Chapter 760 Phantom

 “To be honest, I just can’t stand British food.”

Duanmuhuai sat in the car and kept complaining.

“I used to think that people were joking when they said that the worst nightmare was to have an Englishman as a cook, but now I realize that this is simply a sad fact.”

Looking at the scenery outside the car, Duanmuhuai let out a long sigh. To be honest, that's what he thought at the beginning. After all, this is a modern civilized city and a place where various cultures gather. Maybe it's just that the local British food is more unpalatable, but the foreign food can still be eaten, and it can still be eaten. Eat fast food…

Well, Duanmuhuai admitted that he made a mistake.

There’s nothing **** edible in Britain.

Taking fruits as an example, there are obviously many varieties of fresh and juicy fruits in the world, but in supermarkets you can only buy sour fruits. Obviously, given the location of this country, it is not difficult to import delicious fruits, but in any supermarket you can only buy unpalatable fruits.

This is not just the fruit, but also the ingredients themselves. In this way, you can understand why the British cannot make delicious meals - the ingredients themselves are like rotten dead meat, and it is impossible to make them no matter what. Delicious barbecue steak, isn’t it?

For more than a year, Duanmu Huai has eaten most fast food such as hamburgers. It is sad to say that it is the British dinner that makes him unable to eat.

 For example, you put soup on a plate and drink it. Why don’t you have a bowl at home? ?

And the plate looks like a UFO, with its extremely long edges, so why use this thing to hold soup? Wouldn't it be more convenient for you to get a basin?

are you crazy!

Duanmu Huai felt that people in this country had a distorted concept of food. He still remembered that in order to please Medea, there was a magician who spent time and used completely traditional techniques to create a Colchis delicacy. To this end, he even hired farmers, found ancient plant seeds, cultivated and planted them in ancient ways, picked them in ancient ways, and even transported them using horse-drawn carriages and boats based on ancient methods.

As a result, Medea, who received the food, told him with a complicated face that she still thought the fruit cake in the street cake shop was more delicious... This is normal. Can the food from thousands of years ago be compared with now?

 At the beginning, the heroes probably didn’t even want to remove the fishy smell from wild boar meat.

 It's like an ancient person traveled to modern times and was eating sweet steamed buns steamed with fine flour, and then you specially made a bran cake to remind him of the past...

The other person is probably ready to scold her.

 Duanmu Huai is actually not the kind of person who pays much attention to food. Most of the time he can eat and that's all. So for him to complain like this, you can imagine how bad the food in this country is.

“This kind of past is really better to be destroyed.”

 “MASTER?”

 “Just kidding, okay, we’re almost there.”

 As Duanmuhuai spoke, the shadow of a small town appeared at the end of the road.

 Strictly speaking, this is not even a road.

That's right, there is no asphalt and no flatness. It looks like the dirt road that was naturally formed by horse-drawn carriages in ancient times. For this car, it is almost a torment. Duanmuhuai can even hear every time The chassis groans over bumps.

"boom---!"

However, at this moment, something collapsed before the chassis. With an explosion, Duanmuhuai felt the car body tilt, then slid on the ground for a moment, and stopped at a tilt.

 “Hey? What happened?”

Irisviel, who was sitting in the driver's seat, held the steering wheel and looked left and right curiously.

 “A flat tire.”

Duanmu Huai rolled his eyes silently.

“Okay, let’s get off the bus first.”

 Obviously, the car in front of him was just as Duanmuhuai said, the front wheel on the left completely exploded. To be honest, looking at the dilapidated appearance of this car, the fact that it can persist until now must be attributed to magic, otherwise it might have fallen apart halfway.

 The evidence is...

 “Woo————!”

Matthew staggered out of the passenger seat, knelt on the ground and turned his back to everyone, and then there was an indescribable "blah blah blah" sound.

“Oh my god, it seems that this journey has been really painful for Matthew.”

Irisviel looked at Matthew sympathetically, while Duanmuhuai looked at her sympathetically.

 “I think you would be better off being more self-aware about your driving skills.”

To be honest, if Duanmuhuai wasn't in a suitable state to drive, and Medea and Matthew were easily regarded as minors when driving, Irisviel wouldn't be able to show off her driving skills here.

 Honestly speaking, as far as driving itself is concerned, Irisviel's skills are actually pretty good. At least she can get people from here to there.

 But other than that... just look at Mashu.

 Fortunately, Medea is a heroic spirit and has already transformed into a spirit.

  But as a pseudo-server, Mashu was not so lucky and had to suffer.

 Fortunately, Fiore didn't come along.

As the owner of this spiritual vein, Fiore should have come with her, but her legs and feet were really inconvenient, so Duanmu Huai didn't bring her.

 “What to do with this car?”

“We can only throw it here. What else can we do? Let the Fulwig family send people to collect it.”

Duanmuhuai shrugged his shoulders and walked towards the town in front of him. Medea and Irisviel disappeared as spirits. Only Matthew followed Duanmuhuai with shaky steps.

There was still some distance from the accident site to the town, but fortunately, when the two of them arrived at the entrance of the town, Matthew finally recovered from the painful motion sickness because of walking all the way.

“Is this the town Miss Fiore was talking about? It does look different.”

"Oh, yes."

Hearing Ma Xiu’s emotion, Duanmu Huai nodded. Generally speaking, it is true that some remote mountainous areas are not very developed because they have been isolated from the world for a long time. It is not uncommon for the town to remain the same for hundreds of years, but the small town in front of her was somewhat beyond Duanmuhuai's expectation. Although it was indeed located in a remote place, there were many people in the town, and people could be seen from time to time. Coming and going, quite lively.

How should I put it... This reminded Duanmu Huai of the film and television city he had visited in China before. Because costume films were shot there, all the ancient buildings were built, and most of the pedestrians were wearing ancient costumes. At first glance, it looked like It's like going back to ancient times - this is the feeling this town gives Duanmuhuai now.

It was as if they had mistakenly entered a large-scale costume film set. Everyone around them looked like actors in a costume film. Only the two of them were completely out of place, like tourists who had inadvertently walked in from the outside.

The reason is that after Duanmu Huai walked into the town, almost no one looked at him and Matthew. They acted as if there was no special difference between the two people. They just ignored them like ordinary people. No one even looked at them. He glanced at them curiously, so much so that Matthew even wondered if these people couldn't see him at all. Fortunately, these people also knew how to make way for Duanmuhuai and Ma Xiu, which showed that they were not blind.

 “Where are we going next? MASTER?”

Ma Xiu came to Duanmu Huai and asked in a low voice, while Duanmu Huai glanced around.

“Anyway, let’s do what Fiore and the others did and go to that hotel.”

The construction of the town itself is very simple. A cross-shaped main road divides the southeast, northwest, and the houses on both sides are built along these four main roads. The hotel was located at the middle intersection. Duanmuhuai and Matthew found it without much effort. Then Duanmuhuai opened the door and walked in.

 The doorbell rang, but the waiter sitting behind the counter had no service spirit at all. He just lay there sleeping. Duanmuhuai walked to the counter, stretched out his hand and rang the bell, and then woke up the waiter.

"welcome……"

The waiter who woke up yawned, stretched greatly, and then looked at Duanmu Huai and Matthew. This was an old man, who looked about sixty or seventy years old. His eyelids were half-lidded, and he looked like he was sleeping. The sleeping look seemed to show no sign of Duanmuhuai's appearance.

"What's the matter?"

 “Stay in a hotel.”

 “How many rooms?”

 “Two rooms.”

 “Okay, please register. The accommodation fee is ten pence.”

Hearing what the old man said, Duanmu Huai raised his eyebrows, then took out a banknote from his pocket and handed it over. The old man took the banknote, put it in the drawer without looking at it, and then grabbed a banknote. He handed the coin to Duanmu Huai along with the key next to it.

“The rooms are on the second floor, 201 and 202, don’t go wrong.”

 After saying this, the old man seemed to be exhausted, fell down on the counter again and fell asleep.

 “Is it really okay to do business this way?”

Matthew looked worriedly at the sleeping old man and complained helplessly, while Duanmuhuai picked up the key.

"let's go."

Arriving at the room on the second floor, Duanmu Huai opened the door. The decoration inside was as old and shabby as the town. It was hardly a good place to live.

"This place is really...even though Miss Fiore said it, it's still unexpected."

Looking at the oil lamps, shabby seats and beds placed in front of her, Matthew couldn't help but sigh. At this moment, she turned her head and saw a little boy standing at the door, so Matthew hurriedly called him. Say hello.

 “Hello, are you the innkeeper’s child?”

　　　…………”

Facing Matthew's greeting, the boy shrank back in silence, then quickly turned around and left. Seeing this scene, Ma Xiu was somewhat disappointed, but at the same time, Duanmu Huai also looked at her.

 “What’s wrong? Matthew?”

 “Ah, nothing...”

“Well, close the door and let’s have a small meeting first.”

"OK."

After Matthew closed the door, Irisviel and Medea also appeared out of thin air and landed on the ground.

 “What have you discovered?”

 Duanmu Huai’s observation ability is average. In the world of Cthulhu, he relied on Bell Girl to investigate clues. Now he can only rely on Irisviel and Medea.

 “Irisviel?”

“Frankly speaking, I don’t see these small town residents as being manipulated puppets or artificial beings at all.”

Irisviel, who came from an authoritative family of androids, quickly gave an answer.

“In my opinion, their souls are very stable and have a high degree of integration with their bodies. They can be regarded as simple ordinary people...at least from my point of view.”

According to Irisviel, the Einzbern's artificial humans have very weak personalities. This may be because they are artificial humans. Only through years of cultivation can a few artificial humans develop a certain personality. has a fixed personality, and Einzbern recognized it as a defect caused by a blank body without a soul. This is also the reason why they pursue the third cup of heaven - the embodiment of the soul. With this ability, There is no need to create a superficial existence like artificial human beings.

So from this perspective, the souls in the people in this town are consistent with the body. This at least avoids the possibility that they are artificial people or that some magician captured the soul and stuffed it into the body of the doll.

 At least that’s how Irisviel sees it.

“I don’t feel the aura of magic, but the people here seem to have very devout beliefs.”

Medea looked out the window. In this small town, there are only two tall buildings, one is a hotel, and the other is a church. The bell tower and cross above also stand tall. Not only that, along the way, Duanmu Huai He and Matthew also noticed that each of them was carrying a cross - well, at least it meant that they were believers.

 Whether one is pious or not is another matter.

“So, from your point of view, this is a normal town?”

“That’s right, no wonder Miss Fiore didn’t see it at first.”

Medea nodded.

“But I do feel something is not right, but what is the specific reason... I still need to investigate.”

"so be it."

As Duanmuhuai spoke, he sat down on the bed.

“Next, let’s recreate Fiore’s actions that night. According to Fiore, she was attacked by villagers on the night she checked into the hotel. I want to see if this is the case.”

 (End of this chapter)