In the center of the square, the beautiful witch in black had been completely burned down to ashes. However, her maniacal laughter and curses were still lingering there. Many people shuddered in fear and looked around, then they followed the bishop into the cathedral where they started to pray and confess their sins.
Lucien felt as if the blazingly bright light was still present in the square. He could still feel the sacred and dominating power the light contained. Xiafeng was so shocked that he had already made up his mind to accept his identity as Lucien. He needed to bury his past in the very bottom of his heart, in fear that people in this world might regard him as evil too.
"The divine power is so amazing…" Instead of feeling awed or even terrified by that power like common people, Lucien was wondering if he could have a chance of learning it.
At this time, Lucien got such a heavy slap on his left shoulder that he almost lost his footing.
"Oh, my poor little Evans! Thank God! Thank God, you don't have to suffer like your poor father! A nice young fellow like you deserves God's grace!"
Lucien was dragged back from his thoughts. He found a middle-aged woman, who was twice his size, wiping her tears of joy as she kept patting his shoulder with her bear-paw-liked huge palms.
Lucien managed to move a little bit to evade her palm which almost made him cough out blood. He opened his mouth but could not speak a word. He did not know her name, not even his own full name. Should he be Lucien Evans?
After watching him just standing there, the woman had an even more sorry look on her face. "My little Evans. You're still suffering from your mental illness. Look at you, so skinny…"
Xiafeng was embarrassed because he had not acquired any memory from Lucien. He was also afraid of letting people know that he was not the real Lucien. From a certain perspective, yes, Lucien's body now was genuinely being occupied by someone else.
Fortunately, a middle-aged man standing beside the middle-aged woman stopped her. "Alisa, don't talk to little Evans too much. He has just recovered. He must be feeling tired right now. Iven, help your mom and let's go home."
The blonde-haired man was kind of skinny with his back bending forward slightly. But Lucien could still tell he was a good-looking guy in his younger days. For Lucien, the man was like an angel, who saved him from this difficult situation.
"Thanks, auntie Alisa. I'm fine. Just feeling a little bit dizzy." Lucien responded carefully.
The boy, Iven, who dragged Lucien here to see the witch, was holding his mom's arm. He made a funny face and said to his mom, "I knew he was not gonna die. Only you always think that he's still a baby who needs to be taken care of all the time."
Auntie Alisa was still wiping her tears, "Evans, it's so nice to see you're getting better now. She deserved this! That damned vicious witch!"
She kept on nagging while walking, "When she just moved close to your place, she looked so beautiful and nice. I was even thinking of marrying her to my little John. But she, she was a witch! She tried to steal the bodies buried in the cemetery to experiment her evil spells! Thanks to God! The night watchman of the inquisition caught her red-handed while stealing! I can't even imagine if she had succeeded, how many people would die in our area…"
Following them, Lucien got a brief overview of what happened from Alisa's words. The woman got caught by the night watchman. As her neighbor, Lucien was also put under the interrogation of the inquisition. They probably used some kind of holy spell on him which affected him mentally. So they did figure out that he was innocent, but at the same time, they seriously hurt the real Lucien. He died after that and, therefore, Xiafeng got the chance to possess his body.
The man noticed that Lucien remained silent all the way. He patted on Lucien's shoulder, comforting him in a low voice, "She's just like this. Just ignore her."
Lucien nodded.
The man looked at Alisa from behind and sighed. "Alisa, she was such a pleasant and beautiful girl in the past, but after she gave birth to John, she was like being controlled by the demon. Barely one year after we married, she became like this…"
He emotionally sighed again. He paused a bit and added, "I'm no longer a well-matched opponent for her, though."
Lucien was still suffering from his wide mood swings. He forced out a smile and did not say anything. He did not know the man's name yet.
Somehow, Alisa heard her husband's complaint. She threw back a snort of contempt, "Joel, the bard, you, who was once full of passion and romance, the young guy who came here to pursue his dream of music, are an incorrigible drunkard now."
Joel smiled awkwardly. "Aalto is the City of Psalm. Countless young people are flocking to the city in pursuit of their dreams. But how many of them ever succeed? By the way, Alisa, I've quit drinking since John started working…"
Auntie Alisa looked back and stared at him, "Thanks God. You understand that we've put all our hope on John and Iven. John's a good boy. He worked so hard and was selected by Sir Knight Venn as his squire. If John can manage to awaken the ‘Blessing' in his blood and be knighted by the grand duke, then our son can be a lord! A respectable nobility!"
Joel shuddered slightly under the stern gaze from his wife, that just then thought about Lucien.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, little Evans!” Alisa stopped herself and winked at Joel for help, “I didn't mean that! You're talented too… You just needed more training when you were younger…"
But the apology did not really help with the situation.
Joel laughed loudly and patted Lucien's shoulder again. "He's fine. Our Lucien is the guy who's gonna carry forward my dream of becoming a musician!"
Lucien was not really paying attention to them. He half-heartedly said with a giggle, "Yeah…I wanna be a musician…"
Seeing Lucien laughing, Alisa felt relieved and continued her nagging again, which actually helped Lucien know more about the city.
The City of Aalto was a big and prosperous city, located close to the Dark Mountain Range. It enjoyed the reputation as the City of Psalm and was full of opportunities.
This area was named Aderon, which was the place where the poorest of peoples in Aalto gathered. Besides, because of his absence due to illness for the past couple of days, Lucien had already lost his job as a porter in the market.
A moment later, the four of them arrived in front of Lucien's place.
Alisa invited Lucien for dinner but he politely refused her, "Thanks, Aunty Alisa, but I need some more rest."
Before leaving, little Iven moved closer to Lucien, and asked curiously, "Lucien, when did you decide to become a musician? You never told me about it before…"
"5 minutes ago," Lucien answered emotionlessly.
"OH… I… SEE…" Iven nodded admiringly.
After getting into his shack, Lucien locked the door from inside. He sat there unconsciously and buried his head deep into his elbows.
"No kidding! I'm in a different world!
"A crazy world where magic actually exists!
"In this world, they burn people alive! With gallows!"
Lucien's strong emotions finally burst out. He was surprised and scared. Xiafeng was kind of shy and not really experienced in his own world. Before, he often panicked facing difficult situation, but this time, Xiafeng himself was even surprised seeing how he managed to remain calm until now.
Difficulties forge a person stronger. Time went by and night came. Lucien finally calmed himself down; Since he had decided to live in this time period, now he should not panic, worry or be scared at all. He should plan for his future carefully. If he died again this time, he was pretty sure it would be forever.
He stopped himself from worrying about his parents and friends. When he was about to plan for what to do next, hunger struck him. It felt like there was a fire burning inside his stomach. Lucien swallowed his saliva several times and decided to find something to eat first.
He walked towards the only crate in his place. Inside of the big box, except for some old clothes, there were two loafs of "bread-shaped" black thing and seven copper coins.
Hunger controlled his brain. Lucien hurriedly took a big bite.
"Crack!" This bite almost destroyed Lucien's front teeth. "What the hell? It's like a wooden club?"
It took Lucien quite a while to make sure the thing he was holding was a real bread, which was just hard enough to knock out an adult.
Fighting against his hunger, Lucien found some flints in the crate and started roasting his bread.
"Brown Braised Pork, Spicy Chicken Wings, Roasted Beef, Kung Pao Chicken…" he muttered while staring at the bread as it was being roasted. When the bread became a little bit soft, Lucien could not stop himself and took a hurried bite… It was like…chewing a piece of wood.
But, that was all Lucien had. He devoured the bread and sighed. "I'd rather die if I'm gonna eat this every day… I must earn more… I don't want to live like this."
Then he thought about the bishop and the pastors. Neatly dressed, they looked so noble with their incredible divine power. Lucien felt excited. "I wonder if I could learn that power and become like one of them…" But the next moment he changed his mind, "…No…a person like me going to church, it's like myself asking them to burn me to ashes. I don't know if there are other ways there, say… that blessing?
"What about all the knowledge I learned in my previous world. Is it still useful here?" Stuffing the bread into his mouth, Lucien started thinking about how to make a living. When he was retrieving the knowledge he learned in the university, he found something astonishing present in his brain.
After taking a close look, Lucien's eyes opened wide in surprise. "These are… these are the books from the library. They also came here… with me?"
All the books collected in the library were present there in his mind. Instead of describing them as memories or, say, Lucien's own knowledge, they were more like projections or visuals placed into different categories, ready to be read by Lucien anytime.
Lucien tried to read them with great curiosity. But, Lucien found that he could not open a majority of them. They were locked.