Embers of Embers

Chapter 266 The Demon Hunters
First there was a brief ringing of the doorbell, and then the door was slowly pushed open. Lorenzo held his breath and prayed that he was not a troublesome guy.
Lorenzo wanted to take a day off and lie down in bed comfortably to waste time. Although wasting time is not a good thing, in a busy life, no matter how strong a person is, he will want to take a break.
The door was slowly pushed open and Joey stepped inside.
"No!"
Lorenzo tightened his grip on the fork and inserted it into the table.
Sure enough, as long as you see these guys who clean up the mechanism, they are definitely up to no good. I don't know why Joey came here, but he definitely can't let himself rest at home.
"Good morning, Lorenzo."
Joey was as usual, maybe because it was dawn, his negative mood at night had improved a lot.
He said hello to Lorenzo, and also motioned to Sigg and Mrs. Van Rude.
Joey has been here many times, and over time he has gradually become familiar with other people, although he is not that familiar yet.
"Tell me, what happened?"
Lorenzo asked with an annoyed look on his face, still fiddling with his fork.
"A conversation."
Joey looked at the others. They had nothing to do with the demon, and Joey could only reveal this for the time being.
Lorenzo thought for a while and sighed helplessly.
"Hold on."
As he spoke, he turned around and went back to his room to change clothes. The resting Lorenzo turned into a busy Lorenzo again, bringing weapons and swords.
However, during this period, Sigg raised his head slightly and looked at Joey who looked indifferent.
Perhaps as Joey said at the time, the two of them are in different worlds. Joey and Higgs get along very well, but it's a pity that Joey is related to demons. He doesn't want to implicate these innocent people, but Higgs obviously doesn't. Be clear about this.
"You...well, we meet again."
Sigg said hesitantly. Sigg didn't have many friends. Maybe he was also troubled by hallucinogens. Sigg always felt that Joey was the same kind as him.
"Ah."
Joey replied a little coldly, it's work time now.
Sigg wanted to continue saying something, but then the clatter of footsteps sounded, and Lorenzo walked down the stairs. He was still wearing the same familiar clothes, but there was a strange hanging chain around his neck.
But before Joey could ask, Lorenzo asked first.
"You two know each other?"
Lorenzo looked at Sig, who was hesitant to speak, and then at Joey.
Of course the two of them knew each other. After all, they were Lorenzo's roommates. Joey had been here many times, and he could always see Joey a few times. But now it was obvious that the two of them were not familiar with each other, but were communicating at a deeper level. .
"I met at the mutual aid meeting."
Higger replied. After hearing this, Joey didn't bother to say anything more. He just confirmed it and urged Lorenzo to leave.
The morning started in such a hurry. Seeing the two people leaving, Shige was stunned for a moment and finished the food on the plate, then packed up and prepared to leave.
"Where are you going?" Mrs. Van Rude asked curiously.
She was used to Lorenzo disappearing all day long, but Sigg had just given up hallucinogens. Although he had been doing well recently, out of a sense of responsibility, Mrs. Vallude was concerned about the child she had grown up with.
"The Mutual Aid Association, Whitechapel is ready to be put into use again, and the new doctor hopes that I can help him more." Sigg said.
……
Sitting in a dark carriage, it was just like before, another monotonous day, accepting tasks, looking for clues, and then drawing a sword to kill the monster.
The tired Lorenzo put his head on the side and looked at the scenery outside the window.
"A fraternity? A hallucinogen fraternity?"
After a long time, Lorenzo asked as if something suddenly occurred to him.
He sat upright and realized the strangeness of the matter. He looked at Joey with an interrogating look in his eyes.
Joey didn't notice Lorenzo's attitude at all, maybe because he didn't care and just answered simply.
"Ah."
"Ok?"
Lorenzo looked at him, and then his eyes were filled with surprise, as if he was about to open his mouth and shout something in the next second. He grabbed Joey's shoulders and shook his body vigorously.
"You? Joey! Hallucinogen Aid Society?"
Lorenzo shouted loudly, as if he couldn't believe it.
"What's wrong?" Joey had a baffled attitude, as if this kind of thing was normal.
"You are a high-ranking knight of the Purification Agency! You are the backbone of the specialization to fight against demons! It turns out that you were also addicted to hallucinogens?"
Lorenzo looked so sad that he almost covered his face and cried.
"You thick eyebrows, how did you betray the revolution?"
"what?"
After several minutes of verbal and forceful persuasion, Joey reluctantly silenced Lorenzo, and the two became what they were before, leaning on the back of the chair and briefly looking at each other.
"That is to say, this kind of thing is very common?" Lorenzo asked.
"Probably, I was actually shaken by the demon thing." Joey explained.
"Lorenzo, we are just mentally specialized. In the final analysis, we are only slightly better than ordinary people in fighting monsters. It is inevitable that we will suffer from some mental illness after long-term contact."
"Black Mountain Hospital?"
Lorenzo said that after being in contact with the purification agency for so long, Lorenzo had a relatively specific impression of this huge organization. Due to the erosion of demons, many front-line knights have a "life span". When their mental stress reaches the limit, they will be furloughed.
Most of them will be treated in Black Mountain Hospital for a period of time, and those who get better will be reassigned to work. As for those who do not get better, their endings will also be varied.
People in the purification agency disliked it. They called the hospital a tomb, and most of the people who entered never came back.
"Yes, I rested there for a long time."
Joey answered slowly, looking back at the past in his eyes.
"I was still a newcomer at the time. I followed my family's will and became a member of the purge agency. At that time, I thought I was just a member of the state's secret agency, fighting against spies from Gallo Nalo and other countries."
Thinking of his naive self at that time, Joey couldn't help but laugh.
"But then they said something about damn monsters. I was unprepared at the time. I was frightened, but without any preparation time, I started working, running around, carrying a thermite rifle and killing monsters one after another. .”
"I love this job."
Lorenzo was always so keen on killing monsters.
"I didn't like it. The Original Sin Armor hadn't been put into large-scale use at that time. We could only rely on modern weapons and numbers to suppress the demons. Our damage rate was very high. I watched my teammates go crazy little by little, and then fired their guns. Pointing at one of my own, I couldn’t save him, so I could only kill him with one shot, and then continue killing monsters.”
Joey's voice was calm, probably because he was used to this kind of hacking and slashing, and now that he thought about it, he didn't have any emotional fluctuations.
"Is that when you got hooked on hallucinogens?" Lorenzo asked.
"Absolutely. It may be the effect of erosion and my own pressure. I intercepted a lot of hallucinogens in one operation. With some strange luck, I tried it. In this hellish place Find some fantasy in the world.”
Joey shrugged.
"The following are the familiar ones. I took hallucinogens, which led to my mental instability, which caused an operation failure. I was punished and isolated, and then sent to Black Mountain Hospital for forced treatment. It was really not a period. Good memories."
That may have been an unbearable memory, but it also became ordinary in Joey's mouth.
"So, there will always be some psychological problems when fighting monsters. After that, I became mysophobic and couldn't tolerate the dirty blood splattered on my body."
Indeed, Joey's clothes are always so neat, Lorenzo is like a wild dog wallowing in a mud puddle compared to it.
"Are others like this?" Lorenzo asked curiously.
"It's almost the same. Everyone is more or less affected by the demon, and the flaws in their character are magnified. It's just that we usually pretend to be very good. Although we are a critical patient, we still pretend to be healthy."
As Joey spoke, he turned his gaze to Lorenzo. The detective didn't seem to care about the conversation just now, what disease and madness, these words became as common in his life as dead leaves on the roadside.
Thinking of this, Joey couldn't help but feel a strange feeling. His life was related to madness, but at least he was not completely integrated into it. Joey still had a partially normal life, but Lorenzo was different. He had been in this crazy place since he was a child. Living in this world, until now this terrible madness is just like ordinary life in his eyes.
Joey couldn't help asking.
"Lorenzo, don't you have any...flaws or a dark side?"
"Flaw...dark side?"
Lorenzo thought about it carefully, then laughed.
"I, Lorenzo Holmes, am invincible, how could I have something like that?"
Flaws and dark side, Lorenzo seems to really have no such thing. No matter what the situation, he maintains absolute sanity, even when facing powerful enemies such as Lawrence, he does not have the slightest fear.
"No, it's also possible that you're used to this, like you're stuck in a quagmire without knowing it," Joey said.
In his eyes, there is no such thing as invincibility in human beings. As long as they are human beings, they must have flaws. Even the invincible demon hunter is the same. Maybe Lorenzo is just not aware of his flaws until now.
"Maybe you also have some strange mental illness, but you haven't realized it yet."
After listening to Joey's words, Lorenzo was silent for a while and said.
"Does killing the demon count?"
"Oh, actually I used to feel that every time I kill a demon, I feel so good. If demons can also have human emotions, in their eyes I might just be a crazy murderer."
This man felt inexplicably proud.
"But... Joey, where are we going?"
Looking out the window, the street scene gradually became busier and seemed to be heading towards the inner city. Joey said that there was a conversation waiting for him, but did not specify who it was.
"You'll know when it arrives."
Joey seemed to be hiding something.
The carriage finally stopped in front of an auditorium, with guards guarding nearby. This seemed to be a more important place. Then a waiter opened the door and led Lorenzo and others forward.
Walking through the tall arches, the dome made of steel and glass, and the huge columns falling behind one by one, until Blue Jade and Shrike appeared at the end of the line of sight, they were wearing more formal clothes and were surrounded by soldiers holding thermite rifles.
Lorenzo began to feel that something was not good, and subconsciously warned him, he stretched out his hand along the hole in his pocket and grasped the shotgun under his clothes. However, Shrike was already familiar with this crazy operation, so he stepped forward and grabbed it. Lorenzo's arm.
"You can't bring weapons in there, Lorenzo."
"Why are you here?"
Lorenzo asked rhetorically.
Shrike manages the lower city. Unless there is something important, this guy will not leave there at all. Obviously something is wrong today.
"Please cooperate, Mr. Holmes, it will be good for you and me."
Lan Jade said from the side, "It's rare for us to reach the cooperative relationship we have today."
Lorenzo was silent, hesitating for a long time, and he handed out the shotgun.
"and also."
Perhaps because he knew Lorenzo too well, Shrike continued.
Lorenzo glared at the bastard, and then handed over a dagger and the sword he carried.
After doing this, the shrike let go. He turned sideways and slowly opened the door behind him.
The sun shone in, and there was a conference room behind the door. It seemed that those people had been waiting for Lorenzo for a long time. They all sat down in their seats. Lorenzo slowly moved forward and saw their identities clearly.
Arthur and Merlin, as well as the two knight captains they met at the Ever-Moving Pump, Gawain and Percival, sat on the other side were people whom Lorenzo didn't know, but there was something strange about them. The familiarity made Lorenzo couldn't help but look at it a few more times.
It can be clearly distinguished that the people in this conference room are divided into two camps, one is the purge agency headed by Arthur, and the other is those mysterious people.
Lorenzo sat in a chair near the door, a safe distance from both camps, until Arthur spoke.
"Long time no see, Mr. Holmes."
Lorenzo leaned lazily on the back of the chair. Although he moved casually, he already felt the weirdness of the current situation.
"What's wrong Arthur?" Lorenzo asked.
"It's nothing, it's just a brief meeting. We have some things we want to confirm. Rather than cooperating with suspicion, explaining everything is more reassuring, isn't it?"
Arthur said, looked at the guys around him, and then said.
"Someone wants to meet you and confirm something with you in person."
After Arthur finished speaking, the man in the other camp stood up, motioned to Lorenzo, and then introduced himself.
"Hello, Mr. Lorenzo Holmes."
The priest looked at Lorenzo with a smile, and then said words that made Lorenzo feel a little suffocated and nervous.
"You can call me Father Anthony, and I am currently the new headmaster of the Demon Hunt Sect."
Lorenzo was stunned at first, and then all the muscles in his body tensed up. His eyes swept back and forth near Anthony, looking at the expressionless waiters. At this moment, he finally understood where the familiar feeling came from. at.
Witchers, they are all witchers.
The secret blood was slightly restless, as if it was joyful.
(End of this chapter)