Chapter 3  : Midnight

 Kris_Liu  Editor: VermillionSince Lucien somehow managed to come to this completely different world, he was not that surprised or scared to find that he actually had a whole library in his mind. What confused him more was that most of the books were locked.

He tried to remain calm so that the visuals of the books could be more “solid” or “substantial” as entities. He went through them one by one and recorded the ones that could be read and the ones that could not.

“History… no problem…

“Economics… yup.

“Arts… fine.

“Mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology… some of them are locked.

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“Is it because I’m in a different world, so I cannot read these books? I can still come up with the knowledge I gained at my university, though, it hasn’t been blocked.”

Most of the unlocked books were of senior high or high school level, which was a small amount compared to teaching references of a university’s general library. There were numerous other books locked there.

Lucien was too weak to go through each category, and soon he was unable to concentrate anymore.

He dragged his feet back to the bed to get a good sleep so that he could face his second day in this world better. Only one loaf of bread was left there. Survival was always the priority, Lucien too understood this.

When his mind was getting dull and he almost went into his sweet dream, a rat’s piercing squeak and noises of wood biting woke him up.

“Rats?”

At first, he did not pay much attention to it. He turned over in bed and was ready to fall asleep again. But the noise was getting louder and more disturbing like someone was grinding teeth on a rock.

Lucien could not fall asleep anymore. He tried to cover his ears with the blanket but the attempt was in vain; the noise had a penetrating power, and it felt like it was coming from all directions.

“Bloody hell!” Feeling frustrated, Lucien cursed out loud. He was almost going insane; food tasted like wood; roughly-cut clothes irritated his skin; the old blanket was full of holes… Now he could not even have a good sleep! Squeak…squeak…he heard squeaking noises like thousands of mice were scratching a wall.

Lucien gnashed his teeth in anger. He decided to kill one or two of the rats to scare the rest of them away. He got out of his bed and tried to listen carefully.

“I gotta get rid of this life. Soon.”

*sob… sob* *cry*… Now it was like someone was crying.

Lucien tried to focus, but he found there was only ghastly bitter crying lingering there.

Someone was crying… at midnight. Lucien’s heart was beating fast, his brain flushed. Every hair on his body stood up. The freezing night wind blew through the broken door. Lucien grabbed the hard bread loaf to defend himself.

The crying voice now sounded like a miserable song. Lucien was even more afraid now. “It’s a world of magic and divinity power. Probably there are ghosts and spirits too!”

Taking a deep breath, Lucien tried his very best to calm down and moved towards the door. Someone was crying mournfully. The night was so quiet. It was like all his neighbors were lost in their dreams.

“It’s coming from… the right side of the wall.” The closer Lucien got to the door, the clearer he could hear the crying voice, “Wait… the witch! The witch used to live there!”

He was stunned, “But her place had been burned down completely by the church. Maybe… they missed something, like a secret chamber. She might have stored her vicious experiments there.”

Lucien’s mind went away a little bit. A secret chamber… like many novels he read before, he could probably find the witch’s treasure or even notes on magic.

The piercing crying dragged him back to reality. “Yeah… get real. Something must be guarding there. How can I fight against a ghost with a bread loaf in my hands?

“Probably I’d be killed and possessed by the evil ghosts!”

He got more careful now. Lucien was glad that his mind was not controlled by the greed. But he also did not want to keep waiting here. Nobody knew if the ghost would try to come for him.

Lucien was thinking very fast. At the moment, he gathered all the strength he could muster, and carefully grabbed the handle of the door. The bread in his hand was now soaked with his sweat.

He slowly opened the door. It was very dark outside and he could hear the whistling sound of cold wind.

There was nothing terrifying there, and after he left his shack the crying voice dimmed a bit. He felt a little bit relieved and took a deep breath, then started shouting as loud as he could:

“Ghost! There’s a ghost here!”

It was so loud that even Lucien himself got surprised.

Then came a series of roaring barks from the wild dogs, and Lucien started madly rushing to the cathedral. These guys were professionals in this kind of stuff!

As the previous neighbor of the witch, he might still be under the church’s watch and there was one more benefit: Lucien’s asking for help on his own could help him gain some of their trust while reducing the suspicion.

Lucien shouted loudly to wake up the other neighbors so that if they attempted to rob the treasure and frame him or even kill him for it, they wouldn’t be able to do so in front of the crowd. He tried his best to think of every measure to save his life in such a short time.

Soon, he saw the cathedral in front of him with candlelight casting out of the windows.

Two armored guards were guarding the front gate. Seeing Lucien running towards them in panic, one of the guards pulled half of his sword out to be alert.

“What are you doing here?” The other guard asked as he reached out his hand to stop Lucien.

Lucien answered with trembling voice. “Ghost. There’s a ghost there! In the witch’s place!”

The guard got nervous after hearing that. As a newly recruited guard, he could not tell whether Lucien was telling the truth or not. So, he asked his partner to stay and went back into the cathedral to report to the pastor on duty tonight. The noise from his chainmail gradually faded as he disappeared into the darkness.

A short while later, a blond young pastor in a white robe walked out of the gate with the guard.

The pastor had a thin face. He walked in an elegant rhythm. “I’m Pastor Benjamin. Can you tell me what happened?”

The two guards were standing silently, in fear that any noise from them might disturb Pastor Benjamin.

Lucien, politely and sincerely, described in detail how he heard the ghost’s crying voice, how he got out of his place and ran here asking for their help.

After hearing him, Benjamin gave Lucien a gentle smile, “You did well, my child. Your courage shows your devotion to God.”

Then he ordered the guards, “Thomson, get Gary, Paul and the two other knights here. The witch was just an apprentice. So, there’s no need to report this to the Bishop.”

“Yes, my lord,” Thomson replied reverently. Although Benjamin was only an Elementary Level Pastor, he was capable of dealing with the traps or spells left by a sorcerer’s apprentice. There was a huge gap between a formal pastor and an apprentice.

Benjamin asked Lucien’s name and stopped their conversation when the other four knights arrived; they were also wearing chain mails, but they looked much more imposing compared to the other two guards.

A crowd had already gathered some distance away from the witch’s burned cabin. Candlelight flickered like scattered stars as if accompanying the moon in the sky.

Lucien discovered that the moon in this world was silver colored.

People stopped whispering when Benjamin showed up. The crowd suddenly felt relieved and started getting closer to the witch’s cabin while talking to each other.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“No matter if it’s true or not, it does no harm to have a purification performed here.”

But Lucien could still hear the crying voice. He thought to himself, Why can’t these people hear it?

Benjamin, as if knowing what he was thinking, replied to Lucien calmly, “Yes. There are ghosts present here.”

Obviously, he heard it, as well as the four guards, who nodded to show their consent.