Whispering Verse

Mr. Dellal's story is not new, and may even seem a bit cliché to "well-informed" outsiders.

This story, involving the ocean, strange statues, greedy hearts, and curses, would probably be a good fit for Miss Louisa to write about.

The cause of the incident dates back to a year ago, in the spring of 1852 in the Universal Calendar.

As a cargo dispatcher in the dock area, Mr. Dellal checked the confiscated contraband as usual and responsibly took the valuable small items to his home for safekeeping. This can be regarded as the unwritten source of income for this position. Anyway, it will be fine if it is not discovered.

In a pile of messy boxes, Mr. Dellal found a batch of small stone statues. It's about the thickness of an adult man's arm and as long as his forearm. The image of the statue is a mermaid with its head raised.

"Mermaid" refers to a creature with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish. It often appears in fairy tales in this world. This is not the same thing as the ugly "murloc" that Shade had seen before, only its feet were human.

"So, you took those statues away?"

After listening to what the other party said, Xia De asked hesitantly, which reminded him of many scenes from horror novels. Horror novels were just emerging in this era, and color-coded court novels, chivalric novels, and detective novels that had emerged in recent decades were the mainstream.

"Yes, take it away... I have worked here for twenty years, and I never thought that the stories I heard from the old sailors would happen to me."

Mr. Delal huddled in the corner and said dejectedly, not caring that the blood on the ground got on him.

As a dispatcher, although he has the right to deal with those inconspicuous illegal items, if the goods want to be sold, it will definitely not be possible by him alone.

Mr. Dellal has a number of reliable associates who play various roles throughout the transaction process. Take Mr. Flamel, the crew member, for example. Shade thought he was just an ordinary crew member, but he actually held the position of first mate. In Mr. Dellal's stolen goods sale, Le Maire was responsible for bringing some sensitive items to the New World for sale.

After discovering the mermaid statues a year ago, Mr. Delal fell in love with them at first sight, so he gave them to his companions as works of art at a party.

In the year since then, everyone who has obtained a mermaid statue will dream about a ruined palace in the deep sea, deep sea reliefs that completely surpass human aesthetics, and a huge rotting mermaid corpse floating inside the palace.

The dream ends with "the vision keeps getting closer to the terrifying huge corpse, and then the corpse as big as a mountain opens its eyes." In the repeated dream, many people are directly driven crazy. After realizing that something was wrong, even if he threw away those mermaid statues, he could not get rid of the trouble of the dream.

It was just a dream at first. Starting three months ago, people troubled by dreams began to die in very strange ways one after another.

Mr. Le Maire was one of them. Although the ship he was on said that he unfortunately fell into the ocean during a storm, in fact that was the captain's explanation to reduce panic. Le Maire died of his own madness. . Within three days, he suddenly changed from a sane first mate to a madman muttering crazy words, and finally chose to commit suicide by jumping into the sea.

And now, only Jason Dral is still alive.

His face twitched as he told his story, and when he looked up at Shade, there were bloodshot eyes.

"Wait, why don't you go to the Zhengshen Church?"

Shade promptly raised his confusion.

"Looking for the church will definitely involve us in the deeds we did. You thought we just stole the goods and sold them, no, we did more than you thought. You don't need to look at the Delarian Grand Constitution, I also I know that this is definitely a capital crime. If I go to the church, I will definitely die, and even if I don’t die, I will definitely not be able to save my property. If I don’t go to the church, I will have a chance to solve it myself. Oh, isn’t this an easy choice to make?”

The middle-aged man who had the revolver pressed against his head asked with his eyes widened, and an abnormal blush appeared on his face.

Shade thought for a while and actually thought that what the crazy guy in front of him said was not unreasonable. But the primitive fear of the unknown did not defeat the greed for gold pounds. Shade didn't know whether greed was really so terrible, or whether those mermaids were influencing them.

In short, after the companions died one after another, the living people tried their best to find a way, and then died mysteriously.

Mr. Delal, who lived to the end, obtained a book that was said to be very useful through private channels, and then performed a ritual according to the contents of the book to expel the curse from himself. It's just that the arranged ceremony did not attract the "great omniscient and omnipotent being" mentioned in the book. Instead, it attracted foreigners living in Tobesk.

"In other words, although this matter is related to the inheritance itself, it actually has nothing to do with my client, Mrs. Le Maire. She can accept the inheritance."

Shade summed it up in his mind, and then pointed to the floor:

"The next question is, where does this blood come from? Don't say it's the hospital. I don't believe this answer."

"Sir, how much do you want to help me..."

"Where did you get all this blood? And what are those meat balls?"

"The homeless people in this city can..."

Bang~

The smoke from the gun muzzle floated upwards, and the body suddenly fell backwards, soaked in the blood on the ground.

The lunatic dispatcher in Cold Water Port has nothing to do with Tobesk's detective, especially if he is sure that he will not affect his client. After confirming that the other party is a bad guy, beat him to death and leave, so as not to cause trouble.

But when Shade looked at the corpse, he suddenly realized that, strictly speaking, this was the second person he had killed in this world. The first Mrs. Lasoya was killed from a very far distance, but this one died right in front of her eyes, so she still felt a few seconds of psychological discomfort.

Greed and desire caused this tragedy, and Shade hopes that this incident can remind himself that excessive greed is never a good thing.

Sighing, he took out another wooden pipe from his pocket, sprinkled the bone powder inside on the corpse in front of him, and used the thaumaturgy [Soul Echo].

A cold wind blew in the closed room, and the firelight of the six candles on the ground dimmed a little, and the warm yellow flame turned into a faint blue.

Gray light emerged from the corpse. The light lasted for a few seconds and then converged together. The shadow of Jason Dral appeared above the corpse. The expression is numb, the eyes are lifeless, this is the shadow of the soul.

Although it is derived from the [Echo] Spirit Rune, this thaumaturgy is actually a standard necromantic ability.