Ryan and Alvin also instantly realized what was happening, and the three of them began scanning their surroundings almost simultaneously.
However, as their eyes swept across the street, their expressions grew increasingly grim.
There were no rotting corpses piled by the roadside, no yellow barricade tape, no armed police officers hurrying about, and not even a single bullet hole or black claw mark left on the walls.
The harbor was so peaceful it was as if nothing had ever happened. Everything was running in an orderly fashion. The dockworkers, who in their memories should have been devoured by ghouls, were currently standing on the street corners, very much alive.
“How long... have we actually been gone?” Simon asked in a low voice.
No one answered him.
Eventually, Ryan managed to straighten himself up and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Let's go back to the archive first.”
Ryan took a deep breath of air. “The director should know something.”
Half an hour later.
The East Port Archive was still the same as always.
As they stepped onto the creaking wooden floorboards and entered the hall, the young scribe, Claire, who was sitting behind the desk organizing reports, looked up. Upon seeing the faces of the three men, he froze in clear surprise.
“Ryan? Simon? And Alvin?”
Claire set down his quill in surprise. “Where have you three been these past few days? The director has been looking for you for days. That stack of registers on the desk is about to grow mold.”
A few days.
Simon's breath caught in his throat.
It had only been a few days.
“We understand.”
Alvin cut off Claire, who was about to ask more questions. Leading the other two, he walked calmly toward the wooden stairs, heading up to the second floor step by step.
At the end of the second floor, in the director's office.
The director, Morton, sat quietly in his broad chair, holding a cup of black tea that had already grown somewhat cold. When the three of them pushed the door open and walked in, he did not even look up.
“You're back?”
Morton's aging voice echoed in the quiet office.
Ryan, Simon, and Alvin stopped in their tracks at the doorway simultaneously.
Morton slowly set down his teacup. His turbid eyes, hidden beneath the shadow of the green lampshade, finally rose slowly and scanned the three of them thoroughly.
“It seems,” Morton's aged lips twitched slightly as he uttered a raspy word, “this time was correct.”
Simon's sanity was instantly pushed over the edge. The sheer absurdity of enduring the torments of hell only to receive such a casual, dismissive judgment made him explode.
He took a step forward and slammed both hands heavily onto the director's mahogany desk, making the teacup rattle loudly against its saucer.
“Morton! You old fossil, what the hell do you mean by ‘this time was correct’?! How much do you actually know? What on earth is behind that White Door? What is the Voyager? And what kind of godforsaken place is Bone Island?! Why did we have to slaughter each other like monsters in that damn place?!”
Faced with Simon's near-roaring interrogation, Morton didn't even blink. He merely stared at him with those turbid, almost lifeless eyes.
“Do not ask too many questions, Simon.”
Morton's old voice was completely flat, devoid of any emotion, carrying an almost matter-of-fact indifference. “There are some things that will do you no good to know.”
“Do not ask?!”
Simon laughed in sheer anger. He was about to roar again when he suddenly clutched his temples. Stumbling, he nearly collapsed onto the desk.
He wasn't the only one.
Beside him, Alvin let out a muffled groan. His massive frame crashed heavily against the wall as blue veins bulged across his forehead.
Ryan closed his eyes, his hands gripping the edge of the mahogany desk so tightly that his knuckles turned completely white.
The aftereffects left by the White Door had flared up again.
Now, another torrent of memories was brutally tearing through their brains. The overlapping images of being killed by their companions countless times, and in turn killing those companions countless times, churned frantically inside their skulls.
The three of them stood in the office, panting heavily. Their faces were deathly pale, and the depths of their eyes were filled with lingering chaos and madness.
Morton watched the three of them struggle in agony, his eyes completely devoid of pity.
“Actually, the risks of that place are much lower than you think.”
Morton unhurriedly took off his glasses and wiped them with a piece of chamois cloth.
“It is merely a tool. Taking a trip through it might leave you somewhat delirious from the massive onslaught of memories, and it might even take away some things that are 'important' to you... but in exchange, it grants you an opportunity for Ascension that others can only dream of.”
He slid the glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, his sharp gaze lingering on Ryan for a moment.
“As long as you submit to those memories and digest these 'truths' that do not belong to the mortal realm, you will naturally step into the next stage. Ryan, you've already felt it, haven't you?”
“Ascension? An important matter?”
Simon rubbed his throbbing temples and sneered through gritted teeth. The onslaught of memories gave him a splitting headache, but it also pushed his loathing for these extraordinary matters to its absolute peak.
“Give me a break, Morton. I, Simon, am just idling away my days in East Port. I've never cared about the extraordinary or Ascension. I just want a comfortable, easy job, to drink my liquor, and to find women at the tavern. As for those 'important' things, even if they are the most useless garbage in my head, I wouldn't want to throw them to that damn White Door!”
“An easy job, retirement.”
Morton repeated Simon's words, a warm yet bizarre smile suddenly appearing on his face.
“Oh, Simon, if you truly yearn for a peaceful life so much, as your director, I suppose I can satisfy your wish.”
Morton pulled a yellowed appointment letter from a stack of documents on his desk and slid it gently toward Simon.
“Since you are unwilling to stay at the East Port Archive and take on even a tiny bit of risk, how about I send you to a colony? 'New Salem'—an archipelago in the Southern Hemisphere, far from the imperial mainland. The climate there is warm, with plenty of sunshine. Aside from occasional harmless native rituals, you won't see even a shadow of the extraordinary. Go there as a nominal archive liaison. You won't have to do anything except fish and sunbathe every day. Well? Wouldn't you call that the most perfect retirement?”
Simon stared suspiciously at the appointment letter, then at Morton's sly, fox-like smile. He felt a faint sense of unease, but the thought of completely escaping East Port and this jinx Ryan made him waver—shamefully so.
“...Are you serious? Just retirement?”
“Of course. As soon as you sign it, I will sign off on your release immediately,” Morton replied with a warm smile.
Simon let out a cold snort. Though he knew this old fellow was definitely up to no good, he truly did not want to remain as disposable fodder in East Port any longer.
Seeing that Simon had taken the bait, Morton turned to look at Alvin, who was clutching his forehead and panting heavily.
“And you, Alvin? What is it that you want?”
Alvin had never possessed as many objections or calculations as Simon. “Me?”
Alvin wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with a thick finger, his voice echoing in the office like low thunder:
“I'm not interested in those Ascensions, secrets, or lore. As long as the pay is good enough, you can have me do whatever you want.”
“Very well, Alvin. How about promoting you to Deputy Director? A salary of one hundred and eighty pounds a year, how does that sound?” Morton smiled with satisfaction.
Having settled Simon and Alvin, the director's gaze finally landed on Ryan, who stood in the center and had remained silent the entire time.
“And you, Ryan?”
Rate on N.U.
