Chapter 151 | I Transmigrated into Cultist Simulator

Dusk fell once more.

Inside the Columbus Bookstore, the dim gas lamps were lit once again.

Lucia sat at the small wooden table in the backyard, using the lamplight to slowly read sentences from a basic geography reader:

“The La Plata River... flows... into the... ocean...”

She read clumsily, stopping whenever she encountered an unfamiliar word to circle it on the paper with a pencil.

Ryan stood by the bookshelf, quietly watching her.

As if sensing Ryan's gaze, Lucia stopped her spelling.

She looked up, her clear grey eyes turning to Ryan, who stood in the shadows. With some hesitation, she called out in an incredibly soft voice:

“...Teacher?”

Ryan froze right where he stood.

“Teacher.”

Ryan looked at the girl's eyes, which were filled with reliance and longing. After a long moment, he let out a soft breath.

A heavy sense of responsibility settled into those eyes.

“Yes.”

Ryan took a step forward, entering the dim, warm halo of light:

“I'm here.”

The evening wind outside the window swept through the streets, letting out a series of low, wailing sounds.

And deep in the room, in the unlit, tarnished old mirror, a figure watched it all unfold.

He did not speak up in opposition again, nor did he express approval. He cared nothing for the warmth of this era; he only knew that this brief peace would not last, and that the salt marshes on the southwestern edge of the Pampas were already waiting for them.

April 12, morning.

The persistent late autumn drizzle of the past several days finally came to an end. The sea breeze blowing ashore from the La Plata River carried a biting dampness, making the wooden window of the Columbus Bookstore's attic creak loudly.

Under the dim glow of the kerosene lamp, Ryan was spreading out the old map left by Hermann, overlaying it with the New World's latest royal geographical survey map on the table.

Holding a brass compass and a ruler, he calculated the mileage along the red line that started from Buenos Aires and cut across the Pampas.

However, as his calculations deepened, the harshness of reality far exceeded his initial estimates.

Taking a train from Buenos Aires to Alberti, the terminus of the narrow-gauge railway currently built by a British company, only completed the first third of the journey.

For the remaining long journey, there was no modern transportation to rely on. They would have to traverse endless alkaline flats, wild, desolate grasslands, and the southern borderlands where bandits and local militias clashed.

The blank area marked as dry salt marshes on the map was over eight hundred kilometers away from Buenos Aires in a straight line. If they factored in the actual route needed to bypass waterless dry valleys, quicksand swamps, and indigenous settlements, the total distance would easily approach a thousand kilometers.

In the wilderness of the nineteenth-century New World, what did a thousand kilometers mean?

It meant at least four months of grueling travel back and forth. If they were to venture deep into the heart of the salt marshes to investigate the source of the anomaly that might hold the secret to the origin of life, it would easily take more than half a year.

“Half a year...”

Lucia, who was standing nearby to help hand him the kettle, softly repeated the words.

The girl's face turned pale in an instant. Her slender fingers gripped the wooden handle of the kettle so tightly that she was entirely unaware her knuckles were turning white from the strain.

Before this, in the mind of this thirteen-year-old Lower End orphan, a so-called "long journey" meant nothing more than following scholars to the botanical gardens or suburban farms for a few days of field research. But the words "eight hundred kilometers" and "half a year" were like an abyss suddenly opening up before her, making Lucia realize clearly for the first time—

Her teacher was not just going on a quick trip. He would be gone for a very, very long time—long enough for the petunias she so carefully tended to wither and die, long enough for the peace and order that had just been established here to turn to ash once more.

Ryan did not look up at her. He merely used his pencil to draw a heavy black circle around the blank space at the far southwestern corner of the map.

Over the next three days, Ryan took Lucia with him as he bustled through the Lower End of Buenos Aires and the bustling commercial ports of the old harbor. This part of the trip was filled with the gritty texture of nineteenth-century industrial civilization intertwined with the wild earth.

In the noisy and chaotic horse market in the west of the city, which reeked of cheap tobacco, raw hides, and black gunpowder, Ryan demonstrated his advantage—the extraordinary.

He did not choose those tall, imposing, yet delicate British purebreds. Instead, he meticulously selected two crossbred Pampas ponies in their prime, which had sturdy limbs and were highly resistant to alkaline water.

Afterward, he took Lucia to a wheelwright's shop on the outskirts of the city to order a light cargo wagon with a wrought-iron reinforced axle and a double-layered oiled waterproof canvas canopy.

Next came the purchase of wilderness supplies: heavy canvas field tents, two large rolls of oiled moisture-proof canvas, a pure copper sealed compass imported from Britain, a brass sextant for night surveying, a mercury barometer, and even a steel threaded soil-sampling drill custom-ordered from a blacksmith shop, dozens of hardwood specimen boxes with rubber seals, and rows of clear alcohol preservation bottles.

In the pharmacies and trade company warehouses, he unhesitatingly bought up the scarce stock of quinine sulfate powder in the Lower End, a large amount of absolute ethanol for disinfection and specimen extraction, as well as boxes of absorbent cotton and sterile suture needles and thread.

The entire preparation of supplies cost nearly a hundred pounds.

Lucia followed Ryan closely the entire time. When she saw her teacher pull out a stack of large-denomination Bank of England bank drafts from the inner pocket of his trench coat, she was thrown into a state of deep shock.

In the Lower End, a normal working-class family's entire annual expenses amounted to only a dozen pounds, and ten pounds was enough for an orphan to scrape by on the streets for two years. For the first time, she intuitively realized that this gentle scholar before her, who usually wore a tweed trench coat and organized materials in an old bookstore, was actually wealthier than many of the arrogant port merchants.

Late on the night of April 14, in the backyard of the Columbus Bookstore.

The newly purchased supplies crammed the once-empty backyard full. The tall carriage looked like a small hill, and the air was thick with the mixed scent of tung oil, fresh cowhide, and potent medicines.

Ryan stood in front of the wooden table. He had gathered a few similar herbaceous plants that he had casually picked from the suburban fields during the day, mixing them together and laying them out under the dim gas lamp. On the surface, these plants all looked slightly withered, with no obvious morphological differences, and even the degree of yellowing on their leaves was nearly identical.

“Lucia,” Ryan called over the girl, who was crouching by the clay pot observing the petunias. His voice was calm. “Come and take a look at these plants.”

Lucia walked over, looking at Ryan with some confusion. She then obediently stretched out her thin fingers, gently tracing them over each of the leaves one by one.

She did not even closely examine the color or structure of the roots and stems. She merely closed her eyes, sensing them through instinct, before opening them and pointing to the leftmost plant. “This one is dying. Its roots are turning cold... as if they are curling into a ball.”

Her finger moved to the middle one. “The root system of this one is damaged. It can't draw water. It is in pain.”

Finally, her finger stopped on the rightmost plant, which looked the smallest and had the fewest leaves. Her eyes lit up slightly. “This one is fine. It has just sprouted from the soil, and it's still warm.”

Ryan silently picked up the tweezers and scalpel from the table and sliced open the roots and stems of the three plants right then and there—

The interior of the leftmost plant's roots had already undergone microscopic fungal decay; the middle one had obvious insect-eaten breaks along the side of its taproot; and on the rightmost one, extremely fresh, plump, and nutrient-rich sap was flowing across the cut surface.

All correct.

Ryan's fingers, holding the scalpel, froze in midair. He fell into a long silence.

At three in the morning, in the backyard of the Columbus Bookstore.

The sea breeze blew water droplets off the damaged wooden eaves, making a crisp “drip-drop” sound.

Lucia leaned against the wooden railing of the backyard by herself, quietly staring at the newly purchased light cargo wagon in the corner. Under the moonlight, the tall carriage cast a heavy shadow, resembling a silent behemoth ready to bolt at any moment.

Soft footsteps echoed as Ryan walked into the backyard, carrying his trench coat.

Lucia did not turn around. She simply stared at the carriage and asked in an incredibly soft, slightly trembling voice:

“Teacher.”

“Are you leaving?”

The night wind blew, lifting the hem of Ryan's trench coat. Standing in the shadows, Ryan stared at the girl's thin back for a very long time, offering no answer.

April 15, morning.

The sky was a chilly grey-blue, and the morning cold seeped through the cracks of the Columbus Bookstore's door.

The old owner had just cracked open the wooden door of the front shop when Lucia walked straight through, coming to stand before Ryan, who was organizing accounts under the attic stairs.

The girl wore her faded blue cotton dress. Her hands tightly gripped the hem of her skirt, her knuckles turning slightly white from her intense grip. Her body trembled slightly, but her grey eyes burned with a nearly searing resolve.

Gathering all the courage she had ever possessed in her life, she looked up to meet Ryan's gaze:

“I want to go with you, Teacher.”

The words echoed in the empty bookstore.

The surrounding air seemed to freeze in an instant.

Beside them, the old owner, who was comfortably sipping black coffee, jolted. The scalding liquid spilled all over his hand, and he nearly dropped the cup. The old man let out a violent cough, his eyes widening as he stared at Lucia as if she were some kind of unbelievable madwoman.

“Are you out of your mind, you brat?!” The old owner slammed his cup onto the table, sharply breaking the silence. “Do you have any idea where he's going? That's the southwestern border of the Pampas! There is nothing there but bandits, miasma, and bone-dry alkaline flats! People die there every single day!”

Faced with the old owner's roaring interrogation, Lucia did not flinch.

She kept her head lowered, letting the old man's scolding echo through the bookstore. She stood like a wild weed rooted in a stone crevice—silent and stubborn.

After a long time, the old owner grew tired of shouting and stared at her, panting.

Only then did Lucia slowly raise her head. Her voice was not loud, but every word was clear:

“I know.”

She turned her head to look at the map spread across Ryan's table, her eyes shimmering with a near-sacred trance:

“But I can feel it... that place on the map, the plants, the soil—they are all calling out to me.”

These words caused Ryan's heart to contract violently.

His memory was instantly pulled back to that cold, dreary afternoon half a month ago. In the attic, Lucia had pointed for the first time to the blank salt marsh Hermann had drawn in the southwestern corner of the map, saying in that same trance-like tone:

“They are all heading there.”

It was no absurd delusion. It was the instinctive response of her natural Grail affinity to the massive life anomaly in the distance. This girl and the secret deep within the salt marshes had been bound by some sort of destiny from the very beginning.

That night, in the brick house in the East End.

Before Ryan could even reach the washstand, the “Lin Yuan” in the mirror completely lost control in an unprecedented, furious manner.

This was the most intense and unreserved explosion between the two since their memories had begun to intertwine. Lin Yuan was too sharp—through the fluctuations in Ryan's mind, he instantly realized a terrifying fact: Ryan was wavering.

“Are you insane?!” Lin Yuan roared in the depths of his mind, his voice as grating as tearing metal. “She's only thirteen! A thirteen-year-old native from a backward era! A little girl who doesn't even know basic physics! You want to take her to a savage wilderness a thousand kilometers away? Is your head filled with moldy sawdust?!”

“She is no ordinary child,” Ryan countered in his mind, trying to maintain his last shred of composure. “Her talent is crucial for this trip to the salt marshes, and besides...”

“Precisely because she is no ordinary child!”

Lin Yuan interrupted him sharply, his face in the mirror twisting slightly with extreme rage:

“In a world with no order to protect it, extraordinary talent is pure poison! Taking her to the salt marshes? Even those old monsters wouldn't dare touch the things hidden there! If you take her, she will only die faster!”

Seeing Ryan's continued silent resistance, Lin Yuan took a deep breath, his eyes filling with ultimate coldness and a mockery that saw through everything. He stepped forward slowly and, across the glass, delivered the most devastating and brutal line:

“Ryan, stop using 'talent' and 'protection' as excuses.”

“You don't want to train a student at all.”

“You just can't let go of this place. You're just greedy for the pitiful warmth of that little girl calling you 'Teacher.' You just... can't bear to lose this false peace!”

April 16, morning.

The morning light broke through the thin mist, illuminating the backyard of the Columbus Bookstore.

Lucia sat on the stone bench in the backyard early in the morning. Her small face was somewhat pale from the cold, but her eyes remained stubbornly fixed on the backyard entrance.

Footsteps sounded.

Ryan walked in carrying his suitcase. He looked somewhat exhausted, with faint dark circles under his eyes, but in his deep gaze, all confusion, struggle, and hesitation had vanished, replaced by a settled, incredibly pure resolve.

He stopped in front of Lucia and pulled out a brand-new, thick notebook bound in black leather from the inner pocket of his trench coat.

Ryan flipped the notebook open to the first page.

Illuminated by the morning light, the first line was written in extremely elegant, neat Latin:

《Flora Observation Log》

And on the next line was a row of clear, powerful small words:

Student: Lucia

Ryan slowly held out this notebook, which carried knowledge and the future, to the girl.

Lucia was stunned.

She stared blankly at her name in the notebook, then looked up at Ryan's serious yet gentle face. The girl, who had been incredibly stubborn just seconds ago, felt her eyes well with tears. Large teardrops pooled in her eyes, but she clenched her teeth tightly, refusing to let them fall.

“Starting today,” Ryan said, looking at her, his voice low and solemn. “You will study under me. Not just observing plants, but also how to survive in the wilderness.”

Lucia stared at him blankly. Two seconds later, she nodded heavily, using all the strength in her body:

“Yes! Teacher!”

At ten in the morning, in the front shop of the Columbus Bookstore.

Ryan placed a generous stack of rent and a letter of authorization on the counter, officially entrusting the bookstore's subsequent affairs to the old owner.

Looking at the money and letter on the table, and then at Lucia, who was standing in the backyard practicing drawing lines on paper with absolute concentration, the old owner let out a long sigh. The old man reached up to scratch his thinning white hair and stubbed his cigar out in the ashtray.

“When do you plan to leave?” the old owner asked hoarsely.

“April 22,” Ryan replied.

Leaning back in his chair, the old owner fell silent for a long time before finally raising his eyelids to look at him:

“Alone?”

Hearing the question, Ryan paused slightly.

He slowly turned around, looking at the thin yet ramrod-straight back in the backyard sunlight—that was his student, a life with which he had formed a genuine bond in this cold era.