New Gods of North America
monastery
From ancient times to the present,
"Tracking fugitives" has never really been a good job.
But if they escaped from the Church's clutches, then it gets a bit more interesting.
At the very least, the target will definitely be a "Beyonder," the kind that drops Beyonder materials.
Wayne didn't have any malicious intentions; he was mostly just curious about what Beyonder materials from the Holy Domain looked like.
Armed with the handwritten note from David Mills, Wayne arrived at a monastery outside Georgeburg, finally getting the chance to see this era's "Beyonder Containment Center."
But how should he put it? Perhaps because Wayne wasn't a prisoner, it didn't feel like a "prison" at all, but more like a "closed estate" with slightly higher walls and slightly more monks.
At first glance, it seemed to prioritize "guarding against gentlemen, not preventing petty thieves."
For secular believers—which was basically Wayne himself—monasteries, in their stereotypical image, should be places where monks concentrated on ascetic practices or learning.
Besides that, perhaps some of their specialty products were quite good.
Many monasteries had their own businesses.
Some were more like landlords, mainly "lending out resources," such as leasing land to surrounding free farmers to cultivate grains, tobacco, or engage in wool trade.
Others were more like light industrial workshops, mainly engaged in some "labor-intensive production," such as many monasteries brewing their own beer, cheese, or wine.
Some of these monasteries' specialties were quite famous, the kind that ordinary people had "heard of" but "couldn't buy."
The plantations around Georgeburg mainly produced tobacco and grains, and the monastery Wayne visited was particularly good at brewing beer.
High walls and deep courtyards, people everywhere.
In theory, of course, the ascetic monks would be doing the labor.
But in reality, the escaped Roy Stampler was a cog in the ancient brewing production line when he was imprisoned here.
A middle-aged monk led Wayne and Ineisha to a place that looked like a "fermentation workshop."
This should be a "semi-underground" building, with barred ventilation windows opened near the top of the interior ceiling; one of the windows had been damaged.
The metal bars with mysterious patterns seemed to have been cut with a small saw or file; Wayne touched it slightly, and it was cold but "burned his hand".
"Roy Stampler should have escaped from here; laborers inside the 'workshop' don't need to wear shackles, so he took advantage of the loophole."
He described the scene to Wayne and Ineisha, "The monk originally responsible for supervision was found unconscious, but it is not yet clear where Roy Stampler got the tools from."
This "fermentation workshop" should have some kind of special magic circle; Wayne felt uncomfortable inside.
Ineisha observed the area, compared several special oil lamps installed under the ventilation windows but still located "high up," and examined the cut surfaces of the metal bars.
She roughly estimated the time range and circumstances of the escape:
"Someone tampered with the wicks; the set of lamps closest to the ventilation window should have gone out early last night. The metal bars were not broken all at once; one end should have been ground down to only a little bit left, and then it was pushed, pulled, and broken."
Walking out of the "fermentation workshop" and finding the location of the damaged ventilation window outside,
"If you reach the ventilation window from the inside, it's too high off the ground, it doesn't seem like you'd have the chance to slowly grind it down under normal circumstances. Grinding it from the outside would be low, but it doesn't look like this area belongs to the prisoners' normal activity area, right?"
Wayne looked at the middle-aged monk and asked this.
The middle-aged monk didn't know how to refute the evidence that had been found, but he also knew that he couldn't admit to this kind of thing randomly, so he stammered a bit.
Continuing to search along the route, they went all the way to the stone high wall on the outermost edge of the monastery.
There were gaps in the stone wall, and in theory, it was climbable, but looking at the height, anyone who could climb up probably wouldn't be an "ordinary person"; at least they'd have to be an "amateur rock climbing expert" or something.
Two possibilities:
One is that the monastery's management had loopholes, allowing prisoners to have time to damage the metal bars of the ventilation window and the special oil lamps inside in advance.
The other is that "there's a mole," assisting the prisoner in escaping.
The Church's internal "cleanup" shouldn't be something that "outsiders" like the detective agency should interfere with.
Wayne and Ineisha didn't waste any time on this aspect.
After roughly recording the situation in their notebooks, they bid farewell to the middle-aged monk, drove the carriage around the outside of the monastery's high walls, and continued the pursuit along the road.
Only Wayne and Ineisha had come from the detective agency this time; they didn't need any other third wheels for the time being.
However, accompanying Wayne and Ineisha were also a group of exorcists sent by David Mills.
Interestingly, ever since the local exorcism department and the detective agency had a "get-together" at the arena, the detective agency's partners had a faint sense of being "one level higher" when facing them.
So everyone didn't interfere with each other and could still exchange some information politely.
Strangely, no footprints were found outside the high walls.
Generally speaking, when a normal person climbs over a wall, they should choose to "jump down" the last little distance, usually leaving relatively obvious traces.
However, a little further away from the high walls, Ineisha found suspicious footprints.
So everyone followed the direction of the footprints and started chasing.
The terrain around Georgeburg generally belongs to the "low and gentle" type of coastal plain, but it still inevitably has ups and downs, small hills, small valleys, small woods, etc.
After searching for a distance, the distance between the two groups became farther and farther.
Then Ineisha suddenly turned a corner in a small forest and headed straight in one direction.
Then she quickly found Roy Stampler.
Hmm...
Roy Stampler's Beyonder material looked a bit like slightly fluorescent putty, oozing out from the hole in the center of his forehead.
He leaned against a tree trunk, sitting slumped under the shade of a large tree, his head tilted to one side in mid-air, still holding a handgun in his right hand.
Some of the exuded Beyonder material was still hanging on his head, looking a bit like stalactites in a cave.
The completely dried blood didn't stick to the Beyonder material, but flowed into a puddle on the ground by itself.
Ineisha used a wooden stick to "lift" up those Beyonder materials, felt like she was playing with maltose, and put them into a small bottle again.
Wayne squatted in front of the corpse to observe, and felt that this didn't look like suicide.
Because of the Holy Spirit faith, America actually doesn't advocate suicide, believing that it is a "serious crime" that will prevent believers from ever returning to the Holy Spirit's side—the police in a certain country in modern society will shoot to "save" suicidal people, which is actually logically consistent in terms of doctrine.
But in cases where someone insists on doing so, due to the high gun ownership rate, "shooting oneself" in the American Federation is actually very characteristic.
Most people who know guns will choose to "swallow the muzzle," pointing from the mouth to the top of the head, directly hitting the key point, simple and painless.
Those who are more decent will shoot the temple, which is handy, but it may die very slowly and painfully, and there is also a small chance of being saved, which is a relatively amateur way to play.
Occasionally, there will be "suicides" with gunshot wounds in the back, which is not convenient to elaborate on.
But in any case, "shooting the center of the forehead" is not very scientific.
Friends who have tried it know that it's actually a bit awkward to pull the trigger like that, there's no need to make things difficult for yourself at this time.
There were no burn marks on the forehead from the muzzle, the fingers didn't look like they had been climbing, and the trajectory on the tree trunk should have been left when he was standing.
Wayne pondered for a moment, if he were to use professional terms to describe it,
This should... be called "silencing"?
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