Chapter 140: Ciel in the Simulation

Ciel in the Simulation

Ciel, half-wrapped in a trench coat, lay prone on the desk, her eyes tightly shut.

Suddenly, Ciel, in her light sleep, felt a sensation as if falling from a great height. Her body jolted violently, startling her awake.

Her knee accidentally hit the bottom of the desk. The entire desk trembled, and the small candlestick placed on the desk lost its balance, tipping sideways, about to spill wax onto the desktop.

But Ciel was faster than its fall. As if by instinct, she reached out directly and steadied the candlestick.

The candle on the candlestick, burned down to a short stub, didn’t fall, but some of the wax melted by the flame and not yet solidified poured directly onto the back of Ciel’s hand.

The stinging and burning sensation completely woke Ciel, who wasn’t deeply asleep anyway. She righted the candlestick, calmly stood up, walked to the washroom, and washed the solidified wax off the back of her hand with tap water.

A minute later, Ciel returned to her room with a reddened backhand, habitually took out her stopwatch, and looked at the current time.

Two in the morning...

From when Adele left until now, Ciel’s intermittent sleep lasted for about seven hours.

Sleep was very regular in another sense; she was inevitably awakened by various strange dreams every 20-30 minutes, but she couldn’t remember the content of the dreams each time, only feeling her brain muddled.

However, this feeling eased slightly during the later sleep sessions.

Coupled with the additional mental recovery brought by 【Calm Mind】, she now felt her spirit had recovered about seventy to eighty percent.

Ciel looked at the “Endless Manual of Instant Forgetfulness” in the system inventory, confirmed its contents were correct again, then directly took it out.

She made modifications to some of its contents.

Still needed to find corpses, still needed to stitch together the woman from the quill pen’s memory.

But the difference this time was that luring out the quill pen and dragging it into the Other Side to extract the Uniqueness would no longer be operated by Ciel herself.

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Instead, Ciel in the simulation would directly complete all the planned objectives.

Now, compared to hands-on experience, Ciel valued her own mental health more.

If her simulated self completely collapsed due to this plan and didn’t survive until 8 PM on July 1st, it meant Ciel had to optimize her idea again.

She currently had 187 Fate Points. There was no need for her to do particularly dangerous things just to save 10 Fate Points anymore.

It would just be hard work for her simulated self.

After completely modifying the plan, Ciel placed the “Endless Manual of Instant Forgetfulness” back into the system inventory, then confirmed the contents inside again through the inventory icon.

First objective: find a safe time period to use tranquilizers to recover her spirit.

Second objective: find a way to help Avena advance.

Third objective: lure out the quill pen without killing Lucy and Oppold.

Fourth objective: extract the Uniqueness from the quill pen without exposing any information. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“Mm...”

Ciel nodded.

Finding a safe time period and helping Avena advance were both elevated to top priority options.

Because if these two objectives could be completed, it would greatly alleviate Ciel’s current mental stress.

Good luck, my simulated self...

“Future Days.”

“No.4.”

After the system screen flashed white light, it disappeared before Ciel’s eyes.

Ciel remained seated in place. Everything around, whether candles or object placements, remained unchanged. And she didn’t feel any power or whispers related to “Coroner.”

Ciel fell silent for a moment, then opened the system’s simulation interface.

The familiar system screen displayed before Ciel. Her Fate Points were still 187, but the text on the simulation interface was completely twisted and deformed, emitting waves of bizarre aura.

Clicking it would enter deep simulation.

She opened the system inventory. The Endless Manual inside showed the objectives she needed to complete.

So, this is the feeling of becoming the “simulated self”?

What kind of deadly tasks are these.

Damn you, real me.

Ciel sighed with the same sentiment her “simulated self” might have expressed countless times before.

...

Ciel took out a notebook and began writing on it.

【Holy Year 741, June 25th, 2 AM】

【From now on, I will record time periods without encountering any misfortune. You can choose a longer period to use the tranquilizer and recover your spirit】

Ciel closed the notebook, put it, a dip pen, and a bottle of ink into the mixture bag Adele gave her, then clipped the mixture bag onto her belt.

Since her real self had already delayed quite some time and slept for seven hours, less than seven days remained for her simulated self now.

A full 162 hours, just over six and a half days.

For the first two days, it was best not to have any contact with the transcendent, to avoid affecting the “finding a safe time period” aspect, which was the top priority.

The current Ciel actually hoped the “safe time period” would arrive later, so she wouldn’t have to perform the last two dangerous actions...

Of course, this was just wishful thinking.

The success or failure of the matter directly related to the life and death of her real self, allowing no room for carelessness.

What could be done now, investigation without contacting the transcendent, was probably only searching for corpses.

This could be directly written to Avena. Even if Avena in the simulation sensed something, as long as the method of obtaining corpses was acquired, her real self could directly bypass Avena and acquire the corpses.

If suitable corpses really couldn’t be found, she could only try contacting Tara. There were plenty of ordinary people among the cultists; suitable corpses shouldn’t be lacking.

After confirming the goal, Ciel immediately started writing a letter. It would probably be morning tomorrow before she received a reply.

Just right to record the time from now until morning, see if she could gather 8 hours of safe time. According to Adele’s description, the tranquilizer she left lasted for 6 hours, plus a 2-hour buffer, should meet the need for mental recovery.

-

After waking the maid across the street to relay the message, Ciel returned to her room and began attempting to sleep.

She might have many things to do later; recovering some spirit was better than none.

Her real self could definitely get ample rest using the “safe time” she found. Recovering more spirit would also bring the simulation results closer to the state of her real self’s peak mental strength.

After recording everything she did in the notebook, Ciel blew out the candle and continued sleeping slumped over the desk.

After about five hours of intermittent sleep, Ciel faintly heard the familiar rhythmic knocking from downstairs.

Ciel, not fully asleep anyway, directly got up and walked downstairs.

Opening the door, she saw the two maids standing at the entrance, holding Avena’s reply letter.

“Thank you...” Ciel thanked them, preparing to close the door.

But at this moment, one of the maids couldn’t help but ask, “Miss Ciel, are you alright? You look rather pale...”

“Me?” Ciel felt her mental strength had recovered about seventy to eighty percent and said, “Quite well, thank you for asking.”

After politely thanking the maid for her concern, Ciel closed the wooden door and walked upstairs with the envelope.

Opening the envelope, Ciel took out the letter Avena wrote to her.

Sure enough, Avena in the letter mentioned Adele coming to her house last night with medical tools and expressed concern about her physical condition.

Seemingly considerate of Ciel having unspoken difficulties, Avena didn’t offer to come over herself, just saying in the letter she would go to Adele to understand the situation.

Although sometimes acting childish, Avena still showed maturity and consideration far beyond her age. At least, ensuring Ciel was safe, she wouldn’t cause trouble for Ciel.

Later in the letter, after recommending a tailor for making clothes, Avena also started telling Ciel about methods for obtaining corpses.

Avena wasn’t unfamiliar with the “Coroner” Reconstitution Ritual process.

After learning it wasn’t Ciel herself digesting the “Coroner” potion, Avena stated the method of obtaining corpses in the letter.

In fact, Avena’s family cooperated with many “Coroners” because they had the ability to “pry open corpses’ mouths,” which greatly aided “Detective” digestion.

Moreover, to prevent some people from creating corpses just to digest the “Coroner” potion, causing more deaths, the Roswell family actually tacitly permitted the trade of death row inmates’ corpses from some prisons.

Unable to cut off the circulation of “Coroner” potions and Reconstitution Rituals at the source, this was the only way to reduce potential homicides.

Besides this information, Avena also gave Ciel a recommendation letter, but the signature on this letter wasn’t Avena’s own, but some official from the Berren City Police Department.

It seemed Avena herself didn’t want to get involved in corpse trading either.

However, this actually made things convenient for Ciel. At least when she presented this recommendation letter in reality, she wouldn’t need to explain how she got it from Avena, and Avena likely wouldn’t discover the existence of this letter.

Ciel glanced at the time.

It was now seven in the morning, only five hours past two AM.

She decided to wait another three hours, until ten o’clock, before going out, thus finding eight hours of “safe time.”

This was good news, and also bad news.

Good news was her real self could directly drink the mixture and sleep peacefully. Bad news was her simulated self had to do some more dangerous things.

Using this time to try sleeping again for a while, Ciel opened her eyes when it was close to ten o’clock.

She glanced at the time, then took out the notebook and wrote down the eight hours of safe time she had explored.

Then, she put the notebook and pen into the mixture bag, took the recommendation letter Avena gave her, hailed a carriage, and headed towards Berren City Prison.

Due to holding the recommendation letter, she easily entered the prison interior and was received by the warden. After learning Ciel’s purpose, he took Ciel to an interrogation room.

Ciel didn’t enter the interrogation room but stayed in a small adjacent compartment.

The compartment had two peepholes, allowing people inside the compartment to see into the interrogation room, while people in the interrogation room would find it difficult to notice the observing eyes here.

For this era without one-way mirrors, this was considered a good way to protect privacy. After all, some people, perhaps due to faith or personal reasons, didn’t want their appearance remembered by death row inmates.

As per Ciel’s request, many female death row inmates were brought in one by one.

There were about twenty in total, but most were gaunt and severely malnourished.

Most of these women committed murder. A few were convicted of infanticide, treason, and illegal abortion.

They weren’t executed immediately but were used by the prison for corpse sales.

Looking through this round, Ciel didn’t see any particularly good choices, only reluctantly recorded a few numbers before leaving the prison.

Actually, the female robber who tried breaking in earlier suited Ciel’s needs quite well. If she couldn’t find a suitable corpse again, Ciel could only try performing plastic surgery on her herself.

Anyway, skin and such could be taken from other tender parts of her body and stitched on. Only the bone shape needed reshaping.

Next, Ciel found the tailor’s address Avena left her. She brought her abstract design sketch.

Avena recommended an old tailor who used to specialize in making formal wear for nobles, once owning a decent shop and family in Ansu.

However, after aging, still haven’t saved enough money to buy a house in a good location in Ansu, she returned to her hometown Berren City with her husband and son, bought a few houses, occasionally took tailoring orders, considered it indulging a hobby.

The old lady lived near the gem processing factory in the Gem District. The security there was relatively better than Clock Tower Alley, and housing prices weren’t as expensive as near Gem Avenue.

Most importantly, one could buy leftover materials from the gem processing factory at low prices from street vendors there. Collecting gems was one of the old lady’s few remaining hobbies now.

-

With Avena’s introduction, Ciel smoothly met the somewhat stern-looking old lady.

However, after seeing Ciel’s design sketch and hearing Ciel’s ideas about the clothes, the initially indifferent old lady became interested, discussing various details of the clothes with Ciel, and began hand-drawing the design sketch.

Since Ciel had seen the original version of the clothes and could describe the approximate feeling of the details, coupled with the old lady’s solid professional skills, about an hour and a half later, a rough pattern emerged.

The old lady seemed never to have seen such a design either. According to her, this design aesthetic was very retro, yet extremely bold in the use of accessories, especially the red and gold color scheme, giving a sense of luxury.

The old lady was very willing to help Ciel make this dress, but after hearing the production time, Ciel’s brow furrowed slightly.

This formal dress was very complex, and the accessories on it all needed customization, requiring contact with corresponding craftsmen. At the latest, it might take several months; at the fastest, it would take three weeks for the dress to be completely finished.

Three weeks... too long.

Unless she spent Fate Points for a simulation exceeding one month, then redeemed it from reality using Fate Points.

100 Fate Points just for one dress... Even Ciel felt she couldn’t quite afford it.

Thinking there probably wouldn’t be much use for money later, Ciel directly took out the Su pounds obtained from Avena, placing six hundred Su pound banknotes directly before the old lady.

“5 days, can it be done?” Ciel looked at the old lady before her and said, “Doesn’t need to be particularly fine, overall similarity is enough. If any craftsman’s help is needed, I can contact Miss Avena to help you find one.”

Facts proved that the power of money was immense.

After Ciel took out the six hundred Su pounds, the old lady’s eyes went straight. Without even thinking carefully, she nodded repeatedly in agreement.

She probably no longer saw a pile of banknotes, but a middle-class townhouse in Ansu.

Ciel directly left 200 Su pounds as a deposit, left her address, and then left the tailor’s home.

Ciel didn’t feel it was a waste of money. Anyway, she could directly redeem the clothes in reality—her real self definitely couldn’t wait another five days for the old tailor to finish the clothes.

The “safe time” had been found. Clothes and stitchable corpses were ready. What Ciel needed to do now was, while waiting for the clothes to be made, help Avena digest the “Psychologist” potion.

Glancing at the time, it was already twelve noon, lunchtime.

Ciel hailed a carriage, directly gave Avena’s home address, then began recording everything that happened today in Chinese in a notebook on the carriage, for her real self to check upon arrival.

After she finished recording everything, the carriage also stopped at the gate of Avena’s manor.

Ciel paid the fare and got off. The gatekeeper, upon seeing Ciel, didn’t even announce her, directly opening the manor gate. A maid came forward, leading Ciel inside.

The servants inside the manor basically all recognized Ciel, and the butler had also instructed that Miss Ciel didn’t need announcement upon arrival, just lead her directly to the Young Mistress.

Avena was currently having lunch, seemingly not expecting Ciel to visit her at this time, looking slightly surprised upon seeing Ciel.

And Adele, sitting on the other side of Avena, was still lowering her head, devouring steak, seemingly not noticing Ciel standing at the door.

“Want to eat some?” Avena pointed to the chair beside her and said, “Just right, I’m not very hungry. I actually called Adele over this noon to discuss matters concerning you.”

Avena didn’t ask the maids to add another set of tableware but pushed her unused set towards Ciel, because she knew Ciel wouldn’t mind these small matters.

“Where’s Nia?” Ciel sat beside Avena and asked casually.

At this moment, Adele finally noticed Ciel sitting opposite her, flushed red as she swallowed everything in her mouth, then wiped her mouth with a napkin and said, “Ciel? Why are you here? Are you better?”

Ciel, having skipped breakfast and lunch, picked up Avena’s fork and began eating the food on Avena’s plate without ceremony.

“She went to confirm the security situation at the venue for tonight’s banquet, will be back later.” Avena adjusted her glasses, asking somewhat curiously, “Do you need her help?”

“No, just ask her not to meet me directly when she returns,” Ciel said straightforwardly, “I’m cursed. Encountering transcendents triggers misfortune. The higher the tier of the transcendent seen, the stronger the misfortune.”

Hearing this, Avena looked slightly puzzled.

Curse... curse?

Impression seemed to be that no transcendent path possessed such an ability...

“Not a transcendent, it’s a sealed artifact.” Seemingly noticing the doubt in Avena’s eyes, Ciel explained.

“Oh...” Avena nodded. If it was a sealed artifact, it was indeed understandable.

Was this why Ciel left the manor before?

“Hasn’t the matter been resolved yet?” Avena asked.

Meanwhile, Adele, whose concern for Ciel’s health was ignored, silently observed Ciel’s complexion seemed slightly better, then continued lowering her head to gnaw on the steak, seemingly not minding being ignored at all.

“Not yet, almost there.” Ciel put down her knife and fork, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

At this moment, Ciel, preoccupied with completing her tasks, remembered she seemed to have forgotten to reply to Adele. She looked towards Adele and said, “Adele, thank you for asking, much better.”

“Huh?” Adele looked up blankly towards Ciel, seemingly forgetting what she asked just now.

After confirming Ciel’s condition wasn’t worsening, Adele forgot the previous matter and continued indulging in the food.

“It’s nothing, continue eating.” Ciel silently looked at Adele, then turned her head towards Avena, only to find Avena wiping her mouth with a napkin.

Unsure if she was hiding a chuckle.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Avena put down the napkin and asked.

She knew Ciel wouldn’t visit her for no reason. Judging by Ciel’s appearance, it didn’t seem like she came just to hang out.

-

“Indeed, there’s something I need to trouble you with.” Ciel didn’t hide it. No need for roundabout ways in the simulation; just state everything clearly, efficiency first.

“I can help you find second-tier transcendents brainwashed by cultists, help you complete the ‘Psychologist’ Reconstitution Ritual.” Ciel looked into Avena’s eyes and said, “If one isn’t enough, two or three will do.”

Brainwashed cultists?

Currently, in Berren City, all members of the Divine Advent Church were dead. Where to find brainwashed cultists? And second-tier?

Cultists hide extremely deeply, but Ciel spoke as if cultists were common weeds by the roadside, easily plucked up several at will.

“Do you need a trustworthy ‘Psychologist’?” Avena asked.

She herself definitely didn’t need others to help with the Reconstitution Ritual. Even if she temporarily couldn’t find out-of-control cultists or transcendents, Avena had enough time to wait.

After all, she currently faced no risk of being devoured by the potion.

If Ciel urgently wanted her to advance, the only explanation was that Ciel needed a trustworthy “Psychologist,” and that person was herself.

Ciel needs me.

“Yes.” Ciel didn’t beat around the bush, nodding straightforwardly, “I need a trustworthy ‘Psychologist’ to treat me.”

“Treat you?” Avena recalled what the maid said before, about Adele rushing to Ciel’s house late at night with a medical kit, asking curiously, “Are you experiencing spiritual pollution problems now?”

“Yes.” Ciel nodded.

“It might be too dangerous for a ‘Listener’ to treat me.”

“‘Listener’ would be too dangerous?” Avena nodded.

That at least proved the spiritual pollution Ciel needed treatment for likely wasn’t low in severity.

At least second-tier, no, potion pollution above second-tier.

“Okay.” Avena nodded and said, “I’ll try.”

Avena herself needed to perform the “Psychologist” Reconstitution Ritual, just couldn’t find the subject for the ritual. If the organization behind Ciel could provide one, Avena was very willing to accept.

Moreover, Ciel’s trust was also very gratifying to Avena.

After agreeing with Avena to bring the person over before June 29th, Ciel left Avena’s manor before Nia returned, using the excuse that the curse was still active.

After Ciel left, Avena kept Adele, who had freeloaded a meal, asking her to research new, gentler mental potions together, hoping to alleviate some of Ciel’s mental stress.

After all, tranquilizers had dependency issues. If possible, it was better not to use them.

Before leaving, Avena handed Ciel a Roswell family crest. This was an emblem that direct family members would have. Besides being able to withdraw a certain amount of Su pounds from the bank, this emblem could also be used to mobilize the power of the police department.

Unsure if this was Avena’s own emblem, perhaps due to trusting Ciel, or perhaps due to completely disregarding the family.

After leaving the manor, Ciel hailed a carriage. On the carriage, she recorded today’s conversation in her notebook for her real self to check upon arrival.

All preliminary preparations were done... Next, it depended on herself.

Tara was expected to find Amy only on the 26th. For this, Ciel went to Amy’s house in advance, gave her a heads-up, told her not to panic upon Tara’s arrival, left her own address, and asked Amy to have Tara follow the address to find her after seeing Tara.

By the time Ciel finished all this, it was already 1:30 PM.

She briefly recorded the events in her notebook, then took the emblem Avena gave her and headed towards the police department.

Because she needed to perform “plastic surgery” on the corpse, she had to get the corpse in advance, reserving ample time for herself to modify the corpse.

There were some minor incidents along the way—the horse pulling the carriage she rode suddenly got spooked and bolted, overturning on the road. The entire wooden carriage shattered into pieces.

Ciel avoided the risk by jumping out the window in advance using “Precognitive Sight,” only suffering minor scrapes on her palm.

She knew this was likely related to her misfortune. After giving the coachman 20 pounds, she ignored these trivial matters, boarded a new carriage, used Avena’s family crest, and retrieved the female robber who attempted burglary from the police station’s detention cell.

She had two detectives escort the female robber back to her home, tied her up in the living room, then gave each detective 5 pounds and dismissed them.

Ciel had no intention of concealing anything. Conversely, she wanted to know if any unexpected situations would arise after these actions were seen.

Discovering accidents early allowed for better troubleshooting. After all, she couldn’t guarantee absolutely no one saw all this, only try to avoid it as much as possible.

“What is Miss Ciel doing?”

“Don’t know... That... isn’t that the robber from that night?”

“Why did she bring her into the house?”

“Should we go check? Seems quite dangerous...”

The two maids living across from Ciel naturally witnessed this scene and began discussing whether to intervene.

Finally, for the sake of the Young Mistress’s task and Miss Ciel’s safety, the maid who subdued the female robber last night decided to go to Ciel’s home, while the other maid prepared to return to Avena’s manor to report.

The maid walked to Ciel’s front door and raised her hand to knock.

After a moment, the door slowly opened.

A young woman with dark purple pupils, long black hair transitioning to fluorescent blue from the middle downwards, with a pale face and weary dark circles under her eyes, leaned against the doorframe, looked at the maid at the door, and said listlessly:

“You... need something?”

The maid looked at the dark red, still dripping blood on the young woman’s gloves, her legs trembling uncontrollably.

“Miss... Miss Ciel?” The maid asked tentatively, feeling her teeth chattering. The smell of blood wafting from the living room made her scalp tingle.

“Mm...” Ciel rested her hand on the door, slowly saying, “Just deliver the meal to my door later... I’m too lazy to cook myself.”

Screech—

The wooden door closed with a shriek. Only after the wooden door was completely shut did the chilling aura seemingly emanating from the house slightly diminish.

The maid took two steps back, almost tripped by the stairs behind her. If not for the bloodstains remaining on the doorframe, she wouldn’t even believe what she felt and saw just now was real.

The midday sun shone on her body, yet still couldn’t dispel the fear of the unknown brought by the terrifying existence named “Ciel” just now.