The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

Page 17

That pure white top hat was undoubtedly the one Mr. Hearn had been wearing ever since they met at the bar; it was probably swept here because of the previous torrent.

To reiterate, this girl has a problem!

However, before the black cat Xue could move its hind paws back even a step...

"How long are you going to keep watching, you spying cat?"

A clear yet chilling voice came from behind the black cat. Yukinoshita subconsciously turned around, only to see the person she had been spying on standing expressionlessly behind her, while there was no one ten steps away in front of her.

""

What should one say in a situation like this? Even Yukino Yukinoshita, who is usually very eloquent, was at a loss for words.

Although the suffocating atmosphere of the academy I used to attend was filled with stubborn, conformist idiots who were swayed by the atmosphere, dealing with idiots was still much easier than dealing with psychopaths.

More than just much easier, Yukino Yukinoshita, having only been in Tokyo for less than 48 hours, genuinely sighed at the simplicity of her hometown, Chiba. "What kind of people are in Tokyo?" she thought. "From an over-trained, muscular tentacle monster to a genius female musician whose voice teeters on the edge of wailing and heavenly music, to a nonchalant, seemingly carefree scoundrel who survives a hundred boat jumps without batting an eye, even the Keio High School girl who works as an exorcist after school is considered normal. And now there's this aloof, seemingly perverted middle school girl with a targeted fetish? Is there not a single normal person left in Tokyo?!"

"Hello, I am," Yukinoshita the black cat tried to speak.

"Shut up. A cat that doesn't know what dreams are has no right to criticize other people's behavior. If you dare to say it out loud, I'll hunt you down until you disappear."

""

They were threatened by middle school students, and their lives were in grave danger.

That was the plan just a second ago.

Yukinoshita felt herself being scooped up, like a real cat, and placed on the girl's shoulder. At such close range, she realized that the other's gaze had somehow shifted away from her, and was now fixed on the distant, empty void, into the deep, dark abyss.

In that void of darkness, a long howl, imbued with the aura of savagery, suddenly erupted, as if a female beast was in pain and had gone mad.

"But I was already aware of it."

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A middle school girl in a black nightgown gently placed a pure white hat on her head. A stream of dark data returned from the void, instantly enveloping the girl's figure, along with the black cat on her shoulder.

"I will protect everything about scones."

"Whether it's something as small as a cat or as big as a scone itself."

BlackLotus!

The pitch-black construct, symbolizing the ultimate severance, reformed once more in mid-air and descended!

The frenzied roars grew closer and closer. Finally, a Megalodon, several times the size of a real blue whale, emerged from the deep tunnel, bathed in blood, its gaping maw wide open, and flew straight toward the direction where the black water lily was suspended!

Excessive black light appeared on the blade of the Black Lotus Sword. She fearlessly faced the bloodthirsty shark and unleashed a meteor shower of brilliance.

"Come, count your sins!"

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Chapter 30 (CD)

Things are getting serious.

Isayama Yomi, wielding the treasured sword [Lion King], marches forward. In a corner of the UI, a monitoring window faithfully records the depth of the current location's decline—VI, still safe, but also Isayama Yomi's limit.

All Order-side Transcendent beings active in the sunlight will never arbitrarily exceed their maximum tolerance depth unless absolutely necessary; such behavior is strictly prohibited by the Countermeasures Office.

Isayama Yomi had a few instances of crossing the line, but fortunately, each time she was awakened in time by her companions in reality.

It was a hazy yet addictive experience, initially as painful as a thousand ants gnawing at the heart, but then suddenly enlightening after passing a certain point. After being awakened by her companions, she was able to escape from it, but ever since then, every midnight when she couldn't wake up, Yomi Isayama stood in front of the bathroom mirror, gazing at herself in the mirror, always feeling that something was missing.

The opponent's use of tactics like flipping the table was unexpected for Huang Quan, and being alone in this place was an even bigger surprise.

The original ordinary task of finding the runaway young lady has long since changed. The young lady of the Yukinoshita family has transformed from a lost lamb into a wolf cub in the blink of an eye. No matter what her final fate is tonight, as long as she does not perish in this "Dragon Palace", then the existence of Yukinoshita Yukino will inevitably be included in the Countermeasures Office's monitoring list.

This is an official business.

Since the failure of the first exploration of [Ryugu] jointly launched by the Countermeasures Office and the Self-Defense Forces twenty years ago, the Far East compared it with the data transferred from the United States across the ocean and determined that, like other [Hives] of the same Depth VI, it requires at least three level 5 superhumans to lead the team to complete a perilous exploration and return unscathed.

It is precisely because of the high barrier to entry for exploration and the high risk that Hive theoretically possesses development value commensurate with its level of danger that, despite the fact that multinational collaborative exploration plans have been drafted several times in the past, they have all ultimately come to nothing.

Even if you can't eat it, you have to hide it in your pocket. That's probably the attitude of the current ruling order towards high-risk [Hive] within its territory.

The Far East's maximum exploration of the Dragon Palace stopped at the shallow layer. Based on the ancient documents excavated in the shallow layer, it can be roughly inferred that the Dragon Palace has an internal structure of at least twelve layers from top to bottom. The reason why its sinking depth is defined as Level VI is because the maximum depth reached by the most extensive exploration in the past was Level VI as shown on the Distortion Depth Monitor.

A bottomless abyss, yet incredibly alluring.

The previous exploration team stopped at the gates of the palace of a creature named [Toyotama-hime]. It was a dark record that had never been widely made public. The exorcist team suffered a devastating blow there, with only a few lucky members surviving. This was the second and final exploration since the first one, which failed due to infighting, twenty years ago. The absurd creatures in the [Ryugu] successfully showed the exorcists what the limits of human power were.

According to survivor records, Princess Toyotama initially appeared as a beautiful woman with blonde hair and golden eyes, but once one approached her hunting grounds, she would transform into...

Bang!

It was a deep, resonant thud, coming from afar beneath the ground, like a muffled thunderclap, striking the heart. Isayama Yomi felt his heartbeat slow down by half a beat.

"!!!"

Noticing that the floor in front of her was beginning to deform at a visible speed, Isayama Yomi stopped abruptly and retreated quickly to create distance.

As if some hard, colossal object was pressing upwards from beneath the floor, the floor of the entire hall bulged and deformed, and finally, after exceeding a certain limit, it was torn open by the internal pressure, creating a huge crack. The object hidden inside, under the immense force, desperately squeezed through the crack, unaware of its own extreme distortion.

A blueback shark nearly seven stories tall burst forth from beneath the floor! Its ferocious fangs and scarlet eyes caused Isayama Yomi, who was caught off guard and staring into its eyes, to feel dizzy, her vision distorted, and her mind reeling.

"[Toyotama!"

Yes, almost the instant Isayama Yomi appeared, she remembered the true form of the behemoth before her. It was none other than the culprit who directly caused the near-total annihilation of the second expedition to the Ryugu Palace in the Far East—the Lady Toyotama, who guarded the sixth floor of the Ryugu Palace!

"Undecided about what to do—" A strange, loud singing came from below [Toyotama-hime], and Yomi Isayama vaguely felt that the female voice sounded somewhat familiar.

"————Rise Dragon!" This time it was another person's long roar, and it was very recognizable. Huang Quan almost instantly matched it with the image of a certain guy.

Bang!

Another deep, resonant thud resounded, this time hundreds of times stronger than before!

Before Izayama Yomi could even realize what was happening, right before her eyes, in her field of vision, the head of [Toyotama Princess], the shark head that had nearly wiped out the previous generation of countermeasures office seniors, which was almost seven stories tall, flew into the sky and crashed down onto the dome of this floor, eventually turning into a rain of blood and flesh after the collision.

It turns out that what had just emerged from the ground was merely the shark head of [Toyotama-hime]. Now, the hollow is empty; her torso never followed the head through the hollow from the beginning.

In one corner of the field of vision, the depth indicator froze the moment [Toyotama-hime] turned into a rain of blood.

The rain of blood transformed into azure flames, and a white figure bathed in the flames slowly rose from the lower cavern. Another jet-black meteor followed closely behind. They passed directly over the jagged skull of [Toyotama Princess] that had fallen to the ground. On that enormous shark head, flesh and blood turned into azure flammable material, and the air began to fill with the aroma of roasted fish.

"That's why I don't want to deal with monsters like you who ignore the limits of depravity." Izayama Yomi looked up at the visitors who were approaching step by step in mid-air, her voice filled with resentment, yet also with a hint of unwillingness.

“Why? I don’t recall ever doing anything rude that would interfere with anyone’s daily life.” Walking a short distance in front of the exorcist, the believer stared at her face thoughtfully. “Besides, I actually think you have a real talent for this.”

BlackLotus stood silently behind him, surveying the surroundings. The exorcist was no threat; what needed to be guarded against were the native inhabitants of the Dragon Palace who might appear out of nowhere at any moment—their commotion was too great.

Do you know what kind of uproar would occur if people like you were exposed to the public eye?

“However, nowadays, we seem to be disciplined enough that, at least when we happen to encounter a public official like you who comes looking for trouble, we can calmly say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ instead of casually twisting your head off and throwing it aside.”

"Hmph, you do seem to have that ability."

"Save your breath, women. If you don't have the ability to solve the problem at its source, then don't get involved."

"you"

“Miss, don’t take living for granted. I will stand here and talk to you calmly, for no other reason than that you seem to suit my taste. Even now, I originally planned to let you fend for yourself in the Dragon Palace and create an unforgettable Christmas Eve memory, but now I have changed my mind.”

"Oh? Tell me."

"I'll give you two choices. First, be a smart person with selective amnesia and forget about things like a runaway girl being a [Hive] survivor."

"What about the second?"

Secondly, as you know, corpses cannot speak.

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Chapter 31 Playing Cards

Tokyo, night.

"Oops, please stop for a moment."

The scooter's noise abruptly stopped, and the person in the back seat jumped off, ran into a small shop on the street, and returned a moment later to get back on.

"Thank you." The believer, Hearn, returned to the back seat of the scooter, maintaining a delicate balance as she sat down with her back to the driver.

After a brief pause, the scooter engine roared to life again as it sped away.

The street scenes on both sides rushed past, and Hearn silently licked the milk ice cream in his hand. The neon lights of midnight reflected in his deep blue eyes, creating a dazzling world like a kaleidoscope.

"Thank you," Yukinoshita said, driving the little scooter slowly forward on instinct, her attention fully focused.

On the way back from the Dragon Palace, seeing Mr. Hearn looking troubled at the little sheep quietly parked on the street corner, Yukinoshita volunteered to take on the important task of driving back.

She rarely had the opportunity to ride in such a mode of transportation in the past, let alone drive it herself.

However, after a series of bizarre experiences, she felt that she had come to accept the mysterious concept of a transportation curse.

All the problems were resolved smoothly. After the exorcist who called herself Isayama Yomi chose to back down, no one would reveal her whereabouts again. As for the police officer who was not involved in the Dragon Palace for some reason, the high school girl exorcist promised to deceive him with the "reason" that Yukinoshita had made up before.

Mr. Hearn seemed to have a unique way of verifying whether the other party would fulfill their promises, so she didn't need to worry about it anymore, and the episode ended there.

"Hmm? Don't misunderstand. Since I've agreed to take on this business, I will naturally handle all the related matters properly."

"Even so, I will still thank you." Yukinoshita's mood improved, the gloom dissipated, and she accelerated slightly as she drove her scooter.

"Hmph, principles of conduct? Whatever you want." The person in the back seat snorted lightly, a hint of amusement in their voice, and then stopped asking questions.

After a brief moment of silence, the only sound in the night was the engine of the little scooter 'Drrrrrrrr'.

"Mr. Hearn."

"Ok?"

Do you have any means to physically deport me?

"If you were carrying a parachute, I might be willing to make an exception and throw you out."

""

"joke."

"I don't think so at all," Yukinoshita thought to herself.

"Please be sure to consider some travel options that are more suitable for ordinary high school girls."

"Although as an outsider, I am being a little nosy."

"Ok?"

But is it really necessary?

""

"Of course, after a short period of contact, I think Ms. Yukinoshita is a calm and wise person. You must have made this choice after careful consideration."

"Yes, Mr. Hearn, just like when we had a disagreement at the port, I made this choice after careful consideration, and I hope you understand."

Corey is a beautiful place.

"Ah."

"Even the most beautiful place can become boring if you stay there for too long."

"Maybe."

"You haven't thought about what will happen after you get out, have you?"

""

"You'll encounter a lot of trouble, much more trouble than meeting thugs in the port area or getting caught up in an unknown underwater maze."

"I can roughly understand the troubles you mentioned. After all, I still have some self-awareness."

"Will things be smooth sailing after you leave the country? No, not at all. The smuggling boat is just a bunch of male creatures who think with their lower bodies. Long-term life at sea will wear down the crew's rationality to the point that their instincts completely overwhelm them. From the moment you board the ship, all they can think about is how to strip you naked once the ship reaches international waters. And you're lucky to have encountered a group of overconfident, stupid thieves. They couldn't wait to strike while you were still in the civilized world. In a sense, you are indeed very charming, at least in their eyes."

"Mr. Hearn."

"The world outside of school is full of darkness. Adults are all scum. They don't work hard; they just curry favor and climb the social ladder. After work, they don't go home immediately but call familiar high school girls to engage in compensated dating, squandering their earnings to enjoy young bodies. Do you think I would warn you with such words? Some adults always use such explicit and harsh words to educate minors to show their maturity and objectivity. Honestly, that's incredibly stupid."

"Um, so what?"

"Sigh, Miss Yukinoshita, you have to understand, I am a businesswoman, and in a businessman's eyes, profit and loss always come first. To be honest, I just think you are making a bad deal."

"Not worth it?"

"Yes, it's not worth it. You chose to run away from home because of a predicament that you couldn't control on your own. In the process of running away from home, you ignored the original bargaining chip, or value, held by a human named Yukino Yukinoshita."

Are you referring to my background?