What on earth is going on?!
What on earth is going on?!
In the conference room, Hamlet was hiding behind the bookshelf, on the brink of making a sound.
Shouldn't she wake up at this time? Just like earlier!
Hamlet tightly clutched the piece of paper in his hand. The time when Turing would awaken, calculated by him, seemed to have become mocking eyes that ridiculed his incompetence.
Even if my calculations were incorrect, they should at least be close. This is the time calculated based on the interval of Turing's awakening during the last memory reading and the ratio of scratches on the CD!
She still shows no signs of waking up... Should I just rush out?
But if she suddenly wakes up when I rush out, my best outcome would probably be a dead body.
Hamlet swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and the dagger in his hand couldn't stop trembling.
His complexion was waxen and his appearance withered. At this moment, Hamlet, with dark circles under his eyes, seemed to be plagued by some kind of illness. His lips were cracked, his gaze vacant, as if he would collapse in the next second.
Long nights, fasting, drug abuse, and the nightmarish loneliness had almost taken his life.
Rather than saying that the current Hamlet was supported by a backbone, it was more accurate to say that he was forcibly lifted up by a ragged puppet frame.
But when he thought of the orphanage on the brink of collapse, of Othello's miserable death in the river, Hamlet felt a deep, tranquil comfort, as if he had taken drugs.
This made him grip the trembling dagger again.
Is this Merka's trick? He must have seen something when he came to see me that time.
But no matter what, you can't scare me. I'm not afraid of death.
"What...?" Just as Hamlet was about to step out of the shadows, he saw Turing getting up from her seat and running towards the door.
This almost made him cry out in surprise.
How is it possible? The time is still far from due, right!?
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【There is no memory of Merka here...】
"Ha...hiss..."
【Could this be Maria Bishop's memory?】
【But why, why is it here?】
"Tsk... tsk... tsk!" Turing controlled her thoughts and woke up from her dream.
The unsettling and absurd reality seemed to trap Turing like a dream. The uncertain mood made her uncontrollably click her tongue repeatedly.
"I have to run... run fast. If my mom finds out about this, she will... she will..." Turing rushed out of the conference room like a bird.
Outside the building, it was undoubtedly late at night.
The pitch-dark moonlit night was as beautiful as an oil painting. The moonlight on the deep stone floor seemed to be completely absorbed, leaving no trace.
The midnight hour presented its beauty to the world, though somber, it didn't appear gloomy.
"How will she... treat me?" Turing murmured under the moonlight.
Turing carefully recalled her past. Although it seemed to be filled with reverence and dependence on her mother, in reality, her mother had never punished her.
There were only terrifying impressions in Turing's mind, but no corresponding memories to support them. Turing's emotions seemed like unfounded castles in the air.
"Calm down, Turing. Mother is not here, and she is not a mind reader. Even if something like this happened, there is no need to panic so much," Turing thought to himself.
Looking at the beautiful surroundings, Turing counted the religious buildings with layered, intersecting ribs and pointed roofs, all coated with blue gel. A strong, spontaneous poetic feeling surged in Turing's heart, diluting the frustration of not gaining anything tonight. Turing's heart trembled slightly. A hint of exhilaration, wanting to dance, sprouted in Turing's heart.
"Death!!!" Suddenly, a terrifying pair of fangs, shimmering with deadly poison, pressed against Turing's face. Turing's hand firmly grasped this lethal dagger. Turing raised his eyes slightly to look at the direction it came from. There stood a bent, completely unfamiliar man.
"I wondered why I always felt like someone was following me whenever I came here." Turing's countless battles not only honed his excellent counter techniques but also equipped him with the ability to deal with assassins.
At first sight of the stranger's face, Turing immediately lost interest. With so many enemies of the Altria family, it was meaningless to inquire about each one.
"Your toy is quite interesting..." Turing looked at the two terrified eyeballs embedded in the handle of the knife, and said absentmindedly—it was obviously a pair of prosthetic eyes, which reminded Turing of Merka.
Turing exerted slight pressure with his thumb, and the blade of the dagger shattered like sand.
"You...demon!" Hamlet gripped the handle of the dagger, and a spear with a fuse suddenly appeared, fiercely stabbing at Turing.
"Spear of Crimson Slaughter!" The seemingly powerful spear made a sound of steel collision when it pierced Turing's body.
Hamlet was completely stunned.
"The cursed child actually calls others demons..." Turing immediately thought of the curse he and Merka had shouted, so he clicked his tongue and considered himself unlucky.
"Be a better person in the next life." Turing casually extended his magician's hand and slowly reached out towards Hamlet.
However, a verdant figure suddenly appeared and stood in front of Turing.
"Don't! Sister! If you kill him, there will be no turning back!" This person was Elizabeth.
"You...good timing. Aren't you afraid that I will kill both of you together?" Turing saw the person blocking them clearly, and his expression gradually turned cold.
"You've been coming to sleep with me every night recently, just to see when I would go to the library, right? Just to appear in this place where you shouldn't be, so that I would kill one more person?" Elizabeth's chest heaved violently. Obviously, she couldn't match Turing's speed, so she arrived late.
"It's not like that, it shouldn't be like this, sister..."
"If you kill him now, all the efforts sister has made for so long will be in vain!" Elizabeth called out with a sorrowful expression.
"Right, Hamlet, won't you say something? You are the Hamlet in Merka's memory, aren't you?"
Turing listened to Elizabeth's words and looked at the stranger in front of him, who was extremely thin and unrecognizable even by his own mother.
Hamlet remained silent as if dead.
"If Merka finds out that Hamlet died because of Turing's sister, Turing's sister will never be able to go back to the way things were with Merka."
"I know that my sister's kindness towards me is fake...but even fake things have some value, right?"
"Whether it's fake or real, the traces of sincere feelings and the happy memories we experienced together will never disappear!"
"I treasure those words that are like treasures more than my own life! Even if they are false, what does it matter?"
It seemed as if a bolt from the blue struck Turing, as the painful memories of suffering because of Turing's false gender rushed into Turing's mind like a movie.
Elizabeth's words were like Midas' touch, gentle and soothing, casting a golden glow on Turing's seemingly meaningless and dull memories of life.
"All this, all these sufferings actually happened because of misunderstandings between us..." Elizabeth saw that Turing seemed to have calmed down and quickly handed a heavy package she had been holding to Hamlet.
"My sister's memories also include the orphanage, so I know about your past too..." Elizabeth said gently to Hamlet.
Hamlet numbly took the heavy package and looked at Elizabeth in confusion.
"After reading my sister's memories, I have been thinking a lot and it seems that your intentions are probably not pure..." Hamlet listened while opening the package, and inside the package were astonishing amounts of red powder and gold coins. "I'm sorry, I talked with you so much before and only now do I realize this."
"My uncle is involved in the red powder business. He clearly makes money from the cursed child, yet he always looks down on the cursed child."
"I think that's wrong."
"So I asked him for this red powder, hoping it could be a small compensation for you."
"Although giving you red powder is just a temporary solution...but at least... it's a stopgap measure, giving us more time, who knows when life will get better?"
"Hamlet? Hamlet?" Elizabeth looked at the motionless Hamlet, thinking that he didn't accept her offering and quickly called out to him a few more times.
"Uh, cough, ugh...cough."
"Thank you, thank you. Ugh..." A faint, soft sobbing sound came out of the suppressed air. The cursed child held tightly onto this noble girl, who was as precious as a celestial being.
All the pain and bitterness caused by their identities melted away in this tender embrace.
Turing looked at the embracing pair, feeling a tinge of sadness in his nose, but ultimately, he didn't cry.
"What a mess this is..." Turing clenched his fist and gently rubbed his eyes.
【Sigh... I wouldn't have done this before.】
【I'll let you off this time.】 Turing originally intended to turn around and leave, giving the two some space to talk, but suddenly had a flash of inspiration and thought of something.
【That's right!】
Originally, the Altria family had no intention of learning any detection magic, let alone practicing it to the point where it could be used like eyes.
But in Turing's memory, he had already stood in Merka's shoes and received Joan's teaching of detection magic more than a dozen times.
【Merka is clever, how could he possibly not notice the danger I'm in?】
【If he still likes me, maybe...】
【Maybe he's secretly watching me nearby!】
In an instant, a powerful surge of magical energy spread out from Turing like an exploding missile, turning the monastery, and even every detail of the city of Lachésis, into data flooding Turing's mind like the sea.
But Turing felt that he could effortlessly handle them.
"I found it! Right there!" Turing looked at a tall phoenix tree next to him, his eyes fixed on the foliage like a torch.
The figure sitting in the tree was startled for a moment, cleared his throat, and lightly jumped down from the tree, standing opposite Turing across Elizabeth and Hamlet.
"Xixi, we meet again." Merka smiled helplessly, his expression seeming like a scolding, yet also teasing, "You've grown a lot again, you're really amazing."
"M...Merka..." Turing held back his tears, tightly controlling his expression.
"Merka!" Turing's voice filled the air with yearning, guilt, sincerity, and love.
However, the next moment turned into fear.
"Is he really Merka?" A voice, hoarse and deep, squatting and towering, a towering orange monster with explosive muscle-like armor all over, suddenly appeared behind Turing.
It lightly placed a hand on Turing's shoulder, descending like a divine revelation.