Chapter 122 “The figure on the edge of the square”

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After asking for directions to the designated rescue area close to the city square, Heidi walked away, clutching her head in apparent pain. On the other hand, Duncan seemed uninterested in communicating with the emergency responders and other official personnel in the vicinity. His disinterest stemmed primarily from the fact that he was accompanied by Shirley, a mysterious girl with the ability to summon shadow demons. It was evident that Shirley was keen on avoiding any contact with members of the Storm Church.

As Duncan watched Heidi’s retreating form disappear into the distance, he breathed a sigh of relief. Turning his attention to Nina, he asked with concern, “Are you injured in any way?”

“I’m okay,” Nina responded, although she appeared a bit rattled. She had been gripping Duncan’s sleeve without realizing it and finally loosened her hold. Casting her eyes up at Duncan with a blend of astonishment and curiosity, she questioned, “Why were you even at the museum to begin with, Uncle?”

“I was in the area for some work,” Duncan explained, smiling reassuringly. “When I heard about the fire at the museum, I couldn’t help but rush over to make sure you were safe.”

Before Nina could delve further into the conversation, Duncan affectionately tousled her hair in an attempt to calm her startled demeanor. “The ordeal is over now. The most important thing is that you’re unharmed.”

“I’m not a little kid anymore!” Nina objected, shaking her head to dislodge his hand from her hair. Her focus then shifted to Shirley, who was standing beside them. As she opened her mouth to say something, her facial expression changed to one of puzzlement. It was as if fragmented memories had suddenly popped into her mind. She scrutinized Shirley closely and mumbled, “Shirley… why do I get the sense that something about you isn’t quite right?”

Until that moment, Shirley had been paying attention only to Duncan. At Nina’s words, her face rapidly changed to one of visible distress. Her eyes widened in a look of alarm, and she cast an apprehensive glance at Duncan, who noticed her uneasy reaction.

This made Duncan think back to a previous incident when Shirley had been caught without a ticket. Her reaction now was eerily similar. He thoughtfully considered his past experiences with Shirley and the role she was currently assuming. He remembered that both times he had run into her, Nina had been at school. He also recalled that Shirley’s true personality was more abrasive than the “quiet, well-behaved girl” facade she was currently displaying. Further, he remembered that one of the special abilities of Dog, the shadow demon connected to Shirley, was to obscure people’s judgment, thus allowing her to masquerade under different identities.

Her current identity, it seemed, was as a new friend that Nina had met at school—an identity rife with inconsistencies.

Duncan stroked his chin thoughtfully and placed a reassuring hand on Nina’s shoulder. Pointing towards Shirley, he inquired, “Are you certain that you know her?”

“Yes, her name is Shirley,” Nina confirmed, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “She’s a new friend I made at school. But now that I think about it, I can’t remember exactly when she started attending our school…”

Duncan shifted his attention to Shirley, who was visibly trying to shrink into the background, making herself as inconspicuous as possible. After a lengthy pause, he softly began, “You still have an opportunity to explain yourself, or else I’ll have to…”

Before Duncan could complete his sentence, Shirley interrupted him, her voice tinged with desperation. “I apologize! I had infiltrated the school for the sole purpose of investigating something specific. I swear to you, I haven’t harmed Nina! In fact, I actually helped her at the museum by shielding her from falling debris! Please, believe me! I had no idea that she was connected to someone of your caliber. I’m not privy to the tastes and inclinations of someone as distinguished as you. Please, just let me go!”

Duncan was momentarily taken aback by the urgency and speed of Shirley’s explanation. His initial reaction was that she must be highly skilled, perhaps even capable of holding her own against the goat head aboard the ship.

Interrupting Shirley’s frantic stream of words, he cleared his throat and corrected her misconception. “She’s not just someone I’m associated with; Nina is my niece.”

As Duncan spoke, he took note of Shirley’s hands. They bore the faint scars of burns, now mostly healed thanks to her extraordinary recuperative powers. It seemed plausible that she had indeed sustained injuries at the museum, presumably while protecting Nina.

Oblivious to Duncan’s internal musings, Shirley replied in a somewhat bewildered tone, “If you say she’s your niece, then I accept that.”

Nina, who was beginning to piece together the puzzling situation, glanced at her uncle in astonishment and then shifted her gaze back to her “friend.” “Hold on, how do you two know each other? And Shirley, why were you…”

“We crossed paths by coincidence,” Duncan interjected, cutting Nina off before Shirley could divulge anything that might be inappropriate or alarming to his niece. “It appears, Shirley, that you and I have much to discuss, wouldn’t you agree?”

Shirley’s eyes seemed to well up with tears; her voice was laden with a sense of impending doom as she stammered, “Whatever you say is fine…”

“What you mean to say is ‘yes,'” Duncan clarified.

“Yes,” Shirley conceded, barely audibly.

Concerned about the interaction and still confused, Nina piped up. “Uncle, please don’t be too hard on Shirley.” She could see that her new friend was genuinely afraid of her uncle, and Duncan was displaying no kindness toward her either. “I’m so disoriented right now. Can someone please clarify what exactly is happening here?”

“We’ll sort through all of this when we get home,” Duncan replied, letting out a tired sigh. He glanced at the smoke-ridden ruins of the museum and then in the direction from which they had come. “The environment here is far too tumultuous at the moment. Besides, both of you look like you’ve been through the wringer. It’s best that we head back, get ourselves cleaned up, and change into fresh clothes.”

Shirley, her voice tinged with hesitation and uncertainty, stammered, “So… am I coming along with you both?”

Before Duncan even had a chance to reply, she quickly nodded her head as if reassuring herself. “You’re absolutely right!”

Duncan released an amused sigh at Shirley’s eagerness. It appeared that whatever her original intentions might have been regarding Nina, she now posed no threat in her presence. Shaking his head in mild disbelief, he made ready to depart with the two young women.

Just as he was about to take his first step, however, his eyes were instinctively drawn to the periphery of the square near the museum.

Standing there, on the edge of the crowd, was a figure that arrested his attention.

A tall, slender man draped in a black trench coat that flowed down to his ankles stood with his back to Duncan. He seemed to be observing the fire. Strangely, the man also held a large black umbrella aloft despite the absence of rain and the clear skies overhead.

In the still air of the sunny day, the sight of a tall man in a trench coat holding an umbrella seemed conspicuously out of place. Yet, oddly enough, among the assembled crowd, no one appeared to pay the umbrella-carrying man any mind.

“Uncle?” Noticing Duncan’s sudden halt, Nina followed his gaze to the area he was scrutinizing. “What are you looking at?”

“There’s a man over there holding an umbrella even though it’s a sunny day. Seems odd,” Duncan commented, trying to sound casual.

“A man with an umbrella on a clear day?” Nina paused and squinted in the direction Duncan was looking. “I don’t see anyone like that.”

“I don’t either,” chimed in Shirley, who had also been trying to discern what had captured Duncan’s attention. She rubbed her eyes as if to improve her vision. “Are you sure you’re not mistaking him for someone else?”

“You both really didn’t see him?” A frown etched itself onto Duncan’s forehead. He quickly glanced at Shirley and Nina to gauge their expressions but found nothing out of the ordinary. When he returned his gaze to the spot where the man had been standing, the mysterious figure had vanished without a trace.

“Uncle?” Nina’s eyes widened, a look of growing concern appearing on her face. “Did you inhale too much smoke from the fire earlier? Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine, perhaps I ‘mistook’ someone,” Duncan replied, shaking his head dismissively to alleviate Nina’s concerns.

However, his gaze couldn’t help but linger on the area where the man had stood. He gave it one last, deep look before finally turning away.

If it were just a random man with an umbrella, he could dismiss it as insignificant.

But if it was a figure that only he could perceive, then the matter potentially had far deeper implications.

With this in mind, Duncan mentally archived the image of the mysterious man, filing it away in the recesses of his memory for future reference.

……

Vanna, accompanied by an entourage of elite guards specifically trained for high-stakes operations, arrived at the vicinity of the Oceanic Museum. By the time she set foot on the scene, the firefighters and emergency teams had almost entirely quelled the sudden blaze that had engulfed the building.

A figure soon emerged from the crowd to greet her—a storm priest who appeared battle-worn, his face covered in soot and grime. Flanking him were a handful of guardians, all of whom looked like they had just escaped the very jaws of the fire.

With a bow of deep respect, the priest promptly reported to Vanna, “Inquisitor, the fire has largely subsided on its own. Oddly, despite our initial fears, we haven’t detected any signs of supernatural forces being at play here.”

Vanna’s expression darkened noticeably at the priest’s summary. “The fire extinguished itself without external intervention?” she questioned, her tone grave. “When you led your team into the heart of the blaze, did you encounter any unusual circumstances or clues that might explain this?”

“Yes, Inquisitor,” the priest nodded earnestly, clearly concerned. “As we were evacuating the civilians, we observed an inexplicable and widespread sense of panic, along with hallucinations and disoriented behavior among them. This led us to suspect that there might be some form of supernatural contamination within the museum’s walls. However, despite our exhaustive search of the premises, we found no anomalies—apart from the fire’s mysterious and sudden abatement.”

As he offered this, the priest reflexively made a solemn prayer gesture towards an amulet he wore dedicated to the goddess. “It’s thanks to this inexplicable recession of the fire that my team and I managed to escape the ordeal with our lives intact.”

Vanna took a moment to process this, her eyes narrowing as she pondered the priest’s account. “Very well,” she finally said, nodding slightly. “As soon as the fire is completely extinguished, I will commission a secondary, more thorough investigation of the museum. We need to scrutinize every artifact to identify any possible alterations or anomalies that could have been overlooked.”

Having issued her directive, Vanna raised her eyes, meticulously scanning the crowd of civilians who were now receiving medical attention and emotional support. It was as if she were searching for a specific face, an individual of particular interest among the throng of people.

Just then, her keen eyes caught a motion in the crowd, and she heard a voice call out, “Vanna! Over here!”

Turning towards the direction of the voice, Vanna’s eyes met the disheveled appearance of Heidi. Despite the chaos and her untidy state, Heidi was energetically waving her hand, trying to catch Vanna’s attention from where she stood among the crowd of survivors.

For those that just want to support me, you can follow the link to paypal donating. Sadly you won’t be able to get the benefit of reading ahead 

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