"Miss Crow, we're here to save you!"
"Get away from Miss Crow!"
"Crow?" Vanessa looked at Dorothea beside her in surprise. The short-haired girl's expression turned a little awkward. "I'm Crow. I can't exactly use my real name here, can I?"
A man pointed at Vanessa. "Yes, her! She's a lunatic!"
Somewhat bewildered, Vanessa pointed at herself, her head full of questions.
How had she become a lunatic?
Vanessa recognized him, too. He was the polite man who had shown her the way.
"There's something strange about her! You can tell she's one of those lunatics with no reason left, just like those people in the Clock Tower District... uh..." The man pointed at Vanessa, loudly accusing her in hysterics. She had given him quite a fright earlier.
But halfway through, he saw Vanessa's surprised eyes and suddenly faltered.
"I-I'm sorry..." Looking frightened, Vanessa took a few steps back and hid behind Dorothea, peering timidly at him.
Her face was all innocence.
Allen's face twitched.
Was this the cold, eerie lunatic from earlier?
She looked like an ordinary person, no matter how he looked at her!
The Wild Dog Gang members who had been gathered outside also looked at Allen in confusion.
They had come to help because they had heard someone dangerous had arrived, and this was it?
Even the heavy trench coat Vanessa wore could not hide her frail figure.
What was dangerous about her?
Can't you go back to looking all crazed and twisted like you did earlier?! Allen shouted inwardly.
"She, she took my folding knife, too... took it straight out of my pocket!" he said, somewhat incoherently.
Now the people around him looked at him even more strangely.
You even let that little girl take your knife?
Don't tell anyone you're in a gang anymore. You're an embarrassment.
Dorothea gave a light cough and stepped forward. "Ahem, this lady..."
She patted Vanessa.
"I've already verified her identity. She's the hospital's new orderly, and she also makes deliveries to us. There may have been a misunderstanding earlier."
Allen wanted to say more, but after looking at the doubtful gazes around him, he swallowed his words.
"All right, it may indeed have been a misunderstanding," he said flatly, turning to leave.
"Please close the door," Dorothea called after him.
A burst of laughter came from outside.
"Allen isn't a bad person. He might just have been a little too nervous. Don't let it bother you, Vanessa... Vanessa?"
Dorothea suddenly realized that the girl before her... had spaced out?
At that moment, Vanessa's mind was in turmoil.
The others had not understood Allen's somewhat confused account, but she had.
That folding knife... had originally been in Allen's pocket?!
In other words, the being controlling her had actually taken the folding knife straight out of Allen's pocket?!
These were two entirely different things.
Controlling someone to do something was still within Vanessa's understanding. Her field was history and archaeology, and she had even taken an elective in folklore to prepare for fieldwork.
History had well-documented records of several master hypnotists who could amplify certain emotions in people's hearts. Combined with specific drugs and incense, this could achieve the goal of controlling their behavior.
For example, it could stir her will to survive and make her go to the hospital herself, or make her curious about things so she would open the package to look...
It might sound like she was fooling herself, but this was the only explanation Vanessa could think of, and people had indeed done it in history.
But taking something straight from someone else and making it appear in her own hand from a distance...
Vanessa shuddered.
Could... supernatural beings really exist?
Official histories contained no records of the supernatural. Even Tryst, who had been called the Magic Emperor, had later proved to be nothing more than a charlatan. The miracles he had displayed before the world had all subsequently been exposed as "stage magic."
As for the century-long witch hunts that followed, they had been determined to be the former state religion's persecution of heretics. The Blood Moon Sect had consequently declined from its position of sole dominance and lost its status as the empire's state religion.
Vanessa's graduation thesis had been related to this very subject. She had investigated several women burned as witches, and the facts had proved that they were merely ordinary people whom the church had used as an opportunity to purge its opponents.
Thus, Vanessa firmly believed that there were no supernatural powers and that all of this could be accomplished through special methods.
She only needed to find a few spiritual counselors-oh, they were called psychologists now-and undergo some psychoanalysis to rid herself of these influences.
"What's wrong? Vanessa?"
Frowning, Dorothea came forward, placed both hands on her shoulders, and met her eyes.
"I..." Vanessa's mouth felt dry. What was she supposed to say? That a supernatural being, possibly even a god, was controlling her body?
Dorothea would definitely think she had gone mad. She was a medical student, after all.
Wait, a medical student? Vanessa's eyes lit up.
"I seem to have been hallucinating a lot lately... sometimes it's quite severe, and I even experience delirium... is there anything you can do?"
"Yes." Dorothea turned and pulled an unusual instrument from her surgical kit. It looked like a steel needle, or perhaps... an ice pick.
"A little surgery will do the trick."
"What surgery?"
"Here, lie down first." Dorothea guided Vanessa into lying down in the armchair.
"See, you just push this needle through your eye socket, insert it diagonally upward into the brain, then cut away part of the frontal lobe, and you won't hallucinate anymore. It can treat anxiety and depression at the same time, too. It only takes ten minutes. A very minor operation."
Vanessa leaped out of the chair in terror and backed away repeatedly. "N-no need. I don't think I need physical treatment yet, just a little psychoanalysis..."
Somewhat disappointed, Dorothea put away the ice pick and hammer. "Then you shouldn't have come to me. I'm only a doctor, and I haven't even obtained my medical license yet... you could go to Randall, the head of the history department. He's good at this."
"Randall?" Vanessa's eyes widened in surprise. Her impression of that man... honestly, it was not very good.
Balding, boastful, mean, and prone to harassing teaching assistants like her.
Still, he had given Vanessa twenty lios in donations, and she was very grateful for that. She had used the money to buy clothes and food, and had at least managed to survive.
Although he had pocketed the remaining sixty-odd lios, Vanessa did not hate him. He could have given her nothing at all.
"Yes, he's a master hypnotist, and he's very good at psychotherapy, too. He used to lead the history school's field investigations, then stepped down to work in administration. Didn't you know?"
"I, I..." Vanessa stammered, unable to find the words.
During her time at school, she had gone almost exclusively between her dormitory and the classroom, spending all her free time in the library. She knew little about such things.
Despite having worked under Randall, she knew less about him than Dorothea, a medical student.
"I'll go ask him about it."
After checking the medicines and instruments, Dorothea wrote Vanessa a receipt.
"Please don't reveal my identity. Just call me Crow outside. Next, I need you to take some things back to the hospital on your way. They're just outside... don't worry, what you're transporting this time is legal, not contraband like the medicines."
"What things?"
"Corpses."
Before you continue