Back inside the church, Red Moon took another Bloodstone from the basement and used it to treat the wound on Linsey's chest.
But unlike the last time she had treated his cold.
As the wound on Linsey's chest rapidly healed and scabbed over, the cold Essence within it was eliminated as well.
The Bloodstone also completely lost its red color.
It became a pitted, gray-black hard stone once more.
Red Moon said nothing more and immediately arranged for Linsey to rest.
Because she knew very well.
After a long day of hunting, followed by two life-or-death chases.
Anyone who went through such an ordeal would inevitably be exhausted in both body and mind.
What her godson needed most now was rest.
So after Linsey lay down on the bed in his little room, he practically closed his eyes and immediately fell asleep.
Six hours later.
Sustained by Life Source Material, Linsey's body clock was remarkably accurate.
Before midnight arrived, he got out of bed right on time.
He first checked the injury on his chest. After a night's sleep, the blood scab had fully hardened, and its rigid edges did not match the soft skin around it, causing them to curl up slightly.
Linsey reached out and picked at it.
"Hiss—"
"Forget it. I'm not peeling it off."
Linsey decisively abandoned his previous action, displaying his decisiveness and courage.
He then got dressed and climbed out of bed, tying a piece of cloth into the shape of a bag before transforming it—
The bag instantly vanished, and Linsey sensed his spatial equipment.
Since it was only crudely tied from cloth, the Personal Baggage currently had just eight slots. Its carrying capacity was affected only by Linsey's attributes, though it had a respectable limit of 80 kg.
Linsey tried stuffing the bedding into it.
Whoosh—
The bedding spread over the bed immediately vanished, and one slot in the bag was occupied.
In its place appeared an icon of a rolled-up bedroll.
Linsey then tried moving around the room. His speed and agility were completely unaffected.
"The weight in the bag doesn't affect my actual body at all."
After thinking it over, Linsey took the bedding back out.
The bedding came out exactly as it had gone in.
He then walked over to the cabinet beside the bed, took out several remaining copper coins, and activated the Personal Baggage's auto-loot function.
Whoosh—
The copper coins before him immediately vanished. A copper coin icon appeared in a slot of the bag, with a number in the lower right corner showing the quantity.
Linsey took the copper coins back out and tested collecting them from different locations.
The Personal Baggage's auto-loot function was very simple.
If the target was beneath his feet or within arm's reach, auto-loot would work. Otherwise, if it was somewhere Linsey himself could not reach—too far away, inside a sealed container, or worn by someone else—auto-loot would not work.
"So it just simplifies the act of picking things up."
Linsey sighed.
After finishing his ability tests, he dressed neatly and walked out of his room into the chapel.
The timing was just right.
Leize's body had already been brought to the chapel, along with several other people.
Linsey silently stood at the back of the chapel and surveyed his surroundings.
Leize's younger sister, a girl about 1.6 meters tall dressed in yellow cloth garments, was keeping watch beside the body and sobbing softly.
Besides her, Red Moon was praying before the body.
Linsey also saw Lord Anrui and Dan. They stood farther away, their expressions equally somber and solemn.
About fifteen minutes later, Red Moon finished her prayer.
She waved Linsey over, beckoning her godson to her side, and said softly, "First is placing the deceased in the coffin."
"The deceased's family will usually ask a tailor to make a set of black burial clothes for the deceased. The mark of our School is painted upon them, symbolizing respect and mourning for death. At the same time, cloth and straw must be laid inside the coffin, meaning that the deceased is being provided with a comfortable final resting place."
As Red Moon explained it to Linsey, she placed the straw and cloth set beside them at the bottom of the coffin.
Linsey immediately stepped forward to help.
Together, they lifted Leize's body and laid it properly inside the coffin.
At this point, Red Moon spoke again. "After the deceased has been placed properly, a piece of hard wood must be prepared, such as oak. His name and the important events of his life are carved upon it as a memorial to the deceased."
"However, when resources are limited, a strip of cloth may be used instead, with the writing applied in paint."
In such haste, Leize's sister clearly had no time to find any hard wood.
So Red Moon fetched a piece of curtain cloth piled in the corner of the chapel. Leize's sister could not write, so at her dictation, Red Moon wrote down some of Leize's personal information before finally placing it on his chest.
"Now we seal the coffin."
Red Moon and Linsey closed the coffin together, driving seven nails around it. Then she walked around it once, striking the places where the nails had been driven into the coffin while reciting a prayer.
Only after completing this ritual did she explain it to Linsey.
"The sealing of seven coffin nails represents the seven days of a week, symbolizing the deceased's complete separation from the Real World. Later, when we use a Bloodstone to collect the concept of death, we do so through the positions of these nails as well."
After explaining this to Linsey, Red Moon looked again at Leize's sister.
"Go notify the others in town. The final mourning may begin."
Leize's sister's eyes were red, and she had cried until her body was nearly too weak to stand.
But she firmly shook her head and refused Red Moon's suggestion. "It's too late. Let everyone rest properly, and let my brother rest in peace sooner."
Red Moon slowly nodded.
"Death has arrived, but it is by no means the end."
"The soul returns to slumber, and the body returns to Essence."
"The dead should depart from the world of the living, and the living should silently bid farewell to the dead."
"Rest in peace—"
"May you not be troubled by the Abyss, may you not lose your way in the Dead Sea, may you embrace a new beginning..."
After finishing the final prayer, she called Anrui and the Female Hunter over.
The two strong Awakened lifted the coffin, and the group left the chapel for the graveyard behind it.
With Lord Anrui present, digging a grave pit was quick work.
They lowered the coffin into it. At that moment, Red Moon took out another small candle and placed it directly above the coffin before instructing the other two to fill in the earth.
The coffin was soon buried.
After the gravestone was erected, Leize's sister began crying softly before the grave.
Red Moon gently stroked the girl's back.
She offered no words of comfort, soothing the other woman's grieving soul only through her actions.
After a while, she said to Linsey, "Linsey, Finn is getting old, so we did not tell him what happened today."
"Could I trouble you to go over there at dawn?"
Naturally, Linsey had no objections.
"I'd be happy to."
Red Moon added a reminder. "There's a book on the table in my room. I prepared it for you, so you can practice reading."
Linsey nodded to show that he understood, then returned to his room.
In Red Moon's room, he found the book—Graveyard Burial Book.
It recorded the School of Death's rituals for burying the dead, along with certain variations for different situations and stories related to burials.
Linsey sat down to read, and time quietly passed.
Before he knew it, morning arrived with the shadows at Linsey's feet.
"Huh? It's daylight?"
Seeing the glow of dawn fall at his feet.
Linsey hurriedly put away the Graveyard Burial Book and rushed into town to tell the botanist what had happened yesterday.
Red Moon and Anrui were checking on the situation in the forest, and they would not return early today.
After leaving Finn's cottage, Linsey found himself with nothing to do.
The weather was somewhat overcast today.
Recalling everything he had experienced yesterday, Linsey began jogging through town to accumulate experience points for his basic attributes.
Before he realized it, he had arrived at the Lighthouse Clock Tower on the westernmost side of town.
Other than the bell ringer, there were no guards here.
Curious, Linsey pushed open the door and entered. He followed the wooden spiral staircase inside to the top of the Lighthouse Clock Tower.
On the side facing the town was the clock tower.
A massive metal bell hung there, with a wooden clapper suspended beneath it, its surface worn smooth by time.
Circling to the side facing away from town, he found a semicircular observation platform.
Inside a silver vessel resembling a searchlight was set a pale yellow crystal, as though it were the source of the searchlight's illumination.
"..."
Linsey silently stared at the device.
Though he was only a newly initiated Awakened, with it so close before him, he could sense the surging Essence within the crystal.
He had an extremely strong premonition.
If he dared reach out and touch it now, the power within this crystal would immediately burn him to ashes!
This was the Lighthouse prepared for explorers returning home.
Only it could illuminate the Great Hollow at World's Edge, providing humanity with its sole beacon! Linsey shrugged and did not court death.
He turned to one side of the clock tower and simply sat down.
At that moment, Linsey felt a dampness on his forehead. Looking up, he saw that snow had begun to fall from the sky.
He held out his hand. Tiny white flakes drifted into his palm, then melted into water.
Then he looked ahead.
In the tranquil morning, the outline of the town was surrounded by dense forest. Beneath the heavy snow, every tree glimmered quietly through the snowy curtain with crystalline radiance, making the scene seem like a kingdom of elves.
Dawn had arrived, and the morning sunlight shone through the clouds in the distant east.
Soft light stretched toward him, like a pair of great hands sweeping across this snow-covered world. The golden sunlight and pure white snowscape formed a vivid contrast, as though playing a tranquil, graceful melody.
In town, morning smoke slowly rose from chimneys, forming a beautiful sight amid the surrounding snow.
Everything was bathed in this peace.
It was as though time itself had stopped in this moment.
Whoosh—
A gust of crisp, cold wind blew past.
Sitting atop the clock tower, Linsey slowly closed his eyes.
He would be living here for a long time, and his hopes for the future drifted into the distance with the light snow of early winter.
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