A person in American horror, wearing two versions of The Witcher

At 4 a.m. on Monday, it was still dark in Los Angeles.

The same goes for those near Roy's house.

But the prisoner's cries and will had already inspired Roy to get out of bed.

First, put on a light cotton vest, then put on Joe's bulletproof vest, and finally put on a long, fitted suede-like corset...

If it weren't for the California morning's still-warm autumn temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, Roy would have surely collapsed halfway through his business due to wearing too many layers!

Brushing teeth, washing face, waist belt, hanging waist knife,

Inspect the guns and magazines.

Click!

With the magazine loaded, the pistol was tucked into the waistband of his riding breeches.

Wow!

The sound of the garment being swung around was loud, and when it returned to its original position, the deadly pistol was hidden under the fabric.

The rifle, simply wrapped in a strip of plain cloth, was slung diagonally over the shoulder. The dagger-shaped barrel, secured by a specially made buckle, was then tied in a slipknot with a new strip of cloth around the waist.

Open the door, turn off the lights, grab your bag, and lock the door.

A whistle blew,

The German Shepherd, over half a meter tall, pounced on Roy.

It had no chain around its neck, and its collar was replaced with a more extreme, menacing, spiked wolf-proof collar.

On this trip, Roy had no vehicle or horse, and had to carry all his own loads.

Backpack space is limited, and so is the weight capacity.

After loading bullets, a basic first-aid kit, high-calorie food, necessary tools, and small items,

There was no longer any burden left on the heavy chains of the German Shepherd.

So starting last night,

He simply stopped putting any restraints on the German Shepherd. At the same time, if things changed, it would likely be a matter of life or death, with no other intermediate options.

"Let's go, Cocker Spam!"

He called out and prayed that the emotional bond Fura had built for him was strong enough!

……

4:52,

The town is nestled among the trees and by the lake.

Should we summon our destined ship?

"yes!"

wow...

The first thing to respond to Roy was a sudden gust of river wind that swept across the lake, a wind that didn't belong to the coolness of early autumn in California, making the leaves on the riverbank rustle.

Next, the surface of the river in Mirror Lake changed.

The once calm and undisturbed lake surface surged as if it were being boiled in a large pot, and the mist rose rapidly like water vapor, then swirled and spread, obscuring the faint starlight in the sky.

The thick fog made Roy and Coffin feel as if they were in another world.

then,

A thick fog had formed, and the lake was still. The sound of slow, deliberate paddling came from the center of the lake.

Roy looked toward the source of the sound.

The dim yellow light could be seen appearing and disappearing behind the fog.

As the fog thickened, it gradually outlined a square silhouette.

Then, the phantom broke through the thick fog, revealing the ship's dark, patina-colored hull to Roy.

It was a dilapidated, flat-bottomed old barge, looking like a simplified, enlarged version of a pig trough.

A lantern was hanging on the old barge.

It dispelled the thick fog and illuminated the boat, but couldn't make out the rower's face.

Or perhaps, the person rowing the oars has no shame.

They can't even be called human!

To be precise, it was a humanoid mass of gray mist.

As the barge approached and docked, the Gray Mist people ceased all activity.

"Coca-Cola".

Roy called out, and the German Shepherd emerged from behind him, its head then embedding itself directly into the barge.

"Cocaine?" Roy exclaimed in surprise.

Coffin turned its head in confusion. Its head was still there, but this time its entire left ear and half of its neck were embedded in the hull...

No, it's not embedded... it should be passed through.

Roy quickly made a judgment:

Just as a person cannot touch this ship, they cannot board it.

No, that's not all.

Roy recalled,

Throughout the series of changes on the lake, and even the arrival of the boat and Kofi's passage through it, Kofi remained remarkably quiet, without any unnecessary movements. Thinking about it carefully, it's like…

Kauf could not see any of the previous changes, nor could it see the dilapidated barge.

This might be good news, meaning that others might not be able to see the barge either.

Roy didn't think any further and reached out to lightly kick the side of the barge.

The slight bump confirmed to him that he was the one allowed to board the ship.

What about coffee?

He bent down, grabbed Cofi by its two front legs, picked it up, and carried it onto the ship.

On the ship, Cofi's hind legs were still stuck in the hull.

However, Roy could no longer think about it. With a quick movement, he lifted Coffin into his arms, preventing its tail and legs from getting stuck in the hull.

Then the boat started moving.

The sound of oars splashing across the lake arose again.

The wrecked barge crashed into the fog once more.

Just as the barges disappeared into the fog, Cofi began to groan in surprise.

It was as if at this moment that it truly saw the barge beneath its feet.

And only when it looks back does it realize that it seems to be moving away from the world it once knew, away from the world it once knew.

Fura!

It suddenly began to struggle violently.

He broke free from Roy's embrace and crashed onto the deck.

And headed straight toward the water behind the boat.

He jumped overboard!

……

I don't know how much time passed.

The wrecked barge broke through the thick fog once again, and Roy rolled up his sleeve to look at the mechanical watch on his wrist.

Click, click...

The watch hands, which had been frozen in the thick fog, began to turn again at this moment.

It seems we have entered a stable spacetime and entered a new world.

Whoosh!

The sound of water breaking suddenly rang out, and Roy glanced back with a helpless expression.

Sure enough, the dog, who had tried to jump off the boat all the way but was repeatedly knocked back by the fog walls, finally succeeded in jumping off the boat and into the river.

"Coca-Cola!"

Roy called out in frustration, but received no response.

Geek!

The barge's recoil jolted him; the wrecked boat had come ashore.

Roy thought for a moment and then simply got off the ship.

The fog is still thick, so it's not easy for him to find the dog. Now that they've reached a stable time and space, he should wait until the fog clears before looking for him.

wow~

The gray-fog figure steered the barge around, the sound of paddling gradually fading into the distance. Then, a sudden gust of fog, carried by a river breeze, instantly obscured the barge.

When the fog dissipates again,

Roy could only see a dog, soaking wet, wandering around blankly on the opposite bank, ten meters away.

It can no longer smell any familiar scents.

It can no longer smell the gasoline, the sesame leaves, the fried food... and most importantly, the fries.

"Waaaaah~~"

It let out a mournful growl.

Then, from the dense forest not far away, a loud response suddenly rang out:

"Awoo~"

"Awoo~"

On the other side of the river, Roy's expression changed drastically!

He recognized the sound – it was the call of a wild wolf!

……

at the same time,

In the distant Roy's original timeline,

In the basement of an academic building at MIT in Boston.

Olivia, an FBI Joint Operations Liaison Officer in her early thirties, in the prime of her life and capable of handling important tasks, was asking a tense question to an elderly man in a white coat with white hair and a full beard:

"Can we further narrow down the range of magnetic field anomalies? Can we pinpoint the specific region of the anomaly?"

She held a cup of coffee in her hand, her face looking exhausted.

An hour ago, she was urgently woken up by a morning phone call and immediately gathered her team here.

She believes the detected magnetic field anomalies are a continuation of the May bombing at Fort William, Brooklyn.

May,

An explosion occurred at a construction site in Fort William, Brooklyn. While the incident was initially reported as a gas main explosion, they actually found an oval-shaped metal bottle at the site.

Molecular-level metal bottles that even their most advanced technology cannot manufacture.

Meanwhile, the metal bottle was constantly vibrating at subsonic speeds, starting at two megahertz and later at four megahertz.

Later, through the declassification of the archives, it was discovered that this was not the first time the metal bottle had appeared in the world; the last metal bottle detected appeared in 1987.

In the files from that year, besides the information about the metal bottle, there was also a photo of a bald man.

Then, they found the bald man again this year, in the surveillance footage from 2008.

The bald man, seemingly untouched by the passage of 21 years, showed no signs of aging whatsoever…

However, the case was eventually shelved and closed again after the bald man disappeared and the metal bottle was lost.

She vividly remembers how unwilling she was at the time.

And now?

The frequency of the magnetic field anomaly detected at the same time as when the metal bottle appeared in May was detected again by Homeland Security instruments near Los Angeles.

So, no matter how tired you are

She wouldn't let this unusual frequency slip by again.

"Oh, Agent Olivia, are you going out for a bit?"

"If you could bring me a glass of shaved ice sarsaparilla, that would be even better."

"I'm convinced that a cooled-down brain is definitely better than an overclocked one."

"Oh, right, it would be best to also have a fried egg, runny, that will help me concentrate."

Before Olivia, Dr. Walter, an elderly man in a white coat with a completely white beard and hair, made demands on Agent Olivia without warning, without answering her questions, and even stopped working with trembling hands as a form of blackmail.

Olivia shook her head helplessly, walked briskly out of the underground laboratory, picked up the phone and asked her assistant to purchase the things the doctor needed.

But they didn't notice that after she left,

The doctor's hands instantly accelerated as he typed rapidly on the keyboard, muttering obsessively to himself:

"No, the timing is wrong."

"It shouldn't be there!"

"They shouldn't have been there!"

He seemed to know something that no one else knew!

……