Chapter 143

Chapter 143: hypnosis

Staring at the faintly swinging crystal pendant in Heidi’s hand, Nina swallowed nervously. Even though Heidi had told her to relax, this was her first time receiving hypnosis treatment. It was hard for her to control her reaction.

While her gaze was drawn to the crystal pendant, she also noticed a simple-looking rune bead bracelet on Heidi’s wrist. The bracelet was woven from tough silk cord and strung with many colorful stones. On a few of the stones she could see marks that looked like runes.

Noticing Nina’s gaze, Heidi smiled and gave her wrist a little shake. “I’m a ‘student’ of the Truth Academy. I follow and serve God of Wisdom Rahm. You can’t really tell from the outside, but on the official records, I’m actually a Cleric.”

A Cleric… so she wasn’t only a psychiatrist, but also a member of the Truth Academy?

Nina had of course heard of the Truth Academy. Its name sounded like a school, but its true form was one of the four Churches of the True Gods. Together with the Deep Sea Church, the Cult of Death, and the Flamebearer Church, it helped maintain the order of civilization in the Deep Sea era. Unlike the other three Churches, the Truth Academy didn’t feel very “theological”. It leaned more toward pure knowledge, and toward researching and spreading cutting-edge technology. Its believers built their relationships through master and student and through schools of thought.

Other Churches were rooted in Cathedrals and holy places, and their daily work was preaching faith and holding mass. The Truth Academy, however, had countless universities and laboratories in each city-state. When a higher-ranking priest met a lower-ranking priest, the usual greeting was to toss over a difficult problem and see if your faith in the Lord had reached a passing score. Its style was very strange.

Because the Truth Academy was so unusual, it actually had the fewest members among the four Churches of the True Gods. And among those members, the ones who had the right to wear its badge in daily life and be registered as official Clerics were even rarer—because the questions were truly hard.

Even in an ordinary university, they might not get more than a few top students in a whole year who were qualified to devote themselves to Rahm. That was even more distant from a poor child like Nina, who studied in a public school in the Lower City.

In Nina’s eyes, Heidi suddenly seemed to be surrounded by a halo. That halo didn’t relax her at all. It only made her more nervous.

It was the kind of awe a vocational school student felt when she saw the top graduate of a famous university.

Heidi, of course, noticed the change in Nina’s expression, but she didn’t mind. She played casually with the pendant in her hand and slowly began to speak, her tone as gentle as before: “Can you tell me about your childhood? Just now you said your parents died in an accident. That might be the Shadow in your heart… Can you tell me about it?”

“Actually… it’s not something I can’t talk about.” Nina thought for a moment. “I’ve told a lot of people, but everyone says I was too young back then, that I don’t remember clearly, that I’m just talking nonsense. Eleven years ago, there was a leak at a factory in the Sixth District. There were also many cultists running around causing trouble. They arrested a lot of people later. Do you know about that?”

“Of course.” Heidi nodded. “I was only in my teens back then. When the accident happened, my family just happened to be staying near the Crossroad District. We saw the crowd charging past…”

“Then do you remember a big fire back then?”

“A fire?” Heidi tilted her head slightly and unconsciously stopped playing with the crystal pendant. “What fire?”

“See, you don’t know about that fire either. But in my memory, there’s always been a big fire. My parents died in that fire. But everyone says I remember it wrong…”

Heidi listened quietly to Nina’s story. After a long time, she nodded gently and asked: “So that should be the Shadow in your heart. You’re afraid of a fire that only you know existed. You’re afraid of when this strange thing will appear around you again and take away the people close to you, while no one can help you—and no one can even notice what you’re going through.”

Nina nodded lightly.

“Have you been under any pressure recently?” Heidi asked again. “With your studies, with daily life. These new pressures may be making the old gloom in your heart stronger…”

Nina stayed silent for a moment, then said hesitantly: “Maybe it’s because my uncle’s health was bad for a long time, and a while ago it got worse. That made me very worried…”

She paused there, then quickly added: “Ah, but he’s better now. I feel like I’ve relaxed a lot too. I haven’t had that strange dream in the last two days…”

“Worried about your family’s health…”

Heidi spoke softly, deep in thought. She listened to the girl’s murmurs, which sounded almost like sleep-talking, and watched Nina leaning against the headboard, half asleep. Then she casually put down the crystal pendant.

As a psychiatrist trained at the Truth Academy, and someone who had to deal with the supernatural, she didn’t need swinging pendants or burning vapors for hypnosis. A few sentences were enough.

The pendant’s only real use was to lock Nina’s gaze, help her relax, and lower her guard against words.

The young psychiatrist let out a quiet breath. Her eyes were gentle as she looked at Nina, who had completely relaxed, and watched her sink into deeper sleep.

“I can tell your life has been very hard,” she said softly. “You’ve buried all your tension and fear deep in your heart, and you’ve gotten used to living like this. You hope it will make things easier for the people around you, but you ignore yourself. But now you can relax. Sleep well. Leave all your pressure inside a dream that is about to fade. When you wake up, those worries will no longer belong to you.”

Half asleep, Nina’s voice sounded faintly: “…Thank you…”

Heidi smiled. To let Nina fall into an even deeper layer of relaxation, she asked casually, as if without thinking: “By the way, your uncle wasn’t well before, right? What illness did he have? Just now I saw Mr. Duncan and he looked quite healthy.”

This time Nina stayed silent much longer before whispering: “He was only weak, that’s all. Now… he’s completely better…”

However, Heidi no longer heard Nina’s answer.

At the very moment she asked that last question, she had already slumped over at the foot of Nina’s bed, falling into a sleep even deeper than her patient.

On Heidi’s right wrist, the hand-woven rune bead bracelet was glowing faintly. It was one of the badges believers of the Truth Academy often wore. It showed that the wearer was a Monk who had gone through strict training, received the care of God of Wisdom Rahm, and stood firm against the madness of Heretic powers. Every rune stone on it represented one of Rahm’s blessings.

After a few seconds of flickering, one red agate bead on the rune bead bracelet made a tiny cracking sound, then quickly crumbled into dust and drifted away.

Downstairs in the shop, Vanna asked Duncan a few more questions. On one hand, she wanted to know whether there were any details about the fire at The City Museum that had been missed. On the other, she wanted to confirm whether Duncan and the others had been influenced by the Sun Fragment.

As they talked, the strangeness and awkwardness of a first meeting slowly faded. The mood in the room grew warmer and more familiar.

Duncan could feel that this high-ranking Inquisitor of the Church truly cared about the safety of the survivors from that day’s fire. She wasn’t only doing it to strike at Heretics or to look for clues. Her concern was sincere, from the heart.

He didn’t know whether this young Inquisitor cared this much about every single person in the city-state, or if she was paying special attention to the people in this antique shop because of her connection to Heidi. But the sincerity Vanna showed now was enough for him to keep a good impression of her.

“Speaking of which, Miss Heidi and Nina have been upstairs for a while now, haven’t they?”

While they talked, Duncan thought of his niece and looked up at the stairs leading to the second floor.

“That’s true.” Reminded by him, Vanna reacted as well. She frowned slightly. “Normally Heidi’s treatment process is very quick…”

“…I don’t think you can use Miss Heidi’s usual treatment methods as the standard. Physical hypnosis and kinetic anesthesia are quick on anyone,” Duncan said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “But it is true that the two of them have been up there for too long… Do you think something happened?”

Vanna shook her head. “No. Heidi is a professional who trained strictly at the Truth Academy. She wouldn’t mess up a simple hypnosis session. Most likely she just started chatting with Nina. She can be like that sometimes—after dealing with stubborn cultists so often, she treats chatting with a normal person like a holiday. Let’s go up and take a look?”

“Let’s go up and take a look.”

Duncan and Vanna both stood and went to the second floor. One after the other, they walked to Nina’s bedroom door. Before they could push it open, they both heard sounds from inside—

Two alternating snores.