Mystery: Lucky One

...?
Am I going to hell?

No, wait, people in hell shouldn't go to hell because they are ugly...

After her brain recovered from a brief outage, Alice realized that her previous judgment was too arbitrary, and she tried to figure out her location.

A dozen strange-looking people surrounded her in a circle, two of them holding animal-skin lanterns.

They are not very tall, and their deformities are not limited to their faces. If those who are missing arms or whose calves are twisted in strange shapes are probably injured, then one of them has a lump of flesh replacing the part where his hand should be. Combined with their facial features, Alice believes that this is a developmental deformity.

these people……

As she was deep in thought, the crowd surrounding Alice suddenly dispersed, and an old man in dark brown animal skins came up to Alice from the passage they had made way for.

His gray hair hung down in a mess, and his face was covered with wrinkles carved by time. Alice stared at his face intently, and when he walked in front of her, she said in a trance:
"It's actually... normal?"

——This old man has normal facial features without any deformities.

The old man turned his head because of Alice's words, then looked at Alice and recited in a solemn and extremely strange tone:
“Chernobyl.”

Alice jumped up from the ground in shock, staring at the old man in brown animal skin. After more than ten seconds, she exhaled and ordered while recovering her breath:

"Say it again."

Then, the old man in dark brown fur once again repeated the name that shouldn't appear here in that strange tone:
“Chernobyl.”

Alice didn't know which language this came from, but considering the original location of the place name, Alice guessed that it was Russian - it didn't matter, because it was a place name, and it was a transliterated noun.

This is a very famous city. If she were still standing on the land of "God's Forsaken Land" at this moment, hearing this name would not be... not strange at all!

"Who are you!" she asked, staring at the old man.

——This is a name that no one should know.

Unless…wait.

The residents of the "Forsaken Land of Gods" are generally believers of the "Ancient Sun God", and the "Ancient Sun God" is suspected to be a "time traveler" and should be from a Western country, so...

Is it possible that the land she is standing on is the hometown of the "ancient sun god"?

As she was thinking, the old man's voice also rang out:
“Dear guest, I am Nim, the High Priest of Moon City.

“Moon City was once a city of vampires, but that civilization was destroyed in ancient times.

"Afterwards, we accepted the command of the great sun god, the creator of everything, and moved here to guard this gray fog, waiting for the person who came out of the fog and convey this message to him.

"Today, three thousand seven hundred and twenty-one years have passed."

Alice listened to the words of the high priest Nim with a bewildered look on her face. She turned her head in a daze, and the scene that was blocked by the crowd when she was lying just now finally appeared in front of her - it was a solidified, grayish-white mist.

"You mean..." She slowly turned around and asked the High Priest Nim tentatively, "I walked out from inside?"

Alice emphasized the word "go", after all, she had no memory of it.

"No," Nim shook his head, "According to Xin and Ruth's description, you should have been...thrown out."

"?" Alice felt even more confused. She thought about it and decided to let everyone be confused together. "I have a question."

"What?" Nim asked.

"Has your Lord ever thought..." She showed a serious and thoughtful look to Nim, "The person who came out of the fog may not know foreign language."

"......?" Nim looked confused by her words.

Alice nodded contentedly and began to talk business with Nim:
"Sin and Ruth... um..."

She looked at the crowd. A man and a woman looked up slightly when she read the two names. Alice looked at them from a distance and asked:

"Is it you?"

They subconsciously looked at the high priest Nim, who also turned his head to look at them. After glancing at Alice, Nim shouted at the two of them:
"Xin, Ruth...you two saw what happened at that time, tell us about it."

Alice did not refute this. She reached out and patted her clothes. "Apollo" was still emitting light on her body, illuminating the area.

Alice turned her head and the light stopped abruptly when it touched the gray fog, unable to cross the line even a single step.

On the other side, Xin and Russ slowly recounted their experiences, about how they happened to see Alice thrown out by the gray mist while exploring, about how they gathered nearby exploration teams, and about how they called the high priest Nim.

Alice listened to their story in silence while checking her belongings.

The real clothing inside "Apollo" is actually the school uniform. The wide pockets of the school uniform can hold a lot of things, but most of Alice's important things, such as savings, are actually kept with Klein.

She only stuffed some random spiritual materials and a deck of tarot cards on her body - she gave this deck of tarot cards to the Chief of Silver City.

There was no spiritual material left at the moment, but the "God-Forsaken Land" was not short of such things. Anyway, the only person she could pray to, besides the "True Creator" and Amon, was probably Klein. For these three people, it was likely that as long as they had the materials, they would be fine.

Monocle... Oh, the monocle taken from Amon should be on the "Black Tulip" at this moment.

The other Klein hasn't been given to her yet...

The change is gone... No, no one told me that I had to clear out my personal belongings?

Alice turned her head again and looked at the gray-white mist.

She suddenly took a step forward, and her abrupt movement made the Moon City residents surrounding the city subconsciously move aside. She ignored the Moon City residents, and walked through the passage they had hurriedly made way for, stood in front of the gray fog—and kicked it hard.

There was no fluctuation in the gray-white mist, and Alice's inexplicable intuition told her that the Western Continent must be behind the mist, where the real "Key of Light" was located.

She closed her eyes, opened them again after a few seconds, and kicked the gray-white mist again amid the astonished and puzzled gazes of the Moon City residents.

"You...what are you doing?" High Priest Nim finally couldn't help but ask.

The sound startled Alice. She stopped in shock, realizing that she was in an inexplicable rage.

……why?

Alice belatedly realized that she was covering her chest and shedding tears that had been delayed for a long time.

Unlike her usual loud but silent fake crying, these tears were silent at first, flowing from the corners of her eyes to her cheeks and finally dripping from her chin. There was a very long time between each tear, and often when the previous tear fell, the next tear had not yet accumulated and formed.

Later, the tears that came later finally caught up with the tears that came before, changing from a distant back figure to broken beads, and then forming a continuous string of beads.

Alice just stood there quietly, looking at the gray mist.

...Why are you crying? —You know the answer.

Alice slowly closed her eyes.

What she knew was the anger, sadness and powerlessness that she had always been unaware of.

Or maybe, in fact, she had already realized it, but crying - except for bringing burden to others, would not solve any problems.

...In fact, as early as when she received that birthday present, as early as when she saw Song Shu's smile, as early as when she first woke up from Amon's body, as early as when she crawled out of the grave, as early as when she first woke up in this world, she should have cried, right?

She should have cried a long time ago.

Unfortunately, she didn't cry in front of Klein in the end. Instead, she ended the birthday with a joke, so that Klein's birthday present would not be as bad as hers.

Alice sighed, and without trying to stop herself from crying, she answered as clearly as she could through her tears:

"I thought... I thought that fate... fate brought me here to at least give me an answer.

"I thought I at least knew why...why me? Why me? Why not find someone else? And..."

Alice stopped talking. She didn't know when her tears had stopped. She asked in a voice that was still slightly husky:
"What do you want? Is there something in me that you must have? Why do you want to - be one with me?"

No one answered Alice's question, only the High Priest Nim of Moon City asked tentatively:

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but…

"Perhaps you need a break?"

This sentence seems to have some kind of magic, or perhaps it is just a coincidence - after the emotions are vented, a huge amount of fatigue surges from the depths of the spirit. It is not physical fatigue, nor spiritual fatigue, but a unique spiritual fatigue.

In short, it's psychological.

Alice was silent for a few seconds, then asked Nim:

“There’s food… No, forget it.

"Is there a place to sleep?"

——In theory, a perfect rest should include having a big meal, taking a nice hot bath, and then lying in bed and falling asleep in a comfortable environment.

Some people might like to drink alcohol or milk, but that's beside the point. The main reason Alice stopped talking abruptly was because she had seen the food in the City of Silver.

It was obvious that neither the black-faced grass nor the monster's flesh and blood were things she would like to eat.

It’s not as good as what Frank Lee made. Although it’s weird, at least it’s edible and tastes good... Hey, so if Frank Lee could come here, he would definitely be very happy, right?

After all, no matter what he cooks, there will be people willing to eat it... unless the residents of the "God-Forsaken Land" have completely lost their sense of taste.

As Alice was thinking about the food from the outside world, Nim crossed his hands and bowed:

"Please come with me."

Alice stood there in a daze for a few seconds before she quickly ran a few steps and caught up with Nim's back, who had already turned around. She asked in surprise:
"Wait a minute, you're taking me back now?"

She had not forgotten the temptation and vigilance that the Chief of the City of Silver had shown when he first faced her - although that might have been partly because she called herself Ouroboros.

No, maybe this is the main reason. If I had told the truth from the beginning, the chief's attitude might have been much better...

Alice lowered her head guiltily.

Nim didn't know what Alice was thinking, so he frankly explained to Alice the real reason why he trusted her so much:

"To welcome the guests who walked out of the gray fog was the oracle left by the Lord, even though the Lord had already..."

Nim looked a little sad. Alice didn't need him to finish his words because she already understood what he had not said. Even though she was not a believer of the "Ancient Sun God" or the "True Creator", let alone Adam, she still sighed and said:
“He…has not abandoned you.

"He was simply betrayed by someone he trusted."

Nim suddenly stopped and looked back at Alice.

Alice blinked twice, thought for a moment, and then sighed:

“I haven’t introduced myself yet… You can call me… Miss Destiny. In the distant past… I probably once saw the Sun God—at least my followers at that time had seen him.

"I'm not from that gray fog. That was an accident. In fact, I'm from outside the 'Forsaken Land of the Gods'... uh, what do you call this place?"

There was so much information in this passage that Nim only asked one question in the end:
"A place abandoned by gods?"

"Uh," Alice blinked, "What do you usually call this place?"

"...The cursed land." Nim looked at Alice and responded deeply.

"The Cursed Land..." Alice murmured the name again.

Nim looked at Alice and asked without responding to her words:

"What does it mean to be... betrayed?"

Alice and Nim looked at each other, and from his determined eyes, Alice realized that if she didn't explain the matter clearly, Nim would not continue to lead the way.

In this case……

Alice lowered her eyes, curled up the corners of her lips and smiled:

“But why should I tell you?

"The gifts of fate are never free."

After a moment of silence, Nim bowed respectfully to her again and said in a low voice:
"Please follow me, Miss Destiny."

So Alice followed the high priest of Moon City, who was wearing brown animal skins, and together with about ten people, they slowly moved forward in the dark, sunless "God-forsaken Land".

They came to a city gate full of traces of time, and Alice realized that it should be the Moon City. The high priest Nim knocked on the city gate and respectfully invited Alice in.

Ellie walked in without any hesitation. The first thing she saw when she stepped into the city gate was a huge square.

——Also, the residents of Moon City gathered in the square.

Perhaps someone ordered them to do so, or perhaps not, but the residents gathered in the square, looking towards the city gate until someone whispered:

"The High Priest is back!" (End of this chapter)