Sheep

More than a dozen members of the Berry family were crammed into a dilapidated two-story house. Familiar with the layout, Lumian glanced at the open front door and carefully skirted around the side of the building, arriving at the open space enclosed by a wooden fence out back. Near the eaves stood stacks of hay and firewood, where three white sheep—dingy enough to look brown—were milling about. Remembering Aurore's comment that the sheep Pierre Berry had brought back seemed strange, though she couldn't pinpoint why, Lumian had taken advantage of the shepherd heading to church for prayer to inspect the flock himself. Though he had never herded sheep, living in a village like Cordu near highland pastures meant he had interacted with seventy or eighty of them, if not a hundred. They were by no means unfamiliar to him. After observing them closely for a while, Lumian found nothing distinguishing these three sheep from their kin. He couldn't help but murmur inwardly, *Can't tell with the naked eye. Do I need to use Beyonder abilities?* Yet a Hunter possessed no Beyonder abilities suited for this. Lumian had already made use of his vastly enhanced vision and sense of smell, as well as his grasp of various tracks and traces, but he still hadn't found anything amiss. The only thing that struck him as odd was that the droppings from the three sheep were piled neatly in a corner rather than scattered all over the place. Of course, it was quite likely that the Berrys regularly swept up to make more efficient use of the manure. After watching for several dozen more seconds, Lumian muttered softly, "Just looking and smelling doesn't seem to work... Do I have to get hands-on?" Without hesitation, he planted his hands on the fence and vaulted over, as smooth and practiced as if returning to his own home. All three sheep turned their heads toward Lumian at the same time. He immediately broke into a smile. "Come on, let me give you a physical." He wasn't in the least worried about being caught by the owners. It wasn't the first or second time he had done something like this; every household in the village knew he was prone to all manner of pranks, and using sheep as props was perfectly in character for him. As Lumian himself put it: Once a reputation was ruined, there were natural advantages to having a ruined reputation. With his status as the King of Pranks, nothing he did in Cordu Village would arouse too much suspicion. Even if caught red-handed by the few who were clearly abnormal, they wouldn't be able to immediately conclude that something was wrong with him. Of course, in such a situation, the parish priest Guillaume and the shepherd Pierre might act on the principle of "better to kill by mistake than let a threat slip by" and silence him. So when caution was called for, he still had to be careful. *"Baa! Baa! Baa!"* Seeming to sense Lumian's ill intent, the three sheep backed behind the haystacks, their bleats soft and low. Yet how could they escape a Hunter? Lumian grabbed one of the sheep, patted its flank, and pried its mouth open to check its teeth. "Nothing wrong here either..." he murmured. Seeing the sheep staring back at him, he added with a wicked grin, "In great shape. You'd make a fine pea and mutton stew." He had deliberately said that to test the sheep's intelligence. Since nothing was physically wrong with the target, this was the only angle left to explore. The sheep's gaze went completely blank. Lumian chuckled at once. "Quite spirited, aren't you? Understand what I'm saying?" The sheep's eyes returned to normal. It turned its head away and began munching on hay. "Ignoring me?" Lumian rubbed his chin. "In a bit, I'll go buy you from Pierre Berry and eat you tonight!" The sheep gave no reaction. It clamped onto a clump of hay and tugged hard. The haystack collapsed with a sudden rustle, and with a Hunter's keen eyesight, Lumian spotted something. His expression darkened. He walked over and crouched down for a closer look. It was a few cut fingernail clippings wrapped in strands of black hair. *Why would this be outside the house?* Lumian muttered in astonishment. As a native of Cordu, he was naturally familiar with the funeral customs of the Dariège region. He knew that when someone in a family died, some of the deceased's hair and nails were clipped and secretly hidden somewhere inside the house to avoid disturbing the family's astrological sign and preserve good fortune. Why would such a thing appear in a haystack outside the house? Lumian picked up the clippings wrapped in hair, weighing them in his hand while examining them closely. *Looks very fresh, as if clipped not long ago...* he quickly judged. Yet no one had died in all of Cordu Village recently! Lumian could only suspect this was some form of sorcery resembling the funeral customs, intending to go back and consult his sister. To avoid suspicion, he stuffed the clippings and black hair back into the haystack and restored the disarranged pile to its original state. Having done that, he walked toward the wooden fence. After a few paces, he looked back at the three sheep. With the mindset that trying wouldn't cost him anything, he mused aloud to himself, "Pierre Berry really is acting strange. It's not even May yet, and he's already driven the flock back to the village... "Did he commit a crime out there? "As a good citizen of Intis and a devout believer in God, should I take a trip to Dariège to ask around?" The three sheep merely stared at him, making no move, their eyes unchanged. *Nothing special about their intelligence either...* Lumian sighed inwardly, feeling a pang of disappointment. He then raised both hands, thumbs up and index fingers pointing down, making a gesture of sheer contempt. What was wrong with mocking some sheep when he was in a bad mood? The next second, the sheep Lumian had examined suddenly took a few steps forward, a glimmer of something resembling hope lighting up its eyes. It raised a forehoof and began tracing in the dirt. Lumian froze for a moment, bewildered and baffled. Quickly recovering his wits, he briskly approached the sheep. The sheep seemed to be tracing letters on the ground. Lumian found them somewhat familiar, yet he couldn't read them. Frowning, he deduced: *This script must share origins with the Intis language...* *But I only know the Intis language and a bit of ancient Feysac...* At this moment, Lumian understood Aurore's saying that "knowledge is power" from an entirely different perspective. The sheep soon finished tracing and stepped back two paces, looking at Lumian with eyes full of earnest pleading. The other two sheep underwent similar emotional shifts, bleating in low tones. Staring at the word on the ground, Lumian fell into deep thought. His mind swirled with thoughts like *What does this mean?* and *How should I respond?* Within a second or two, he had an idea. He nodded solemnly to the three sheep. At the same time, he extended his right foot and wiped away the word in the dirt. Even if he couldn't read it, he could at least pretend he did! He would fool the three sheep for now and consult his sister when he got home! Without waiting for a "response" from the three sheep, he nodded slowly with a grave, contemplative expression and walked toward the fence, as if conveying: *Wait here, I'll figure something out.* Leaving the pen, Lumian wasted no time and headed straight home, finding Aurore curled up in an armchair in the study, reading a book. "Sis," he called out impatiently. "Something came up." "Calling me Sis right off the bat..." Aurore's guard went up instantly. "What trouble did you cause this time?" Lumian composed himself and organized his thoughts: "Didn't you tell me the three sheep the shepherd Pierre Berry brought back were strange? "I took advantage of Pierre heading to church to pray and went behind his house to check on them. Guess what I found?" Aurore's expression turned grave at once: "If you're going to do something like that, tell me in advance. Doing it like this is dangerous, and there's no one to back you up." *If I told you in advance, you probably wouldn't have let me go...* While touched by his sister's concern, Lumian grumbled inwardly. "I'll remember next time," he promised earnestly. He had said words to that effect several dozen times already. Aurore knew how to distinguish urgent intelligence from matters that could wait, and nodded to signal that Lumian could share what he had found. Lumian quickly gave a complete account of his experience in the sheep pen. Aurore's expression grew heavier with every word. "Write down that word from memory." She rose from the armchair, fetched paper and a pen, and handed them to Lumian. Having made a deliberate effort to memorize it, Lumian scribbled the word down, recreating it stroke for stroke. Aurore took only a single glance before saying grimly, "This is a major problem." *I know...* Lumian responded inwardly. Moreover, he believed the problem was even bigger than his sister imagined. "What is it?" he asked. Aurore pointed at the word. "This is Highland language, the official language of the Kingdom of Feynapotter. Like the Intis language, it originated from ancient Feysac. "It means..." Aurore paused, then said in a deep voice, "'Help!'" "Help?" Lumian blurted out in astonishment. "Those three sheep are asking us for help?" Aurore let out an "Mm." "I suspect they aren't sheep. "They were originally human!" "Human?" Lumian repeated in shock. This went far beyond his scope of knowledge. Earlier, he had merely felt the three sheep possessed high intelligence, human-like emotions, and some command of human language, but he had never equated them with actual humans. To him, humans turning into sheep existed only in fanciful stories! Yet as soon as the words left his mouth, Lumian's shock faded. Even a time loop had occurred; what was so strange about people turning into sheep? In the world of mysticism, the bizarre and the absurd were never in short supply. Facing her brother's bewilderment, Aurore nodded solemnly. "I'm not sure if there's a secret technique that can turn people into sheep, but all the details point to that possibility." "Indeed," Lumian agreed. The more he thought about it, the more he felt those three sheep had to be human. Was the shepherd Pierre Berry actually herding humans? Lumian then asked, "Why would those nails and hair be hidden outside the house?" Aurore pursed her lips. "That's one of the funeral customs of the Dariège region, though under normal circumstances it's rarely used, and many people have forgotten it. "As a sorcerer, I've researched these matters to see if I could gain some useful knowledge." She explained, "When a family member commits suicide, is murdered by a relative, or lived a thoroughly wicked life that brought disgrace upon the entire family, the hair and nails clipped after death must be hidden outside the house to avoid affecting the household's astrological sign and bringing bad luck." *Suicide, or murdered by a relative?* Lumian suddenly remembered something. In the previous loop, Pons Bénet had violated funeral customs and entered Naroka's house. Could he have gone there to take away Naroka's hair and nails?