Chapter 554

Chapter 554: Truth Keeper

A roar that could almost tear his soul apart kept echoing in his mind. The chaotic perception of the runaway state churned his reason and then slowly faded with time. After this “storm” had lasted for who knew how long, the registrar suddenly became aware of his own self again.

He heard his own heart pounding wildly. His reason struggled back from the edge of the runaway state to the side of Humans. Only then did he realize what had just happened. He looked up without thinking and turned toward the strange voice.

Duncan stood in front of him, with spirit form flames still floating behind him, not yet fully gone. His tall figure was like a dark cloud falling from the sky, giving off an indescribable pressure.

The registrar thought for a moment and suddenly remembered what the girl named Nina had said to him earlier: “…Just don’t be scared later.”

He now recognized the tall figure before him. For an elf, something that had happened a hundred years ago was not that far in the past.

But before he could cry out, a gentle power suddenly flowed into his mind. At the same time, a familiar voice came from not far away: “I will take over here.”

The registrar turned his head toward the voice.

A middle-aged man walked into the room. He wore a dark blue academy robe. His hair was already touched with gray, and he carried a thick, heavy book under his arm. He looked this way with calm eyes filled with fatigue.

“Your Excellency, Truth Keeper!” The registrar looked as if he had just been saved. He jumped up from the table and at once moved away from Nina and Duncan.

He opened his mouth, as if to report something, but before he could speak, the middle-aged man called the Truth Keeper raised his hand and stopped him: “I already know what happened here. From now on, the City-State University will take over this matter. Do not ask about anything else. Your work for today is over. After you leave, go straight to the counseling room and have a mental evaluation. Go.”

The registrar left full of guesses and confusion. Duncan’s gaze fell on the middle-aged elf whose face carried that tired look. After studying him for a moment, Duncan asked curiously: “And who are you?”

“You don’t remember me?” The middle-aged elf frowned in confusion, then soon nodded as if he understood. “Oh, right. I heard your memory was affected by Subspace…”

His voice sounded weak, with a deep tiredness in it, so much that even his surprise did not change his tone. At last he sighed, raised his hand, and pointed at himself: “Ted Riel, the Truth Keeperof Lightwind Harbor. I am in charge of this city’s safety in the supernatural field. We met a hundred years ago. Back then, you often bought me drinks, and we discussed many things about the border.”

Ted Riel? Truth Keeper ?

Duncan frowned. He of course had no memory of this name, but meeting an “old acquaintance” like this did not surprise him. Before coming to Lightwind Harbor, he had already known that many people in this city would be able to recognize his face. After all, a hundred years was not a long time for elves, and back then the Vanished had often stayed at the edge of the civilized world, dealing most with border cities like Lightwind Harbor.

So after a brief thought, he gave the answer he had prepared long ago: “Sorry, I don’t remember. Subspace took away more than half of my memories. Please forgive me.”

Ted Riel waved his hand. “It’s fine. Forgetting is forgetting. ‘Forgetting’ is Rahm’s greatest divine blessing. I am already used to dealing with ‘forgetting’ anyway.”

Used to dealing with “forgetting”?

Duncan paused for a second when he heard this. He felt there was a faint grudge and hidden meaning in the man’s words, though it did not seem aimed at him. But before he could ask, the Truth Keeperon the other side went on: “I heard Lady Lucretia and the head of the field team give a rough account of what happened. The young lady behind you must be Miss Nina?”

By now Nina had stood up from her chair. She hid behind Duncan and curiously studied the stranger on the other side. When she heard him call her name, she stepped out boldly and greeted him politely: “Hello, I’m Nina.”

Then she lifted her face and looked at Duncan with some guilt: “I’m sorry, Uncle Duncan… Did I cause trouble for you?”

Duncan laughed and reached out to ruffle Nina’s hair: “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

As he spoke, he was thinking about something else. Getting pulled into an supernatural incident by accident while trying to report an Anomaly to the Guardians was still better than rushing through the city center with a bunch of ghost sailors and getting thrown into the station by the constables…

Compared to the commotion Lawrence had caused back then, the trouble Shirley and Nina stirred up was already very harmless.

Thinking this, he could not help asking: “Where is Shirley?”

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard footsteps at the door. Lucretia came in with Shirley and said: “Dad, Shirley is here.”

Shirley looked tense and uneasy. After she entered the room, she carefully checked Duncan’s expression. Then she hurried over in small guilty steps while speaking fast: “I didn’t do anything bad! Nina and I were going to report the situation to the Guardians, but then some weird thing suddenly showed up out of nowhere, and those Guardians got all jumpy and had to drag us off…”

“Oh, I apologize to you both on their behalf,” Ted Riel said as he turned to look at Shirley. “But this is a necessary safety procedure.”

Halfway across the room, Shirley jumped at the unfamiliar voice coming from the side. She turned and glanced at the plain-faced middle-aged man who had felt almost invisible until now: “What, there’s someone else here… Uncle, who are you?”

“He is Ted Riel, the Truth Keeperof Lightwind Harbor,” Lucretia answered from the side. The sea witch nodded to Ted Riel in greeting, then added, “He’s about the same as this city-state’s Gatekeeper or Inquisitor.”

As soon as Shirley heard that, she rushed to Duncan’s side.

Ted Riel stared at her exaggerated reaction, stunned for a moment. Then he turned to Lucretia: “…Am I that scary?”

Lucretia spread her hands: “I guess it has nothing to do with you.”

Duncan turned to look at Shirley, who had rushed to his side: “I see you getting along just fine with Vanna most of the time. How come you’re scared of Inquisitor types now?”

“How is that the same?” Shirley shrank her neck and peeked at the Truth Keeper , muttering under her breath: “Vanna has already joined the gang. This one isn’t one of us…”

Duncan glared at her at once: “Team. I’ve told you many times, it’s a team!”

“Oh…”

Duncan sighed helplessly and shook his head. Then he looked up at Ted Riel and at Lucretia, who was walking over: “I’ve already heard the general situation from Nina, so let’s skip the explanations and polite talk. I want to see that ‘weird thing’ Shirley mentioned. Is it in this facility?”

“Sample containment room 24, in the underground archive of the central sector,” Ted nodded. “I’ll take you there.”

After he spoke, the tired-looking Truth Keeper took out the thick heavy book from under his arm, casually flipped to a page, and tapped it with his finger.

In the next instant, that page flew out of the book and into the air. Duncan saw a door drawn on it, its surface covered with countless deep and complex symbols. As a series of dazzling changes and reshaping took place, the door drawn on the paper quickly transformed into a phantom doorway hanging in the air.

The half-transparent ghostly door opened. Behind it, a hazy view of a corridor deep under some facility appeared.

Duncan watched this with surprise on his face. His first thought was that it really was worthy of the most educated faction in the world. This Truth Keeper from the Truth Academy did look a bit more impressive than Vanna’s jumping slash.

His second reaction was curiosity. He wondered what would happen if he grabbed that page out of the air while it was unfolding. This bold idea hovered in his mind for a moment, and in the next second he noticed the subtle look Lucretia was giving him from the side.

“Dad, don’t touch anything.”

The witch silently mouthed the reminder.

Duncan calmly turned his head away and put away his bold idea.

Then, under Ted Riel’s lead, Duncan, Lucretia, and the wide-eyed, curious Shirley and Nina passed through the floating phantom door one by one.

A brief wave of dizziness and disorientation soon ended. When the light and shadow in front of their eyes came together again, they had already arrived in what Ted had called the underground archive of the central sector.

A deep, long corridor appeared in Duncan’s sight. Bright gas lamps lit both sides. Near each patch of light, he saw carved stone slabs set into the walls, marked with the holy symbols, emblems, and verses of the God of Wisdom Rahm. The corridor had a heavy, solemn air. At set intervals there were emergency isolation gates, and between these gates stood small rooms with doors tightly shut.

“This is the containment sector,” Ted Riel said. He glanced at the two young ladies beside him, who both looked very curious, and explained: “Suspicious samples discovered for a short time, Anomaly objects of medium danger or lower, and various items that have suffered corruption and cannot be destroyed quickly will all be locked in these rooms according to their danger level and containment method. Do not walk up to those doors without thinking. The things inside are not very well-behaved.”

As if to prove the Truth Keeper’s warning, faint sounds came from some of the small rooms along the corridor as he spoke. There was the rasp of chains scraping, whispers like someone talking in their sleep, the sickly slosh of thick liquid, and footsteps that kept sounding behind a door as if something might walk out the next second.

Shirley and Nina pulled back their curious gazes at once. Their faces finally showed some serious tension.

Duncan’s eyes swept over the small rooms with their many security measures.

In the next second, the whole corridor fell silent.

“Now they’re behaving.” Duncan nodded in satisfaction.