“Hmph, quick thinker, aren’t you? You’re right, my mom used to be an official nun in the church and even received praise from the bishop in Michelle City!”
“That’s a bishop, mind you! Not like the pathetic priests here in Blackhole Plains!” Eileen’s face was filled with pride.
For Renji, this was indeed an unexpected bonus, like discovering hidden rewards halfway through a mission.
If he could establish a connection within the church through Eileen’s mother, it could significantly shorten the time it would take to meet Suthia.
However…
Noticing Renji’s curiosity, Eileen’s expression dimmed slightly. She turned her head away before speaking:
“Six years ago, my good-for-nothing father became an Eclipse and lost control. He was killed by the knights as a tainted monster. Because of this, my mom faced repercussions. That damned priest stripped her of her nun status and seized all our hard-earned savings under the pretext of blasphemy. Since then, our lives have taken a turn for the worse. If it weren’t for Brian’s help, we might have starved to death on the streets.”
“So, ever since that incident, although my mom still wanted me to get an education and hoped that I could become a nun in the church, I saw through the hypocrisy. Those so-called ‘men of the church’ are nothing but Assh@les! All that talk about helping the suffering and bringing happiness is complete bullshits! After dropping out, I joined Brian in the wilderness to learn the skills of a scavenger. Life finally started to get back on track, and just when everything seemed to be improving, my mom suddenly…”
Eileen clenched her teeth, and Renji began to understand why she harbored such resentment towards the priests and the church.
“Okay, you’ve gotten through the hardest part, haven’t you? Once we get to your mom’s place and cure her, you’ll both move on to a new life, away from Blackhole Plains.”
“Also, even if your mother was just an ordinary person, I would take her condition seriously and do my best to cure her. After all, this is what I initially promised you. Should we now refer to this as a brotherly pact instead of a work contract?”
Hearing Renji’s sincere words felt like a jolt of electricity to Eileen. Her heart started to pound as she quickly reminded herself that they were just bros. She then said, somewhat bashfully:
“Old timer, you must’ve fooled a lot of girls with your smooth talk, haven’t you?”
Renji nodded in agreement,
“Well, perhaps it’s the wisdom I’ve gained from reading two hundred romance comics.”
“Haha, two hundred romance comics? Even in today’s world, 500 years later, we have authors who are as lazy as sh!t! It’s like pulling teeth to get them to update an extra chapter. And when they do update, they focus on useless side characters instead of moving the main storyline forward! I wish I could lock these damned authors up and whip them!”
[HTL: (? ? ? )]
“If it’s like this even 500 years later, you’re telling me you had two hundred comics 500 years ago? I don’t buy it!”
From Eileen’s heated rant, it was evident that the state of online novels and comics was not good in this era.
Renji: “…”
“Alright, let’s hurry. The clinic where Mother is should be just around the next corner.”
At the same time that Renji and Eileen were rushing to the clinic, perhaps a little further ahead—
Sea Sand Bar.
The bar was pitch black, illuminated only by the moonlight filtering in through the windows. The place was a complete mess following the battle and subsequent investigation by the knights.
Tables and chairs were overturned, broken glass was scattered everywhere, and the neon tubes from the ceiling had long since broken. Some had even fallen onto the floor, where they mixed with a muddled combination of fresh blood and spilled alcohol.
In such a desolate, empty bar—
Suddenly—
A red light flickered from a corner of the wall, standing out sharply in the dark interior of the bar.
It was a…
Security camera.
The bar’s original CCTV camera.
Brian had shut down all the electrical appliances in the Sea Sand Bar before leaving, even going so far as to turn off the main circuit breaker. The entire bar should be in a power-off state, so logically, no electrical devices should be working.
However—
Yes, as part of the “security system,” the CCTV camera could still operate on emergency backup power, even if the main power was off.
But the issue was—
It was supposed to be “broken.”
During the use of the [Magnetic Pulse], Renji had destroyed all evidence, including the CCTV footage. Otherwise, the moment the knights arrived, they’d know everything just by checking the surveillance footage.
The knights didn’t suspect this, however.
Because when Eclipses go berserk, they emit a strong Tainted Miasma, and many case reports have shown that this Tainted Miasma can indeed affect inanimate objects like electronics, causing them to malfunction or break permanently.
For this very reason—
The sudden “re-illumination” of the CCTV camera in the darkness seemed all the more eerie and mysterious.
The CCTV camera lighting up in red was just the first step in a series of inexplicable events.
Immediately afterward, the electronic screen corresponding to the camera in the surveillance room also lit up. Rows of text began to appear on the screen.
– **[Hacking successful.]**
– **[System reboot successful.]**
– **[Attempting to repair damaged data. Current progress 14% 29% 40%]**
– **[Maximum data recovery: 91%]**
– **[Initiating image analysis.]** .
The screen changed, and a fast-forward reel of the past month’s surveillance footage from the Sea Sand Bar played. The final frame stopped at the moment Renji used the [Magnetic Pulse].
The following frames belonged to the 9% of data that “it” couldn’t recover.
But—
That was enough.
In the empty surveillance room late at night, the computer seemed to operate as if it had its own consciousness. It zoomed in on a particular frame of the footage, again and again.
Until finally—
What “it” zoomed in on, filling the entire electronic screen, was—
The slender and pale neck of a young girl.
Of course, that wasn’t the focus.
The focus was—
At the back of the girl’s neck was a complex and mysterious shackle-shaped pattern. Although the quality had become incredibly blurred after numerous magnifications, the outline was still faintly visible.
But that was enough.
– **[…]**
– **[…]**
– **[ID: 857956. Total observational time: 46,900,032 hours]**
– **[Successfully retrieved ‘Magnetic Pulse’ waveform…]**
– **[Potential ‘Contract’ structure detected, 95% similarity confirmed with internal database]**
– **[Conditions for highest priority call met, requesting initiation of ‘Ashen’ program.]**
– **[Request for call in preparation…]**
– **[Temporary virtual platform constructed. Complete]**
– **[Anti-virus network setup complete]**
– **[Brain-machine ‘S-11’ battle chip pre-downloading. Complete]**
– **[Energy monitoring. Complete]**
– **[…]**
– **[…]**
– **[Awakening central mother-brain. ‘Zero’]**
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