13 Mink Street

Karon had already sensed that something was wrong the moment the captain had vanished and then returned with Marlow.

The main reason was Richard’s disappearance and return, followed by what Memphis, that is, Eisen, had said: “They took the wrong one.”

What had happened next, Memphis’s disappearance, had further confirmed things. The other side really had taken the wrong person. Yet that led to the question, why had they taken the captain only to release him again? Had they taken the wrong captain too? Were the captain and Richard even on the same level?

Karon believed that not even Richard himself would ever accept such an assessment. Taking a step back, the assumption had to become that the captain had never been taken at all, but had truly discovered a pattern and had brought Marlow back.

Even so, when had their captain ever spoken so much before issuing orders to his squad? Explaining, clarifying, sharing concepts, like a teacher lecturing students. What the captain preferred was to keep a whistle in his mouth and issue the most direct command in the briefest possible way: You do not need to know why this is being done. You only need to do as I tell you.

Once Nio had finished his explanation and prepared everyone to move, he even praised the great God of Order. That made the whole thing feel darkly comic, practically satirical. The captain, who could not recite anything from the Code of Order and who had once suggested to Karon that he just make things up, was actually praying to the God of Order in the face of this bizarre situation?

If there were outsiders present and the squad was in an ordinary setting, such as everyone sitting down for coffee and chatting politely while maintaining appearances, it would have been perfectly normal for their captain to say such a thing, but here, at this moment, it felt completely out of place.

As for the final line, “Captain, may I take off my mask?” by that time, Karon was already certain that the captain was fake, so he had simply made the joke in passing.

Thus, once the muzzle of his Sawa-7 was pressed to the captain’s brow, Karon did not hesitate in the slightest. He was preventing a bizarre disappearance from happening again and causing someone else to vanish outright. For that reason, Karon did not even explain to Richard the true reason he had moved to the back of the line.

Bang! The shot rang out.

Every squad member up in front clearly saw Karon put a bullet through their captain. The man himself did not dodge, and a hole opened in the middle of his forehead.

The moment that hole appeared, Karon’s heart still tightened a little, because the captain held a different kind of place in every squad member’s mind, including Karon’s own. Forget aiming at a captain who looked fully alive, even just throwing darts at a photograph of the man would have brought about a certain degree of pressure.

Fortunately, the following moment, the captain’s body began to warp, as though a black hole had opened up and was dragging his entire body into it. That was clearly not an effect any ordinary Sawa-7 bullet could bring about.

Karon shifted to the side, stepping out of the formation line to bring his gun to bear on Marlow, who was still at the very front.

In truth, Karon was not certain he would be able to land the second shot. He had practiced shooting for some time at the factory club run by Fannie and Paige, but still lacked true confidence in his use of firearms, especially when it came to drawing and firing on the spot in a changing situation. Such real-life applications depended far more on muscle memory than anything else.

More importantly, Marlow was at the very front of the squad, while Karon was at the very back. They were separated by a long distance, and there was a layer of the white mist obstructing the line of sight.

Bang! Karon aimed at Marlow’s head, but ended up only hitting the man’s shoulder.

Still, Karon had aimed well. The precision of his shot deserved praise. The main problem was Marlow’s lack of cooperation; he had declined to meet Karon’s bullet with his head.

The real reason was that after the first shot, everyone present had reacted to the stressful situation, and thus, naturally began taking tactical evasive movements. With the exception of Richard, everyone on the squad was an experienced veteran, which led to Marlow managing to avoid having a vital point struck.

However, the bullet’s point of impact on his shoulder immediately ignited with black flames, which was the effect of the enchanted round. Marlow began cursing, “What the fuck, Karon!”

Karon’s eyes narrowed. Hm? Marlow’s real?

At that moment, pillars of black light rose around everyone, enveloping them all. The scenery surrounding them grew distorted, and everyone then found themselves inside an enclosed space that was built entirely of black bricks. On the ceiling above the image of a whip was carved: the Whip of Order.

Everyone who appeared in the room could do nothing but sit in their own seat. Their bodies were bound, and in front of each of them was a layer of black membrane. They could see the people around them, but no sound could pass through the membrane, causing the whole place to be deathly silent.

Fortunately, after seeing the symbol of the Whip of Order, despite everyone being profoundly shocked by what they had just experienced, at least they were able to inwardly steady themselves. As members of the Whip of Order, appearing in a room carved with the symbol of their order meant that their safety was guaranteed.

Karon knew what this place was. Though he had never personally seen it before, he had heard Fannie and Paige mention it. Within the Whip of Order there were interrogation rooms. Each one was small, but capable of simulating various scenes. They were rather like a kind of full-environment projection, which were intended to break down the mental defenses of whoever was being interrogated.

Back when the two women had argued in a room, Paige had cursed at Fannie and said she wanted to tie her up in the interrogation room, switch the setting to a public square, and then ravage her thoroughly there.

Yet Karon did not remember being captured and taken to an interrogation room at any point in time. More importantly, the Whip of Order’s interrogation rooms could only change the surrounding scenery to create an atmosphere. The people inside the room still stood within a room of the same size; all that changed were only the walls, floor, and ceiling, while Karon and the others had just traversed a tremendous distance, and had even boarded a train.

Karon pursed his lips. Instinctively, he sensed that the deception had not yet ended. What they were seeing did not feel like it was reality just yet.

Karon saw two chairs sitting diagonally in front of him. One was occupied by the captain, and the other by Memphis. Both men appeared calm. Because they were still wearing their masks, it was impossible to see their expressions, and neither tried to convey any message with gestures.

At that moment, someone appeared in the middle of the room. He wore a black priest’s robe, with a sharp sword embroidered on the front, as well as two black bolts of lightning around it.

Black lightning was a common feature on robes of the Church of Order. As for the sword, it likely represented a particular department, though Karon did not recognize which one it might be.

“Please rest assured, everyone, your safety is guaranteed, and your mission has already been successfully completed. Please remain seated here for another five hours. Once those five hours are over, you will safely leave this place and will go to claim your mission reward.

“After you leave, someone will come specifically to have you sign a confidentiality agreement. For that, you will receive an additional reward.

“I know this process may feel a little dull, so you might as well follow your captain’s example and sleep here for a while.”

Everyone’s eyes turned to their captain’s chair. From the look of things, he really had fallen asleep. Unfortunately, though everyone was completely confused, there was no way to communicate, so all they could do was bottle things up inside.

“All right then. Goodbye.” As soon as the words fell, the priest’s figure dissipated.

Karon found the situation faintly amusing. What exactly is going on here? Aren’t we supposed to be carrying out a cleanup mission? How did things end up like this?

Even funnier was the fact that the captain really was sleeping...

Hm? Karon suddenly noticed the captain’s posture.

The captain was leaning back in his chair, his body slightly askew. If he were truly asleep in such a position, it would have been more natural for his hands to rest on the armrests or hang loosely at his sides. Instead, both of his hands were folded in front of him.

The pose looked oddly strained, and Karon’s gaze instinctively dropped to the captain’s hands. He saw that the man’s right index finger was pressing against a knuckle on his left hand.

The place where his ring sat?

Something clicked in Karon’s mind, and he immediately turned to look at Memphis, who was seated beside the captain. From the moment that everyone had arrived in their seats, Memphis had not changed his posture either. He was likely asleep as well.

Unlike the captain’s outwardly casual yet faintly awkward sleeping posture, Memphis sat perfectly straight, both hands placed before him, keeping precisely with his meticulous nature.

Yet Karon noticed that Memphis’s fingertips were making the same subtle motion. He knew that both men wore rings on the fingers of their left hands, and that each ring contained a mask.

Sleeping... ring... mask? Karon licked his lips and began reexamining his surroundings. Five hours was roughly the same length as the last regularization cycle, so in order to get out, did they have to wait for the next one? In that case, where exactly were they now? Hypnotized?

But this felt far more real than hypnosis, and far more detailed than a dream. The feeling was more like forcibly merging your spirit into a new environment, where every detail compelled you without your awareness.

So if getting out did not mean having one’s restraints undone and walking out through some gate, but rather to return one’s mental consciousness... then the truth was that they were still inside that unreal world of consciousness.

Karon felt that he had discovered the crux of the matter. With that realization in mind, the sleeping states of the captain and Memphis became even stranger to him.

If this place was compared to a prison inside a consciousness world, and all of them had been isolated here, then what the captain and Memphis were doing now was in effect... escaping from that prison. As the first two people to be isolated here, and the two in the squad with the greatest knowledge and strength, would they really sit obediently and serve their sentence?

No, they would not. They would definitely be trying to do something, trying some method.

And that method is... masks? Karon felt that there was no way he would be able, in a short time, to completely sort out the precise relationships between the various environments, but he did not mind imitating his uncle and the captain for the moment. After all, everyone had masks.

Just then, Karon noticed that the person seated beside him was frantically making hand signals at him. It was his cousin Richard. The young man clearly had an overpowering need to pour things out right at this moment, but the sign language he was using, as expected, seemed to be improvised on the spot.

Karon made a gesture with both hands pressed together next to his cheek, indicating that he was going to sleep, hinting that Richard should look for someone else to help him develop his new language.

Then Karon leaned back a little, curling his body up as much as possible, and he pressed a hand down over the mask on his face.

The mask he was currently wearing was the one of the silver ones Fannie had bought in bulk for everyone. But inside his ring, he still had two more masks: one was Mr. Pavaro’s face, while the other was the silver mask Tiz had left behind.

Karon guessed that this consciousness world must have marked each person’s existence. From the moment they had accepted the mission to the moment they had entered the mission scene, arrangements had probably already been made for them. For the controller of this consciousness world, the existence of each individual should have been known and fixed.

So on that basis, if one could temporarily add an identity that had never been marked, would that not be equivalent to becoming a presence that should not exist within this consciousness world? Unmonitored and unrestricted, with a certain degree of freedom as long as one did not do anything too reckless and attract attention.

Which mask should he choose? Instinctively, Karon wanted to use Mr. Pavaro’s face, but when he considered how using Tiz’s mask last time had allowed him to enter the sealed space where Lenora had been placed, Karon felt that his grandfather’s silver mask might have some special effect in certain respects.

His fingertip touched his ring, and Karon chose Tiz’s silver mask.

The moment he put it on, Richard only saw Karon sitting there without moving, as though he had truly fallen asleep. Karon himself, however, found that his surroundings had changed once again. The room was gone, the squad members were gone, and he himself was lying on a hillside.

Karon knew this hillside well. Looking forward, he could see Arles Castle. The squad had once lain in wait in this exact place for a very long time.

Karon sat up and placed both hands on the ground on either side of him, feeling it with his palms.

Why start from here? Anthony and Kanse’s two squads had driven past this place and entered the castle, and when they came back out, Karon’s group had come down from this hillside and found their abandoned cars on the road.

This place seemed to be the point where everything began, but what was it about this place that made it the point of origin?

Karon stood up and looked at the place where he had just been lying, murmuring to himself, “In reality, are all our bodies actually lying here?”

If he had to choose one point of intersection between the consciousness world and the real world, then this place really did seem the most suitable. When Arles Castle suddenly went dark, that did not simply mean the castle itself had been covered in darkness; it felt more as though their field of vision had been blocked.

“Heh...” Karon drew in a deep breath. “So what is this, then? Testing the uses of a divine artifact?”

Recalling the words spoken by the person who had appeared in the sealed room, “your mission has been completed,” “sign a confidentiality agreement and receive an extra reward,” it seemed very likely that the mission Karon’s own squad and the other two squads had been assigned had never truly been to clean up the demonkin in Arles Castle at all, but to be tricked into coming to this place to serve as white mice in an experiment.

What about the captain and Uncle Eisen? They probably woke here as well, but surely they wouldn’t remain here. So where have the two of them gone now?

The answer had in fact already presented itself. If, in his ordinary state of mind, Karon would have kept as much distance from the castle as possible, then now, in his current state, it would be almost a disservice to himself not to go in and take a look.

Karon began walking down the hill. As he moved, he deliberately concealed himself as much as possible, relying on the cover of night to keep his movements from looking conspicuous. He did not head for the main gate of the castle, but instead went to the western wall. Beyond it was only a row of shrubs. There was no one in sight, so Karon vaulted up and climbed over.

He made a slight noise when he landed. Karon crouched down and scanned his surroundings with a guarded gaze. After confirming there was no one there, he stood up and prepared to walk toward the castle, but at that very moment, someone suddenly leaped out of the greenery behind him. The instant the man appeared, he let out a scream, “Ah!!!”

“...” Karon.

Yet what happened next was that the man seemed to not see Karon at all. After emerging from the hedges, he moved his arms in a swimming motion while walking forward with both feet, all the while muttering, “I am a little fish swimming through the river of time, a fish, a fish!”

From beginning to end, he never once looked at Karon. Whether he could genuinely not see Karon, or was simply too deeply immersed in his own state to notice anything else, there was no way to tell.

Karon thought about the situation for a moment longer, and then vaguely recalled that this man seemed to belong to one of the two squads and had joined the Hunting Hounds earlier as exchange observers.

Was he really that deeply immersed in the role?

If their own squad had not had their captain set the tone at the very beginning, if Memphis had not pointed out that everything was a deception, if Karon had not shot the fake captain in the end, then would everyone in their squad have ended up in the same situation, believing that they were swimming through the river of time?

Karon seriously wondered what kind of trauma these people’s minds would suffer once they learned the truth.

“Do you think it’s cruel?” A familiar spoke from inside the castle window beside Karon. He turned to look and saw the captain standing inside the room and looking at him.

“Captain, you can see me?”

Nio retorted, “What? Did you think you’d turned invisible?”

“For a moment there, I really almost did.”

“Heh heh,” Nio laughed dryly, then took his own silver mask off, revealing a bloody face stripped of its skin.

Karon put a hand to his own face, but then shook his head. He could not take his mask off.

The captain had changed identity by removing a mask, but Karon had changed his identity by putting one on.

“I saw you wear that mask before. At the time, I thought silver masks seemed to look better, so I later had Fannie custom-order a batch of silver masks for all of us.

“Oh, right.” Nio pointed in the direction the “little fish” had gone and said, “Were you feeling sorry for him just now?”

“Not exactly.”

“You’ll get used to it. In order to study bacteria, the Veynic government once used the pretense of free vaccinations to inject people with bacteria and observe the results. Compared to that, at least our church doesn’t go so far.”

“Captain, did you find anything inside?”

“Nothing useful. The castle is full of psychological suggestion designs, like some horror-themed amusement park. The useful information might not be inside, but outside.” Nio climbed out through the window and motioned for Karon to follow him.

They circled around to the rear of the castle. There was a fountain there, but its position was odd. It was nearly pressed up against the castle’s back outer wall, so that from outside, and from the hillside, the view was perfectly blocked and no one could see this place.

At the center of the fountain stood a statue of a man seated in a chair, his right fist pressed beneath his chin in a posture of thought.

“Who is he?” Karon asked.

“Oh? I was about to ask you that.”

“Me?”

“Because not long ago, you mentioned this name right in front of me. If you don’t believe me, take a look at this tablet.”

There was a stone tablet beside the fountain. Karon walked over and looked at the text carved into it:

I pursued time at any cost, only to return to the day you went to sea.

—Rhanedar

“...” Karon.