Chapter 120

Chapter 120: Rescue

Time suddenly seemed to slow to a crawl. In the darkness and the scorching heat that crept closer and closer, Nina felt her mind start running out of control.

She seemed to remember her childhood. She remembered running up and down the antique shop with her uncle, ‘helping out’ and only making a mess of everything. She remembered her uncle explaining the stories behind those ‘antiques’, which all turned out to be made up. She remembered her first day at school, the first time she saw a steam engine in a textbook, the first praise she got from a teacher, the first friend she made… and the first friend she lost.

Her head felt like a tangled ball of yarn, and her thoughts grew more and more confused.

Smoke had already started seeping into the room bit by bit. It made it hard to breathe and also harder to think.

In the end, all those noisy, scattered memories turned into the image of being swallowed by flames.

A great fire… a fire that existed only in her memories seemed to blaze up again before her eyes.

Nina stared in a daze at the floor not far away, her gaze unfocused, as if that patch of ground would suddenly burst into flames in the next second. Just then, she felt a cold hand press against her forehead.

Shirley looked at her friend with some worry and asked: “Are you alright? Your eyes suddenly went blank… and you kept mumbling something under your breath.”

Nina hurriedly shook her head, grabbed Shirley’s arm, and said: “I… I’m fine. Thanks… I just suddenly thought about my family.”

Shirley froze for a moment when she heard the word “family”, then asked, as if casually: “Who do you have at home?”

Nina thought for a moment, slowly lowered her head onto her knees, and said: “Only an uncle… my parents have been gone for many years. I grew up with my uncle. I promised him I would come home early today…”

Shirley seemed a bit uneasy with this topic and did not really know how to comfort her friend, so she forced herself to keep talking: “You… you must be very close with your uncle, right? What does he do?”

Nina spoke slowly: “He’s just an ordinary person. Our family runs an antique shop in the Lower City. He manages it by himself…” When she noticed the surprise on Shirley’s face, she quickly waved her hands. “Not the kind of very impressive antique shop you’re thinking of. There aren’t any real antiques.”

Shirley hurried to flatter her: “That still sounds amazing! A shopkeeper! Owning your own store, even in the Lower City… your family must be doing pretty well, right?”

Nina kept waving her hands: “Actually it’s very average. My uncle’s health wasn’t very good a few years ago, and business at the shop isn’t great. We haven’t saved much money… But I think my uncle is really amazing. He can even chat with Mr. Morris M for a very long time! He knows a lot of things. Even Mr. Morris M says he’s a very learned person…”

After listening to Nina’s story, Shirley pretended to nod very seriously and said: “Then once we get out of here, I definitely have to meet your uncle…”

Nina smiled and was just about to say something when a loud bang suddenly came from the door. The next second, the flimsy washroom door was kicked open from the outside and crashed to the floor!

The moment she saw this, Nina’s first reaction was that the blaze in the hallway outside would flare up because the door was broken and sweep inside. That was what she had learned at school. But in the next second, she only saw a familiar figure step through the doorway—the burst of fire she expected did not appear.

Shirley was also startled by the crash of the broken door. She turned her head in shock, and the moment she saw the figure in the doorway, her whole body went stiff.

She saw that Subspace Shadow’s avatar form standing quietly in the doorway. In the corner of her eye, the last tongues of flame were crawling at that figure’s feet and fading away. She got up in a daze, wanting to back away with a trace of fear. For a split second she even considered whether she should push this new “friend” Nina toward the door, but before she could do anything, Nina had already stood up behind her.

Nina looked at the figure in the doorway in surprise and joy and called out: “Uncle Duncan?!” In that instant, it was as if all her fear and pressure vanished with his appearance.

Duncan also looked at the young lady with some surprise and said: “Nina?” He had actually followed the mark he had left on Shirley to find this place. He had planned to find Shirley as a helper and then continue searching the remaining parts of the City Museum together, but he had never expected to run into Nina right here.

In the next second, his gaze fell on Shirley.

So that meant… the voice he had heard through the mark earlier, the one talking with Shirley, had been Nina. The “classmate” Nina had mentioned who wanted to come along was Shirley?!

His mind quickly turned a corner, and Duncan understood. Then he noticed how fast Shirley’s expression changed. Before this Summoner, who seemed to have quite a bit of “fate” with him, could speak, he took a step forward, looked around, and said: “Looks like you are all fine.”

In the next second, he noticed there was actually a third person in the room: a young lady in a long dress lay unconscious on the floor, but she still seemed alive.

Shirley finally got her ability to think back. Her mind suddenly replayed everything Nina had just told her. After a long moment, she slowly turned her stiff neck, her face like she had seen a ghost, and said: “Nina… he is… your uncle?”

Nina said happily: “Yeah!” Then she rushed forward, threw herself at Duncan, and asked: “Uncle, how are you here?! Has the fire outside gone out?!”

Duncan answered offhand: “Not yet, but the fire is under control.” He knew such a vague statement would sound suspicious under normal circumstances, but right now Nina was clearly in a state of confusion. The still-shaken girl only clung tightly to his arm, repeating over and over: “That’s great, I thought today I was going to…”

Duncan cut Nina off and said: “Alright, whatever it is, we can talk after we get out. This isn’t the place for talking.” His gaze then swept over Shirley and the lady lying on the floor. “We need to take this lady with us.”

Nina reacted a bit late and said: “Ah… okay!” She hurried over to try to pull the lady up, and Shirley rushed over to help. But because of the difference in height, it was not easy for the two girls. So Duncan took a few steps forward, ready to do it himself.

But just as he reached out to help the lady up, something suddenly entered his sight and made him stop.

It was a purple crystal pendant that looked somewhat familiar.

Duncan paused for a moment and slowly recalled that home visit from old Mr. Morris M, and some things the man had mentioned in their talk.

Nina’s voice came from the side and broke his thoughts: “Uncle?”

Duncan shook his head lightly, glanced at Nina, then let his gaze casually sweep over Shirley at the side. He smiled slightly and said: “The world is small.”

After he spoke, he helped the lady up. With the two girls’ help, he hoisted her onto his back.

The group left the washroom. There were no more flames in the corridor outside, and even the thick smoke had, for “unknown reasons”, faded by more than half. Shirley looked at the dark passage ahead and hesitated before asking: “Which way do we go?”

Duncan raised his head and was about to point out a direction when he suddenly sensed something through the Power of Flame that had spread through the City Museum earlier. His thoughts moved, and he changed his original plan, striding toward another exit to the side and saying: “This way.”

With the fire itself retreating and guiding them, they quickly left the place. Not long after they were gone, a squad of figures suddenly came around the bend in the corridor ahead and appeared near the washroom.

It was the Deep Sea Church Guardian squad that had rushed into the blaze earlier.

The squad members were covered in soot, but the ocean divine blessing on them had not yet faded. They had charged in ready to die, yet the flames in the City Museum had suddenly died down so fast that they came out unharmed.

The leading priest frowned slightly as he looked around and muttered: “The fire here is out too… even the smoke has dispersed.”

One Guardian said quietly: “Fire going out is a good thing.”

The priest spoke in a low voice: “It is a good thing, but under normal circumstances a fire of this size doesn’t go out so easily.” As he spoke, he suddenly noticed the washroom door nearby that had been smashed in.

A Guardian stepped forward at once to inspect it and said: “Someone has been here…” After confirming the marks around the doorway, he deftly took out a censer and a prayer book, and then put a Custom Lens Harness on his head.

The lens array looked like half a helmet made of copper tubes, cranks, and a series of lenses. On the edges of some lenses, one could see complex runes etched into the glass.

The Guardian set the censer on the ground, then adjusted the lenses on his head and began to examine all the remaining traces nearby.

He reported quickly: “No supernatural power left behind… they were a few ordinary people. I can’t tell the exact number; their traces are very mixed. It should be the visitors who were trapped earlier… The door was broken inward. It looks like someone outside smashed it open and rescued them.”

The priest asked: “No supernatural power, confirmed?”

The Guardian replied: “None.”

The priest said: “…Keep searching upward.”

“Yes!”