Old Days, Dice and Investigator's Handbook, Chapter 139
"Are you now Nehir Elesha? Check score—70, tsk tsk, not bad, seems pretty high."
The dice were tossed in Carlo's hand and landed back in Carlo hand.
66. Verification successful.
Carlo put the dice back in his pocket. "See? From now on, your real name is Nehir Elesha —you are Nehir Elesha."
The twisted figure trembled, its dark red outline collapsing inward before expanding again in the next second, like a piece of cloth being crumpled and then unfolded.
Isaac felt a wave of dizziness wash over him, and fine lines appeared at the edges of his vision.
In his vision, the figure began to twist violently, each twist gradually pulling the outline out of the blurry chaos—the torso, then the shoulders, the arms—the color also changed, the dark red fading to a skin tone closer to that of a human.
Its blurred face was repeatedly scattered and then reassembled, each time getting closer to human appearance than the last. In the final violent convulsion, the facial features returned to their original positions and gradually stabilized.
A few breaths later, a man stood there. He looked to be in his sixties or seventies, naked, aged, with loose skin and protruding ribs.
He was looking down at his hands, turning his palms over, his fingertips opening and closing, as if seeing this body for the first time, confirming that those hands belonged to him.
"I—" His voice was no longer strained from all sides, but hoarse and dry, carrying the sluggishness of an old man just waking up, " Schuster, I—"
As he regained his composure, Isaac blinked, and the room returned to normal. The walls were as clean as ever, as if no blood had ever appeared. Fenri lay back down, no longer as wary as before.
Carlo walked back behind his desk and sat down. "A naked old man standing in front of me is quite an eyesore. Asa, find a blanket for Elesha."
Isaac took a deep breath, straightened up, went to the storage room, found a blanket, and handed it to the old man.
Elesha took it and slowly wrapped it around her body.
Li Jiehao's breathing was not yet fully steady, but his complexion had improved somewhat; however, his limbs were trembling uncontrollably.
Boss, this guy----"
" Nehir Elesha, a scholar from the Eastern Territory, was unlucky, or perhaps too overconfident, and stumbled upon something he shouldn't have." Carlo picked up the teacup on the table. "See? If you're not careful, you'll end up in pretty much the same situation, or worse, become some kind of monster's excrement."
Li Jiehao shrank his neck.
Carlo gestured for Elesha to sit down. Elesha, wrapped in a blanket, looked around, trying to find her place and also to gather her thoughts.
He finally looked at Carlo, his gaze a mixture of anticipation and fear. "----You received my letter?"
"Received."
"I... what did I write in that letter? I don't quite remember." Elesha opened his mouth, "I remember writing a letter, I think I wrote it for a long time—"
How much do you remember?
"I remember—I wrote a letter, I wrote you a letter, I said I would come to find you, and then—I was walking on the road, and I think I arrived at a place."
"There were people, they were talking, I couldn't understand what they were saying, and then—I couldn't wake up, but I was in that room, I was in that room the whole time, and people came in, but I couldn't see who they were."
"And then—that's now."
Carlo took a sip of tea. "In your letter to me, you said you summoned something and got possessed, asking me to help you resolve the problem. However, although you arrived in Vista, you didn't find me. Instead, you were mistaken for a homeless, demented old man and put in a nursing home, where you stayed for almost a year before killing Ailias, the owner of the nursing home."
Elesha was somewhat taken aback. Carlo added, "And then he killed himself too."
Standing to the side, Isaac saw Elesha's face contort, as if something was trying to break free from its restraints. Carlo clapped his hands, diverting Elesha's attention. " Nehir Elesha, what are you feeling right now?"
Sleep?"
Elesha regained her balance and remained silent for a moment. "I feel—I'm still me, but I don't know if I'm really me. My memory is hazy, I feel like I could fall apart at any moment, but it's better than before."
"Then you'd better hurry up and remember who you are, Nehir Elesha. If you forget who you are, I might not have time to check you again next time."
Elesha nodded, while Isaac, standing nearby, noticed that Carlo usually preferred to use abbreviations for people with longer names, but this time, when facing Elesha, he repeatedly used her full name.
Based on the examination just conducted, it feels like a repeated reminder that "you are Nehir Elesha ".
Carlo put the teacup back on the table. "What are you going to do now?"
"I don't know," Elesha shook her head. "I'm not even sure what my current state is."
"Your condition is certain; you are possessed by a demon."
Li Jiehao, who had just stood up and was still leaning against the doorframe catching his breath, was a little confused when he heard this. "Boss, aren't you saying it backwards? Shouldn't it be that a demon possessed him?"
"It's not the other way around. The one possessed is the demon; Elesha is the one who was possessed."
Elesha's body twisted again as she grabbed the armrest of the chair to steady herself, startling Li Jiehao into taking a half-step back.
Carlo watched as Elesha regained her composure and continued, "You'll find out sooner or later anyway, so rather than waiting for it to suddenly explode someday, it's better to make things clear while I'm here."
"I suspect that when you summoned the demon, you didn't call it by its true name, so the demon you summoned is a nameless being," Carlo said, raising a finger. "It doesn't know who it is, what it should do, or even understand the commands you give it, because it can't understand your language, just as you can't understand its existence."
"But it followed you all along, after all, you were its summoner. You died later, and your soul was absorbed by that nameless demon; it was an empty vessel, and you filled it."
Elesha shuddered. "You mean, I'm not myself anymore?"
"It depends on how you understand yourself." I said, the demon you summoned was an empty vessel; your soul occupied its body. From that perspective, you possessed it," Carlo said. "But your mental state was very poor at the time. Even without possession, you didn't know who you were until I gave you a check, confirming your identity."
"You are now both a demon and Nehir Elesha, or rather, a demon whose true name is Nehir Elesha."