Louisiana...
After a hefty travel, Jojo and others entered Louisiana by passing by the wooden board showing that Louisiana welcomes you.
sigh~
"Finally... we arrived."
Looking at the board they had passed through, Jacob, sitting in the back seat of the other car, had a relieved sigh.
"It's been a long journey riding the car on the lonely road where they have encountered only a handful of people or a car during the journey."
chuckle~
"Kid... you should have ridden those broken carts."
Hearing Jacob, who was complaining about the ride, Elijah couldn't help but chuckle at the reaction.
"Probably he would be the one pulling the cart..."
haha~
Klaus, who was in the same car, hearing the conversation, couldn't help but tease the kid before him with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
While the brothers were teasing and making fun of Jacob, who seemed to roll his eyes at their antics.
What could he do? Fight them? Forget it... that would be his last day, and he'd die at the hands of these brothers.
So all he could do was grit his teeth and put up with the mocking and jokes about him.
sniff~
"Can you smell it?"
Suddenly Klaus, who was making fun of Jacob, stopped and took a sniff and turned to look at Elijah with a serious expression.
"Yeah... it's blood, but it's coming from a little farther away... by the direction we are going."
Nodding his head, Elijah took his mobile and sent a text message to Freya to inform her since she was travelling along with Jojo in the car in front of them.
When Freya noticed the vibration on her mobile due to the notification, she took her mobile and opened it.
She saw the message from Elijah, who seemed to have found a human blood smell from the direction they were heading.
"Rosalie, Alice, can you guys smell the human blood? Elijah and Klaus seem to be sensing it from the direction we're heading."
Freya looked at Rosalie and Alice and asked them whether they could sense it.
sniff~ sniff~
"____"
"____"
"Yeah... not a strong one. Probably seems pretty far from here."
Hearing Freya, both Rosalie and Alice became serious, and with a frown, they tried to smell the air.
After a moment of silence, Rosalie was the first one to break it.
"Probably..."
Before Alice could fully speak her sentence, she was cut off by the sudden vision that came to her mind due to the gifted ability she obtained when she was converted into a cold one.
Vision...
In that vision, she saw Creeper hungrily feasting on a dead body whose head seemed to be missing—probably Creeper had eaten it.
Then her vision shifted to a car in which a young couple named Laine and Chase seemed to be traveling.
They arrived at an old antique shop and bought a map to go to the Horror Hound Festival.
Her vision then shifted to a bathroom where the woman named Laine was looking at a pregnancy tester, who showed positive, with a complicated look.
Finally, the vision shifted to a group of people dressed in black hoods.
They seemed to be forcing Laine, who appeared to be in the midst of a ritual before a Creeper who seemed to be in a sleep state.
Vision ended...
When Alice suddenly started having a vision, all of them in the car, including Leah and Jojo in the front seat, became silent and waited calmly for Alice's vision to end.
"It seems like Creeper is targeting a pregnant woman named Laine for some kind of ritual with his followers. We need to go to the Horror Hound Festival. It seems she was going there along with her boyfriend, Chase."
After the vision ended, Alice came back to her senses.
She looked at Jojo and spoke seriously about her findings.
"____"
"And Creeper has already killed someone. Probably we are smelling the blood from that body."
After explaining the little clues she got using her gift ability, she paused for a second and remembered the bloody sight she saw—where Creeper devoured a dead body in hunger—and informed them about it.
"Horror Hound Festival..."
Uh~
Hearing about Laine and Chase's situation and Laine being targeted at the Horror Hound Festival made Jojo think deeply with a frown.
"I didn't expect this... It seems like the timeline is messed up here. Laine and Chase, who must appear 23 years in the future, are also here."
Thinking about the unexpected situation before him, Jojo became helpless.
Who could guess that the timeline would be messed up here?
Sigh~
"Let's speed up... the sun is starting to set."
With a sigh, Jojo asked Leah to speed up.
They needed to hurry and reach the Horror Hound Festival before nightfall.
Since it was a horror festival, it must be taking place at night.
After some time, they arrived at the spot where Sam had stopped his car earlier, and the stench of blood became stronger.
"Should we stop and check whether we could find anything related to Creeper?"
They guessed the car must belong to the unlucky victim of the Creeper, who devoured him in the vision Alice had.
"____"
Sigh~
"No... it's already too late. Let's go to the Horror Hound Festival."
Hearing Alice's suggestion, Jojo, with a defeated sigh, shook his head and asked Leah to continue moving forward.
As they rode the car through the path, they noticed an old building that seemed to be a shop, and Leah brought the car to a halt.
"Is this the shop?"
Leah, who was driving, asked Alice, who nodded her head, indicating that this was the same old antique shop she had seen in her vision.
After getting the confirmation, they got out of the car, followed by Klaus and the others.
When Klaus, Elijah, and James tried to enter the shop, following Jojo along with the group, they stopped at the doorstep with raised legs.
"Are you sure this is a shop?"
With a confused look on his face, Klaus looked at Alice and asked.
If this was a shop, they should have no problem entering, as the public could visit during the shop's opening hours.
"____"
"Probably it's also a house."
Knock~ knock~
Freya, seeing this, guessed and knocked on the door, which seemed to be closed.
After the knock, there was no response from the other side of the door.
Freya knocked again, this time a little louder.
Thud~ thud~
Thud~ thud~
Creak~
"Who are you guys? What do you want?"
After the loud knocks, Jojo and the others heard the sound of footsteps approaching from the other side of the door, and the door creaked open.
It revealed an old woman in her late 50s.
She wore old-fashioned, gothic-style clothing and had curling, grey, and slightly unkempt hair draped around her face.
She eyed Jojo, Freya, and the others up and down with a frown, her eyes piercing and calculating, carrying a mysterious vibe.
"We are here to ask for help with directions to the Horror Hound Festival."
When Jojo's eyes landed on the old woman, a gentle smile appeared on his face as he started the conversation, breaking the heavy atmosphere.
"____"
Snort~
"Go in the same direction, turn left at the first cross, and go straight for five minutes. You'll see the wooden board welcoming you to the Horror Hound Festival along with the directions."
Hearing that these people were here for the Horror Hound Festival, the old woman snorted and, in a cold tone, spoke, then was about to shut the door.
Thud~
But a hand stopped the closing door.
The old woman looked at Jojo in surprise, her expression taken aback.
The gentle one from earlier was now smirking at her.
"How about inviting us in..."
With a smirk, Jojo asked the old woman in a cold tone.
This surprised the others because they had never seen Jojo treat anyone, other than sinners, this coldly.
"____"
"Move away... or I will call the cops."
Seeing this, the old woman frowned and, in a cold tone, warned Jojo to step aside.
The reason Jojo treated the old woman coldly was that he could sense the sins she had committed in her life up to now.
And with his prior knowledge from his previous life, he knew clearly that the old woman before him was named Manilla Crone.
She was the cult leader of the group that followed and worshipped the Creeper.
In the cult, she was known by the name Lady Manilla Crone.
She was one of the main reasons for the manipulation that led Laine and Chase to go to the Horror Hound Festival.
When the couple lost their way to the festival's location, she even manipulated them by selling them a map laced with the Creeper's scent to guide them to the location.
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(Author's POV)
(A/N):
Thanks for reading the chapter!
Please give a review and power stone!!!