Adrift

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock—the sound of the second hand of the wall clock ticking could be clearly heard in the dark room.

After an unknown amount of time, Lumian seemed to finally emerge from a Nightmare.

He hurriedly sat up, grabbed Aurora's shoulders, and shook her violently, shouting, "Wake up! Wake up!"

He lowered his voice, not daring to let the three official investigators on night duty hear him.

Aurora's eyes were tightly closed and her mouth slightly open. No matter how much Lumian shook her, she did not react at all, like a living dead who had lost her soul.

Lumian's swaying slowed down more and more until it finally stopped.

He stared at Aurora, who was "sound asleep," for a long time without moving.

He didn't understand why this was happening, nor did he know when the problem had started. He felt as fearful and lost as he had on the night he saw his grandfather die.

After that day, he began to wander.

Lumian's hands clenched tighter and tighter, and his body trembled slightly.

Suddenly, he turned around and looked out the window.

The transparent, blurry "Lizard" returned to the room.

Lumian stepped off the Bed and reached out his right hand to grab the Monster that was stunned by seeing him wake up.

The next second, he shoved the "Lizard" into his mouth, his expression contorted as Distortion growled, "Don't you like crawling into other people's mouths?"

Come on! I'll give you that chance!

He was stuffing the "Lizard" into his mouth while frantically tearing at it, his eyes bloodshot.

The "Lizard" seemed frightened and did not resist.

Just then, a voice came from behind Lumian:

"What are you doing?"

That was Aurora's voice.

Lumian froze, then slowly turned around and looked at the Bed.

Aurora had woken up sometime earlier, her Blond Hair disheveled as she sat up, her light blue eyes filled with confusion and bewilderment.

Lumian subconsciously looked down and found that the "Lizard" he had caught was nowhere to be seen.

For a moment, he couldn't tell whether what he had just seen and experienced was Nightmare or reality.

"What's wrong?" Aurora frowned.

Lumian forced a smile:

"You Nightmare and kicked me out of bed."

"Really?" Aurora looked at her brother suspiciously, feeling as if he was playing a prank.

She thought for a moment and said, "I had Nightmare. I dreamt that I was grabbed by a huge Monster and shoved into its mouth. I was so scared that I struggled desperately, and it was only with great difficulty that I woke up."

As Lumian listened, his body began to grow cold, as if he were being sunk into a mountain Ice Lake that had not yet completely melted.

"Maybe, probably, I really did kick you..." Aurora, a little embarrassed.

Lumian closed his eyes and smiled.

"Just kidding, I woke up because of something else."

He then lowered his voice and said, "That One mysterious Lady appeared in the Dream Ruins, helped me separate the ' Provocateur ' Beyonder Characteristic, and gave me the correct Potion Formula."

"So, you woke up in a huff and wanted to ask me if I had any of the necessary Auxiliary Ingredient?" Aurora suddenly realized.

Lumian said with a big smile, "Yes."

"Hmm, do you have Honeysuckle Hydrosol, grapevine powder, and Water Fern powder?"

His smile was much more natural than before, though there seemed to be a slight glint in his eyes.

Aurora thought for a moment and said, "I have both grapevines and Water Fern; one is Ritual material, and the other is a magical medium."

"Honeysuckle, we've always had them at home. I use them to make tea, didn't you know?"

As she spoke, she rummaged through the Hidden Pocket of her Long Dress.

"So that's Honeysuckle?" Lumian looked at her busy Older Sister and deliberately smiled. "Why didn't you ask me if this was a free help with the book?"

Aurora took out a short section of grapevine and said with a smile, "Grind it into powder yourself!"

She didn't seem to have heard Lumian's question.

"Okay." Lumian pretended that he hadn't asked.

He then said to his Older Sister, "' Provocateur ' Potion still needs distilled spirits. I'll go to the cellar to get them now, and try to advance to Sequence 8 tonight."

"Making Hydrosol Honeysuckle will take some time," Aurora said, frowning slightly. "However, the requirements for Auxiliary Ingredient in Low-Sequence Potion aren't so strict. You can use a whole Honeysuckle instead, as long as the Beyonder Characteristic can eventually dissolve it, then you can consume it."

She glanced at the open door and asked in a low voice, "Aren't you afraid Ryan and the others will suspect you're going to get distilled liquor in the middle of the night?"

Seeing her Older Sister's reaction, Lumian forced herself to keep her smile from stiffening:

"As a regular at the Old Tavern, it's perfectly normal to wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly want a drink."

"Although alcohol has many, many harmful effects, at least it can provide some relaxation for my mind."

He meant that he used the excuse that "the Lent Festival celebrations were over, I was under too much mental stress, woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep, so I needed to relax with strong liquor."

"Okay," Aurora said, indicating that there was no problem.

Lumian turned and walked towards the door, the smile on his face gradually fading.

His hands remained clenched tightly throughout.

Stepping out the door and into the corridor, Lumian saw Ryan, wearing a brown tweed jacket and light yellow trousers, standing diagonally opposite him, with Lya and Valentine at opposite ends of the corridor.

"Not going to sleep?" Ryan, carrying Kerosene Lamp, looked at Lumian.

Lumian laughed, "Go to the cellar and get a bottle of strong liquor. How about you have a sip to relax?"

"I don't need it." Ryan nodded. "You haven't experienced anything like this before, so it's understandable that you're tense and under a lot of pressure. Alcohol can certainly have some effect."

As he spoke, he carried the flickering, dim kerosene Kerosene Lamp toward the stairwell:

"I'll go down with you; you can't go Alone at a time like this."

"Okay." Lumian did not object.

As the two entered the stairwell, Lya took the initiative to approach Aurora's bedroom and stood guard at the door.

One step, two steps... Lumian and Ryan silently descended to the dark first floor.

As the dim firelight illuminated half of the stove, Ryan asked casually, "There seemed to be some commotion in the room just now?"

Lumian opened his mouth, then said with great difficulty, "Aurora, Aurora is in some trouble..."

His suggestion to get the wine from the cellar wasn't actually for tonight's advancement—the two-story building in the Dream Ruins also had a cellar with distilled liquor. His main purpose was to avoid Aurora and talk to Ryan and the others about what had just happened.

But when the words reached his lips, he almost couldn't utter them, feeling that those few Vocabulary were more pungent than the strongest liquor.

Ryan's expression immediately turned serious:

"What's wrong?"

Lumian took several breaths before saying, "Aurora and, like the Assistant Parish Priest, came out of their mouths, out of their mouths, those ' Lizard ' that looked like little Elf."

He felt as if all his strength had been drained from him as he uttered those words.

After pausing for seven or eight seconds, he recounted the whole story, only describing waking up voluntarily as waking up from a nap and just happened to see it.

Ryan listened quietly without urging him, and only after he finished speaking did he say in a gentle tone, "You handled it very well. Now we can't let her know that something is wrong with her; I'm worried that it will make the situation worse."

"You continue to pretend nothing happened. When it's light, I'll use the excuse that ' Cordou Village has been Corruption, and we need to clean it up every day to prevent further damage,' and have Valentine try to see if he can get rid of that ' Lizard.'"

"Okay," Lumian replied weakly.

He felt that the "Lizard" had become deeply integrated with his Older Sister's soul, and it was not so easy to expel or purify it.

Ryan glanced at him and gently patted his shoulder:

"I understand how you feel. If my family member experienced something similar, I wouldn't be able to stay calm either."

"But you must remember, impatience solves nothing."

"I know Valentine's purification might not work, but we have to try to be sure. Hmm, that anomaly is most likely linked to the Loop in Cordou Village. As long as we can eventually break the Loop, your Older Sister should be able to recover directly."

Yes... this is also a kind of Corruption. As long as I can recover all the Corruption when I break the Loop, Aurora will definitely be fine... Lumian's eyes gradually brightened, and he regained his motivation.

Ryan was quite pleased with his reaction and said gently, "I need to remind you that you'll need to adjust to your Older Sister's Change over the next few days."

"She will likely end up like the Assistant Parish Priest, gradually reduced to mere instinct, acting according to her memories and strongest emotions, while remaining unresponsive to anything else."

Lumian remained silent for a while before saying, "I'll get used to it..."

His voice grew softer and softer until it disappeared.

After retrieving the distilled liquor from the cellar, the two returned to the second floor as if nothing had happened.

Once inside the bedroom, Lumian's smile returned.

He shook the bottle in his hand at Aurora and whispered, "It worked."

Aurora smiled back and pointed to the Desk:

"Honeysuckle, grapevines, and Water Fern are all there."

Lumian nodded and placed the wine bottle on the Desk.

Then, he lay back down on the bed and closed his eyes, using the excuse of "falling asleep as soon as possible to get promoted in my dreams."

He just couldn't fall asleep.

He couldn't understand when his Older Sister had been Corruption and had that "Lizard" enter her body. During that time, the two of them had been together every single minute. Even when Aurora went to the Washroom, Lya was with her, and vice versa. How could something have gone wrong?

If it happened while I was sleeping, why didn't I have any problems? Lumian tried hard to recall, hoping to find the Source, which would help resolve the anomaly.

Suddenly, he remembered something.

In the previous Loop, the Parish Priest Guillaume Béné said that the Church wanted to kill all the adults here and reap a Ruins, adding that even if Aurora really wanted to deal with them, he had other ways.

At that time, he was just an Ordinary Person.

Lumian had initially thought his reliance was on the Shepherd Pierre Berri, but considering the current situation, he had a wild guess:

Perhaps from the very beginning, most of the villagers were parasitized by those strange, Lizard- like creatures, including Aurora!

As the Twelfth Night draws ever closer, the abnormalities will become increasingly apparent, and some people will show signs of something amiss even earlier.

He survived because of the bluish-black symbol on his body.

Thinking back to the latter half of the previous Loop, where Aurora acted all talk and no action in many matters, Lumian felt that his guess might be correct.

He involuntarily clenched his Teeth.

At that moment, Ryan was patrolling the corridor with Kerosene Lamp in hand.

His shadow suddenly lengthened on the wall to his side.

Almost simultaneously, the Silver Bells on Lya's veil and boots jingled.

She felt her shoulders become unusually cold.