Black suspenders hung from the shoulders of a light yellow shirt, and a round brown hat sat atop their heads. Both were young men, and the soot stains on their faces and clothing suggested they belonged to the lower or middle classes.
They might have been waiting for prey on the street outside, but who knew what might emerge from the manhole cover behind them.
Forced into the corner of the alley by someone wielding a short knife from the manhole cover, the black-sooted bricks carried a faint scent of coal. Due to tension, Donald's gaze kept lingering on the two men.
His consciousness suddenly grew hazy for about three seconds, and the scene before his eyes seemed to be covered by a layer of pale red gauze.
"Gentlemen, I don't want to cause any trouble. You're emitting gray mist from your bodies. Don't you plan to do something about it?"
Under the moonlight, Donald saw through the red veil that gray mist was beginning to emanate from the shoulders and heads of the two men, swirling above their heads. He thought there might be something wrong with their bodies and tried to warn them to defuse the situation.
Due to his high level of tension, he did not realize that the problem actually lay with himself.
"Gray mist... Mike, isn't this guy a mentally unstable vagrant? Would someone like that have anything of value?"
The two young thieves exchanged glances, and the one on the left whispered, beginning to doubt whether he had misjudged the situation.
"That's his lie. Look at his leather shoes and the vest under his cloak. This isn't the attire of someone from the lower classes. I'll bet he comes from a good family and has money on him. Kill him, and we won't have to worry about money for the next few days."
Crime seemed like a trivial matter in their mouths. In this era, killing someone wasn't that difficult.
But at this moment, Donald's focus was clearly a bit detached from reality. He swore he saw gray mist above their heads, and as they approached him with their knives, faint red bloodstains began to appear in the gray mist.
What on earth was going on...
"Go!"
Mike's Adam's apple bobbed as he issued the low command, sending a chill through Donald's core and causing goosebumps to rise on his skin.
This was a dead end; there was no retreat behind him. Had he just crossed over only to die again here?
"Wait... No!!"
The blade was only about 2 centimeters away from his chest. A surge of blood or something else rushed into his mind, and Donald reached out, shouting.
It stopped.
The blade stopped!
The two thieves could only feel their hands holding the knife fixed in front of them, unable to move forward even an inch.
"What's happening... my knife... Demon's minion, this is a heretic! Run!!"
Mike stared into Donald's eyes, and in the next moment, he seemed to see immense terror. What terrifying eyes they were, with a deep, mysterious black iris and a central pupil glowing with a deep red, blood-like phosphorescence.
As he was locked in that gaze, fear welled up uncontrollably in his heart. His primal instinct urged him to flee, as far away as possible!
A face twisted with horror and panic appeared on his features. Without hesitation, he dropped his weapon and fled the alley alongside his companion.
"Cough cough~ Sigh~ Hah~"
A series of incomprehensible moans escaped Donald's throat as he watched the two criminals flee. A overwhelming sense of exhaustion spread throughout his body, causing him to collapse onto the ground, drenched in cold sweat.
Soon, Donald felt his back and armpits completely soaked through.
"Demonic followers... heretics? What does that even mean? Why did they run? The knife just now... What the hell kind of world is this!"
Though Donald himself couldn't see the changes in his body, he still sensed something from the criminals' words.
Leaning against the wall, enduring the tremors in his body, his thoughts wandered uncontrollably.
Donald Grant was an ordinary person, at least he had been an ordinary person. Otherwise, such an event would have left an indelible impression in his memory.
So where did the power that had frozen the two criminals come from?
Combining the words he had heard earlier with the demon-summoning magic array in the sewer, Donald's face suddenly turned ashen. That was a demon-summoning array... .
Perhaps the demons he had seen in his previous life were cold and handsome, with a high sense of style, but that was merely fiction.
Based solely on the location and conditions of the demon-summoning ritual, Donald could be certain that as beings representing the dark side of desire, demons in this world were undoubtedly terrifying entities!
"The ritual... succeeded? No, that's not right. That array was clearly..."
The ritual's success meant the demon had indeed appeared, even though he hadn't seen it himself... But if his memory served him correctly, the symbols in the blood ring of the array he had seen earlier did not mention any bestowal of power, but rather focused on the act of sacrifice.
The panic and horror in his heart took their toll on his body, causing another fit of violent coughing. After all, Donald had been an ordinary person in his previous life, and suddenly encountering such a situation without any prior examples or knowledge in this area was overwhelming.
Even straining his brain, he couldn't recall any of the religious knowledge he had once possessed.
"There's not enough information. Don't scare yourself. Things aren't that bad. Speculating without evidence will only make the situation worse."
Speculating blindly about things without sufficient information to support it is undoubtedly asking for trouble in the current situation.
The most important thing now is to return home. He needs to familiarize himself with and understand this world as quickly as possible, especially Donald's situation. Knowing only his name and age is meaningless.
Leaning against the wall with one hand, he walked out of the alley. The street below was paved with brown, gray, and light red stone bricks, not very wide—perhaps two lanes—and covered in dust. The bricks weren't perfectly level, but they were still neat.
Streetlights illuminated both sides of the street, with black lamp posts and simple glass lampshades. Upon closer inspection, these were the most primitive kerosene lamps, requiring a torch to ignite them manually. It was likely past the time for lighting, as the glow within the lampshades served as proof.
This was Donald's first detailed observation of the houses in this world. They had an Italian-style design, with flat roofs, eaves, angular protruding windowsills, and aerial corridors suspended mid-air connecting the buildings on both sides of the street. Art and civilization were intertwined within them.
Of course, this was only part of the picture. Similar Gothic-style pointed-roof houses with arched domes also existed nearby, and overall, the architectural style was highly free-form.
Standing at the entrance of the alley, Donald stared at a fruit shop across the street with a "closed" sign hanging on the door for about two minutes. The dark green facade had a fresh feel to it, but the wooden rack outside was empty, and the fruits had likely been taken back. There were some peeled fruit skins on the ground, flattened and crushed by footsteps.
Why waste so much time looking at the surroundings?
Because Donald Grant suddenly realized he had no idea where his home was!
What was this?
Forgetting other things was one thing, but not knowing where his own home was—how unwilling had his former self been to return home? His memories of his own home were so vague.
This gap in his memory left Donald in a predicament. The only place he could think of was the police station; the police should be able to help him find his home, but the problem was that he also didn't know where the police station was...
At this point, finding a passerby became essential, so Donald simply walked down the street.
Ding~ Ding~ Ding~
The sound of bells echoed in the distant night sky. It was exactly 8 PM.
At this hour, no matter which world you're in, it's not exactly a time for rest, so Donald quickly spotted the first passerby—a middle-aged man wearing a loose-fitting shirt, with a cloth bag slung over his shoulder.
"Sir, could you tell me where the nearest police station is?"
Donald noticed the middle-aged man's surprised expression, especially as he lingered on his cloak for a moment and subtly took a couple of steps back.
"It's on Melanson Street. Keep walking straight, and there's a sign at the corner fifty meters ahead. It's about two blocks from here. Oh... the smell on you is really..." Sorry, I have to go."
Humans experience olfactory fatigue. Donald had been in the sewer for a long time and had rolled around in his cloak a few times, so the smell on his body wasn't much better than a pigsty. He might not have noticed it himself, but the other man was deeply bothered by it, so after a brief exchange, the middle-aged man left immediately.
"Melanson Street."
After repeating the name of the street, Donald hurriedly took off his cloak. Upon seeing the sticky substance clinging to the back of the cloak, he quickly tossed it into a nearby trash bin, and the strange odor around him immediately lessened.
Following the street forward, he soon spotted the signpost pointed out by passersby. Five wooden signs outlined the route to the Puston City Police Department in black ink.
Turn right at the intersection and walk to the bridge spanning the river. Puston City under the night sky was quiet and peaceful... at least from the bridge.
"Grant? Is that you?"
Someone nearby was calling out to him. He looked in the direction of the voice and saw the source under a streetlight ten meters away.
The first thing he saw was a pair of women's short boots, followed by a plain beige dress that covered her neck and elbows, completely concealing her body.
The girl before him had fair cheeks and delicate, harmonious features. Her deep blue eyes shimmered with a soft glow under the pale yellow light. If there was anything unusual about her, it was her two straight eyebrows, which somehow gave her otherwise delicate and adorable face a strong and capable aura.
"Hmm..."
Donald responded with a single syllable before falling silent, his brows clearly furrowed. It wasn't because the girl's tone was obviously distant when addressing him. Perhaps stimulated by external factors, fragmented words and emotions began to surface in his mind.
Wife! Loathing!