Chapter 3 Part 1

A muffled gunshot rang out.

Ode’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt. His mind went blank as he stared down at the bullet buried in his abdomen, then lifted his gaze to the middle-aged priest—who was dressed in clerical robes but pointing a gun right at him. Before he could even register the pain from the bullet, he crumpled to the ground.

In the final moment before losing consciousness again, through his spinning, blurry vision, he saw the lead priest holding a torch and nudging the black-rimmed glasses on his nose with the barrel of his gun. The priest snapped in displeasure, “Who told you to take off your masks?! Who thought tying him up with just two straps was enough? Look at you idiots now that you’ve been hit—”

“Enough.” The voice of the cigar-chomping man drawled lazily from behind him. “I just wanted to see how much the kid was really capable of…”

·

He didn’t know how much time had passed when Ode woke again.

His head throbbed with a dull, swollen ache, as if someone had jammed a lead weight into his skull.

He vaguely sensed that he was bouncing up and down. It took a moment to realize he was lying on a simple stretcher, being carried through a foggy graveyard and into a long, dim tunnel leading underground.

Everything here was shrouded in gloom. Wax candle lamps were nailed to the walls on either side of the tunnel, their green flames flickering faintly.

Now and then, small groups of people wearing bizarre masks would pass them silently.

From deep within the tunnel came intermittent muffled drumbeats, like the rumbling of some massive creature. Sometimes it was low whispers laced with sly chuckles, carried along on a chill breeze that brushed against the skin.

“…!” Ode’s hackles rose. Even so, his mind remained foggy and sluggish, unable to clear. He felt like he was adrift in a tiny boat, trying to bail water with a colander—futile at best, and the boat kept spinning in useless circles to boot.

‘Who the hell are these people?’ He desperately dredged up his fragmented thoughts. ‘Monster masks, eerie green candles… Some kind of cult?’

He knew groups like this existed in droves among the public. The most infamous one was called the Black Brotherhood.

They blindly worshiped a nonexistent evil god, even going so far as to assassinate world leaders in its name—never stopping to think that if such a god really existed, would it give a damn about politics?

—I must’ve run into something like the Black Brotherhood. Or hell, maybe it is them. Ode thought. After all, besides the Black Brotherhood—which was brazen enough to publicly claim responsibility for assassinating some country’s leader—he hadn’t heard of any other cult crazy enough to impersonate SAS agents in broad daylight.

But why would the Black Brotherhood take such a huge risk to grab him?

…Did it have something to do with those seven lost days of his memory?

And—damn it! What time was it? Had the auction started yet?!

Urgency jolted Ode partly awake—and right then, the procession halted.

They had reached a crossroads, where another group had arrived at the exact same moment. Both parties had to stop and figure out who went first.

After a tense standoff, the cigar-chomping man spoke first. “…What are you standing around for? Even if you stare me to death, you’re still yielding the path to me here.”

The other side seemed highly pissed off. “That’s how it is now, but it won’t be in a while! You know the big fuss you kicked up today— the higher-ups won’t be happy about it. We weren’t supposed to show our faces in public, Faust!”

Faust shot back with a scoff. “And what, stay hidden? Let our little friend here run loose? What if the Dagon Cult finds him first? I’d still be the one cleaning up the mess.”

“Come on, Bal. Don’t be so rigid. Can’t you think long-term? Look at the big pict—hey, check this out.”

“!” Ode’s heart skipped a beat as he lay there pretending to be unconscious. He sensed Faust suddenly bending down close, his breath nearly grazing Ode’s face.

“Our little friend is awake again…” Faust’s voice held a note of amusement. “What incredible drug resistance. Unfortunately, dear boy, I still need you to sleep nicely and cooperate for a bit. I don’t fancy adding more wounds to my hands.”

Spicy tobacco smoke wafted gently over his face. Amid his struggles, Ode unwillingly slipped back into slumber. When he awoke again, he was no longer in the tunnel but in a vast office.

The room was still dimly lit, relying solely on candles for light. Piles of ornate goldware and gem-encrusted cold weapons filled the space, gleaming under the candlelight. Scattered gold coins spilled from desks and cabinets across the floor.

Glowing liquids trickled quietly through extraction and cooling devices. And there was an odd clock that inexplicably drew Ode’s attention—

It looked like it had been ripped straight from the famous painting The Persistence of Memory, melted into a limp, drooping form, dangling lifelessly from the corner of a desk.

The sedative had fully worn off. Ode immediately tried to sit up. “—Hiss!”

Restraints wrapped around his body yanked him back. At the same time, a stab of pain shot through the back of his left hand.

Stunned, he looked down and realized his clothes had been stripped down to his underwear at some point. An IV drip was hooked to his left hand—unknown what it was for—and his sudden jerk had dislodged the needle, sending blood flowing back up the rubber tube.

“What are you thrashing around for?” A cool feminine voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

Ode whipped his head around in shock and fury, just in time to see a woman with pale golden hair tied up and skin so white it was almost like snow. She held a clipboard as she moved to his left side.

Her features were strikingly sharp, like a Russian’s. Paired with her white lab coat and impassive expression, she resembled a finely chiseled ice sculpture.

Assuming he wouldn’t cooperate now that he was awake, she simply pulled the needle out and slapped a sugar-cube-sized white gel patch over the puncture. “Exam’s done.”

“His readings have exceeded the instrument’s current threshold. I need to go back and tweak the parameters. But for now, he still qualifies as human.”

…Still qualifies as human? Ode had never heard such a bizarre assessment. And what readings? What threshold?

Full of questions, he latched onto the most pressing one. “Where the hell is this?! What was that IV drip you hooked me up to?! And let me go!”

His usually calm, rational face twisted into uncharacteristic disgust, as if the clean new restraints binding him were slimy sewer seaweed dredged from the depths.

A half-hearted whistle came from the east side of the room. “You really ought to brush up on the hostage self-preservation guide, kid. With that face of yours and those restraints? Anger or defiant resolve aren’t good looks.”

Ode spun toward the sound, wrestling briefly with the straps before his gaze reached the east wall. The moment it did, goosebumps erupted all over him. “—What the hell is that?!”

“As you see, just a few unimportant monitors.”

The man called Faust was half-turned, lounging casually against an operating table. Behind him stretched an entire wall of surveillance screens, cigar smoke drifting lazily before their greenish glow.

He chomped on his cigar and waved lazily at one cluster of screens. “Your alma mater, Mida University. Ring any bells? That’s the east gate; over there’s the library.

“And that infamous, notorious guard dog of yours—it even made the papers back in the day for biting a shady thief to death when he tried sneaking into your school library.”

“…” Ode’s auction-obsessed mind blanked out entirely. His gaze locked on those screens, and after a long pause, he rasped, “You did all this… just to grab me?”

“Before I answer, you answer me one thing first.” Faust eyed him with keen interest, the contours of his face—half-veiled in thin smoke—deeply chiseled, bearing clear Germanic traits.

He didn’t look like some brainwashed cultist at all; more like a refined aristocrat. “Do you believe in the existence of gods?”

“…” Ode met his gaze with a cold sneer. “Ever thought about checking into the psych ward at a hospital?”

Ode had a pair of slightly drooping puppy-dog eyes. When free of hostility, they made him seem harmless and innocently approachable, often disarming arguers with nothing but his face.

But when he furrowed his thick brows and turned a hostile stare on an opponent, those emerald-green eyes—shadowed beneath his deep brow ridge—resembled a beast prowling the nighttime wasteland. You could glimpse cruelty, savagery, a hunger for violence and slaughter in them, but nothing remotely human.

Faust arched a brow with evident fascination, studying those eyes closely. “Got it. A hardcore rationalist, zero faith in the supernatural. I bet you never truly believed in God during all those church visits. But haven’t you ever wondered—”

He drawled meaningfully, “How did the broken left arm from your escape attempt heal? Or the gunshot burns on your wrists and ankles? And that bullet wound in your gut? All gone in a flash. I doubt someone as observant as you missed those details.”

Ode glared at him with profound loathing. “The IV drip, obviously. That bottle you gave me earlier. What was it? Hallucinogen? Or drugs?”

Even if it was drugs, he didn’t care anymore.

All his family was long gone from his life. If he missed the auction tonight—ha.

What did he have left to fear? The worst outcome was just death. Ugly or not, who cared? He didn’t even have to worry about loved ones grieving over his corpse.

A venomous rage like molten sludge coursed through Ode’s heart—for his current helpless state, for this pack of idiot cultists, for this godforsaken joke of a reality:

“You think pumping me with that crap will make me compliant? In your dreams.” He bit out each word. “I wouldn’t cooperate before the drugs, and sure as hell not now. But—”

“You still have a chance.”

Ode exhaled slowly, his expression easing as he relaxed his anger-tightened muscles against the reasonably comfortable surgical chair. “You need my help badly, don’t you? Or you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. I’m still willing to cooperate—as long as you let me make a phone call right now.”

Please let me make it in time! Ode prayed inwardly.

But Faust was not one to be easily shaken. “Friend, trust me. If it were possible, I’d gladly fulfill this simple request of yours in exchange for your cooperation—but the objective conditions simply don’t allow it, and you know nothing about that.”

Faust slid down from the operating table and casually snatched up a stack of files from the desk. He picked out a wooden table, swept its surface clean of expensive gold utensils and treasures with a clatter, and dragged it over to Ode’s side.

He tossed the files onto the wooden table. “Since you’re refusing to learn the truth, fine. Let’s discuss this in a way you can understand. Take a look at these photos. Do they ring a bell?”

Ode had no desire to play along with what he saw as a cultist’s demands, but a glance at the monitors lining the east wall made it hard not to worry that these stark raving mad lunatics might resort to kidnapping his teachers and classmates to force his hand.

Suppressing his irritation, he lowered his gaze. “…What is this?”

Scattered across the table was a stack of photographs. They depicted the ruins of a small town gutted by fire, charred black in places, littered with shriveled, deformed corpses. The bodies lay sprawled in eternal agony, mouths frozen in screams, hands clawing at the ground as if desperately trying to crawl free from the flames.

“Dreamcatcher Town—ring any bells?” As if afraid Ode might miss the details, Faust considerately flipped through the ashen, shriveled corpse photos one by one. Throughout, his eyes remained locked on Ode, unblinking.

Once the last photo had been turned over, he tossed down another file plastered with three-by-four ID shots.

“On the morning of June 2nd, two patrol officers in Dart District of Devon County, England, stumbled upon this town burned to cinders. Over three hundred souls—all gone: young and old, adults and children. Not a single survivor. But here’s the kicker.”

Faust propped himself on the victims’ ID photos with one hand and leaned in close to Ode, his voice a soft murmur. “One outsider, for reasons unknown, crossed half of Britain that very day—May 24th—racing all the way from Scotland to this godforsaken town.”

“And talk about coincidence: in the wee hours of June 2nd, highway surveillance outside the town caught him on camera, strolling out of Dreamcatcher Town.”

Faust never named the outsider outright, but his hawk-like eyes, fixed intently on Ode, left no doubt.

“…” Ode’s worst fears materialized, his face darkening uncontrollably. “I don’t know. I’ve lost all memory of those seven days.”

“Forgotten?” Faust arched a brow. “Nothing at all? Not even why you went there?”

That much, at least, Ode did remember.

His memories had started fragmenting that afternoon—May 24th—right upon arriving in Dreamcatcher Town. The trigger had come at noon that day. But he had no intention of sharing it.

“I don’t remember why I went. All I know is that I came to when I was walking alone down the highway from Dartmoor toward the nearest town. I was covered in foul-smelling bloodstains and half-congealed mud, and my waist ached like it had snapped clean in two.”

At that, Faust glanced toward Ode’s left.

The hitherto near-silent Russian woman endured Faust’s mute stare for half a minute before she finally deigned to speak a second time. “His waist is fine. Spine, soft tissues, nerves—all checked out. Unless whatever’s wrong with him isn’t physical. I need to take him to my lab for deeper tests.”