It took me about five seconds to finally put "Sonya. Shangri-La", a name that I had only heard once, came ashore from the depths of my mind. Yes, I know the name. This is the pseudonym that the hellish woman of "Faceless Shadow" deliberately used when she met me for the first time in reality. At the time, I knew it was a pseudonym as soon as I heard it, and I made it up with the name "Hasta. Lovecraft's pseudonym strikes back. It's been less than a month since then, but for some reason it makes me feel like it was a long time ago.

"You know her." I looked at the Turin doctor.

She nodded slightly, then said, "That's a woman whose whereabouts are a mystery." And like you and me, you are good at changing your appearance in the eyes of others. She looked like a blue-haired girl of about seventeen or eighteen years old, but that wasn't what she really looked like. Not even her real age and gender. I don't know much about her. ”

"How did you meet her?" I asked.

"She, like me, is being hunted down by the withered cultists. According to what she said to me, more than a year ago, she stole a rather important container of forbidden knowledge from the local stronghold of the withered believers. She replied.

The container of forbidden knowledge is sealed, could it be that this forbidden knowledge is the knowledge of the formula of the spiritual transformation medicine?

As I digested the words, she continued, "A month ago, she helped me escape from the pursuit of the withered cultists. And as a reward, I prepared a life elixir for her according to her request. ”

"At the cost of halving the remaining lifespan, take the 'elixir of life' that compulsorily sleeps for three consecutive days so that all injuries, even fatal ones, can be healed?" I checked it.

"Yes." She nodded, "What's wrong with that?" ”

I told me what the woman had done in Beaver City.

"Killed innocent women and stripped off their faces. Spreading forbidden knowledge, secretly using beaver medicine, inducing bloody human experiments......" she counted the woman's crimes, and sighed, "The 'Sonia I know. Shangri-La wasn't the one to do such a thing, but it was something that only she could do, and it matched all the clues I had about the Beaver Pharma affair. It seems that I was deceived by her as well. What a shame. ”

She solemnly apologized to me, "I'm sorry. Now that I think about it, it's likely that she didn't die, and that had nothing to do with the elixir I had prepared for her. This is my responsibility. ”

I was noncommittal, and then asked, "When and how did she mention me to you?" ”

"That was just over a week ago. She came out of Beaver City, bought a small amount of medicine from me, who was temporarily living in Seb, and left. While chatting with me, she mentioned you. "She said you were asking for information about the withdrawal drug, and you might be able to find me in the near future." He also said that you may have had a holiday with the withered believers, and if I am approached by the withered followers again, I may be able to ask you for help. ”

"Doesn't sound like you're speaking ill of me."

I said to her, "In that case, let's go together." I'm in charge of logistical support, the Facelings are in charge of frontline combat, and you're in charge of reconnaissance intelligence. If three people are together, no matter what you do, you will get twice the result with half the effort. "But she refused." She said that if she meets you again next time, she will probably be separated from life and death. ”

"Naturally." As I spoke, I thought: I don't have much hatred for the woman, but only out of a certain complex similar to psychological cleanliness, and I can't tolerate such a person jumping around in front of me; But she must have hated me so much that she wanted to chew my bones and swallow them in her stomach.

My dreams of that woman were ruined to such an extent, but I had no sympathy for her. On the contrary, I feel refreshed by it. I'll even do it again if I get the chance.

"Let's not talk about her yet." I said, "I've come here to see you, and there's something else going on." ”

"It's for the sake of the drug." She said.

"Yes." I said, "As you said last time, no matter what I want to do, it's not enough to have retorting pills and their formulas. ”

"Do you know why?"

"Nature."

The reason is very simple, such as the "retreating medicine", which directly affects the soul and reduces the inspiration of the user, for a person like me, who is almost completely immune to the influence of the soul from the outside, no matter how much I eat, it will not work. In this respect, the "Blood Heart Eye Potion" I took a long time ago was an anomaly. It is a potion that directly affects the body and indirectly affects the soul, which is closer to the "spirit transformation drug" in principle.

However, since I already know this kind of thing, it is natural that I will not stumble in such a place. I know how to make the withdrawal pill work on myself.

That's "self-made".

If I touch each raw material with my own hands and experience every process of the preparation process of the withdrawal medicine, then when it comes to taking the finished product, even if it is my soul like an insulator, I will have to admit the existence of the withdrawal medicine. Although it sounds quite idealistic, this is the only solution to taking reversing drugs.

The difficulty with this method is that I don't have technical knowledge of elixir. Fortunately, elixir is indeed a difficult subject, but if you don't pursue becoming a psionic pharmacist, you can achieve short-term quick results if you just learn how to prepare specific drugs.

My initial plan was quite simple, which was to take the recipe and ask the psionic potion master I had commissioned to make the "Bloody Heart Eye Potion", and then let the medicine master in turn teach me the details of the preparation. But the situation is different now, and since the withered believers have become my potential enemies in the form of an organization, I have to be more or less particular about the position of my collaborators. From this point of view, the Turin doctor, who was also an enemy of the withering cultists, and already had a formula for the withdrawal medicine, became my best choice.

"I'll teach you how to prepare the medicine. It's also one of my reparations for the fact that you were involved in a small-town nightmare. She said, "But the main materials of the retreat medicine are too rare, and I only have some auxiliary materials on hand, so I can only demonstrate the preliminary link for you for the time being, is this okay?" ”

"Yes." I say.

"Have you studied elixir?"

"Only the layman's level knows."

"Even so, you should understand what an 'unrealistic' technique the preparation of elixir is." "There are places where it's even more ridiculous than dream technology," she said. Even that gritty ferocity raised his hand in surrender in elixir. ”

"I understand."

This is the key reason why I have not studied elixir technology. In the past, even such an important Blood Heart Eye Potion was handed over to other people to prepare, and I thought, if it weren't for the need to prepare it by hand after taking the Withdrawal Medicine, I would never have thought of learning any elixir preparation techniques in my life.

"So, let's get started now." She said.

The process of learning elixir techniques will never bring about a sense of fulfillment. If I had to describe it, the more accustomed-minded idea was raped. But it wasn't on her mind, it was really the knowledge of elixir that was too foggy.

After dark, she went back to her bed. I looked around as I reflected on what I had learned. Suddenly, I saw a few storybooks on the bookshelf next to me, so I turned around and asked, "Can you read books without vision?" ”

"If you concentrate your inspiration, you can grasp what is written in the book." She replied honestly, "But it was quite hard, and I couldn't experience the joy of reading a story." ”

I pulled out one of the storybooks and flipped through it. She seemed to hesitate and asked, "Can you read that book to me?" ”

I wanted to refuse outright, but looking at her blind eyes covered by black cloth, and thinking that she was also trying to explain the elixir preparation technique to me just now, I nodded in agreement. It's not a hassle either. I sat down on the edge of her bed and flipped the first page of the storybook.

The elusive Faceling, the limbless Turin doctor, what an urban weirdos. This thought came to me as I read the story in my hand.