C134: Night activity

Izzy controlled Jack to run frantically through the village streets. For now, the priority was simple: get as far away from the Inspectors as possible so they would not continue pursuing Jack. She did not yet know the final result of the battle behind her.

*BANG!*

A sharp cracking sound echoed through the night.

‘...Was that a revolver?’

Even from this distance, well beyond the fifteen-meter range of Jack’s Field Vision, the gunshot still reached her ears.

The first Inspector ambush had involved firearms.

The inspectors' opening gambit had involved firearms. Izzy had watched the middle-aged man—Gregory, if her memory of the names served—instantly neutralize one of the maids. She had witnessed it through Jack’s Field Vision just before fleeing.

And the other Inspector, the blonde brat—Hazel—had used something resembling compressed wind blades.

If Izzy remembered correctly, Benjamin also possessed an ability involving compressed air explosions from afar. Izzy wasn’t sure whether they were the same.

Honestly, what surprised Izzy more was the fact that no villagers had come outside to investigate the gunshot.

‘revolver...to think this world is this advanced,’ she thought. That took her by surprise, to be completely honest. She had never thought this world was advanced enough to have a revolver.

But then again, she hadn’t even left this forest yet, how could she know?

'Haha, the more you know...' she grimaced.

Actually, she shouldn’t be so surprised, considering there was a mechanical door in the mansion’s basement.

If it existed, then she should have anticipated the existence of a revolver. She might even have needed to prepare herself for a hologram or a drone appearing.

‘The Inspectors are really competent.’

They had arrived precisely on time and secured two swift kills almost instantly.

‘If they’re this strong… then how did they die in the previous iteration?’

That remained the strangest part. Did Victor kill them all by himself? Or had something else happened during the Rite?

Still, that question no longer mattered for the moment. One of the major variables on her board had been permanently resolved. Izzy no longer needed to worry about Florence or the Baroness Estate interfering with her plans.

In short order, if everything proceeded correctly, the priest would likely meet a similar fate. Once that occurred, Izzy would formulate a new course of action depending on the situation.

Her current objective remained unchanged.

Destroy the fake moon.

And frankly speaking, there was no chance in hell she could directly destroy that thing if it fully manifested overhead.

So instead, she intended to test something.

If she eliminated the individuals responsible for orchestrating the Rite itself, then perhaps the fake moon would collapse automatically.

That was her gamble.

‘Hmm...’

Before regrouping with Isa’s current operation, Izzy wanted to seek out and evaluate the people connected to their previous iteration first.

Now that Jack had already reached the southern section of the village, it would be easier to observe things discreetly.

Jack moved carefully between houses, his boots pressing carefully against the dirt paths. The deeper south he went, the sparser the homes became. Thin trails of smoke rose from a few chimneys, and vague candlelight leaked through windows.

Some villagers still had not gone to sleep.

‘There they are.’

She pressed Jack against the wooden exterior of a nearby house, concealing him and expanded his Field Vision.

At the very end of the southern road, where the houses grew sparse and the forest reclaimed the land, a man was still splitting wood alone under the moonlight.

A massive man. Perhaps not as enormous as Danz, but large nonetheless.

He had broad shoulders, heavy muscles, and a thick, shirtless torso that revealed a prominent, hard-carved set of abdominal muscles. The man wore only crude brown trousers stained with dirt and dust.

A scruffy beard framed his rugged face, while tangled brown hair had grown past his neck, several messy strands hanging around his eyes.

Sweat glistened across his bare skin despite the chill. He raised an axe high over his head, his back and arm muscles bulged with immense tension.

Then, he drove the weapon downward.

*THUD!*

The axe slammed into the chopping block hard enough to shake nearby wood piles, splitting a thick log with a dull thud.

Lumber Smith, Mary Smith’s father. The man whose suspicious actions had been recorded during the first iteration.

‘Is he seriously still working at this hour?’ Izzy wondered.

While maintaining her focus through the vessel's eyes, Izzy noticed a small figure moving through the dim interior of the cottage, approaching the door that led out to the night air.

Soft light flickered behind the thin curtains before the wooden door slowly creaked open.

“Pa… it loud.”

A small girl stepped outside sleepily, one tiny hand covering her yawn. Her long hair flowed messily around her shoulders, slightly tangled from sleep. She wore a multi-layered sleeping dress meant to keep out the winter chill.

Mary.

Lumber immediately noticed her.

his rugged, weather-beaten face softened. He paused his labor and reached up to scratch his head awkwardly with his calloused hand.

“Did I disrupt your sleep? My apologies, fair lady.”

Mary stared at him with half-asleep eyes. She pointed her small finger at him while bracing her other hand against her hip.

“Pa, sleep.”

Her speech was unusually short and blunt, lacking the usual animated chatter that accompanied her during the daylight hours.

“I shall, Mary. Now go back inside and—” the man attempted to reassure her, but the sleepy girl cut him off.

“I’m going to tell Ma if Pa keeps working at night.”

“...”

Lumber instantly fell silent. He looked down at the girl’s serious, sleepy face for a long moment before the corners of his lips slowly lifted upward.

“That would be troublesome. I certainly cannot have our Ma knowing about this.”

He scratched his head once more before setting his heavy axe down beside the chopping block.

The large man grabbed a rough cloth hanging nearby and draped it over his shoulder, wiping away the sweat covering his chest and arms before walking toward Mary.

The moment he approached, Mary’s expression twisted.

She raised a hand to cover her nose, her face contorting. She glared at her father, her brow furrowed disapprovingly.

“Pa is stinking. Pa needs to bathe. Else Pa stays outside tonight.”

“...”

The man came to a sudden, awkward halt. He frowned, lifting his own arm and sniffing himself.

“Hmm.”

After a moment, he looked back at Mary’s stern little face and smiled helplessly.

“Right. As my lady wishes.”

Satisfied with his answer, Mary puffed out her chest proudly. She placed both hands on her hips like a victorious commander and nodded in approval.

Without another word, the sleepy girl turned around and walked back into the house.

*Creak.*

The wooden door closed behind her.

“...”

Lumber’s eyes lingered on the closed door for a long moment. The silence of the night settled around him once more.

The smile on his face slowly faded into silence.

He scratched his head before turning his heel, walking toward the village well nearby.

—

Izzy controlled Jack to continue moving in the village.

The night had grown colder. Wind drifted through the narrow gaps between the houses, carrying the damp smell of wood and distant river water. Most homes had already gone dark, their lanterns extinguished one after another, leaving only faint traces of candlelight behind cracked shutters.

Soon, Jack passed another familiar house not too far from Lumber Smith’s home.

‘Opal.’

Under the darkness of the night, two figures stood together near the entrance of the house, one supporting the other.

“Otis, Otis, where are you? Answer Ma, Otis...” the woman wailed, her voice laden with grief.

“Ma, Otis is sleeping inside. Please, just come back to bed,” a young man replied with a low and strained voice, as he attempted to anchor her.

“Otis, why are you taking Otis away from me?” she cried out, her cries becoming more frantic as she drifted in her trance.

“Ma, wake up... Ma, please wake up.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed as he observed the scene.

‘That guy, he looks familiar.’

In the shadows, the woman wandered with a vacant, aimless gait, a faded, colorless shawl wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the midnight chill.

Her eyes remained closed, her expression one of profound disorientation. She mumbled weakly like someone trapped inside a dream.

Beside her stood a tanned young man wearing a colorful shirt with ridiculous knotted decorations around the collar.

He held her hand carefully while guiding her back toward the house.

'...'

Inside Jack’s mind, Izzy dove into her mindscape.

The crimson theater emerged. Red curtains hung, and the stage slowly replayed fragments of her memory.

‘I remember him now.’

The young man helping Opal was Donquery, one of Danz’s underlings from the Tear Drop.

Izzy remembered him clearly now.

She recalled him as an outgoing, cheerful, and radiant individual. The type of person who laughed easily and joked with everyone around him despite living among thugs and criminals.

‘Donquery… he’s Opal’s son?’ Her expression became puzzled as she stared at the family in her Field Vision.

‘So Opal has two sons? He and Otis?’

There had been no mention of this in the black monument.

The first iteration had only recorded information about Otis, the child with the bright smile, in Victor’s catalog.

That was why Izzy had assumed Otis was Opal’s only child.

Apparently, her previous iterations either never discovered Donquery’s connection to Opal, or never considered it important enough to record.

No, maybe "she" never met Donquery, the second son, in the first place,

Izzy tapped her chin thoughtfully.

The black monument had mentioned Opal’s sleepwalking habit before. That information originally came from Mary during the first iteration.

And Otis, the child who would soon be kidnapped after tonight.

Now that she thought about it, she had never once heard Opal’s full family name before.

‘Was it Donquery? Opal Donquery?’

'Another variable,' she noted, her mind racing to categorize the new information.

Izzy was uncertain whether this young man would become important or not, but she made a mental note to keep him in her sights.

This was her last iteration. She should be more careful. Even the smallest detail could become fatal later.

'It is time to assist Isa.'

Izzy returned to controlling Jack and immediately ran toward Isa’s location.

Simultaneously, she shifted her consciousness back to Arriet’s perspective.

Through Arriet’s eyes, she watched Arnold, currently controlled by Isa, together with several marionettes, “borrowed” corpses from the cemetery beneath the moonlit night.

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