Plague Doctor

Translator: Lonelytree

By then, the sun had set, and night was coming. Gu Jun turned to the final entry on the watcher’s diary. Beyond that were 150 blank pages.

“According to Mr. Chandler, beyond the threshold there is another world. Normally, when a person goes to sleep every night, their mind will wander between that world and the waking world. They might occasionally glance through the gap, but they will soon forget all about it after they wake up. As they grow older, as the weight of the waking world presses down on them, their ability to see through the gap will gradually disappear. This means that it is easiest for children to enter that world, and in fact, they can accidentally wander into it. This is because children still have the simplest and clearest mental state.

“Perhaps you have heard from someone or another that they entered a mirrored world or a crooked world when they were young. That was the world of truth speaking to them.

“But it is different for the ‘zombies’… Not only have their physical bodies changed, their minds have as well. No matter their age, zombies gain the power to cross in and out of that world freely. ‘Those people you call patients jumping into the mass grave, that was one of the methods of travelling into the other world,’ I remember Mr. Chandler saying. ‘Their minds have traversed through the threshold and reached their destination.'”

At this point, a connection was made in his mind. He turned back to a few pages earlier and found the quote he was looking for. ‘The worst were the ones who did not resist. It was like they had been enraptured by something else. Without being pushed, they voluntarily jumped into the open grave while chanting some kind of weird language.’ According to the description in the diary, the grave was dug incredibly deep, it could fit more than several thousand people so the depth should be more than twenty meters tall…

Jumping down from the surface into the hole… didn’t that match the patients of Nightmare Illness’ desire to commit suicide through jumping from high ground?

“Those are not simple suicide attempts.”

It then dawned on Gu Jun. Even though the victims of Nightmare Illness on Earth did not transmute instantly into zombies, they met the same end. Their mind or soul would travel or get sucked into ‘that world’. That was the reason their dead bodies were nothing but empty shells. Then there was that incident with Chen Defa… When the old man knew he was cornered, Gu Jun could feel the zombie’s soul relinquishing its corporeal body. Did that mean that Chen Defa had returned to that world as well?

The realization that zombies had the ability to cross between these two worlds freely was not a comforting thought.

And why the specific mention of children? Gu Jun was reminded of the ESP children controlled by the R’yleh Cult. If memory served him right, there were at most thirty children in that classroom that tortured Elder Tong, but Guang Ting City reported missing cases upward of more than three hundred children and toddlers, so where were the rest?

‘I am not a zombie, do not suffer from Nightmare Illness, and have long past the age of childhood, so how am I going to reach this place?’

This question formed in Gu Jun’s mind. Without realizing it, that question cemented a temporary bond between Gu Jun and the owner of the diary. That was because the watcher had asked the very same question of Mr. Chandler when he was inside his mansion. Images swam before Gu Jun’s eyes. He was given glimpses of a dark and damp manor, and there was a conversation going on.

“‘Dreams are not the only way to reach that world,’ Mr. Chandler said. ‘I have used other methods to travel there a few times. There are unique locales in the waking world where the connection is strong to the other world. If you can sense that connection and are within its proximity, you can use a special spell to materialize and open the door. But this kind of channel is extremely unstable and will not last for long. Some might cross it accidentally while others will never find it even if they have been searching for it all their life. At the end of the day, dream is the best channel because even if something bad happens to you in the other world. You can just wake up from it, and it’ll be nothing more than a nightmare.’

“Mr. Chandler handed me a spell scroll. ‘If you fail to dream your way there, use this spell. But if you travel there through this method, your mind and body will perish should you happen to die there. It is a glorious world, but glory comes with its risks. This scroll will only work once, and it is a one-way ticket. Furthermore, the door might not open for you. But should you be one of the chosen ones, heed this advice—do worry about bringing anything with you. You won’t want for anything there.’

“It would be false to say that I was not curious, but fear and confusion prompted me to ask, ‘Mr. Chandler, why are you telling me all this?’

“Mr. Chandler smiled that gentlemanly smile of his, and he responded kindly, ‘You have guarded me for half a month now. Consider this payment for your service’.”

The illusion ended as suddenly as it came. Gu Jun sucked in a deep breath. He could feel his heart wrench, but it was not as painful as before. He felt his body returning to normal after a few deep breaths. That probably had to do with his newly acquired ability and the fact that the illusion wasn’t that intense or long.

‘Spell?’ He looked at the sky that was turning dark. The watcher of the diary had ultimately zombified, and he dreamed his way into the other world, so that meant that the spell scroll was left unused at the time.

Gu Jun flipped through the diary page by page, but he did not find the thing he was looking for. As he sighed in frustration and slammed the diary shut, he realized the diary had a leather cover.

‘No way…’

With a burst of inspiration, he tried to shrug the cover off. Sewn inside the leather was a yellowed parchment. The parchment was filled with incomprehensible characters. It was not a part of the foreign language, but Gu Jun did know what kind of language they were. There were the same letters on Ol’ Uncle Dog’s tombstone, the language of the zombies.

‘This spell exists in my consciousness technically. Does that mean I can use it? Will it help me open the door that will lead me to that abandoned island?’

Gu Jun was both excited and befuddled by this surprising discovery. There were still too many things to sort out, but at least things were progressing!

With the diary finished, Gu Jun turned his attention to the next reward, the letter. The handwriting on the envelope was rather blurry, but it was still legible. The envelope had no mailing address, but the sender was signed ‘Old Friend’, and the receiver was someone named ‘Percy Chandler’. He opened the envelope, and there was only a single page inside. The content was equally succinct.

“There has been a breakthrough with the Substitute Somatic Experiment. This epidemic has provided us with the materials and opportunity that we need.”

Gu Jun frowned deeply. From this correspondence, one could tell that this Mr. Chandler belonged to a secret organization, but what was this Substitute Somatic Experiment? For some reason, Gu Jun was reminded of the Necro-skins, namely the difference in their intellect between the ones recorded in Raybundy’s diary and the ones in Phecda’s records. Since he knew that these zombies had an ability similar to spectral projection, it would not be that much of a stretch to imagine them possessing another corporeal body. So, if a Necro-skin was actually inhabited by the mind of a zombie, then…

At any rate, the ‘epidemic’ mentioned in the letter should refer to the zombie disease. After all, the Necro-skins and hemoptysis only ravaged the foreign civilization much later.

Back on Earth, the Necro-skins found so far were only slightly cleverer than wild beasts. Was the organization behind them conducting this Substitute Somatic Experiment as well? In any case, whatever this experiment was, it was heavily linked to the Nightmare Illness and the zombies. Was the spread of Nightmare Illness a necessary step in this experiment?

The more Gu Jun thought about it, the colder his heart felt. In the shadows, so many things had been progressing without the world’s knowledge. He read the letter again and again to try to trigger an illusion, but nothing came to him. Something was not right…

With a defeated sigh, Gu Jun turned his attention to the spell. He could now confirm that the foreign civilization was one well-versed in spells and magic, or at least all the Carlot Doctors knew how to utilize spells. The page was made with the same parchment that had the Malformed Banyan Disease. Even though the edges were missing, it still carried tons of information. In fact, some ant-like handwriting filled up the margin.

“Wait a minute…” Gu Jun had a sudden realization. The handwriting in the margins was Landon’s! This page appeared to come from the spell book that Landon had studied from. Gu Jun turned to the handwritten note at the top of the page.

“Words and letters themselves carry no power. One could write down a whole string of spells on the wall inside the toilet, and it would do nothing but provide a distraction for the people while they were on the loo. If no power’s applied when the spell’s written down, then it will have no power when triggered, so they are nothing more than words, words that do not look aesthetically pleasing if I do say so myself.”