"Stop!"
"Yes, sir!"
"I don't think I've seen you in this parish before. Are you a believer?"
"Absolutely, sir!"
"Do you believe in God?"
"Of course, sir."
"Which deity do you worship?"
"You must be joking. The Luminous One, of course!"
"Don't be ridiculous. How many gods do you believe in?"
"Bless the Luminous One!"
"Is your god male or female?"
"Huh?" Ederick Croft looked at the Watchpost of the Luminous Covenant's Patroler in front of him. His hands trembled as he held his sister's hand, and sweat beaded on his palms.
If he wanted to survive here, he had to take every question about religion seriously. The slightest mistake would result in a visit with the Covenant Corrector.
"Don't be nervous. I'm just joking." The Patroler's face showed no sign of a smile as he continued, "We've received reports that someone saw a guy who looked like the Ripper in this area. The description of the person in the report looks a lot like you..."
Hearing this, Ederick's pupils contracted involuntarily. Patroler were far more difficult to deal with than police officers. They specialized in dealing with unbelievers and heretics, and they possessed extraordinary strength.
His sister had warned him not to come here, even to the relatively lawless East District. Leaving one's own neighborhood was extremely dangerous, especially during this period. The Patroler were highly sensitive, particularly at this time.
To reduce suspicion, he had brought his ten-year-old sister along. Typically, children made the Patroler less vigilant.
Yet Ederick Croft risked everything to come to this unfamiliar district to sell a demon statue that seemed worth a fortune.
The statue was about the size of a football. Its dark green stone surface was covered in spiderweb-like patterns that resembled an ancient tree trunk split by lightning and then healed.
The patterns carved into it were even more unsettling, with twisted vines wrapping around bizarre geometric symbols, like forbidden symbols from a banned manuscript.
On top sat an old man dressed in a long robe with snake-like patterns carved into its folds. His eyes were closed, and his sunken eye sockets resembled black holes. In his left hand, he held an object resembling a crozier with two protruding fingers that looked like the forked horns of a giant creature. It exuded a sharp, dangerous aura.
The hem of the old man's robe curled upward in waves as if the sculptor had deliberately crafted it to resemble the tentacles of a sea monster about to devour a ship.
A circle of runes around the base glowed with a dark red light, resembling curses written in blood. The strokes twisted and contorted like living creatures writhing beneath the surface, emanating an unsettling aura.
Ederick had no intention of coming here, but he had no choice. His mother's sudden death was the final straw that broke the family's back. As a poor working-class family, the loss of a laborer meant the collapse of their financial stability. There would be no money for next month's rent.
Ironically, even though the laborer was dead and could no longer earn wages, the month's taxes still had to be paid. They could only go to the tax office to stop paying taxes after obtaining a death certificate from the church.
However, they couldn't afford the funeral expenses. In this city, abandoning a body and failing to pay taxes were both illegal. This meant they couldn't obtain a death certificate.
The best solution was to first pay this month's taxes, dispose of the body, and then have the police issue a missing person report the following month so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes. This was the usual practice of the poor people of Grayrat Alley.
But they couldn't bear to leave their mother's body in a dark corner like garbage. Even if they couldn't give her a proper burial, they wanted her to rest in peace.
However, they needed money.
Ederick caught a glimpse of a dark red silk ribbon peeking out from under his sister Miryam's cloak, which was wrapped around a statue of a demon god.
His heart raced, but he forced himself to stay calm and took a half step forward to block the patrol officer's view.
The patrolman's gaze had already locked onto the red silk, though, like an eagle's. "What is your sister hiding?"
He suddenly reached out to grab Miryam's cloak.
"Stop!" Ederick lunged forward to block him and knocked the patrolman's baton out of his waistband in the chaos.
The baton hummed, emitting a blue arc of light. The patrolman cursed and grabbed Ederick by the collar. The two began to wrestle in the narrow alleyway.
As a professional Inquisitor, the patrolman was far stronger than the average person; a single baton could kill a bull.
He was also surprised that this seemingly slender young man was so strong and able to hold his own against him.
Ederick felt his back collide with the cold brick wall and smelled the mixture of leather and rust from the patrolman's body.
In the chaos, Miryam's screams pierced the night sky. Ederick was knocked back by the blunt impact of an electric baton. His feet slipped, and he swung his arms frantically to maintain his balance.
"Watch out!" Miryam cried out as Ederick's back slammed into the protruding cast-iron drainpipe at the corner of the wall.
The sharp metal edge sliced across his temple, sending a searing pain that made stars explode before his eyes. His body collapsed backward uncontrollably. As the back of his head slammed into the cold stone floor, he heard the dull crack of breaking bones mingled with his sister's heart-wrenching screams. The demon statue hidden deep within the cloak pulsed with an eerie glow.
Patroler cursed, kicking Ederick's limp body aside and roughly rummaging through his clothes.
After confirming there were no "contraband items," he spat, holstered the stun baton at his waist, and said, "Looks like the informant made a mistake. You're lucky, little girl."
The patroller left the suffering girl behind. In the pool of blood, Ederick's fingers twitched unconsciously; his fingertips were just centimeters away from the statue hidden in the crack between the stone slabs.
Ederick refused to give up. He only wanted to use the statue to make some money. The blood slowly spread over the statue of the evil god, which emitted a faint glow and transformed into a tattoo on Ederick's body.
At that moment, Ederick, seemingly dead, opened his eyes once more.
Six months earlier, Earth.
March 2025, Prague. He carried a white plastic box filled with groceries and old books, staggering through the night on Wenceslas Square. A day of hard work had left him mentally and physically exhausted.
"Did I go too far this time?" he muttered to himself. Suddenly, he saw two drunken men fighting outside a bar. Though drunk and barely able to stand, the sturdy young woman delivered a textbook shoulder throw to the middle-aged man with a beard.
The man was Czech and had earned a Ph.D. in agriculture from a major Eastern European country. Tuition and living expenses in China were quite affordable, and he had lived a comfortable life there. In fact, he was so comfortable that he didn't even want to return home.
However, due to a series of issues caused by a certain blonde idiot, he had no choice but to leave the land he loved dearly.
Besides economic reasons, another factor was that his girlfriend of five years had left him for a Korean idol.
An idol? An idol? What was so special about that fair-haired guy? He was just younger, richer, thinner, better-looking, and a better dancer. How was he better than me?
Just because he's an idol, those silly girls are losing their minds and throwing themselves at him? Furious, resentful, and helpless, he could only vent his anger online by posting trash talk about the idol.
What made him even more depressed was that, after posting those comments, someone tracked down his personal information and exposed him! Even his address in Brno was exposed!
Clearly, this Korean idol had a lot of influence with fans worldwide. Before more threatening letters arrived, he moved from Brno to Prague, thinking no one would find him there.
He looked at his phone wallpaper, which featured a dark-haired, dark-eyed Asian girl. "I shouldn't have come back. I wonder if I can even be an idol at my age?"
But reality is harsh. He now works as a clerk at a secondhand bookstore called Černý Kůň (Black Horse Bookstore) in Prague's Old Town and does part-time warehouse work.
Every day, he has to tell tourists, "There's no English edition of The Metamorphosis here," and he has to handle tons of old books by himself.
Normally, it shouldn't be too difficult for a Ph.D. graduate from a certain Eastern Asian country to find a decent job, but he had chosen to specialize in the "technical dissemination of ancient Chinese agricultural texts and the modernization of European agriculture."
Moreover, the current job market in the Czech Republic isn't promising. Local businesses and farmers seem more inclined to hire Eastern European refugees, who are considered to offer better value for money.
Fortunately, he adapted quickly to his circumstances. He soon found a new purpose in life. He had always loved reading, and the ancient texts at the bookstore opened his eyes to new worlds.
Ludvík Hora was obsessed with beer, to the point of becoming an anonymous brewer. He even invented a dreadful homemade beer called "Bibliothèque du Diable," filtered through moldy ancient book pulp and mixed with Soviet-era cough syrup. The boss hoped it would have the "philosophical essence of camphor balls." One morning, Ludvík Hora kicked open the warehouse door and flung a pile of rodent-chewed paper at his employee. "The 1935 Agricultural Tools Yearbook! Do you know how much it'll cost to restore?" He pointed to the yellowed 27th page of the employee handbook. "Rodent damage must be compensated at 300% of the original price," a rule inherited from the Austro-Hungarian Empire!
He dismissed the accusation. "According to J. R. R. Tolkien's 'Mouse Track Identification Method,' these 8 mm tooth marks belong to young mice. The pH test paper shows that the warehouse humidity is only 5.2. Normally, an acidic environment would inhibit rodent reproduction. Clearly, someone violated Article 48 of the Czech Animal Protection Law by using human snacks to lure protected urban wildlife."
Ludvík's face turned as red as a pig's liver, and his thick fingers trembled as he pointed at the protagonist's nose. "Stop spreading rumors! I'm the boss. I decide who gets rewarded or punished. If you don't want to work here, get out!" The boss's attitude was firm, but it didn't matter; Ludvik was already used to dealing with such people.
That evening, he sent a 3D scan of the mouse-chewed paper to the Medical History Laboratory at Charles University with the subject line: "Urgent Report on a Suspected Carrier of the 1720 Plague Bacteria."
The next day at noon, as the sirens of the biosafety vehicle pierced the quiet of the old town, Ludvík was shaving in front of the mirror and nearly cut his chin. He rushed downstairs and saw four people in white protective suits and gas masks loading the shredded paper into sealed boxes. The bookstore's sole employee stood nearby, waving the urgent laboratory documents. "They said the hemp fibers in these paper scraps may contain remnants of 15th-century plague bacilli." "What—what?!" Ludvik's razor clattered to the ground, echoing sharply on the cobblestones.
"Don't panic. It's just possible." He shrugged, watching the staff seal the warehouse with yellow caution tape. "But, according to Article 32 of the EU Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Act, this area must remain sealed 24/7 until the test results come back. Oh, and one more thing." He flipped through the labor law provisions on his phone. "The Labor Inspection Bureau said that during the forced shutdown due to force majeure, my wages must be paid at 120%."
The boss stared at the red seal, then suddenly grabbed the protagonist's arm. "What about my losses? Those books..." "The cultural relic restoration expert will come next week to assess them." The employee pulled out his crumpled sleeve. Ludvik let go of his hand and stumbled back two steps. His lower back collided with a wooden shelf piled with old books, and a 19th-century copy of The Complete Guide to Beer Brewing fell with a crash, hitting his foot. Bending down to pick up the book, the protagonist saw Ludvík's signature on the title page from when he was young and dreamed of becoming a master brewer instead of a sharp-tongued bookstore owner. "By the way, boss." The employee tapped the book's spine and pulled a wilted sprig of sage from his pocket. "Did you know? Sage, like lavender, is a natural rodent repellent." He stuck the plant into Ludvík's beer glass. "Maybe you should add some of this to your homemade brew. It's more 'philosophical' than cough syrup." Ludvík looked at the cultural relic seal on the warehouse door; his face was as grim as his beer. The employee bent down and picked up a white plastic box filled with groceries and old books. Though he didn't have to work for a while, he picked out a few items that interested him to take home and study. He couldn't just sit around. As he passed Wenceslas Square, a commotion erupted in the crowd. A woman with a crazed look in her eyes was charging wildly down the street, wielding a meat cleaver. Her gaze locked onto Edrick, and she muttered, "Keyboard warrior... Die..." Before he could react, the cold blade had already pierced his lower back, easily cutting through his skin, muscles, and lungs.
"What are you? A keyboard warrior hiding behind a screen? Die!" The woman screamed hysterically. "Fuck..." He unwillingly turned his head, wanting to see the killer's face. But he discovered that the one holding the knife was the same drunk woman he had seen fighting earlier. Why? You were fighting each other. Why did you suddenly stab me?
This must be premeditated murder!
His thoughts were interrupted as the cold blade and hot blood left his body simultaneously. In that instant, he lost all his strength and collapsed to the ground. The cardboard box was knocked over and its contents scattered everywhere, including a stone statue the size of a soccer ball in the style of Eastern Taoist art.
The statue also fell into the pool of blood. After the fatal blow, the attacker vanished without a trace. If not for the person lying on the ground, barely clinging to life, one might have thought the attacker never existed.
"Answer my call, I need your help... Help me..." A faint, seemingly human female voice echoed in his ears.
A strong sense of dizziness overwhelmed him, and he felt his consciousness plummeting into darkness. When he 'woke up' again, he was horrified to discover that he couldn't control his body, not even his eyes.
His hearing and vision were completely gone, and he could only perceive his surroundings through a strange sense. The air was filled with the smell of decay, mixed with the pungent smell of blood and burning incense.
He "saw" himself standing on a dirty street, the ground covered with sewage and garbage. Compared to the Prague he remembered, this place was even more dilapidated and filthy, as if it were a corner abandoned by the deities.
I wished to become an idol, and the universe granted my wish… in the most literal and twisted way possible. Now I'm a fucking evil god statue!