Chapter 89

Chapter 89: Inspection

Through the secret passage in Buck’s mansion, Dorothy finally escaped from a hidden beach near White Silver River, and then she used the zombie puppet ring to remotely awaken another backup zombie puppet in a hidden alley where a carriage was parked. She had him drive the carriage back to Buck’s manor, and ultimately picked up Dorothy and the zombie puppet Brandon at the intersection of the beach.

On the carriage, Dorothy immediately headed to a riverside downstream of the Iron Mud River to retrieve the zombie puppet Edric. After arranging both the zombie puppet and the carriage, Dorothy boarded an ordinary taxi and drove toward home.

Finally, when the carriage stopped by NanYang Flower Road, Dorothy got off with two suitcases and entered the apartment building, climbing all the way up to the fifth floor, panting heavily.

“Huff… Huff… The fact that extraordinary beings don’t gain any physical strength is really frustrating. Without the zombie puppet ring and Dragon Roar, direct confrontation would be almost impossible.”

After entering her home, Dorothy immediately ran to her room, locked the door, and collapsed onto the bed, sighing deeply.

“Huff… It’s finally over. I nearly died of fright at the end…”

Lying on the bed, Dorothy sighed, reflecting on how the sudden appearance of the hunter truly caught her off guard. It was the biggest variable in her plan. If it weren’t for Edric distracting them and buying her enough time to try the password to open the door, she wouldn’t have known what to do next.

Edric was arranged as a backup piece in the attic by Dorothy previously. When Turner smashed the door, she had no choice but to use Edric as bait to lure the trio studying the secret room upstairs, and then engage them in conversation.

The way to engage them was through deception, bluffing, and riddles.

As long as she could confuse them and appear authoritative enough to make them hesitate, she would have bought herself time, which would be considered a success.

Dorothy had an informational advantage. Through the zombie puppet’s detection, she knew the hunters’ deployment. Additionally, Dorothy gave Edric an “Invisibility Ring” infused with “Shadow,” allowing him to shield against the hunters’ extraordinary detection abilities. Furthermore, Gregor and his team believed that Edric was responsible for the bloodshed in the study.

The information gap was the foundation of Dorothy’s ability to create riddles. The more convoluted and nonsensical the riddles were, the more they would intimidate the hunters.

Engaging with the hunters through Edric left Dorothy exhausted. After this experience, she began to genuinely admire characters in works who could maintain riddles throughout, making simple things unnecessarily complicated.

At the end, when Gregor asked about the name of her society, Dorothy casually mentioned one to cope. After all, if someone were to establish a void target, they needed a name.

Of course, although the name was casually mentioned, it wasn’t entirely fabricated.

The Rosy Cross was a secret society mentioned in a distant memory from Dorothy’s past, in a work titled “bl**d of Saints and Devils.” It was the main antagonist in the story, a group that sought to renew the world through fire, known as the Rosy Cross Knight Order. Supposedly, this name also held significant importance in the mysticism of Dorothy’s original world.

When Gregor asked about the society’s name, the first thing that came to Dorothy’s mind was this name, so she used it directly. It was just a name after all, nothing too serious.

After resting for a while, Dorothy stood up and sat beside her desk, beginning to inspect her spoils of war.

First, Dorothy opened the boxes she had taken from Buck’s house and started checking each item. There were several nice-looking mundane jewelry pieces, which she planned to sell for cash once the heat died down. Then there was about 120 pounds in cash, adding to her original 215 pounds, bringing her total to 335 pounds.

Next were some sigils. Dorothy found four normal bl**d-Eating Sigils and two strange ones. They looked similar to normal bl**d-Eating sigils, all “Cup” sigils, but with much denser incantations, making it hard for Dorothy to determine their purpose.

“Strange ‘Cup’ sigils. Could they be related to Buck’s sudden outburst? I’ll consult Audric later.”

Thinking this, Dorothy put down the two complex versions of the “Cup” sigil and picked up the last special sigil.

This sigil was not found in the secret room but in the study, near where Buck was hit by the Dragon Roar. Clearly, it had fallen directly from him.

From the symbols on it, this sigil was not “Cup”; it depicted overlapping symbols. After examining, Dorothy identified them as “Shadow” and “Enlightenment.”

“Hmm… Still a dual-domain sigil. I wonder what it does. Now I have another question for Audric. If I remember correctly, the combination of ‘Shadow’ and ‘Enlightenment’ seems to mean dreams?”

Having thought this, Dorothy put away the special sigil and looked at the next spoil, two secret transmissions. One was a novel called “The Taste of Crimson” that she had read before, suitable for corrupting others. Now she had a duplicate, which would provide no additional spirituality, so she considered selling it later.

Next, Dorothy looked at the other secret transmission. Its title was “Praise of the Cup Mother.”

After a brief glance, Dorothy realized this book was a poetry collection, mainly praising a deity named “Mother of Cups,” “bl**d Cup,” “Womb of All Flesh,” “Goddess of Desire…” a pure goddess of the “Cup” domain, representing the essence of “Cup.”

“Is this the deity worshipped by the Crimson Eucharist? Given their nature, this deity is likely an evil god. But it’s not necessarily so…”

While thinking this, Dorothy glanced at the cover of “Praise of the Cup Mother” and continued.

“Unfortunately, this secret transmission is in the form of poetry, which might not be very useful for exchanging extraworld knowledge. It can only be accumulated as spirituality.”

Dorothy thought this because she had asked the system earlier about the exchange of extraworld knowledge, which was categorized. Local knowledge exchanged for corresponding extraworld knowledge, such as language for language, Identification Technique for Identification Technique. This was why she didn’t exchange “The Taste of Crimson.” She felt novels might not be very useful, preferring to exchange specific skills. Similarly, this “Praise of the Cup Mother” was a poem, and she wasn’t sure what kind of poetry she’d get in return.

Dorothy’s Soul Book was running low, and she could only make one exchange before her next promotion. Therefore, she needed to carefully consider which knowledge to exchange.