The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

Page 172

"It's the weekend, a pleasant holiday. Even that annoying 'Gomorrah Today' program has to take a two-day break. Why don't we take this opportunity to visit our mutual, annoying host friend?"

The believer, with a cigarette dangling from her lips, grinned and made a suggestion, revealing a faint, animalistic smile.

“I understand, Miss Van Mielion. Please get in the car. We’re going to the next district to meet a well-informed industry professional.”

Dominic opened the car door and gestured.

"Huh? I understand."

The silver-haired lamb obediently returned to the passenger seat.

"What should we do if we don't hear from Mostima either?"

As Dominic fastened his seatbelt, he closed the car door and asked his lazy senior, who had slumped back into the back seat.

"I don't know." That was the ambiguous reply.

"what?"

"I've never thought about that kind of thing."

"..."

……

Yay! The college entrance exam is over, I can come back and update again! ( )

Chapter 253 Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Night (Part 4)

Sin City, shrouded in sea fog, rarely receives the favor of sunlight. The old car radio plays the mournful song of a nightingale. Dominic's gaze flickers between focused and absentminded as he follows the windshield wipers. The car is moving at a reasonable speed, giving him some leeway.

Her gaze swept over Hearn, who was fast asleep in the back seat, between glances in the rearview mirror, and that recurring thought resurfaced in her mind—

If one day he really can't make it and has to go back to his hometown, to that remote rural area, Dominic will probably write a book in his spare time, titled "Gomorrah: The Mentally Ill".

Hmm, mental illness, or rather, neurosis, whatever...

A high-ranking devil once jokingly told Dominic, a newcomer, that the city was sick, or that the people of the city were sick.

When Dominic first heard this, she thought it was a sinister curse that had been left over from the city of sin, causing people to live in constant fear. So she turned around and prepared to run away.

However, after gritting his teeth and staying a little longer, Domi is now able to roughly understand some of the old man's meaning.

Thirty-three percent of Gomorrah's inhabitants yearn to do great things, thirty-three percent yearn to be loved, thirty-three percent are obsessed with watching others have fun and ruining the affairs of the first two groups, and the remaining one percent are clueless.

Due to unique historical legacies, aside from the power projections of the greater evil at the top, most of the people lingering in Gomorrah today are disillusioned individuals.

The so-called disappointment is nothing more than a few areas, which can be broadly summarized as "losing".

Under the rule of the supreme white god in heaven, the binary world is easier to understand. Good and evil are clearly defined. Winners go to heavenly bliss, and those who should go to hell go to hell. Only losers who don't get to enjoy either side are dumped into a filthy place like Gomorrah, like excrement from the Tree of Life.

However, gamblers don't give up easily, especially those who come to a place like Gomorrah.

It's just a temporary loss; we'll definitely win big next time!

Good morning, Gomorrah!

Yesterday's Andos Match-3 game resulted in a total of 720 matches!

Thanks to the endless infighting among scum, six hundred have died in New Monroe alone.

But one of the prison guards also died, so I think you'll all have to pay compensation.

Because the Lord of the Flies' court would certainly not swallow this insult.

Another power outage occurred in the Delac district.

The magic network has been damaged; it's another stupid thing done by an unregistered arcane mage.

Meanwhile, Malbus's scavengers are also collecting the bodies of unfortunate souls on their journey to pursue their dreams in the sewers.

And what about the Bay Area...?

Ok……

The Bay Area is still the same charming Bay Area, as everyone knows...

I'm your good buddy Mostima.

Join me as we begin a new day in the City of Dreams... Gaa—

The nightingale-like, melodious sorrow suddenly shifted from the old radio station, transforming into a passionate yet undeniably sassy female voice—in short, a voice that seemed to revel in the drama.

This abrupt turn of events startled Miss Vanmillion in the passenger seat, making her jump like a small animal with its fur standing on end. Even Dominic's slight drowsiness vanished. The silent black minivan was now driving along the central avenue leading to Drake. As a nominal administrative district, the area here was much safer than places like the Bay Area and New Monroe.

For example, how bad is the safety situation in New Monroe?

Think about why it's called the "new" Monroe District and you'll understand.

The car radio was playing the classic opening of "Gomorrah Today," a morning program that is well-known to every Gomorrah resident. The host was the same person I had mentioned earlier in the alley.

This is a long-running program that many Gomorrah residents have heard from their past lives to this one, and most likely will hear again in their next. The program mainly reports on the big stunts that the losers in Gomorrah have done recently, emphasizing an immersive experience and claiming to be completely uncut, with blood and brains flying everywhere...

Normally, this program would take a two-day break on the weekend. Today is Saturday, and the fact that it's airing today was quite unexpected for Dominic. Generally speaking, if something like this happens, it's highly likely that some big news happened the day before.

As for which venue hosted the "Andos Match-3" event, Dominic figured he shouldn't bother asking.

I vaguely heard Hern mention it; it seemed to be related to some kind of ancient ritual of hunting...

In short, it was almost a perfectly normal routine, except for that strange scream at the end.

From a professional standpoint, this should be considered a broadcasting accident.

Based on Domi's rough understanding of Miss Mostima, she didn't think she was the kind of unprofessional slacker.

Incidentally, the so-called Miss Mostima does not refer to that infamous great demon. Over the long years, almost all the source-level great demons have developed their own extensive lineages, and this one is no exception.

In other words, the other party was actually a descendant of the Mostima family.

While pondering, Dominic subconsciously turned his gaze to the back seat again, and then saw a head appear in the small space above the back seat.

To be precise, a dark blue crack appeared less than 30 centimeters above the back seat, and above the crack, a blue hair... to be precise, the head of an acquaintance.

“Ahem… I’m sorry, Miss Mostima.”

Dominic felt a sudden darkness before her eyes. She turned her gaze back to the road ahead, offering a perfunctory apology.

……

"Is there any justice left? Is there no law? Do you know what you're doing?! This is kidnapping! How can you just abduct someone without saying goodbye? And if you're going to abduct someone, at least abduct the whole thing, don't just take their head!"

Inside the van, the newly arrived devilish woman was filled with grief and indignation, and delivered a passionate speech.

In the back seat, the devilish young man who had arrived earlier remained calm and unmoved.

Miss Van Mielion asked Dominic in a low voice, somewhat curious, if the two behind him had some kind of grudge. Dominic said no, but his thoughts drifted back to a month ago.

A month ago, there was a disruption of the dimensional hub caused by a non-periodic turbulence in the spatial realm. In layman's terms, it left a BigBoom in the new Monroe district of Gomorrah, capable of turning the "new" Monroe district into a "new new" Monroe district in an instant!

Unfortunately, Dominic, who had just settled down a month ago and had only been discharged from the hospital a week ago, was dragged into the riot again because he got too close to Hearn. Of course, the source of the trouble was still that superior devil, Ms. Iota, who kept a close eye on Mr. Hearn's life and death every day and couldn't stand him being idle.

Sometimes I really feel that the relationship between them, the higher-ups, is quite twisted. There's this strange atmosphere where they can't stand to see you doing well, can't stand to see you idle, and can't stand to see you die...

Anyway, after several twists and turns, Mr. Hearn was forced to get involved and eventually became the only person involved in dismantling the bomb in that spatial realm. Domi and Mostima, after assisting in the evacuation, were also trapped in the restricted area near the bomb's epicenter along with some other unlucky people.

With the mindset that they were all just watching the drama unfold, Domi, at Miss Mostima's urging, decided to go all out and lay down on the edge of the crater left by Mr. Hearn's beating of the perpetrator, watching Mr. Hearn's bomb disposal ceremony from the VIP seats.

Then, as expected, Hearn... he made a move...

It was from that time that Dominic began to somewhat empathize with Hearn's strange state of mind—a feeling that, for some reason, he genuinely wanted to die.

In short, he gave up on decoding halfway through and was ready to give up on himself. He even hoped that the dimensional bomb was powerful enough to kill him. As for the unfortunate souls trapped in the blast center zone who would be affected by the explosion, they seemed to be out of his consideration.

This greatly worried Mostima and Dominic, who were watching the commotion. Everyone knew that he spent his days in a gloomy, smoking and drinking manner, living a dissolute and irresponsible life. But the sisters only thought he was promiscuous and never thought that he was serious!

Of course, the fact that Dominic and Mostima are both sitting here unharmed shows that the crisis was ultimately resolved successfully.

The person who resolved the crisis was still Hearn, the only difference being that he was more alert this time.

The reason for his renewed focus was a series of fabricated, hands-free messages from Mostima, claiming that the proprietress of the shop where Hearn worked was suffering from insomnia and desperately needed Hearn to visit her under the cover of night...

Of course, the myth was fabricated, but its effectiveness was undeniable.

For someone as insignificant as Dominic, the power and difficulty of that dimensional bomb were far too immense, almost equivalent to the level of "There is a wall in front of you, infinitely high above and below, infinitely wide to the left and right, and its name is death," a level that made her give up on thinking.

But that son of a bitch Hern, after listening to Mostima's hands-free magic from afar, turned around and ate the dimensional bomb like a candy, then casually strolled up to Mostima, snatched the magic device from her, and cleared his throat...

Afterwards, Dominic, who survived, believed that when the recording of the bakery delivery came from across the street, Mr. Hearn, who had just miraculously saved thousands of lives in New Monroe, must have felt disillusioned.

Back to the present, it's no wonder that Hearn has done something as bizarre as using a warp rift to snatch Mostima's head while his lower body remains at home.

The exquisite technique is truly breathtaking, and the vindictive nature is really... petty.

……

"So, you're looking for a young girl from out of town who went missing in the Bay Area, and a book she always carried with her?"

After catching her breath in the back seat, Miss Mostima reluctantly regained the right to sit down with her body intact after a series of bargaining. Of course, this didn't stop her from baring her teeth at Hearn, who was pretending to be asleep on the other side of the back seat. Then she sat down in the back seat with a swagger, her slippery feet and dark-colored, wide-necked blouse indicating that she had just done a temporary report at home.

“Yes, Miss Mostima. Also, there are other passengers in the car, so please do not put your feet on the front seats…”

Although the fact that she has survived so long hosting a show like "Gomorrah Today" without being shot suggests that Miss Mostima is a member of a powerful, blue-blooded family, Dominic still decided to uphold his professional ethics as a dedicated driver.

“Just kidding. I’m not the kind of person who holds grudges, unlike someone like that—” Mostima’s concise and pointed words struck at the soft “air” with every utterance.

Hearn was still feigning sleep, and as everyone knows, it is incredibly difficult to wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.

"So, is there anything noteworthy in the Bay Area lately... um, any big projects?"

The visit to Mostima was clearly purposeful. As the host and financial backer of "Gomorrah Today," this woman and her faction possessed a vast intelligence network.

Isn't timeliness the key to news reporting?

"Of course, although there are more girls in the Bay Area, it is not a peaceful place in nature. Of the seven districts of Gomorrah, only the territory of Drak and the Court of Justice is relatively stable. As far as I know, the bay to the east of the Bay Area, which is the area around the Azeran Lighthouse, has been rumored to have 'dreams come true' for some time now."

“Dreams come true?”

"Yes, a dream come true."

……

Chapter 254 Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Night (Part 5)

Dreams are such an abstract thing.

At least that's how Dominic sees it.

The abstract concept of "from childhood to adulthood" was not only heard in her ears, but also spoken on her lips, and even put into action; otherwise, she would not have left her homeland and come to Gomorrah, both willingly and unwillingly.

In Domi's view, escaping pain and pursuing happiness should be the instinct of ordinary beings like her, and both pain and happiness are divided into many forms.

It is precisely this "many" that makes dreams abstract.

In fact, most of the time she doesn't know how to accurately quantify her pain and joy with words or text, but only has one "bad feeling" that she wants to escape and another "wonderful feeling" that she wants to get closer to.

Looking back, in the more than 1,700 years since he was born, Dominic has personally experienced such "good and bad" more than once.

Being able to distinguish between good and bad, but not knowing how to define it, was Dominic's understanding of dreams before arriving in Gomorrah.

Upon arriving in Gomorrah, this understanding didn't advance much; it simply became more sophisticated, which can be summarized as "big cities are full of tricks."

At least in Gomorrah, when a devil talks about dreams with a hapless fellow, the poor fellow had better clutch his purse, his life, and his soul, and run for his life.

This is a civilized city, but it is also a hunting ground where dragons devour each other.

Therefore, when Miss Mostima mentioned the rumor of "dreams coming true" near the Azeran Lighthouse, which is located at the junction of the Drake District and the northern part of the Bay Area, Domi, who had already been taught a few lessons by Gomorrah and was fortunate enough to still be alive, immediately thought that there was a pig butchering scam hiding in that area.

Sigh, girls who grow up in small towns are always so simple in their choice of words.

Geographically speaking, Gomorrah is not large; it is a void region surrounded by the sea—it is not even directly adjacent to the Hell map, and is essentially an enclave.

However, judging from the actual map, Gomorrah is actually very large, so large that it is difficult to measure its boundaries using common sense.

The reason is simple: there are too many demons playing with spatial boundaries. Even the shops in a small alley selling pancakes can be transformed into surprisingly spacious areas. Not to mention the subspace companion dimensions that the great demons have created on their own, whether they are registered or not.

To give a simpler example, take the pigeon coop that Domi used to rent. From the outside, it looks like it's only about six stories high, but it houses 3696 tenants... The illegal expansion of the subspace dimension is completely unclear, including when and by whom it was developed, and whether it was regularly maintained. Every time I asked the landlord if it was properly registered, he would evade the question. If the dimension were to collapse, the whole bunch of people would be doomed!

This is why Domi moved away immediately after becoming a driver. As for why she initially rented a place there, it was obviously because the rent was so cheap...

Yes, the seaside apartment I live in now is a legitimate property with proper registration, maintenance, and floor area ratio. The one-household-one-floor layout has improved my quality of life by more than one level. Thanks to the wealthy and generous Ms. Iota, if I hadn't met the Noblewoman Hearn, I would be laughing in my sleep.

However, miracles and magic don't come for free. The reason Miss Iota gave Domi such a good job, which was almost like being a driver, was because it was closely tied to "dealing with the believer Hearn" from the very beginning.

The car stopped outside the Azeran Lighthouse site. Dominic politely and somewhat solicitously opened the car door for Miss Vanmillion. He glanced back and saw Lord Hern standing on the breakwater, gazing into the distance, seemingly contemplating life.

Dominic was used to Hearn's mental state, and seeing that he was relatively stable, he didn't bother to pay much attention to him.

After Domi used the magical artifact given to him by his female boss to store his car, he turned around and saw Mostima standing on the breakwater, silent, for some unknown reason.