Operation Red Book

A trace of vigilance invaded Joshua's mind like an electric shock, quickly replacing the joy that had not yet faded.

Tension and irritability once again filled Joshua's trembling limbs. He opened his tired eyelids and explored the surrounding environment with blurry vision.

It was already night and it was dark outside the window. The street lights came on, occasionally illuminating the hurried footsteps of a few pedestrians.

Johns' newspaper office was in a mess, with a big hole in the ceiling and several black holes in the floor.

The clock and door frame were still broken into pieces, scattered all over the floor.

Documents and envelopes were scattered on the desk, and the plants at Alexander's workstation were toppled over. The whole scene looked like it had been blown by a force eight gale.

Jacob opened all the windows in the office, and fresh air poured in. Joshua felt an unprecedented refreshing feeling.

Alexander leaned against the door, turning the dial on his phone.

Although the space outside the door was pitch black, the shape of the stairs was still clearly visible.

A warm right hand came through and Thomas pulled Joshua's arm.

There were crystal tears in his eyes and his lower lip was bitten tightly by his white teeth, as if a deafening alarm would sound in the next second.

Everything was fine, but Joshua still felt uncomfortable in his chest.

"Ivy-san...how is Ivy-san?"

Joshua spoke weakly, his voice was very hoarse and it felt like there was a flame burning in his throat.

"She's fine, I went to see her... Don't worry, this is the real world, everything is normal."

A clear and gentle voice came from above, and Joshua realized that he was lying in Moriarty's arms.

"You'd better worry about yourself first!"

A familiar white figure walked towards Joshua, with burgundy wool curls scattered on his shoulders and his expression as serious as usual.

"What have you been through? How did you get injured so badly?"

Bell brought seven or eight bottles of strange-shaped potions, each bottle containing liquid of different colors and shapes.

Joshua tried to move his wrist, but the injury on his body affected his entire body, and even the slightest movement of his finger caused tingling in the muscles all over his body.

No part of his body was willing to cooperate with him, especially his chin and nose.

The sourness and pain that came from nowhere disturbed his entire head, and Joshua couldn't help but coughing violently several times.

"Oh my! Don't move. Alexander used all his strength to save you. Let me see your injuries. If I'm not mistaken... As expected, two or three ribs on the left are broken."

"Ms. Bell, I'm coughing so badly, can you please stop drinking the potion..."

Looking at the various liquids in the bottles, some were like boiling magma, some were like raindrops in puddles, and there was also a bottle of green potion with a frog swimming inside.

Joshua shuddered violently and looked at Bell with pity.

"No." Bell said seriously, "You have to drink all of it because of your injury. These are fast-acting medicines."

"I just need to drink the bottle of transparent magic potion you prepared for me... I can recover from the rest by myself..."

Joshua guiltily turned his eyes away. He didn't know why his mind was full of that bottle of transparent potion, even though he had only drunk it for three days.

"You little bastard, you're addicted again, aren't you?" Bell immediately pointed out his little thoughts.

"No! From now on I will not prepare any more recovery potions for you..."

"Please, Ms. Bell, I really don't want to drink...Ahhh! Gulp gulp gulp..."

Bell and Moriarty saw the opportunity and acted on both fronts, one of them opened Joshua's mouth while the other poured the potion into it.

"woo woo woo woo……"

Good medicine tastes bitter, let alone a magic potion prepared by a witch herself.

Joshua drank several bottles of bubbling potion in a row. Before he could swallow the last sip, several bottles of sticky liquid slid down his mouth.

The two of them moved very quickly, and if an unaware person passed by, they would definitely think they had accidentally walked into a bullying scene.

"I still need to bandage you a few more times. Once that's done, go to the ward and rest."

Bell handed the empty bottle to Thomas, and Jacob also brought a tray of bandages and grass-like ointment at this time.

"Ms. Bell, did you find the person you were looking for?"

Joshua's voice was still weak, but the pain in his throat had improved a lot.

Bell paused, she slowly shook her head, her tone full of sadness and helplessness.

"When I got to Mexico, people told me that the man had left, with all his belongings, either to Argentina or Bangladesh."

"What about classmate Ivy?"

Joshua raised his head in despair, his eyes were wet and the luster in his eyeballs slowly faded.

"It's okay. I can find other people, professors, seniors, seniors... In short, everyone has their own expertise. I can cure Miss Ivy without that person."

Sweat dripped from the tip of Bell's nose, and her hands kept moving, skillfully and efficiently.

Johns Newspaper Office fell into silence again. The low meowing of a cat was heard in the distance, making the dark night even more mysterious.

"Mexico?"

Joshua suddenly turned around, his flaxen eyes full of surprise and expectation.

"Watch your neck, I haven't bandaged it yet!"

"How could I overlook such an important place name!" Joshua's voice was full of excitement.

"Mr. Moriarty! You must be thinking the same thing as I am!"

"I'm sorry, I already asked Belle, she has never heard of the name Beatrice de Popa, nor has she ever met a witch from Colombia."

Moriarty shook his head and watched Joshua's ignited hope die out again.

"But, from what I've discovered, this witch is very powerful, not just ordinary powerful." Bell's tone was a little heavy.

"After receiving the signal from Mr. Moriarty, I quickly rushed back to Ireland from Mexico."

"Considering the distance and danger between Ireland and London, I abandoned my return ticket and borrowed a broom from my aunt..."

"Oh no, I seem to have forgotten to cast the invisibility spell... Never mind, the British are the best at comforting themselves. In a few days they will think it was because of the Russian special wine..."

"Anyway, I rushed back to Johns Newspaper Office just as the sun was setting. From the outside, everything looked fine, until I walked up the stairs and pushed open the half-collapsed wooden door... I realized that the inside was truly horrible."

Bell finished treating Joshua's broken ribs and threw all the remaining bandages back into the medicine basket.

"You five..." Bell's tone was very serious, "all floating in the air."

Joshua's pupils tightened when he heard this, and he ignored the pain in his head and carefully recalled everything he had just experienced.

"I saw it with my own eyes. The room was filled with black fog, and golden beams of light were running around in the room like meteors. The atmosphere was really too weird."

"Each of you has a golden chain tied around your waist, and the light emitted by the chain is exactly the same as those pillars of light."

"These chains are connected to the amethyst in the center of the room. The amethyst slowly rotates in mid-air, and golden beams of light appear and dissipate as they rotate..."

"The purple crystal...the golden beam of light...it's that witch's wand!"

Joshua cried out, he was very familiar with this wand.

Except for Joshua and Bell, everyone else in the room looked at each other and frowned.

"Am I the only one who has seen it..."

Joshua lowered his voice a lot as he looked at Moriarty's puzzled expression.

"The witch locked me in a wooden box. The space inside the box became smaller and smaller, and I gradually passed out. When I woke up, I was in the real world."

Alexander finished his call and joined the conversation.

"You're trapped? That's why the chains are all over your body."

Bell pulled Alexander's sleeve, and dense bloodstains covered his skin.

"I'm ashamed to say that I've never seen anything like this, so I asked a respected senior for advice."

"He told me that this is a rare black magic. The wizard built a consciousness space in advance and then cast a spell to make your consciousness enter the illusion."

“So the Johns newspaper we went to was actually a consciousness world created by Beatrice de Poppa?”

"Yes, and what's even scarier is that if the wizard wants you to die there, you will definitely not survive in reality."