003 The Queen

　　Evelyn took a deep breath and kicked Lina out of bed.

　　She reacted quickly by turning on the light and crouching to the side of the bed like an alert, frightened rabbit, staring nervously at the Lina she had kicked out of the bed.What she saw then was a normal face full of confusion.

　　"......Evelyn? "Lina blinked with a puzzled expression, as if wondering why she was seeing Evelyn.

　　It wasn't the same open-mouthed, creepy-eyed look anymore, but that creepy face still lingered in Evelyn's mind.Evelyn raised her hand to wipe her own face as she asked, "Lina, what are you doing in my room all of a sudden?"

　　Halfway through wiping, Evelyn realized there was nothing on her face.

　　But that disgusting, barfy liquid had just dripped on her face, hadn't it? There was no way that her senses could be wrong.

　　When she heard that, the expression on Lina's face became even more confused: "I ...... don't know, I'm sleeping ah ......"

　　Evelyn: "And you're choking me."

　　"That's impossible!" Lina said immediately, her tone believing and her eyes sincere, "I would never hurt you, Evelyn, even if, even if ......".

　　Evelyn cocked her head and looked at her questioningly, "?"

　　Lina closed her mouth in sudden embarrassment and just shook her head vigorously without saying anything else.

　　Evelyn stared at her for a while and saw that the confusion on Lina's face wasn't fake and that she couldn't figure it out even after half a day of thinking on her own, so for now she just assumed that Lina had sleepwalked on her own and wandered into her room confused.

　　As for the frightening and horrible face she saw ......, it should be that the light at night is too blurry and she saw it wrong.

　　Two days later, however, Evelyn realized that Lina was missing.

　　"Lina?" Faced with Evelyn's question, the Magus who had befriended Lina blushed, thought for a while, and said uncertainly, "Uh, I heard Lina say that her mother had been seriously ill recently, so she probably took a leave of absence to go home.

　　Lina's father had died early, and she had been raised by her single mother's hard work, and her family wasn't well off. Lina's mother was a hardworking and loyal believer, and after Lina had become a Shriner, her mother had always been proud of Lina.

　　Lina's mother had been proud of Lina since she became a Shriner. There weren't many friends who had befriended Lina, and Evelyn asked around, and everyone gave similar answers, but no one could say when Lina had left the temple - it was as if Lina had snuck out one night by herself, but all her belongings were still neatly in her room.

　　Evelyn becomes suspicious. She gets Lina's personal file from the data room and finds Lina's house the next day, but it turns out that her house is half empty. Neighbors tell her that the lady of the house died six months ago and now the house is empty and no one has been back for a long time.

　　Where would Lina go if she didn't return home?

　　Evelyn returned to the temple with her questions, wanting to find Lina's best friend to ask a little more about her, but she was surprised to get a completely unexpected answer-

　　"Lina?" the magus who had talked to Evelyn only yesterday had a slightly confused expression on his face, an embarrassed look spread over his face as if he regretted that he couldn't help, "I'm sorry, may I ask if Lina is... ...?"

　　"...... Are you serious?" Evelyn's eyes widened as she tried not to look strange, "I just asked you about Lina's whereabouts yesterday."

　　The other person looked even more confused, "I'm sorry, I don't remember anything about that ....... Besides, I don't know the Lina you're talking about, why don't you ask the others?"

　　Evelyn asked the others, but they all said that they had never heard of the name "Lina", not to mention that they didn't know who she was.

　　Lina wasn't just missing, she had disappeared from everyone's memory.

　　Only Evelyn remembers her, the introverted and gentle officer who seemed to have a crush on Xavier, but Lina is gone, her room and belongings have been taken over by another, and there is no record of Lina's personal history in the data room - where Evelyn had found it the day before! Lina's Profile!

       Is something wrong with Lina? Or is it me? Or is something wrong with everyone and everything?

　　Soon, Evelyn realizes that more and more people are inexplicably disappearing in the temple. After these people disappear, they are completely forgotten by everyone except Evelyn, and the void left by their disappearance is filled by another person.

　　Eighteen.

　　At night, in the dim light, Evelyn wrote this number in her notebook, indicating that eighteen people had disappeared from the temple so far. Above the number was a series of names that Evelyn had crossed out.

　　...... It all began that night.

　　Evelyn stared blankly at the oil lamp in her hand, and for no reason at all, this came to her. That night, Lina sleepwalked into her room and tried to strangle her, as if possessed by something. After that, Lina disappeared, as did many others.

　　And from that day on, Evelyn never woke up in the night. Even though she wasn't in the habit of waking up at night, it was just too strange, wasn't it? It was as if she had been deliberately knocked out.

　　Thinking about it, Evelyn opened the drawer and took out the Regent Crystal hidden inside. She hid the Regent Crystal somewhere hidden at the end of her bed, and then slept with great doubt and uneasiness.

　　The next day, Evelyn broke into a cold sweat at the images recorded inside the crystal.

　　The image projected over the crystal showed five or six people opening the door to her room and coming in late at night, Evelyn recognized the faces of these people, all of them were clerics of the temple, just with a very strange look. Like Lina's that day, their eyes had no pupils or whites, they were all black and empty.

　　They gathered around the sleeping Evelyn, their lips moving minutely; the Regent Crystal could only show images, not record sound, so Evelyn had no idea what they were saying.

　　Suddenly, they lifted their heads in unison and looked in unison in the direction of the Regent Crystal - from Evelyn's point of view, it was the pair of black hole-like eyes staring directly at her.

　　Evelyn: "............"

　　Big deal. Help.

　　Evelyn grabbed the Regent Crystal and ran quickly to the room in the temple's council chamber - there was only the High Priestess to turn to.

　　But the High Priestess acted even more erratically.

　　He even crushed the regolith Evelyn had given him with his own hands.

　　"Don't be afraid, Evelyn," the High Priest looked at her with eyes that looked a little cloudy due to his age, and a strange smile appeared on his face, as if he was mobilizing the muscles of his face and trying to make a "smile" expression. The same.

　　His pronunciation was also very strange, completely different from the high priest's previous standard pronunciation of the common language, deeper and more vague.

　　The High Priestess says to her, "Everything will be fine.

　　Evelyn: "............"

　　Who would believe this crap?

　　Evelyn can only write letters to Xavier and the Bishop of the Empire separately, detailing the affairs of the Temple and giving them to the paper pigeons used for communication. According to the time estimate, Xavier is still on his way to the imperial capital, perhaps he will come back immediately when he receives her letter. ....... Then there is no need to worry, because Xavier is a super fighter!

　　Then it is off to the reading room to check the canon, about the recent series of strange things that happened in the temple, Evelyn can only try to find out if there are any clues.

　　She soaks up the Reading Room for days before finally finding a relevant message in the writings of an Archmage-.

　　[...... Demons are magical creatures whose language is born to trigger the resonance of the elements, and every word and phrase they utter can possess immense and unparalleled magical power. Humans cannot hear their voices or see their words, or they will fall into an uncontrollable vortex and remain under their influence. ......]

　　[...... Demons cannot cross the barrier set up by the New Gods. Stronger demons will appear in the world through "consciousness projection" to force gullible humans to take them to the Old Realm ...... ]