Aube transcendante - Chapitre 60

Traducteur: Éditeur de traductions Henyee: Henyee Traductions

The steam train accelerated a few times and reached a speed of 50kph.

The train traveled through the wild fields. The scent of grass and trees snuck in and filled the compartment.

Thulhu rubbed his eyes and yawned. Covering his face with the magazine, Thulhu pretended to fall asleep.

En réalité, he just cast Soul Out of Body, the most exclusive skill which belonged to his occupation.

Claquer!

It felt like Thulhu was dropping down from the sky in a dream.

The surroundings suddenly changed.

All the color in the compartment was washed out. The faces around him now looked frozen. The entire world was covered in a thin veil.

Thulhu turned around. Seeing his own body was very creepy. The magazine on his face covered the way his eyes had rolled back.

Oui, his eyes had rolled back.

Thulhu had once seen this in some TV series in his last life. He never thought it could actually happen, mais.

Regardant autour, Thulhu found himself still in the compartment.

It seemed that his body was like an anchor, and his soul was still connected to it.

Thulhu wasn’t used to it. He didn’t dare go too far, and only moved around nearby.

Standing in front of the young lady, Thulhu was completely invisible to her.

He turned to wave at the old couple. They didn’t respond at all.

Thulhu was encouraged. He passed through the wooden wall and entered the neighboring compartment.

“même si elle s'est sentie obligée de le dire doucement!”

À ce moment là, a black cat curled up next to a woman’s feet suddenly looked up.

Thulhu knew that cats and crows were very sensitive to the existence of spirits. He stayed calm to see what would happen.

“Domi? My lovely Domi!”

The chubby woman picked up the black cat and gently petted it. “Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?”

There was confusion in the cat’s eyes, but the lady’s gentle petting soon made it forget everything.

“Purr…”

Thulhu nodded. He realized that animals could only sense the change in the atmosphere when a spirit came close, but couldn’t pinpoint its location.

He passed through the wooden wall again into the third compartment.

The atmosphere was weird in the third compartment. Four brawny men who looked rather aggressive sat together.

Thulhu wondered if they were robbers.

Au cas où, he snuck into their bags. A son soulagement, he didn’t find any weapons, and he returned back to his own compartment.

His soul had been wandering outside his body for a while, and Thulhu noticed some ominous changes taking place around him.

Par exemple, a thick layer of dust and rust started to cover the handrails in the train.

Using Soul Out of Body was dangerous. Apart from the possibility of running into some evil spirit, one’s soul might be forever lost in the spirit world once it was too far away from the body, or spent too much time wandering!

Compared with a physical body, a human’s soul was too vulnerable.

Thulhu was ready to go back into his body now.

À ce moment là, something caught his eye.

The elderly man was still dozing.

But Thulhu saw some white light trying to escape his eyes, oreilles, and nostrils.

It seemed that the elderly man wasn’t a caster. Au lieu, he was dying!

Aging and death were inevitable for humans.

Thulhu’s soul entered his body. After gaining control of his body again, Thulhu looked at the old couple thoughtfully.

L'ancien, affectionate couple still looked healthy.

But only Thulhu knew that the old gentleman was dying and that his body was too weak to hold his soul.

Thulhu didn’t want to see the old gentleman die in front of him.

Il soupira.

Même s'il n'a rien fait, the cops would certainly get involved if someone died on the train, which would mean trouble for Thulhu.

And Thulhu always preferred to avoid trouble whenever he could.

“Hé…”

Thulhu tried to talk to the couple. “You two going to Posi Harbor as well?”

“Oui!”

The old gentleman suddenly woke up. They exchanged looks at first and then the wife answered, “We were born there, but we’ve been away from our hometown for many years. Now we’re moving back!”

“Je vois…”

Thulhu murmured. De toute évidence, the elderly man had had a foreboding; this was a wish of his which he wanted to fulfil.

“salut, I’m Dora!”

The young lady hurriedly joined the conversation. It had been too quiet in the compartment. Elle s'est présentée. “I’m a journalist! I’m also going to Posi Harbor for an interview!”

“I just graduated from college. I’m on a post-grad trip,” said Thulhu.

“You went to college?”

Dora was quite impressed.

College graduates weren’t common in this world. They were regarded as highly-educated elites in society, and were always respected.

Dora had learned how to read and write at most. As a journalist, her salary wasn’t bad.

“Yeah… St George’s University…” Thulhu nodded.

Then he asked the young lady, “Posi Harbor is quite far from Niah. Why do you have to go there?”

Thulhu wondered if something big had happened in Posi Harbor recently.

“Bien…” Dora sighed. “The newspaper needs to draw people’s attention. Journalists like me are sent everywhere in the hopes of finding some firsthand breaking news story… I don’t even know what to expect…”

“Speaking of newspapers…” said the old gentleman, “à ce moment-là, we didn’t have newspapers, just stories. In Posi Harbor, we have a legend about the Beaks.”

“The Beaks?”

Thulhu raised one eyebrow slightly, his interest piqued.

During the Twilight of the Gods, stories of some extraordinaries had turned into ghost legends.

But people would soon know that the legends were actually based on facts.

“Oui, the Beaks…” The old gentleman started looking slightly excited. “They were a group of people who had crow beaks! They showed up at night and brought misfortune to all the places they visited, so they were also called ‘Death Birds’!”

“Misfortune?”

Dora had taken out her notebook and pen. “But I heard that they were actually doctors who cured many diseases…”

The old gentleman chuckled and shook his head,

“That’s one of the many versions. pourtant, my version is a horror story. Legend has it that they brought plague and other diseases to the places they visited, and they enjoyed cutting bodies into pieces…”