Chapter 367

Chapter 367: The Shelter Left Behind.

Those eyes were bloodshot, and inside them madness and terror surged, impossible to fully suppress. Even though the Gatekeeper’s words had soothed the woman’s mind and pulled her back from the edge of collapse, they could not smooth away the Shadows fear had left in her thoughts.

Agatha had seen that kind of gaze many times. She simply met it calmly, using her own eyes to help the woman settle a little more before she spoke: “The ‘he’ you just mentioned – you mean your husband, do you not? He returned home again. But you know he died several years ago.”

The woman’s shoulders shook hard. She lowered her head and clutched her own hair, as if she did not dare look Agatha in the face. She only repeated over and over: “He came back… he came back… but I knew it wasn’t him…”

“How did you kill ‘it’?” Agatha frowned slightly. “Do you still remember the details?”

As she spoke, she reached into her coat and took out a small vial of potion. She opened the cap with one hand, and a scent that calmed the mind slowly spread out, filling the air around them.

The Gatekeeper’s potion began to work. The long-haired woman’s breathing grew much steadier. She raised her head a little and peered out through strands of her hair. Her voice was very low: “I… I hit the back of that thing’s head with a hammer from behind, and then it fell down. But even though the back of its head caved in so much, it didn’t die. It struggled and got up again. I kicked it farther inside and then shut the bathroom door… it knocked on the door and let out horrible shouts. It was early in the morning. It screamed for ten minutes before it stopped…”

The woman fell silent, then took a few seconds to steady herself before she went on: “Later, I quietly opened a crack in the bathroom door… and that thing was gone…”

Agatha nodded lightly. In her mind, she pieced together what had happened while she asked her next question: “Then how did ‘it’ appear? Do you remember how he ‘came back’?”

“I… I don’t know,” the woman said, shaking her head in fright. “He… it suddenly appeared at home. The front door was locked, but I heard sounds in the living room. I came out from the bedroom and saw that thing… it was wearing the clothes my husband had on when he was buried, walking back and forth in the living room. There was a sound in its body, like rotting slime moving around…”

Agatha’s expression grew serious. She turned her head, and before she could even speak, a Guardian nearby reported: “We have already checked the entrances to the house. None of the doors or windows show any sign of forced entry, and every window is locked from the inside.”

The doors and windows were sealed. The locks were untouched. The replica had simply appeared in the resident’s home.

Compared with open “invasion” or “attack”, this kind of thing that seemed to appear from thin air made Agatha even more alert.

And today’s case had more to worry about than that.

Agatha lowered her head and looked at the woman on the sofa again.

She remembered the cases she had handled in the days before this one, especially the one at 42 Fireplace Street – the folklore Scholar who studied the return of the dead, and the female apprentice who had suffered severe cognitive corruption without even realising it. In such classic cases, the survivors had been completely unable to tell that the “replica” in front of them was not the real person.

But this woman had seen through it.

She had not been affected by cognitive corruption?

“Lady,” Agatha said at last, choosing her words with care, “how did you realize that ‘monster’ was not your husband?”

“Do you even need to ask? My husband… he died years ago. That thing was wrong in every way. How could it be my husband?” The woman grew excited. “Besides… besides, that thing walked toward my child… my child. He pointed at that monster and called it dad. He… he was being controlled by that monster. It must have controlled my child. He…”

“You believed your child was being controlled by a monster, so you grabbed him by the neck?” Agatha’s brow drew together again. “Do you understand that at the time you…”

“I didn’t grab his neck! I was just trying to pull him back, I didn’t grab him!”

The woman became completely agitated. She even jumped up from the sofa as if she were about to pounce at the Gatekeeper. The blood in her eyes flooded back, and the same fear and madness returned so strongly that her reason seemed to vanish. The Guardians nearby reacted at once and moved to restrain the poor woman who had lost her sanity, but Agatha was faster.

The Gatekeeper lifted her Gatekeeper’s cane and lightly tapped the woman’s forehead.

The woman fell asleep on the spot.

“She is terrified,” the black-haired captain said, shaking her head. “For an ordinary person, something like this really is…”

“No. It isn’t simple fright. It is another form of sanity corruption. She is in a temporary state of madness and has only kept the most basic ability to talk,” Agatha said, still shaking her head. Her brow remained tightly furrowed. “She has not been affected by cognitive and memory interference. We do not yet know the exact reason, but she clearly saw the true nature of that ‘replica’. For an ordinary person, ‘seeing the truth’ itself is a kind of damage.”

As she spoke, she raised her head and looked around this small dwelling.

“Where is the child?”

“He has been taken to a safe place for now,” the captain replied. “He was badly frightened and also suffered brief suffocation. He may not be able to answer questions.”

“Good,” Agatha said. “Keep the mother and child apart for the time being. Make sure they are under proper watch and get mental support, especially the child. Comfort him. If either of them remembers any useful information, report to me at once.”

“Yes.”

Agatha nodded, then walked through the living room into the small washroom that also served as a bathroom.

Marks left by the Guardians’ forensic work were still visible on the floor near the shower head.

The replica had once been locked in this bathroom. In the end, though, it had left behind less than a single test tube of “sample”.

That was very strange.

replicas might be mysterious in nature and their origins might be unknown, but at least one thing was clear: they were made of a certain amount of physical matter. Even if they broke apart, that material would not simply vanish into nothing.

Agatha frowned and paced twice around the cramped washroom. Suddenly she stopped, her gaze fixed on one spot.

In the corner, at the opening of a rusted drainpipe.

She moved quickly to the drain, tapped the cast-iron grate with the tip of her tin Gatekeeper’s cane, and stared down into the dark hole.

The darkness inside the pipe had no visible end, as if it buried all truths.

“…No way… damn it.”

Agatha drew in a sharp breath. She had just realized a possibility, and that possibility made her hands and feet go cold.

“Evacuate this building. Move all residents to the Cathedral in this district and to the public shelters nearby,” she said as she hurried back into the living room, speaking at great speed. “Contact the district municipal office. Close off this building… no, close all secondary pipelines connected to this building, including both sewage and water lines. Send a team immediately to the nearest sewage treatment plant to check the settling tanks and filters.”

The Squad Captain was startled by this string of orders, but she did not ask any questions. Her training to obey orders took over at once, and she snapped to attention: “Yes, Lady Gatekeeper!”

After finishing her orders, Agatha walked back to the sofa where the sleeping woman lay.

Why had this woman not been affected by cognitive and memory interference, and instead seen the truth of the “replica”?

Even now, Agatha cared very much about this question.

At that moment, a Guardian who had been searching other rooms suddenly ran into the living room, holding something in both hands.

“Lady Gatekeeper! We found this!”

Agatha turned at once. She saw that the Guardian was holding a small plaster statue that looked quite old.

It was a profile bust of the Frostholm Queen.

“A statue of the mad Queen?” another Guardian whispered at once. “I did not expect to see one here.”

Agatha’s expression grew solemn. She stepped forward and took the bust, which was a little over ten centimeters tall, then carefully examined the details.

“It is a genuine piece from back then. There is a special anti-counterfeit mark on the base,” she said after a brief check, then raised her head. “Where was this placed?”

“In a hidden compartment at the back of a closet,” the Guardian who had found it reported at once. “We also found coins from the Queen’s era and a commemorative album. It seems someone here is still secretly remembering the Frostholm Queen.”

Agatha did not speak for a while. She only stared at the plaster bust in her hands.

Frostholm Queen… even half a century later, there were still citizens in the city-state who secretly remembered the Queen. That fact itself did not surprise her.

That had been a glorious age, and she had been a great Queen. Fifty short years were not enough to erase every trace of the Queen’s era from the city-state. Some old people who had lived through that time, and their children and grandchildren, were still deeply marked by it.

There were, here and there among the people, a few who still supported the Queen. Fifty years ago, such secret acts of remembrance would have been enough to earn a hanging. Today, however, the bans in this area had grown much looser. During her years as Gatekeeper, Agatha had heard of such things more than once.

In most cases, when it was only a private “collection of memorial items”, today’s Guardians and Constables would not pursue it too harshly. Sometimes they even pretended not to see, or only gave a verbal warning.

This family had only collected a bust of the Queen, a few coins, and an album. That alone was not anything serious.

But when she linked it to the strange event that had just taken place in this home, Agatha could not help thinking more deeply.

In this case, the person involved had not been affected by cognitive interference. Instead, she had seen through the truth of the “replica”. Could it be… connected to these Queen relics left in this house?