Linton Marked for Attention

Chapter 29: Linton Becomes a Focus

"Mmmph."

Iris rubbed her eyes and stretched slowly.

Realizing she had leaned against Linton without noticing, she guiltily glanced at the Necromancer. She then touched his clothes, and upon sensing no dampness, she finally relaxed.

Looking around, Iris saw that the pure white book in front of the statue still maintained its radiance. The priest in blue had already left. She was the only one awake among those who had fallen asleep, while everyone else remained in various sleeping poses.

Some had their eyes curved in smiles, others had their lips upturned in smiles, as if they were all having beautiful dreams impossible in reality.

—Linton was the exception.

His face, hidden beneath his hood, was tightly furrowed, his complexion pale, as if he had witnessed something terrible.

Iris felt a little worried but dared not wake him abruptly. She could only carefully poke his face with her fingertip, attempting the safest way to rouse him.

However, just as her fingertip was about to touch Linton, she suddenly noticed that the Necromancer's deep eyes were open, reflecting her image.

Iris blinked. "This guy, doesn't he even close his eyes when he sleeps? Is it because he feels insecure, or..."

"...Is there a possibility that I'm actually awake?"

"Huh?"

"Uh... I saw some dust fall on your face."

The girl snatched her hand back as if electrocuted, turned her head away, and awkwardly exclaimed to herself. But Linton wasn't looking at her at all; instead, he raised his gaze towards the front.

The moment his gaze fell forward, the mysterious light instantly shattered. All the abnormal changes in the church abruptly reverted to normal. Everyone seemed to wake up startled from a nightmare.

"What's going on? Where's my money? Where did my room full of gold coins go?"

"Where's my wife?"

"My Evil King's Demonic Eyes!!"

"..."

Iris leaned closer to Linton, her beautiful brows furrowing slightly.

Even though she had never participated in such a ritual, she realized something was wrong.

"Didn't you say they would forget what happened in their dreams? Why does it feel like they remember everything? Or... they don't think they've returned to reality at all?"

"What about you? Were you affected?" Linton didn't answer immediately. Instead, he tilted his head to look at the girl. "Do you still remember the dream you had?"

"Me? I don't reme—"

Iris was about to say that she hadn't been affected by the dream at all, but the next second, fragmented images were almost forcibly crammed into her mind.

"Mmph..."

The doll-like girl clutched her head, struggling to keep her thoughts from shattering under the impact of the sudden information. But upon seeing a clearer fragment of an image compared to others, her expression instantly turned cold.

"When did you meet Vera?"

"Vera?" Linton asked blankly. "Who?"

"It's just..."

Iris's face reddened, but she found it difficult to describe to Linton, who genuinely seemed to know nothing. In the end, she could only utter, "It's nothing."

However, seeing her expression, Linton guessed, "Is it something you saw in your dream?"

"Yes!" Iris shifted her position further away from him, her tone very stiff.

"Let me ask you, you said before that if you still remembered the dream after waking up, it would manifest in reality... Is that always the case?"

"If it were before the current situation occurred, I would give you a definitive answer, because it's a documented fact, without exception." Linton looked at the other church members who had collapsed mentally, appearing to have gone mad, and said calmly, "But now, things might have changed."

"I hope so." Iris chose to believe the Necromancer and temporarily felt relieved in her heart.

Then, she worriedly asked Linton, "We're so normal right now, don't we seem out of place among them?"

Fortunately, her worries did not materialize.

The priest in blue had reappeared from the darkness at some point.

"Silence!"

His voice fluctuated, with a strange intonation, like some kind of mysterious magic.

The moment his words fell, everyone's complexion regained its color, but their eyes were all somewhat dazed.

"The service is over, everyone, please leave."

The priest in blue spoke again, but this time his tone had clearly returned to normal.

"Praise the True Lord!"

The church members clasped their hands together and offered praise, seemingly unaware of the abnormality they had just experienced. They slowly left the church.

Linton and Iris also took this opportunity to lower their heads, minimize their presence, and slip out.

However, due to the significant gap in their abilities, even Linton, with his high intelligence of 21, did not notice that the priest in blue's gaze was constantly shifting between him and Iris.

After everyone had left the church, the priest in blue took out a piece of parchment and a quill to begin writing.

"Iris Lizer?" After a moment of thought, he wiped away the name already written on the paper and replaced it with another.

"Linton Crewechill."

The parchment burned to ashes in a flash of light, but it didn't disappear. Instead, it was transmitted to someone a thousand miles away.

After completing these tasks, he didn't leave. Instead, he closed his eyes and waited for a response.

His wait wasn't long. About half an hour later, the parchment returned to his presence.

The message it conveyed was very simple.

"Pay close attention."

Billt Marvin clasped his hands together, bowed slightly, and then his figure was swallowed by the surging darkness behind him.

A thousand miles away, in a room somewhere in Falasong.

Under the dim yellow light, the shadow of the person on the chair was stretched incredibly long. The light was blurry, making it impossible to clearly discern every line of text in the book in his hand.

But he didn't care. He continued to carefully peruse the thick book, as if searching for some crucial information.

In fact, if an outsider were to see what this book recorded, they would undoubtedly be greatly surprised.

It documented the life stories of many people, in meticulous detail, even remembering the color of pants worn on a specific day, month, and year.

If one had doubts about someone's actions, they could find the answer by consulting this book.

Yet, even so, it was difficult to resolve the frown on the person's face.

The shadow flipped through the book, studying everything about the Necromancer named "Linton Crewechill" word by word. But as he turned the page, attempting to uncover more hidden information, he found the entire page was blank.

He stared in astonishment at this scene that shouldn't have appeared. He tried to flip back, but the text he had just read was now erased by some invisible hand, as if it had never existed.

"Interesting."

Casually tossing the Book of True Names aside, the shadow stretched and continuously mumbled the Necromancer's name.

"Linton Crewechill."