" magazines, it will not be published."
"If it were before today, I wouldn't believe it..."
Tina commented dumbfounded.
When she first met the college student who rushed to light his own candle, she just thought he was an overly superstitious local who believed that extinguished candles meant bad luck. She had no idea that his experience was so bizarre.
Of course, now that a lot of fresh occult knowledge has been stuffed into his head, Tina has been able to accept this kind of story, and has even begun to think about whether it is influenced by the power of a certain Potion Pathway, or whether it is the negative effect caused by a powerful Sealed Artifact.
Immediately, she realized a possibility in Pierre's words:
This college student met "Angelica" at Underground Catacombs 18 years ago and thought that she looked almost the same as Tina;
Angelica Zaki is the "Golden Queen" famous in Five Seas, and "Calamity Angel" recorded in Church of the Fool and the End Church Holy Bible;
The many "sealed locations" I visited along the way have been confirmed to be related to this Angelica, such as Resurrection Square of the Southern Continent Cookawa City, Church of the Fool of Yarnam City, and the luxury suite of Bayam;
During the journey, more than one Angel and Saint performed kind deeds and provided help because of Tina's appearance;
So, what is the relationship between this Angelica Zaki and Angel Granger?
Thinking of this, Tina's expression did not change, but her heart was already in turmoil. She subconsciously looked at her sister Dorothy beside her, and found that she was thoughtful and bowed her head in silence.
She is smarter than me, might she have discovered some problems long ago... Tina was thinking, calling from the bottom of his heart to "Genie" who tricked him out of the house today and took him to various places:
"Genie, do you really not know mom?"
PS: There is a little bit less today...