Chapter 79: Epitome of the Times (Two in One)
Alfred is a strange name.
You know, even in Ethan's case, he at least has a suffix. People like Alfred who have a single name, although not unique, are indeed very rare.
It should be a real name, as a pseudonym does not bother to hide the surname.
But "Alfred" is also a very common name in its area of origin. Its meaning in ancient Sarai is "farmer with a hoe". From this meaning alone, you can guess how many people have this name.
Theoretically, Alfred's past should not be a secret to Xia Yibing. She is the head of the Security Bureau, and she should be very clear about the personal information of her subordinates, just as only Villefort knew the truth when no one trusted Ethan.
But Villefort died too early.
His death itself was a "huge surprise". He was not prepared to hand over the things and intelligence in his hands to the next person, and he had not even thought about who his successor would be.
“There were originally preventive mechanisms.”
When mentioning this issue, Xia Yibing said this to Hitzfeld.
"The head of a department died suddenly, and there was no time to hand over... This kind of thing has happened in history, so the Security Bureau actually has a preventive mechanism. Every director must ensure that there is a top-secret information database, which records those top-secret information that only he is qualified to know and cannot be placed in the department's files."
"Did you get that information?"
"I got it, but there is very little information about Alfred. It only says that after the disaster that year, from 1943 to 1951, he insisted on staying in Blackwood Town to participate in the local reconstruction."
"More details?"
"It's not mentioned in the letter." The woman shook her head. "I think either Villefort didn't have time to leave more records... This mechanism is not omnipotent, and there will always be omissions. Or he felt that such a small matter was not important and there was no need to record it."
"That's enough." Hitzfeld nodded. "This is enough to prove that he didn't stay in Blackwood Town for more than 222 years as No. 36. After the first outbreak of the Golem Curse, he chose to stay in Blackwood Town for 8 to 9 years."
This was very unusual, because at that time, Shadow Lion was much more short-handed than it is now. Alfred was an experienced agent after all, so there was no reason to give him such a long leisure vacation.
There must be something wrong with his emotional model.
There is only one situation in which Shadow Lion will abandon an agent for an overseas mission, that is, they believe that if they continue to let him perform overseas missions, the probability of his corruption is 100%.
This is easy to guess, and combined with the currently known intelligence, the outline of the incident is roughly clear.
The story begins in 1943, when the first Golem Curse broke out. The already small population of Blackwood suffered heavy casualties, and the entire town was filled with ashes from the burning of corpses for half a month. This caused great mental damage to the two surviving agents, Lilith Grey and Alfred Doria.
The former was because she faced the evil god head-on, and the mistakes in her internal affairs caused her to lose important people, which reached a certain emotional peak. Her retirement application was quickly approved.
As for the latter, Alfred, he most likely witnessed the disaster with his own eyes and saw clearly "the tragedy that would ultimately be caused by his own decisions", and was on the verge of collapse because of self-blame.
But if it is only this level, it can actually be cured.
There were also some Shadow Lion agents who had suffered more serious traumas, but they have all basically recovered and can now live and work like normal people.
According to their guess, another reason why Alfred was truly ruined might be a major setback in his personal relationship.
If he was just feeling guilty about the people, this state would be easy to recover from. But what if he had been thinking about Lilith-Gree from the beginning? Then he would most likely attribute all the tragedies that happened to this woman to himself.
It's all my fault for not giving her comfort when she needed trust and support the most.
It's all my fault. If I hadn't stepped back in the competition, if I hadn't let her marry that beast, perhaps none of this would have happened.
This was inevitable, and he would definitely have similar emotions. As long as Lilith-Gree was still alive and still living miserably there, there was no way to cure his heart disease.
Unless this woman personally announces that she forgives him and truly gets in touch with his hidden feelings.
But considering the reality... considering the state the lady was in at the time, how could such a thing be possible.
Then we have to give up Alfred.
It just so happens that the entire town needs to be rebuilt, and they don't want any mess to happen during this period, so they let Alfred be on duty there. To put it bluntly, it can be considered as a way of making use of waste.
So how did we eventually find out that his name was "Alfred Doria"?
It's about two people.
One was Dorey - Dorey's investigation was more or less helpful. There were some documents that had to be handled in person in order to have legal effect, that is, "real name and identity information must be provided to confirm that the money belongs to you" - she pulled out all the text files that had been stored in the bottom of several gold shops and had accumulated for who knows how many half a century. She finally found one that recorded the name "Alfred Doria".
The other one is Fo Rong.
That was the chief executive whom Hitzfeld had visited at the Blackwood City Hall before leaving Blackwood City for the royal capital.
As the chief executive, Fu Rong certainly had archives of the construction of Blackwood City. Considering that the second golem curse did not cause much damage to the city's buildings, almost all of this information was preserved.
Through telegram communication, Furlong finally handed over the name "Alfred Doria".
Then compare it with the contract provided by Jinhang to confirm that he is the Old Crow.
Turning the clock back to "now", Amora Doria was lying on the floor, her pupils contracting after hearing what Hitzfeld said.
"How do you know..."
"Because you are the 'relic' itself." Hitzfeld interrupted him, reaching out and taking off the left eye patch.
"Something on you can block this eye, but that's when I can't see you."
"And now I see you."
"This partition is no longer useful."
Like a drop of water falling into the lake of time, the scene of the confrontation between the two changed. Amara was surprised to find that he had entered the dream again in the form of a pure spirit, and was led by the girl into a memory.
In the dim room, a man is trying to enlighten the child.
"What's your name?"
The boy didn't speak.
"where is your family?"
Still didn't speak.
It was obvious that the man had no experience in this area. He kept asking few and strange questions - who would ask these questions when they knew the answers? Wouldn't that cause further secondary harm?
Not to mention him, in fact, everyone living in the surrounding area and in this dilapidated town knows it well: those missing people were either eaten by monsters and turned into wooden sculptures, or dragged away and shot to death by mysterious men in black.
This really angered the boy. He looked up, and although he was still a little scared, he asked him more out of anger: "How are they...don't you know?"
"I'm sorry." The man realized that he had said the wrong thing and stood up awkwardly.
"But... I can't tell you everything. This is actually for your own good... I can only say that we don't really want to do this. This is a compromise with reality in order to save more people..."
“Then you should have arranged everything from the beginning!” the boy shouted at him, “That’s not what you said when you planned to build this place! That’s a lie! That’s a fraud!”
“It’s really a lie.”
Hitzfeld floated quietly between the two people in the scene like a ghost, looked at the boy and sighed softly.
"I looked up the founding concept of Blackwood Town. It actually appeared as Wayne's 'Acropolis'."
"'Acropolis' means guarding. Although it is said to protect Wayne from danger, because it is too close to Wayne, when the town was first built, everyone said that it would be impossible for this place to be invaded by evil disasters."
"Because it is too close to the Royal City..."
"They think those people will not allow Blackwood Town to go wrong, and they will definitely deploy sufficient manpower in the town."
"..." Amara's spirit had been listening to her, and the more he listened, the gloomier his expression became.
"Given these characteristics, you must be the famous Aisuen Hitzfeld..." he said, "I was wondering why a normal person could solve so many strange cases. It turns out that you are a Devourer... Is this also the ability of that eye?"
"You don't have to try to change the subject." Hitzfeld looked at him.
"It doesn't matter who I am."
"It's important that you understand what you gave up in pursuit of that dream."
Amara thought to himself, why should I listen to you, but when he was about to talk back, Hitzfeld raised his wrist and turned it... and he found that he couldn't say anything.
It was as if his lips and part of his thoughts were frozen and frozen, and he became like a "walking corpse" and could only passively accompany her to appreciate all this.
Appreciation is actually the memory extracted from his mind.
Time flies, and the boy grows up gradually.
Because of the man's sincere treatment, although he did not explicitly forgive him, in his heart he actually no longer cared about what the other person did in the past.
It’s better to use simple addition and subtraction to calculate: Even if the man is blamed for my father’s death, at least he adopted me for a short period of time.
That is one life for another - even with this extreme thinking, the other party does not owe him anything.
The boy was very smart since he was young. He could see that the man had a heavy mental burden. He always spent all day with tobacco and sometimes stared out the window in a daze.
That looked a lot like guilt, so he blamed him even less.
On the contrary, he became more and more accustomed to having this person in his life.
"Amura! Come and eat."
"It's time to learn Amura. I found the right material for you."
"Doubt me? You look down on me too much. After all, I was... Anyway, my grades are definitely fine. They are enough for you, a kid."
"The conditions in this place are really too poor... It took 20 years for the evil disaster to develop, and there are no other math books nearby."
"I can only try to make it up myself. The bad news is that I am not very good at math. The good news is that I have a lot of experience in literature and history."
"You can't do this, Amura. You can't even solve this kind of problem."
"I told you not to ask me those weird questions. I won't answer you."
At the same time, the boy also knew that his name was Alfred.
"Alfred! Why are you always staring at the sky?"
"Alfred! You are so old. I see many of them have children at this age. Don't you want to consider getting married?"
"Alfred! Why are you so nice to me? What happened in Blackwood?"
"Alfred! ALFRED!!!"
Damn it—
Scenes of memories flashed before his eyes, and the calls from his childhood fell into Amara's heart, making him look extremely irritable.
Why do you remind me of these things...
I have clearly made up my mind to treat them as a price, just like those big guys only treat us as a price...
I don't want to watch or listen to it anymore...
Stop... Stop right there!!!
He tried desperately to resist the icy hold, but to no avail.
The gap in power was like a chasm. If he didn't show up, Hitzfeld would have no way to deal with him, but since he chose to come back, the moment he had this idea, he was destined to not escape.
He saw the boy's first contact with the "Light of Salvation".
"You can call us that..."
"No, no... We are not some evil organization, nor are we secretly controlled or funded by anyone. If we must talk about our origins, it is probably that some extraordinary people who lost something in the disaster spontaneously gathered together to form an association."
He tried to find out the truth from them, but was rejected outright.
"I don't think knowing too much is a good thing at your age."
"You are still too young, Amura. If you really have the perseverance and determination to handle these things, then work hard to become extraordinary."
“This world is just not fair.”
"The more secret something is, the more it cannot be endured by ordinary people."...
He saw the difference.
"Why are you leaving, Alfred?"
"Because I've been here for too long. I don't have the face to stay any longer. If someone sees me, they'll be unhappy."
"Who is it? Who dares!"
"Don't be so impulsive Amura."
In the picture, the man's face looked more haggard than the last time he appeared. The two figures confronted each other in the sunset, and the boy was almost as tall as him.
"Maybe one day you'll have a chance to find out... I just hope you won't do anything extreme then."
“Think about the things that make you happy.”
Let me...
Happy things...
