5: The more you know, the faster you die.
5: The more you know, the faster you die.
“What is a night watchman?”
“Ha, I guessed you would ask that.” Hades had a look of expectation, turned his back to Lu Li, and tiptoed to grab a square bottle of red wine from the top shelf of the cabinet.
Pulling two wine glasses from beneath the counter, Hades shook the wine bottle and with a “pop”, pulled the cork out.
The dark red stream flowed delicately into the wine glass, swirling upwards.
“Do you want some?” Hades shook the wine bottle, gesturing to Lu Li.
Hades capped the bottle, casually took the empty glass in front of Lu Li, picked up a wine glass and took a sip, slightly shaking his head: “Night watchmen are like you and me, they specialize in dealing with things like ghost monsters.
The only difference is they have official backing.
If you gain a little fame later, they will try to recruit you.”
Lu Li noted the new term.
“Those are the things that even the charlatans at the church can’t explain, bizarre in form, could be a building, could be some creature, or could be some tale…
In short, they make no sense.
I don’t even know how to describe them!”
“Are there many of them?”
“Fewer than ghosts, most ordinary people might encounter them only once or twice in their lifetime.”
“How should one deal with monsters?”
“Run, run as far as you can, don’t even think about fighting them, they are not something we can handle.
If you encounter one, contact a night watchman to deal with it.” Hades seemed to have assumed Lu Li wanted to become an exorcist, so he didn’t deliberately hide some key information.
“I know what you want to ask, how to distinguish a monster, right?
I don’t know the answer either.
I can only tell you, you’ll know what it is when you encounter one.”
“Have you encountered any?”
“Came across one once, luckily avoided it.”
“Can you talk about it?”
Hades gently swirled his wine glass: “It’s better for you not to know, it won’t do you any good.”
“It’s only my affair, just speak.” Lu Li’s insistence wasn’t swayed by the clichéd response.
“What if I say, after speaking, I might get into trouble?”
“If you’re willing to compensate me for some losses, I might ‘accidentally’ let something slip,” Hades emphasized the word ‘accidentally’ as he rubbed his fingers together.
It was almost like writing the word ‘money’ on his face.
Without a word, Lu Li’s dark eyes quietly watched Hades: “…Talk about something else.”
“Tch…” Hades showed a disgruntled expression of an unaccomplished scheme.
“You just mentioned exorcists are more dangerous than going out to sea, is going out to sea dangerous too?” Lu Li didn’t believe the dangers Hades mentioned were from the weather or sharks.
The swinging of the wine glass stopped, Hades had a strange look: “Do you really know nothing?”
As Lu Li was about to talk, Hades raised his hand to stop him: “Forget it, swallow down that prepared set of lies.
I’m only interested in your money, not where you come from or what your purpose is.”
So Lu Li reverted to his initial silence, quietly listening as Hades slowly narrated.
“If the world were a magnificent blooming flower, then this flower is now withering.”
The ocean is the main body of this world, with most of the land existing in the form of archipelagos.
Belfast was located in the Earlen Peninsula Duchy.
The lands of this world had been colonized and developed by humans long ago, and due to low technological development, exploration and activities regarding the ocean had always remained close to the shore.
Many explorers tried to venture far, seeking new islands and continents, yet few returned.
The greatest discovery among them was by the great explorer Solacevia Sim, who discovered a brand-new continent 300 years ago: Solaxim.
Rather than this continent named after Solacevia Sim, people preferred to call it the Tillage Garden, or the Land of Hope.
This was one of humanity’s greatest discoveries in hundreds of years of modern maritime history, but for over a hundred years thereafter, succeeding explorers could only find some islands or even coral reefs that scarcely qualified as such.
Back then, the furthest people could travel was only a few hundred nautical miles.
Until fifty years ago, when the Steam Engine was invented and quickly applied to ships, people finally broke free from the constraints of sailboats and ventured deeper into the ocean—
And then they tasted the bitter fruit.
Humanity lived on a small island named Ignorance in the dark ocean, an ocean vast and boundless, filled with infinite secrets, but we should not sail too far nor delve too deep.
What happened then is unknown to anyone, only that afterwards, no individual or group wanted to stray far from land to peer into the deep sea.
But the matter did not end there—in fact, the earlier voyages might have opened a wooden box named danger, starting from decades ago as the ocean grew ever more dangerous, with fog, ghostly apparitions, and underwater shadows beginning to frequently appear in the deep sea.
And they were spreading towards land.
“You can find books about these things in any library…
oh sorry, I forgot that the Belfast library was burned down,” said Hades, shrugging with a certain schadenfreude.
“So coming to Belfast at this time was really the worst decision you could have made.”
Lu Li noted down everything in his heart and continued to ask, “What is in the darkness?”
“That would require a certain price,” Hades hinted, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
“I will continue to buy bullets here afterwards.”
“That’s not enough, you need to come up with more,” Hades tapped on the table.
Lu Li shook his head slightly, “Most of my money was spent on the Spirit-Calling Gun.”
The smile faded, and the golden teeth no longer gleamed.
Hades, being very pragmatic, issued a dismissal, “Then come back when you’ve gathered 1000 Shillings.”
Lu Li’s expression remained unchanged, “Do others know about this?”
“No one would risk telling you these things.
Even if there were, they wouldn’t for money,” Hades wasn’t worried about potential competitors, he leaned forward, getting closer to Lu Li, “So Mr.
Newbie Exorcist, how many bullets do you want to buy?”
“Ten,” Lu Li replied.
I’ve told you so much, it has to be at least twenty!”
Hades’s expression improved somewhat, and while giving Lu Li the bullets, he asked, “I have a question too.”
Before Lu Li could refuse or agree, he hurriedly asked, “Why do you want to know these things?
Don’t say it’s just curiosity.”
“…To get home,” Lu Li answered after a brief silence.
To get back, Lu Li first needed to know where he was and why he was here.
Hades misunderstood, thinking Lu Li was stranded here, and pushed a box of bullets towards him, his eyes filled with sympathy, “For free, and remember this,”
“Stay where there’s light?”
Hades’s expression showed unprecedented seriousness, and he whispered slowly.
“Don’t dream of knowing too much.
The more you know, the faster you die.”