Chapter 155: An Encounter in the Middle of the Night (1/2)
Calvin's eyes were grim as the golden quill in his hand shone in a dim light that served to illuminate the darkness around him.
He rushed to the old woman's wooden hut and kicked it open.
Brandishing his golden quill forward, the light from the quill fell onto the old woman.
There, she sat on her stone bed, curled in a ball, and continuously trembling from fear.
”M-Madame, are you okay? I came here to save you!”
”D-D-Don't come closer! I don't want to... I don't want to fall asleep!” The old woman shrieked like a banshee.
”Why do you not want to sleep? Isn't it easier if you just fell asleep? Why don't you just follow the urge to sleep?”
”No... I can't... I don't want to sleep. I don't want to go with them... I don't want to sleep!”
The old woman trashed on her stone bed. She was inexplicably strong, as she moved around, cracks would spread on her bed every time she smashed herself on it.
Calvin's expression turned serious.
He flicked his wrist towards the door and closed it shut. He looked around the room and discovered that the room had a protection talisman, but it obviously didn't seem to be working.
Calvin turned to the old woman. A frown was plastered across his face. The old woman seemed to be trashing on the bed on her own. There seemed to be no one compelling her to do such a thing, and she also didn't seem to be possessed.
Usually, in this case, Calvin would've already diagnosed her to be mentally challenged, but since there was this particular curse in the Village of Tulog as well as the existence of that succubus who wanted to devour him.
Who knew what kind of monsters still lurked in the Village of Tulog?
Given that they were so close to the village, it was entirely possible that a Spectre or two wandered to the outskirts of the Village to look for someone whose fear they could feed on and become even stronger.
But Spectres were generally afraid of head-to-head confrontation.
Unless they deemed it to be completely safe, they would never manifest their true form.
Calvin had to bait out the being that was torturing this old woman and if he wanted to do that...
He had to pretend to be ignorant.
”Madame!” Calvin lunged at the old woman and pressed her down onto the stone bed, ”Madame! Are you okay? What's going on?! Don't worry, I'm here... Madame!”
The old woman suddenly stopped moving.
An eerie silence filled the wooden hut.
Calvin could hear the sound of his own heartbeat, and the pitter-patter of the rain outside seemed to have become stronger.
... That he was unable to hear the sound of the door's wooden hut creaking open from behind him.
”Madame... Are you all right?”
The old woman stared right at Calvin.
But there was something strange in her gaze.
She didn't seem to be staring at Calvin, but right through him!
”Why did you open the door... Why did you come here...?”
”It's too late...”
”We will be dragged and cursed into eternal sleeplessness!”
The old woman let out a maddened shriek before her eyes rolled into her skull.
Calvin shook her shoulders and she awakened once more. Her eyelids seemed incredibly heavy for her as she intermittently closed them, trying to fall asleep, but she was ultimately unable to be in peace.
”Too late? Why is it too late? I'm here! I'm an adventurer, didn't I tell you? I'll help you! I'll help you from whatever is making you like this, madame!” Calvin cried out.
The old woman stared through him once again.
Within her eyes, terror surged and twirled.
”It's too late...”
”Why?!”
”She's here...”
The moment her voice trailed off, a biting chill came up from behind Calvin.
He immediately ducked his head to dodge, yet the attack still shaved off a few strands of his hair.
Turning around, his heart abruptly stopped.
Floating behind him was the Spectre of a half-bodied woman.
Her eyes were completely white, and blood dripped out of her lips while her cheeks seemed to be bloated from something.
There was a particularly savage look on her face as she opened her lips and let out a shriek.
”AAAHHH!!!”
A booming sound rang out, the shockwave created by the noise was so strong that it directly tore off the door of the wooden hut.
The Spectre seemed to be aggravated that she was unable to execute Calvin with a single attack.
She dashed forwards while Calvin utilized his footwork to evade the attack to the right.
'A half-bodied Spectre created from a resentment so strong that she was able to gather enough power to blow off the door of this hut... I'm lucky that the source of her power is from her resentment against something or someone. If the source of her power was from an unfinished business, then this would've been a difficult fight...'
Calvin glanced at the old woman and he discovered that the Spectre seemed to be uninterested in her.
Then, in that case— if she wasn't out here to hurt this old woman, then why was she haunting her?
Calvin looked around the area and the half-bodied woman attacked him again.
He leaped backwards and managed to avoid the attack. While he was in mid-air, he snatched the protection talisman attached from the walls of the room and hurled it over to the woman.
”Eat this!”
Calvin crushed the talisman into a ball and threw it at the woman.
But it unexpectedly passed through her body as if it was broken.
”What? It passed through her?!” Calvin was alarmed.
He had confirmed that the talisman was working the moment he held it in his hands. Yet, why did it pass through the half-bodied woman?
There was only one possibility that Calvin could think as to why the talisman was ineffective against the woman.
The woman was an exception.
The person who made this protective talisman must've made the half-bodied woman an exception that wouldn't be stopped by the talisman.
But why?
Calvin didn't have any time to think as the woman sent another attack, forcing him to block with his golden quill as he was thrown outside of the wooden hut.
Calvin deftly rolled on the ground and instantly recovered.
He stood up and stared grimly at the monster in front of him.
”You... Who are you? Why are you attacking me?”
”Why are you haunting that woman? Did she do something bad to you?”
”Do you know that you're already dead...?”
Calvin asked the questions that mattered the most in identifying what kind of a Spectre was the half-bodied woman.
But the half-bodied woman only floated inside the wooden hut.
She was staring at Calvin with this savage look on her face that didn't seem to care for anything other than destroying Calvin.
Or was it?
Calvin furrowed his eyebrows.
'If this half-bodied Spectre was out here to hurt this old woman, then why didn't she do it before?'
'Why does it seem like instead of hurting the woman... She's protecting her against something far sinister...?'
A heavy sense of foreboding flooded Calvin's heart.
But he had already made a decision.