3 Midnigh (2/2)

Lucien was thinking very fast. At the moment, he gathered all the strength he could muster, and carefully grabbed the handle of the door. The bread in his hand was now soaked with his sweat.

He slowly opened the door. It was very dark outside and he could hear the whistling sound of cold wind.

There was nothing terrifying there, and after he left his shack the crying voice dimmed a bit. He felt a little bit relieved and took a deep breath, then started shouting as loud as he could:

“Ghost! There’s a ghost here!”

It was so loud that even Lucien himself got surprised.

Then came a series of roaring barks from the wild dogs, and Lucien started madly rushing to the cathedral. These guys were professionals in this kind of stuff!

As the previous neighbor of the witch, he might still be under the church’s watch and there was one more benefit: Lucien’s asking for help on his own could help him gain some of their trust while reducing the suspicion.

Lucien shouted loudly to wake up the other neighbors so that if they attempted to rob the treasure and frame him or even kill him for it, they wouldn’t be able to do so in front of the crowd. He tried his best to think of every measure to save his life in such a short time.

Soon, he saw the cathedral in front of him with candlelight casting out of the windows.

Two armored guards were guarding the front gate. Seeing Lucien running towards them in panic, one of the guards pulled half of his sword out to be alert.

“What are you doing here?” The other guard asked as he reached out his hand to stop Lucien.

Lucien answered with trembling voice. “Ghost. There’s a ghost there! In the witch’s place!”

The guard got nervous after hearing that. As a newly recruited guard, he could not tell whether Lucien was telling the truth or not. So, he asked his partner to stay and went back into the cathedral to report to the pastor on duty tonight. The noise from his chainmail gradually faded as he disappeared into the darkness.

A short while later, a blond young pastor in a white robe walked out of the gate with the guard.

The pastor had a thin face. He walked in an elegant rhythm. “I’m Pastor Benjamin. Can you tell me what happened?”

The two guards were standing silently, in fear that any noise from them might disturb Pastor Benjamin.

Lucien, politely and sincerely, described in detail how he heard the ghost’s crying voice, how he got out of his place and ran here asking for their help.

After hearing him, Benjamin gave Lucien a gentle smile, “You did well, my child. Your courage shows your devotion to God.”

Then he ordered the guards, “Thomson, get Gary, Paul and the two other knights here. The witch was just an apprentice. So, there’s no need to report this to the Bishop.”

“Yes, my lord,” Thomson replied reverently. Although Benjamin was only an Elementary Level Pastor, he was capable of dealing with the traps or spells left by a sorcerer's apprentice. There was a huge gap between a formal pastor and an apprentice.

Benjamin asked Lucien’s name and stopped their conversation when the other four knights arrived; they were also wearing chain mails, but they looked much more imposing compared to the other two guards.

A crowd had already gathered some distance away from the witch’s burned cabin. Candlelight flickered like scattered stars as if accompanying the moon in the sky.

Lucien discovered that the moon in this world was silver colored.

People stopped whispering when Benjamin showed up. The crowd suddenly felt relieved and started getting closer to the witch’s cabin while talking to each other.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“No matter if it’s true or not, it does no harm to have a purification performed here.”

But Lucien could still hear the crying voice. He thought to himself, Why can’t these people hear it?

Benjamin, as if knowing what he was thinking, replied to Lucien calmly, “Yes. There are ghosts present here.”

Obviously, he heard it, as well as the four guards, who nodded to show their consent.