Eldritch Horror Theatre

"Oh? So Mister Dickens had food poisoning back then?"

Bombshells dropped one after another. Rather than feeling overwhelmed, Fu Qian let his thoughts run wild.

The doctor had traveled all this way just to attend a gluttonous feast?

If one ignored the ingredients, it was an understandable action.

"So your father was also a member of that organization?"

While empathizing, Fu Qian didn't forget to play along, nodding slightly as he asked.

"It seems so, and he was introduced by that patient of his."

Kadon smiled coldly, responding exactly as expected.

It made sense. Mister Dickens naturally wouldn't tell his own son about such things, but when the dead guy tried to recruit Kadon, he might well have brought it up.

But there were still things that didn't make sense. For instance, if there was clearly food a child shouldn't eat, why risk getting discovered by bringing him along?

"It was nothing, really. My mother had passed away around then, and he had nowhere to leave me... Of course, even after bringing me here, he repeatedly warned me not to come out of my room at night."

Judging from Kadon's description, it was just the ordinary helplessness of life.

"But you came out anyway."

Fu Qian gestured toward the window over there.

The old man had just said that he had actually been in the car back then, watching his father's strange movements from this exact angle.

"So why do you think I came out?"

Kadon didn't deny it, but he left the answer hanging in suspense.

"After an internal struggle, you decided to go to Lucy's house anyway?"

This kind of question posed no difficulty at all. A hormone-soaked mind was far too easy to read, not to mention Kadon himself had admitted to being highly interested in Lucy's invitation.

...

"Heh..."

Amid the soft chuckle, one could almost feel the old man's nostalgia for his youth.

"After dinner, my father told me to go sleep in my room. I didn't want to upset him, so I hesitated for a long time, but I also couldn't fall asleep."

It had to be said that he captured a young man's mindset perfectly. Under those circumstances, falling asleep would indeed be difficult.

"Until I heard the sound of the car and knew he was back... Then I waited a little longer. Once he was mostly settled in bed, I finally slipped out of my room."

The old man pointed. Sure enough, the room he had slept in back then was the exact same one he had been lying in just now.

"And then you discovered Mister Dickens's little secret... But honestly, the curtains wouldn't have been drawn wide open back then like they are now, right? How did you notice the anomaly?"

"It sounds like up until that point, you still hadn't gained this Transcendent Tier constitution."

Fu Qian's gaze fell on Kadon's chest as he directly voiced his doubt about this minor detail.

He could see that blood was no longer seeping from the wound. But back when Kadon mustered the courage to sneak out, he shouldn't have had such an ability yet.

Transcendent power had a massive impact on the human mind. Judging from his earlier description, Fu Qian didn't doubt Kadon's respect for his father, Mister Dickens.

But if he had already possessed that power back then, he most likely wouldn't have agonized late into the night over something like that.

And if he hadn't yet reached the Transcendent Tier, how did he discover that Mister Dickens had "food poisoning"?

"You're right. Not only were the curtains in my father's room pulled tight, but the door was also locked from the inside. It was impossible to see anything—until I walked to this exact spot."

As it turned out, Kadon immediately agreed with Fu Qian's overly detailed scrutiny. Pointing at the ground beneath his feet, he introduced a peculiar twist.

Was it really that miraculous?

Fu Qian's eyes measured the few dozen steps from the motel lobby to the parking space.

Kadon's meaning couldn't be clearer. Everything he said before was true; he had indeed just sneaked out quietly at first.

In the end, at some point after stepping outside, serendipity struck him. Experiencing a sudden epiphany on the spot, he effortlessly sensed the anomaly in his father's room.

...

"It was a very special feeling. So much so that at first, I didn't even realize it was real... But I soon became intoxicated by it, experiencing an unprecedented version of myself and seeing through the surface of everything around me."

Before Fu Qian could actually voice his amazement, old man Kadon continued his story.

It was obvious that this part of the past wasn't exactly sensitive information regarding his plans.

"To the point that you ended up sitting in the car, losing all interest in your date?"

As a fellow epiphany-oriented individual, Fu Qian could naturally relate. Lucy's long, lonely vigil suddenly made perfect sense.

Plenty of guys lost all interest in women just from hitting the gym; the thrill of Sublimation was on an entirely different dimension.

"No, I didn't lose interest... You still don't understand that wondrous feeling.

"What I told Lucy earlier was true. Right up to the end, I fully intended to go see her, and I certainly had the ability to do so. I just didn't."

Surprisingly, Kadon denied the idea that he had lost interest.

Yet, thinking deeper about it revealed a far more chilling perversion.

"But I won't tell you the reason... In short, I didn't go to Lucy's that night. I stayed right here, watching my father and soaking in that exquisite irony."

Kadon's current state was equally twisted. On one hand, he was intoxicated by the memory; on the other, he was casually opening the car door.

"I didn't even go in to help him end that state of self-deception. Instead, I offered a little reverse stimulation and took the opportunity to confirm a few questions.

"Then I learned about that Warehouse we just went to, and upon arriving, I met that guy who was trapped in self-deception just like him."

...

"And then you were invited to join, but you looked down on their boring game and casually finished him off."

Thanks to Kadon's generous sharing, Fu Qian felt the events of that year had finally become crystal clear.

Considering the other party was obviously in a hurry, he directly helped him lay out the rest of the plot.

It was clear that the old man held the organizational philosophy of those Unrighteous Ones in utter contempt.

Cannibalizing organization members sounded like some sort of evil ritual no matter how you spun it, inevitably pointing toward a pursuit of the Transcendent Tier.

And although Kadon was unwilling to show off his abilities, one could still faintly draw a certain conclusion from his remarks about his father and the Unrighteous One.

Namely, that whatever those people were chasing through that ritual seemed similar to the changes that had happened to him.

The so-called "exquisite irony."

"To sum it up, I also think you guessed correctly. The economic depression around here is probably tied to them... Not for revenge, but because they discovered someone actually succeeded, proving the ritual really worked."

As he spoke, Kadon stepped out of the car. In that moment, he even spread his arms, genuinely attributing the surrounding failing businesses to himself.

"But they didn't know exactly how it worked, so they resorted to all sorts of self-deception in their experiments, which sparked bizarre incidents that ruined business around here—are you coming?"

The reminiscence came to an abrupt halt as Kadon watched Fu Qian step down from the driver's seat.

"Together."

Fu Qian nodded and made an inviting gesture.

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