For the first few minutes, Heidi didn't get up from the hospital bed, but carefully observed the situation around her, listening to the movement outside the room, and then raised her wrist to check the number and color arrangement of the colored stones on the bracelet.

After doing this, she subconsciously reached out and touched the "amethyst" pendant on her chest—a slightly cold touch came from her fingertips, transmitting reassuring power.

Thinking of the true origin of this pendant and the source of this protective power, Miss Psychiatrist's face was a little strange, but soon, she suppressed this strange feeling, and there was only a helpless sigh-

"Fate, it's incredible......" she muttered softly.

"Yes, in your eyes, fate is really incredible."

An unfamiliar and deep voice suddenly came from the side, causing Heidi to wake up instantly, and her muscles suddenly tensed.

She jerked her head to look in the direction from which the voice had come from, but saw a figure sitting near the window of the hospital room in an old dark brown robe, which obscured almost all the details of the silhouette of the other person's body, and the thick and wide hood shrouded all his features in shadow, and could only be judged by the rickety figure, the deep voice, and the slight wrinkles on the edge of the shadow of the hood, that it seemed to be an old man.

The sunlight was spilling into the room at an angle, and the dust floated slowly in the light of the setting sun, and the light left mottled and intermittent shadows between the folds of the mysterious man's robes, and in a trance, the figure looked a little phantom-like translucent.

Who's this? When did it come here? Was he there just now?

Heidi's mind instantly conjured up a series of terrifying questions, and at the same time, her hand had subconsciously reached for the suitcase next to the bed.

However, before her hand could touch the suitcase, the low, hoarse voice came from the window again: "There is no need to be so hostile, Miss Heidi, I am not your enemy today—and your golden cone and pistol will not kill a temporary traveler, sit down, I am only here to talk to you, as if to relieve your boredom." ”

Heidi, however, still took the pistol out of the compartment of the suitcase with a blank face, and said in a deep voice while quietly pointing the muzzle of the gun at the other party: "...... Who are you? ”

The robed figure did not answer Heidi, but slowly raised his arm and examined his hands in the sunlight pouring in from the window, as if he had suddenly noticed something interesting, and he placed his arm in the sunlight and observed it repeatedly.

The sleeves of the old robes slipped down, and the arms were dry and wrinkled.

Heidi watched the strange behavior with a wary face, and suddenly noticed the strange state of the arm in the sunlight - it really became transparent from time to time, and for a few moments, she could even see the sunlight penetrate the arm and shine directly on this side.

"It's incredible...... I've almost forgotten what the sun looks like......"

The man in the robe exclaimed, with incomprehensible emotion in his tone, and then he suddenly turned his head, as if he were talking to Heidi, and as if he was muttering to himself: "...... Before the beginning of the fourth long night, things will change, the sun will become gentle, and the 'boundaries' that have been established by the sun will be blurred, and those who have been banished, forgotten, erased, and changed will be briefly allowed to return to this world—we will bask in this twilight together, waiting for the moment when the sun sets......"

The uninvited guest's voice was low, not so much telling someone as it was facing a book that had already been written, slowly reciting the ancient words on it.

It is like a preacher, reading his destiny to the world.

Heidi listened to the other party's recitation that seemed to have mysterious and bewitching powers, and suddenly vaguely thought of something, and her eyes instantly became fierce: "The last preacher?!" ”

The robed figure finally raised its head, and in the hazy shadow cast by the hood, a pair of strange golden eyes looked calmly: "Miss Heidi, you have established contact with the Ark of Promise, do you see the end of that journey?" ”

"I'm not interested in cultist demagoguery." Heidi's voice was cold and hard, her fingers pressed slightly on the trigger, but her other hand subconsciously grabbed the amethyst pendant on her chest, and a sense of tension gradually spread in her heart.

She didn't know the bottom of her mind - although she had dealt with the mentally ill and their psychosis, and the monsters and shadows that appeared in nightmares, she had never dealt with the "rare enemy" of the Last Missionary, there was very little information about these subspace madmen in the earthly world, and there was no targeted training for these cultists in the Martial Arts Course affiliated with the Truth Academy, and she didn't know how useful the gun in her hand could be, and she didn't know if the supernatural power she had mastered was effective.

However, the uninvited guest did not react when he saw Heidi's obvious hostile move.

He and Heidi seem to have learned a very different story about the last preacher in the textbooks.

"We smell something unusual, Miss Heidi, just after the coming of the Ark of Promise," he said with a moment, even politeness, "a great, boundless void, which appears after the end, where there is nothing...... We are looking for a way to avoid the end of the world, but now it seems that beyond the end of the world is a huge nothingness that is even more terrible than the end of the world...... You have come into contact with Him, and now you are part of this hollowness, which makes us curious...... What's going on? ”

The uninvited guest's words sounded like a dumb riddle after a dumb riddle, as if he had lost the ability to communicate with ordinary people in a long and confused time, but even so, Heidi still caught some specious information from the other party's words, and couldn't help but feel emotional.

She frowned slightly.

"You're talking ...... Duncan Abnomar? You mean, he brought some kind of 'hollowness'? ”

The old preacher slowly rose from his chair, and in the sunlight he was much taller than Heidi had imagined, even though he was clumsy, he was still like a giant: "I don't know, we only know that the void has been created, and it is expanding, and perhaps one day it will cover the entire night sky of this fourth long night......"

Heidi became nervous at the other party's sudden move, and raised the muzzle of the gun in her hand slightly: "Heretic, what do you want from me?" ”

“…… We are anxious to know the nature of this hollowness," the other party answered her question seriously, but quickly, he shook his head, "It's a pity that I didn't seem to have come at the right time." ”

Heidi was stunned when she heard this, and subconsciously said, "What does this mean?" ”

The other party did not answer, but slowly turned around and looked out the window at the sun.

"What do you mean by the fourth long night?" Heidi asked.

The uninvited guest just waved his hand.

"We can only do limited communication during this window—the time has come to leave," the Missionary Grim whispered, stepping toward the sun, "We may or may not meet in the next window, depending on how quickly the void expands...... But whether the next window comes up or not, we'll meet again sooner or later...... Dusk is approaching. ”

His figure finally became completely transparent, and in an instant it dissolved into the sunlight.

Heidi froze.

If it weren't for the clear and steady memory in her head, if it weren't for the clear touch of the pistol and the amethyst pendant, she would almost think she had just had another dream.

Then, as the aura of the last preacher completely disappeared, she suddenly felt a subtle change in the "atmosphere" in the room.

It seemed that some kind of blockade force had receded from the room.

There was a slight rush of footsteps in the hallway outside the ward.

……

In the captain's cabin, Duncan sat quietly at the nautical table, still recalling the information he had seen and felt in that strange dream before.

It wasn't long before Morris's voice suddenly sounded from the side, interrupting his thoughts, "I thought you would consider having Heidi join the ship." ”

Duncan raised his head and glanced at the old gentleman with a smile: "Didn't you say before that you didn't want her to get too close to the Lost Country?" ”

"At that time...... I'm still a little nervous about this ship," Maurice smiled awkwardly, then shook his head, "and Heidi didn't know anything about us then, and now that she does, she doesn't have to shy away from it." ”

Duncan thought for a moment and said quite seriously: "Indeed, but when I think about it, it doesn't seem that a psychiatrist is needed on this ship. ”

Then he turned his head, glanced out the window, and said casually: "Who needs psychological counseling here?" You don't need it, Agatha doesn't need it, I don't need it, Vanna's will is so strong that even I am shocked, Shirley's sanity is bound to Dog, Dog is a ghostly demon, Nina is a shard of the sun, Alice ...... Alice doesn't have a heart at all, is there anything else? Goat's head? ”

The goat's head on the sailing table suddenly turned his neck when he heard his name: "Ah, great captain, your first mate will always be tough and reliable, and will not be defeated by so-called psychological problems, and I have taken many psychology courses on my own, and I am completely able to ...... myself"

"Shut up."

"Oh."

"So, you see," Duncan said as he turned to Morris, "if Heidi comes, then she herself will probably be the one most likely to need a psychiatrist on this ship." ”

Morris pondered for a moment, silently grabbed his pipe, and muttered before putting it in his mouth: "It seems to be ...... too"

(End of chapter)