Chapter 289

Chapter 289: Coffin and Warden

A dim cluster of starlight with an Anomaly?like flicker drew Duncan’s attention.

That faint light was slightly different from the lights around it. Its weak, unreal glow was like a transparent phantom, and its unsteady flicker made it seem ready to fade away at any moment. Duncan had seen weak flashes in this chaotic space before, but even the weakest of them did not look so unreal and close to vanishing.

He frowned slightly.

A weak light often meant a body that had only recently died. But what did it mean when the light was weak and at the same time almost transparent and unreal?

He stretched out a finger and lightly touched that point of light.

In the next second, he felt his consciousness cross an endless distance at once, leaving the Vanished and falling into a new body. Cold and numb sensations spread through his limbs and bones. Then the numbness slowly faded. He began to feel the touch on his skin and the slow beating of his heart.

But for some reason, this new body felt especially heavy. Controlling it was like moving through a thick Veil. He used a great deal of effort just to move a finger, and the same effort just to force his eyelids open a crack.

Everything in front of him was dark.

[Was this a blind person? Or were the eyes covered?]

Duncan raised his hand by instinct, groping to check his eyes. As soon as he lifted his arm, he felt it hit something hard and cold. He lifted his other arm, and it also bumped into something.

He felt around on all sides and finally realized he was trapped in some kind of… container.

It was a coffin.

Duncan lay quietly in the darkness for a long moment before he sighed: “All right. That is reasonable…”

When you possessed a corpse, ending up trapped in a coffin really was the reasonable outcome. The last two times, when he had possessed bodies without any limit, had been the rare ones.

But why did it have to become reasonable at this time!

A mix of annoyance and helpless amusement rose in his heart. Duncan felt he now understood, at least a little, how Dog and Vanna had felt before when they faced “reasonable developments on the Vanished” and were left speechless. But this was clearly not the time to keep feeling things—he had to find a way to get out of this coffin.

Otherwise, he would have to give up this hard?won fated body, go back to that dark chaotic space, and choose another target to possess. He might very well end up trapped in another coffin.

Duncan began to move his hands and feet, getting used to the senses of this strange, hard?to?use body while he also tried to push open the lid above his head. A moment ago, by knocking on the wood around him, he had judged from the hollow thumping sound that this coffin was not buried in the ground. It was likely only placed somewhere for now. That meant that as long as he pushed open the lid above him, he could get out.

But the coffin lid was harder to deal with than he had thought. The lid was nailed shut and might even have extra locks. The body he now occupied was too “poor in quality.” From the feeling in his limbs, it was even weaker and more powerless than the corpse he had first taken over at the sacrificial rite site in the sewers. Forget forcing open a nailed coffin lid; even moving around a little was hard.

[Just how weak was this dead body?]

“Hey! Is anyone out there? I think I can still be saved! Call a Doctor—if that does not work, a Coroner will do…”

As he pushed at the coffin lid above him, Duncan began to shout in helpless complaint. He did not care if he scared someone or drew trouble. After a short time of adjusting and sensing, he had already confirmed that the state of this body was Anomaly?level bad, completely unfit for long?term use. It was probably a one?time shell, just like the “sacrificial victim” he had taken over the first time. Since it was a one?time shell… there was nothing to worry about.

No matter who he drew here, as long as they could get him up so he could see the surroundings, it would be enough. If he was lucky, he might even gather some information. In any case, the worst that could happen was that he died stuck in this coffin. It would not get worse than that.

He even had time now to let his thoughts wander and wondered if he should ask Alice for tips—how had that Doll managed to escape from a coffin whose lid had been nailed down and wrapped in several layers of iron chains? Just by relying on her natural strength?

In the silent corpse yard of the cemetery, the dull banging and the hoarse, low calls sounded especially abrupt.

The Warden, of course, did not ignore this sudden strange noise.

The door of the Warden’s hut was pushed open. The light of a consecrated lantern lit the small path outside the wooden house that led to the corpse yard. A gloomy old man with a fierce gaze and a hunched back stepped out of the hut. He held the consecrated lantern in one hand and gripped a powerful double?barreled shotgun in the other. His yellow, cloudy eyes stared hard in the direction of the sound.

“…The cemetery is far too lively tonight.”

The old man muttered in a harsh tone. He hung the consecrated lantern on a metal hook at his waist, traced a Triangular Emblem over his chest, then raised the shotgun and slowly walked toward the coffins.

That coffin was still thumping. The dead inside the coffin kept stubbornly knocking on the barrier between him and the world of the living, and as he knocked, he kept asking the people outside to help him get free.

“Is anyone there? Come help me out. I think this is a misdiagnosis!”

“Quiet down!” The Warden held the shotgun ready. The click of the safety being removed sounded especially sharp in the night. The stooped old man stared at the coffin and shouted: “You should be sleeping. You now belong to another world. There is no place for you in the world of the living.”

The knocking inside the coffin suddenly stopped.

Duncan judged the sound outside. It should be an old man, very close to him, and just now there had been a light clink of metal parts, probably from a weapon.

Having someone there made things easier. This way, whether he got out or not, he had another way to reach information from the outside.

“Hello, I want to know what is going on,” Duncan said after clearing his throat. He thought about how to make the most of this body so he could get more information from the person outside the coffin. “I am trapped in this… coffin, but there must be some mistake. I am still alive. Listen, my voice is actually quite strong.”

“Breathing is a common illusion for the dead. Attachment to the world of the living is an obsession that your subconscious leaves in the outer layers of your brain. That truly is hard to accept, but Bartok has already prepared a better resting place for your soul,” the old caretaker said, staring at the coffin. One hand still held the shotgun, while the other quietly traced the sign of the God of Death in the air. Then he took a small packet of dried powder from his clothes, rubbed some of the powder along the shotgun’s barrels, and scattered the rest on the ground. “Lie down and be quiet. You should already feel sleepy. That is the call of the Lord of Death. Obey it. That will be best for both of us.”

The doctrine of the Lord of Death Bartok—Duncan silently took note of this. Then he cleared his throat and kept bargaining: “…But I still think I can be saved. What if it is a misdiagnosis?”

The old caretaker with the shotgun frowned. For some reason, he felt that tonight’s “Restless One” was not like any he had met in his career. The voice in the coffin sounded a bit too rational and even knew how to bargain. But he soon shook his head and pushed these messy thoughts aside:

“With respect, you slipped and fell from the guardrail of the shaft, dropped straight into a mine passage a hundred meters deep, and the back of your head burst open. The mortician took a lot of work to piece your skull back together. Mister, as I see it, the chance of a misdiagnosis in your case is… very low.”

Listening to the voice outside the coffin, Duncan silently raised his hand and touched the back of his head.

“…All right. I admit my injuries sound a bit serious. In this state, this body really is not fit to leave the coffin,” he sighed. “Sorry to bother you.”

The old caretaker was silent for a few seconds. Then he quietly lit another spare consecrated lantern at his waist and hung it on the wooden post closest to the corpse table, all while saying calmly: “No need to be polite. Compared with most Restless Ones, you are still rather polite.”

“Oh? Do you run into this kind of thing often?”

“Every year, there are always a few corpses that do not want to stay in their coffins. Most of them try to get out in a more violent way. Only a very small number try to solve the problem by talking,” the old caretaker muttered. “But even the ones who know how to talk only speak confused nonsense. The dead always think they can achieve True Resurrection, but in fact… the great door of Bartok is not so easy to cross.”

The old caretaker shook his head and kept talking while watching the flame in the consecrated lantern on the nearby post. He knew the dead had no real reason. That was only the afterglow of a Restless Soul’s obsession. In conversation, that kind of “afterglow” burned out even faster. When the one in the coffin used up his reason, the old man’s “extra work” for the night would be done.

“Restless One, Living dead, True Resurrection—these are three completely different things,” the old man rambled on. “To cross those boundaries, you need amazing power, must bear great pain, and also need a very rare chance. Mister, do not make things hard on yourself. You cannot cross them.”