Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 293: Chapter 297: Cemetery Investigation

Maurice’s wife, Mary, stared at the envelope of the letter for a long time before she picked up the letter opener from the side and carefully opened it.

A flimsy sheet of folded paper fell out of the envelope. Before unfolding the paper, the first thing Mrs. Mary noticed was the uneven texture on the back of the page.

It was handwriting—in written with such force that the indentations of the strokes were clearly visible on the back of the paper.

The person who wrote this letter must have been extremely agitated at the time.

Seated in front of the fireplace, the elderly woman slightly adjusted her posture and placed the letter she had finished reading on the small round table next to her. She glanced at the date stamp on the cover of the letter from Frost.

The letter was sent on December 5.

Three days after the first letter was sent—within a mere three days, the late “Brown Scott” had written this second letter.

Mrs. Mary unfolded the crumpled letter, and hurried, messy lines of text came into view—they bore no resemblance to the elegant, neat handwriting of the first letter sent by the folklorist a few days prior. The few lines were filled with the writer’s immense unease and panic:

“My friend, the situation… is wrong, I don’t know how to explain it to you, I am very confused right now, it’s even hard to think, my mind is being disrupted by something, my memories… Don’t come to Frost! Whatever you do, do not come to Frost! Even if you see other things that I’ve written to you in the future, other forms of invitations, do not come to Frost!

“There is a huge conspiracy.

“Don’t come to Frost!”

The end of the letter had no signature, and even the stamp on the envelope was crookedly affixed.

Mrs. Mary looked at those hastily scrawled phrases, as if she could imagine a folklorist, whose sanity was already compromised under a great cognitive rift, writing these words with his last shred of rationality before struggling into the bitter winds of Frost and laboriously handing this letter over to the post office.

She slowly folded the paper back up and stuffed it into the envelope.

It was an unsettling letter, the whole affair from start to finish was filled with a dreadful atmosphere, which under normal circumstances would have been enough to send the person involved running to the church for sanctuary.

As Mrs. Mary’s gaze swept over the small round table beside her, it landed on a family letter from Homeloss—

“…The offspring of the deep sea really do have a unique flavor, tastier than ordinary fish. The captain possesses special culinary skills, and the abnormal 099—that is, Miss Alice, has learned the essence of these. Perhaps I should give it a try as well…”

The old woman silently threw the letter from Frost into the fireplace next to her, watching as it quickly burst into flame and turned to ash.

“They have already gone…”

She murmured softly, then stood up and reached for an inkwell, a pen, and stationery from the shelf next to her, and began to write a letter—this letter would be sent to the antique shop in the Lower City District.

…

The church personnel, clad in black coats, moved around the cemetery, examining all the remnants of evidence—every path, each coffin, every lamp post was marked and sampled in hope of reconstructing what happened here last night.

“The Tomb Guardian,” Agatha, stayed in the caretaker’s lodge, sitting opposite her was the sullen, hunched old caretaker.

After an indeterminable amount of time, the young woman, most of her wrapped in bandages, lifted her head to glance at the sky outside the window, noticing that the sun was already sinking, and a faint red glow began to drift across the sky above the City-State.

Evening was approaching. Her guardians had been busy in the cemetery for several hours, while the old caretaker in front of her had been silent for just as long.

To be precise, the old caretaker was not just silent—he was in a state close to mental shutdown, motionless, speechless, unresponsive to any external stimulus. Ever since the church guardians received the report and arrived here, he had been sitting quietly on that chair, like a breathing sculpture of flesh and blood.

A black-clad guardian pushed open the wooden door of the caretaker’s lodge and bent down beside Agatha to whisper something. She nodded slightly, “I understand, send the samples to the cathedral first. Leave the scene as it is. Tonight may be critical, we need to have people on watch.”

The black-clothed guard nodded, accepting the order, but before departing, he couldn’t help but glance at the old man sitting motionless in the chair. Upon seeing the old man’s murky eyes, which appeared frozen in time, the young guard’s face visibly tensed, “How long does he… have to remain in this state? Is it really okay?”

“Protective mental sealing; he’s resisting and purging the contamination he’s suffered in this manner, and maybe he’s also protecting us in the process,” Agatha whispered. “The Tomb Guardian must have encountered something unimaginably extraordinary last night. He seems to have struggled back from the brink of madness… But don’t worry, he is an experienced warrior and has managed to stabilize himself. He’ll be fine.”

At this, Agatha paused, then added, “As for how long this state will last… that’s hard to say. He could recover in the next second or it might not be until this time tomorrow. It all depends on how long he was in contact with that terrible contamination.”

The black-clothed guard pondered briefly, then lifted his head to look outside the window. Through the slightly dirty glass, he could see the church personnel bustling about on the path outside.

He withdrew his gaze back to the cottage, looking at the two bodies therein—two intruders, now confirmed as heretic cultists, apparently dead by the old caretaker’s hand. Since the situation was still unclear, in an effort to preserve the scene, the bodies had been left where they were.

They couldn’t be the reason for the old caretaker’s mental seal; even the demons behind them going out of control were not capable of such an effect.

What could it be? More powerful Profound Demons? A high priest of the heretic cultists? Or something else?

The black-clothed guard voiced his query, only for Agatha to shake her head, “No, it’s likely something even more bizarre and dangerous.”

“Why are you so sure?” the black-clothed guard asked instinctively.

“Because at the scene, there were only a few traces left by the heretical cultists and a pile of debris resembling the ‘Restless One,’ which didn’t retain any Transcendent reactions,” Agatha said indifferently. “The absence of observable traces means…”

“It means that the Visitor from last night didn’t do anything. Its mere presence in the cemetery for a moment was enough to bring my old mind to the brink,” the old man’s voice suddenly filled the cottage, interrupting the conversation between the black-clothed guard and the gatekeeper. Agatha immediately turned towards the source of the voice, her expressionless face finally showing a faint smile, “You’ve recovered, good.”

“I wouldn’t say fully recovered,” the old caretaker spoke slowly, steadying the various perceptions that had shifted slightly after reopening his mind. He looked into Agatha’s eyes, consciously blocking out the leaping echoes behind her. “But at least I can distinguish what’s real from what’s madness.”

“That’s enough,” Agatha nodded, “What happened yesterday?”

“The body you sent over suddenly started thrashing about, speaking a lot, lucid as a living person. Then, four heretic cultists entered the cemetery, trying to take the Restless One—they disguised themselves with the powers of Profound Demons, skilled summoners, fooling my eyes but not my Intuition.

“I lured two of them here and finished them off, these two on the floor. I was about to head to the cemetery to deal with the other two when the unexpected happened.”

The old caretaker looked up in the direction of the door.

“A Visitor… indescribable came to visit. I made eye contact with It for a while, or maybe just a few seconds; my sense of time was skewed, and I can’t be certain.”

“An indescribable Visitor?” Agatha couldn’t help but frown, “Can you be more specific?”

The old caretaker tried to recall.

All that emerged in his mind was a mess of incoherent light and an overwhelming noise.

The hasty mental seal had cleared the temporary contamination he had endured, but it had also wiped away some useful memories.

“I can’t. All I remember are chaotic lights and noise,” the old caretaker shook his head, “and even if I could accurately describe what I saw, it would be meaningless to you—what I saw might not be real, and even if it is real, it might not be reality as others perceive it. The limitations of human perception are too great.”

“Alright, then that’s the full answer,” Agatha nodded, “An indescribable Visitor visited the cemetery in the final phase but didn’t actively do any damage… Are you sure you want to use the word ‘visit’ in your report? That word is neutral, even positive.”

“Positive,” the old caretaker replied calmly, “I conversed with It, although we hardly succeeded in exchanging anything—The Visitor tried to communicate, which is a neutral to positive sign.”

“Understood, it’s recorded,” Agatha nodded again, “Then what? Is there anything else?”

“After the Visitor left, I vaguely saw It left behind something… on the path by the door,” the old caretaker said as he reminisced, “but I couldn’t see it clearly. My vision was severely damaged by then, and my cognition was also significantly flawed. I’m not sure…”

“If you’re referring to a pile of remains, incinerated by the backlash of Profound Demons, we found those,” Agatha interrupted, her face expressionless, “If that’s correct, it seems that was the Visitor’s… ‘vessel’.”

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