[A dream? 】

Green propped up the table, straightening up his slightly aching back from lying on his stomach for too long, and his neck turned jerky like a hinge that had not been oiled for a long time.

He must have fallen asleep on his table for a while, the wax dripping from the blackened candlestick, solidifying and hanging upside down in the cold wind, the remnants of the wick shimmering.

The letterhead spread out in front of the "clinic recently" reads what I have just browsed, and an oral medication that is said to work well is flowing out of the clinic, with a small scope and a secret formula.

A few droplets of water drifted into the room mixed with the stuffy night breeze, with a certain background sound.

It is difficult to define it as a foul smell. Grimm had been to other cities, and most of their rainy days smelled of metabolites, as if the whole city was a half-bodyed giant with a head of people and wood and stone, lying in place and eating everything around it. The larger the body, the heavier the pressure ulcer.

Dunling is different. What is not suitable for the above-ground part of the city is carried deep into the underground system by the current for hundreds of years.

Few residents think about what goes where, what it looks like, or simply think that there is an endless space underneath.

During the rainy season, rising water levels lift up a certain breath that emanates from every crevice of communication, stale and cold, reminiscent of bones buried in underground graveyards.

A city built on a huge mausoleum, those parts abandoned by time never really died, always under their feet, deposited and fermented into a shape that no one could imagine.

The smell was the long breath of the dead that passed through the stone passageway, bringing a trill to the ears of those who realized its presence.

“……”

Green swayed back, kicked his chair into the unlit corner of the room, grabbed the knife from the unpacked plate, and hid it behind him.

He heard it again, somewhere in the middle of the light.

The voice of a young man in the prime of life without warning, as if he had been standing in that position for the rest of his sleep, waiting for him to wake up and make a sound to indicate his existence.

The kicked chair submerged in the shadow of the candlelight, collided with the wooden furniture, and the teacup toppled to the ground and rolled to the feet.

Experience had taught him that there was no dodging footsteps, that there was no such thing as a person infiltrating the room, or that it was a formless, untouchable ghost.

Green rolled up the finished letter and pressed it against the faint candle flame, pricking up his ears to catch any movement in the brief darkness.

In an instant, as I felt the heat licking my skin, the light shone brightly, and the flame wrapped in a half-rolled paper tube turned the entire room into a dim yellow.

A simple bed, an overturned bedside table, a spilled drinking glass, and a cabinet that doubles as a bookcase and a wardrobe – that's all there is in the room, there's no hiding place.

The door was locked, and it was supposed to be taken by Brother Wadine when he left it, and only two of them had the key in their hands.

The direction of the sound just now was the head of the bed, just like in the dream, like water flowing out of the void.

"Something." Green shook the paper down in the stove and added two more pieces of wood to make the room brighter and warmer, but the flame didn't bring the usual comfort.

The mind should have cleared up a long time ago, but it still felt like something was going on around in a grotesque dream. Even though it was less than 200 steps away from the sanctuary, the Father's blessing was no longer inaccessible.

But that doesn't mean that all monsters can hang out. Heavenly Father's ministers will teach a lesson to those who pretend to be gods, or something—if they have helpers.

Picking up the sword enshrined under the emblem, Green reached into his pocket to find the key, but felt empty. The bag was fluttering, and the key was missing.

I quickly searched a few habitual locations from memory, behind the door, on the tabletop and in the drawers, and the only small object that could open the door disappeared.

I can't remember the last time I couldn't find the key, and for a person with a relatively low desire for material things, it was rare to add unnecessary miscellaneous items to his life, and the dwelling had been kept almost rudimentary for so long, that it was hard to imagine where such an important thing could escape the eyes.

After a slap on his robe, he finally determined that the key was really lost, and it was so coincidental that it should not have been lost.

This also meant that he was locked in this confined space, and the nearest personnel who could provide force were two floors down, the Church's own armed forces, mostly patrolling the fixed route.

You can shout here, and within two minutes the outside will be filled with heavily armed guards.

However, there were still some worries lingering in his mind, on the one hand, Green was not sure if he would scare away potential enemies by doing so, causing the situation to be like an incompetent superior disrupting the patrol arrangement.

On the other hand, the apocalyptic genius was sending a faint warning, a kind of misty warning—hazy to the extreme, permeating every inch of the body, and at the same time being invisible.

It seems that if you make a slight out-of-the-ordinary move, everything everywhere will turn here in unison.

The raindrops outside the window are more dense, and there is a tendency to develop from light rain to summer showers, and the rainwater from the high places accumulates in the drainage gutters and leads into the mouths of the crouching gargoyles.

Streams of water cascaded from a great height and fell towards the square, making a deep sound like a small waterfall.

In the midst of a dilemma, the light and shadow of the window moved, the color of the glass collage of the Virgin window flowers was printed on the roof, and the blue placket, the milky yellow baby, and the bright circle of light slenderly turned over the beams and rotated with the light source.

Got a night patrol team passing outside? It's easy to do, as long as someone looks up, you should be able to gesture directly to them.

Green walked briskly to the window, pushed the desk papers so that they wouldn't get wet, and opened the window.

It was pitch black.

The cold raindrops pierced the face, so cold that people doubted the current season, and it produced an inevitable sense of confusion.

Ignoring the discomfort, Green looked down, trying to find the vigil party that had just passed, but the light source was gone. Like a candlestick that fell into the pond, it sank into the bottomless rainy night in an instant, without a trace.

In retrospect, it was almost the same as the way it appeared, appearing without a process, and then disappearing.

He couldn't tell if he was in a dream, it was so real, and it didn't seem like anything was right. But if so, then what did he wake up from?

The jet of water spat out by the gargoyle kept falling, and there was a tendency to expand further, and the sound of the water rushing below was not so noisy, as if it was falling in a certain depth of stagnant water, rather than a hard surface. Even if it's a summer rainstorm, such a big one can be regarded as the number one in memory.

A question came to mind, what patrol could pass below with torches in such heavy rain?