"How about we talk about it."
Trying his best to suppress the urge to complain, Hitzfeld looked at Ferdinand seriously.
"The professor must already know a lot of information about me, but as a teaching assistant... there are many things about the professor that I don't know yet."
Ferdinand frowned.
"I thought you had gotten some—"
"That's hearsay," Hitzfeld interrupted.
This was not very polite, but in order to obtain more information, she didn't care about that.
"In my opinion, understanding a person from others is the most one-sided and incomplete impression, so I want to hear what the professor says himself."
"You're different from a lot of people, Hitzfeld."
Ferdinand frowned at her for a moment, then walked back and sat down on a wooden stake nearby.
"So……"
"You want to hear what I have to say."
"The professor and Ms. Folland's past."
Ferdinand's face changed.
"Of course - not the past." Hitzfeld hastily defended, "but about the code book - I mean, since it is a relic left by Ms. Folland, then where did it come from?"
This is what she cares about.
There is definitely something wrong with that book.
The carved vortex pattern could actually pull her into that kind of illusion. Although it was also related to the approaching eternal night and the increasing restlessness of her left eye, it was abnormal no matter how you looked at it.
“…It was my negligence.”
Ferdinand's expression softened. "Indeed, inviting someone to join the working group without explaining the origins of the research object to her would be a great disrespect."
"There's nothing to hide, Hitzfeld. The book is actually a trophy that Oonia and I seized from the Eclipse Church a long time ago."
It’s actually the Eclipse Church?
Hitzfeld was a little surprised.
She thought it was dug out from some ancient ruins.
"Will there be any danger?"
She asked cryptically.
After all, that is the Eclipse Church. The people who deal with evil gods and demons are simply a bunch of lunatics.
"If it was some other trophy, I would have the same suspicion."
Ferdinand curled his lips.
"But this book is the only one that won't be affected, because it didn't originally belong to the Eclipse Church, but to Principal Grest."
"Since the day that Principal Grest got it, Puslint has never stopped working on deciphering it, but there has been no progress."
"Then, about 36 years ago, the secret war between Sarah and Eclipse broke out, and the book mysteriously disappeared. It wasn't until O'Nya and I defeated a cult stronghold and found it again inside that we confirmed that it had been stolen."
"That means..."
"That means there is no doubt that there is some evil magic on it."
Ferdinand nodded slightly.
"Except deciphering it step by step according to its rules, any other means will not leave any trace on it. Principal Grace has confirmed this to me personally."
"Even the strongest transcendents in the past 50 years were helpless against it. Anyway, I don't believe those cultists can do it."
Chapter 42: Buried Alive
Secret war.
Hitzfeld chewed on the word.
It seems that something terrible happened to the lady after she left Shadow Lion 40 - oh, now I should say 41 - 41 years ago.
The theft of the code book was proof of that. There was no doubt that there must have been a traitor inside, otherwise she couldn't imagine which cultist had the ability to sneak into Grace's house and steal it.
"Can you talk about the format at that time, Professor?"
She was genuinely curious about that period.
"You mean the secret war?"
Nod in response.
"It's a war that broke out in the shadows." Ferdinand narrowed his eyes and looked into the void beside him.
"About forty years ago, starting with the disaster that broke out in Blackwood Town, evil spirits began to grow wildly across the country."
"The Security Bureau simply doesn't have enough manpower. Even if they relaxed the standards and recruited those gray-clad police officers, the situation didn't ease much. Instead, a large number of gray-clad police officers were killed by evil spirits due to lack of experience and other reasons."
"You have experienced the Golem Tribulation, Hitzfeld. You can imagine that... it was an evil curse that was slightly weaker than the Golem Tribulation. At that time, there were more than a hundred of them in the entire land of Sara at the same time."
"That's very scary." Hitzfeld nodded his chin.
She had read about this in the manuscript, and the lady had complained more than once about the lack of staff.
But it was the first time she heard the exact number.
More than a hundred weakened golem curses.
It broke out more than 40 years ago, when the cultural and technological levels were lower.
Of course there would not be enough manpower, which also gives us an idea of how many refugees died over the years.
"Evil spirits are nourished by people's hearts. Those lunatics also used this power to fight against us." Ferdinand continued, "The sudden appearance of a large number of evil spirits has caused a feedback effect. The evil power in the whole of Sara and even the surrounding areas has suddenly increased."
"So the term 'secret war' is not entirely accurate, because in those areas, war is already a fact that is completely exposed. The cultists deceived people and held thousands of human sacrifices in the hope of awakening the evil spirits and nourishing the monsters to gain greater power and a longer life... When the possibility of realizing their wishes is greatly increased, they can completely abandon everything for it."
"so……"
"So the royal family directly mobilized a lot of capable civilian and logistical personnel." Ferdinand smiled, "For example, I... I was just an ordinary professor at the time, but because I was also a transcendent and could enter and exit the dream world freely, I was also temporarily recruited and joined the war together with the agent Onia."
"It mainly takes two forms: in the periphery, in areas where the royal family's control is weak, the cultists gather recklessly and create disasters. Many agents are sent to suppress these areas. Don't ask, this is the mission with the highest casualty rate... But in areas where the royal family's control is strong, they hide and use nightmares to create chaos. The methods they use even include poisoning the water source."
Poisoning... Hitzfeld frowned when he heard it.
No wonder the entire Sarawak region is disgusted by the cult phenomenon.
These people were no longer just crazy people, they had completely lost their humanity. She even suspected that they were controlled by some monsters.
For example, the shadow monster she saw in Blackwood.
If something like that wanted to control mortals, she estimated that not many people would be able to resist.
"I used to be a civilian, so my job was to stay alert every day, fall asleep at night, and look for their traces in the gray fog."
"Isn't the dream world very dangerous?" Hitzfeld asked, "I've heard from some agents that they have to be very careful when entering the dream world to search for clues, for fear of attracting some strange things..."
"Yes, that's normally the case." Ferdinand nodded. "But it was different then. If we couldn't put out this wave of unrest, the entire Sarath...all the achievements we've made over the years might be destroyed in an instant, so we received full support from the Central Diocese..."
"Xie Yang Stone Carving." Hitzfeld reacted immediately.
“That’s right.” The man raised his eyebrows. “It’s safer to enter the dream world in the area covered by the stone carvings. Although there is still a possibility of getting into trouble, how should I put it… those truly threatening things hate its aura. If they are not provoked, they will basically not show up.”
"So judging from today's situation, we won?"
"No." Ferdinand's face quickly darkened, which frightened Hitzfeld. "We didn't win."
"but--"
"Perhaps for many people, suppressing them and sealing off most of the evil curses is a victory. But in my opinion, it is not. They are hidden dangers and will erupt one day in the future."
Hitzfeld couldn't help but think of the second golem curse. Although the curse was finally stopped, Shadow Lion still executed many "people who knew that name".
Yes, they are not going away.
But they will continue to emerge in the future.
"Many of my friends died in that war, Barry, Foster, Strange... They never came back."
Ferdinand's breathing intensified.
"So I have an irreconcilable hatred with them. Oonia and I have sworn to spend our entire lives fighting against them."
He is suppressing his emotions.
Looking at the blond man in front of him, Hitzfeld had an idea in his mind.
Even while saying this, Ferdinand's expression still managed to maintain that calmness.
He is suppressing something, restraining something.
It felt like a brutal beast was squeezed inside a mortal's body, roaring and fighting against his sanity all the time.
Such a person cannot be described as rigid at all...
A strong sense of doubt arose in my heart.
What happened that made him judge his wife so harshly and even divorce her after the trial (otherwise it should be Ognia Ferdinand), becoming a cold-blooded judge in the eyes of countless people?
"Fortunately, we have achieved a phased victory—"
Sniffling, Ferdinand quickly adjusted his mood.
"Although Eclipse had the upper hand for a while, and under the leadership of a bastard named Deepness who suddenly appeared and caused us great losses, fortunately we recovered and Principal Grest defeated him, and they completely lost the chance to rise again."
"But it's not enough. Far from enough."
"Death Ticket... You saw it too, right?"
"The maggots and rotting bones in the gutter are still stirring..."
"That's why I hope to decipher that book as soon as possible."
"I suspect it may hold a secret... that may cure the evil."
Chapter 43 Lies
It turned out to be the case.
Hitzfeld nodded slightly in his heart.
If this is the case, then all of Ferdinand's recent actions are explained, and he has basically been cleared of suspicion.
Because all the things he said were related to Grace, it is difficult to tamper with them. You can just ask anyone who knows about this matter to confirm it.
"So--"
She spoke again, intending to ask Ferdinand when he would continue the decryption work.
There was another thing that bothered her. She was wondering what excuse she could use to take the code book home.
Or at least keep Ferdinand and Aglaia away for a while.
Because of the words that the blonde woman gave her:
[Unexpressed emotions never die. They are just buried alive to emerge in uglier ways in the future.]
…She strongly suspected that this sentence was the answer to all the mysteries in the code book!
"Unexpressed" can be corresponded to "not appearing".
There is a high probability that in the subsequent levels she will turn the gears according to this sentence and will be able to read all its contents!
But this is not easy to do.
Cracking the second and third levels can also be explained by talent, coincidence, and luck.
If she really broke all the barriers in front of Ferdinand, if Ferdinand had half of his intelligence left, he would suspect that there was something wrong with her.
So at least we have to get them out of the way.
Try to clear all the levels while they are away, and restore them to their original state before they come back.
[He's lying...!]
She had just started to speak when she heard a faint whisper in her ears.
