*Skreeeech—*
A ghastly pale palm scraped across the hood, leaving dried blood and claw marks. A vengeful specter slowly crawled up from beneath the car. Its translucent body was fractured in numerous places, and its terrifying countenance was enough to make crying children shut up in fear.
The malevolent spirit had no head; its ashen neck cavity oozed blood. The only reason a child wouldn't cry was that they'd faint on the spot.
In an instant, Wayne's face went paler than the ghost's. "D-damn it! This car was in an accident—the victim's come back for revenge!"
"G-g-g-ghost..."
Wayne saw the floater, and William in the passenger seat naturally saw it too. He pointed frantically forward, trying to summon a warm, radiant light to drive the entity away.
He didn't get the chance.
Veronica pressed a hand down onto William's shoulder, cutting off his casting. "It's not a victim. It's a trap set by the Death Walker. Using magic will alert him, which won't do our capture operation any favors."
Veronica didn't want William alerting the enemy. She had suffered enough from the curse, and on this trip, she was determined to catch the Death Walker no matter what. As for the hideous specter, it had no attack power and could only scare people; once the car drove out of the spell's range, it would leave.
So buck up; nothing was going to happen.
William looked utterly nauseated. He knew Veronica was completely right, but...
"Easy for you to say! Why don't you open your eyes first?!"
"..."
Veronica said nothing and turned to look out the window. *Clap.* Another ghostly hand slapped against the glass, startling her so badly her face went stark white and she shivered instantly.
Recovering her wits, Veronica squinted through a tiny slit between her eyelids to steal another peek.
Scared, but still wanting to look.
"They can't touch us. Just pretend they don't exist and slow down a bit. Besides, ghosts are transparent—it won't affect the driving," Monica said, her eyes squeezed firmly shut.
"You open your eyes too!" William barked back. Seeing the pretty girl and the cat clinging tightly to each other in the back seat, he wished he could join them right then and there.
Unfortunately, he couldn't; he was in the front, and the only person he could hug was Wayne.
Glancing sideways, he saw Wayne slowing the car down—driving with his eyes closed.
"Damn it, you're driving!"
William hadn't been scared to death by the ghosts, but he was nearly terrified to death by Wayne. He quickly rolled up his window and roared at Wayne to look straight ahead and drive safely.
William had spent two full years trying to get his driver's license. As a road hazard with exceptional self-awareness, he strictly forbade himself from touching the steering wheel. At the same time, he understood a profound truth: whether a car crashes or hits someone depends entirely on whether the driver obeys traffic rules.
For example, if a pedestrian followed traffic rules and sat on a sofa at home watching TV, separated from the road by a small garden, William was confident he could still steer the car and send them flying.
Because he had too much self-awareness, William feared a car crash far more than ghosts. Seeing Wayne driving with his eyes closed scared him so much his voice turned shrill: "Veronica, why don't we just kill them? I'm terrified."
"And here you are, a believer of the Goddess of the Sun, actually afraid of ghosts."
"So what?! Is there a rule saying believers of the Goddess of the Sun can't be afraid of ghosts?!" William was nearly in tears. "Besides, I'm not afraid of ghosts! I'm afraid of Wayne! He's not watching the road—he's driving with his eyes shut!"
"..." x2
In the back seat, Veronica and Monica finally realized the gravity of the situation and began shouting at him furiously.
From a distance, the blue sedan, crawling with translucent ghosts, wobbled violently.
...
Moments later, the blue sedan was driving normally again. True to Veronica's words, once they drove out of a certain range, the specters departed on their own.
In the driver's seat, Wayne requested to switch drivers, but he was voted down. Every single person in the car was afraid of ghosts, and not one of them was willing to open the door and step outside.
William was the quickest to shake off his fear. Seeing that Wayne was still unnerved, he couldn't help warning him, "Wayne, who knew you'd be afraid of ghosts? Trust me, you'll run into situations like this plenty of times in the future. Get used to it soon—don't go embarrassing us mages."
*You guys already threw away every shred of a mage's dignity!*
Wayne scoffed and defended himself, "I'm a traditionalist. Ghosts and stuff—that's a version way ahead of my time. I can't accept it."
"Give it a rest, you're just plain terrified of ghosts." William's mischievous streak kicked in, and he chuckled. "How about this: I'll tell you a few romance stories about ghosts to help you overcome your fear."
"Are they decent? If they're decent, forget it."
Wayne shot William a glance, knowing the guy wanted to scare him. Keeping a deadpan face, he said, "Speaking of horror stories, I've got a terrifying one myself. Growing up, I've relied on this exact story to scare myself for the first half of my life."
"Let's hear it." William swallowed softly.
In the back, Veronica pricked up her ears. Scared, but eager to listen.
"It was a dead-silent night with no moonlight. A child said to his mother, 'Mommy, there's a kid under the bed...'" Wayne narrated with dramatic cadence. "The mother looked under the bed, and sure enough, there was a child under there—looking exactly like the one on the bed. That child said... 'Mommy, there's a kid on the bed!'"
"And then?" William's expression shifted, and he pressed himself trembling against the window. In the back seat, Veronica held her breath and squeezed the black cat Monica tightly.
The kitty felt suffocated.
"And then..." Wayne slowed the car down, first giving William a meaningful look, then saying in a deep voice, "The mother gave the twin brothers a sound beating."
"..." x3
Wayne's twist-ending horror joke wasn't anything novel, but in this era, it was innovative enough. It completely ruined the eerie atmosphere, making the subsequent little stories William told fall totally flat.
Not scary in the slightest.
———
The blue sedan crossed a stone bridge and drove along a slightly bumpy road as pattering raindrops tapped against the windows.
Wayne switched on the windshield wipers and caught sight of the faint silhouette of a town through the blur.
Under the somber sky, scattered lights were diffused into a hazy glow. The rain failed to wash away the fog, but it washed away all clamor. Aside from an occasional dog bark, the entire town was remarkably quiet.
Wayne turned onto the town's main street. Most of the storefronts on either side were shuttered; only the pubs and inns were open for business.
At the end of the street stood a fenced church. The cross on its roof stood firm against the wind and rain, representing the orthodox faith of the Town of Kafuno—and the entire God-favored Continent.
The Creator!
Faith in the Creator had a long history, far more enduring than those weird and varied goddesses. Wayne found it strange that these faiths could coexist at all instead of erupting into bloody religious wars.
As the orthodox faith that gave the God-favored Continent its name, the Holy See worshipped the Heavenly Father who created all things, firmly clutching supreme worldly power in God's name. Believers of other deities would be branded heretics, and pretty girls like Veronica would become witches, going through the classic trilogy: prison, basement, and barbecue stake.
That was how Wayne imagined the God-favored Continent should be. The current chaotic landscape of competing faiths defied logic; it made no sense.
There was magic on the God-favored Continent, and gods truly existed, which meant the Creator, the Heavenly Father, was definitely a real deity.
Once you're the Creator, supreme supremacy comes naturally. What rank were these minor gods to sit at the same table, eat from the same pot, and snatch faith from His bowl?
Yet if the Creator didn't exist and was merely a fabricated virtual idol, on what grounds could He defeat other deities to become the orthodox faith? How could the church ride roughshod over royal families across various nations?
It was contradictory. Wayne didn't quite get it and pondered the possibility that the goddesses paid a "bedroom tax" to the Creator, the Heavenly Father. On second thought, probably not. If sleeping with Him was all it took for the Creator to turn a blind eye, the male gods who evaded the "tax" would have gone extinct long ago. Unless the Creator was an all-loving god in whose eyes men and women were completely equal.
*Rumble—!*
A sudden crack of thunder boomed, and torrential rain poured down, cutting off Wayne's shameless reasoning. He pushed open the car door and unfurled an umbrella.
"Ahem!"
Veronica cleared her throat in the back seat. Stepping into the role of driver, Wayne opened the rear door and held the umbrella for her.
Veronica played her natural role as the wealthy young lady, walking toward the inn with the black cat in her arms. She didn't say a single word throughout, leaving all interactions with outsiders to Wayne.
At the front desk of the inn, Wayne shook off the umbrella and swiftly took in the first-floor layout. On a bench to the right, he spotted two simply dressed young women.
Their makeup was heavy, their necklines plunged low, and their cleavage was pale.
Under Veronica's slightly disdainful gaze, Wayne smoothly shot them a look, reaching a silent understanding with one of the young women—and then with the other as well.
He wanted both!
Wayne asked for three rooms. Facing the innkeeper's overly familiar inquiries, he gave a brief account of their plight.
Passing through, night fell, raining, needed to rest...
He spoke very politely, but the exhaustion bleeding through his words made it awkward for the chatty innkeeper to keep probing. The man led the group upstairs and sent up dinner.
After the innkeeper left, the two young women knocked on Wayne's door. Upon entering, they saw an eager William, as well as Veronica sitting by the bed holding the black cat.
"Mister, this sort of arrangement costs extra."
"Don't worry, the price will satisfy you," Wayne nodded, indicating everything was open for discussion.
Cut to the next scene: the two young women leaned against each other, completely limp as if their souls had been drained. Drool dribbled from the corners of their mouths, their eyes dull and unable to focus.
Evidently, they had been fed mushrooms.
Veronica's method of extracting information remained simple and crude. She was decisive, disliked wasting time, and got straight to the point, demanding the whereabouts of Bloody Mike.
The Town of Kafuno wasn't large. Due to the impact of industrialization, a large portion of the young and able-bodied workforce had flooded into the cities early on, causing the town's population to dwindle year after year. Gathering information on Bloody Mike's trail wasn't difficult.
Veronica knew the Death Walker's full name, Mike Nelson, and also knew that he was planning to get married soon. In a town with a declining population, this was undoubtedly a lively and major event, so she was confident she could uncover his home address.
Logically, that should have worked. As it turned out, Bloody Mike was full of moral integrity and hadn't invited the town's working girls to host a bachelor party. Veronica's plan fell through once again, yielding nothing.
Cut again: now the innkeeper was dazed and drooling foolishly. He, however, proved to be well-informed and knew where Mike Nelson lived.
"Drive west... through Oakwood Road... That's the Nelson family manor."
"A manor?!"
Veronica frowned. "What kind of manor? Is his family rich?"
"They used to be extraordinarily wealthy. The Town of Kafuno was named by an ancestor of the Nelson family. Back then, all the land in the town belonged to the Nelsons. Until one night..."
"Everyone went mad!"
Chapter 11