Ch.105

“You know nothing about Father Dagon!”

The mayor shouted.

“Father is benevolent, but not patient! He will not tolerate your insolence! Oh, ancestors, ancestors! Please wait. Just hold your anger for a moment! And you all, stay still! Stay still!”

The mayor grabbed the collar of a young man standing nearby and shook him.

“I’d rather die than live like this.”

The young man with his collar grabbed lamented.

“Think about how Professor Gordon Whateley was treated. Even after becoming a professor at Miskatonic University, he was still treated as a ‘cursed Innsmouth person.’ And we’re neither as smart as him nor from the wealthy Whateley family. All because we resemble fish.”

“No one can choose their parents.”

The mayor stood his ground.

“Your bloodline and destiny were passed down long ago. If you just follow it, you can enjoy eternal life!”

“If eternal life means living as a slave to a monstrous god, I’d rather die!”

Voices of agreement could be heard from all around.

“Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last day of the investigation committee. We will gather in front of city hall with our demands. There, we will assert our will and expose everything that has happened here!”

“Didn’t I tell you not to reveal the secrets of the god!”

The Deep Ones gnashed their teeth. They growled and drooled. Their limbs swelled. The Deep Ones pushed aside the parents and approached the young people.

“What are you doing? Let go!”

The captured man shouted nervously, but the Deep Ones growled and yanked him away. A rough scuffle broke out between the other young people and the Deep Ones.

“We can’t leave this be, assistant.”

Crayfield pulled out his revolver.

“When I count to three, we run.”

Bang! Bang!

Like cold water being splashed, the Deep Ones, young people, and villagers all froze. And everyone looked toward me and Crayfield.

“Three!”

We jumped down from under the rock. Even as we ran, Crayfield fired two more shots from his revolver. The gathered Innsmouth residents split into groups. Some took cover, some stayed in place, but about a third of them ran toward us. Flashlight beams and lantern lights were chaotic.

As he ran, Crayfield picked up a stone and threw it at an empty hut. With a bang, the stone hit the wooden door, and shouts of “They escaped into the hut!” could be heard from behind. Instead of fleeing toward the city, Crayfield removed a glass window from its frame and placed it in front of the door.

“To the next house.”

Then he led me into the neighboring hut. It was a storage shed for fishing equipment, filled with old lanterns and matches. We grabbed matches and oil cans. After pouring oil on the floor and setting it on fire, we jumped out through the window. The hut quickly went up in flames.

We ran out of the hut. The pursuers were now right in front of us. There was a loud crash of breaking glass from the hut where Crayfield had placed the window on the ground.

“Over there! That house!”

Suddenly Crayfield shouted so loudly I nearly lost my ears, but the sudden flames, breaking glass, and panicked screams drew the attention of our pursuers. A timely sea breeze covered us with black smoke. The confusion grew with the sound of oil cans exploding in the hut with bang, bang.

Stopping, running, and shouting, we safely escaped the beach.

“Good. Good. I think that’s enough now.”

Completely exhausted, Crayfield collapsed on the floor of an empty house. I too caught my breath while glancing nervously at the window.

“Still, it was worth the effort. Don’t you think? They said tomorrow is the last day of the investigation committee, right? The town’s youth said they would reveal the truth about Innsmouth. Then whatever our protagonist is planning will also reach its climax tomorrow. It’s going to be quite a show.”

Crayfield stood up with a groan.

“Pretty clever. A plan to incite the youth to abandon Innsmouth’s traditions and provoke Dagon’s anger and disappointment. Dagon is fair in giving and taking, but never merciful. By the way, don’t you smell something?”

It’s natural for the beach to smell of rotting fish, but this smell was on a different level. It was filled with the stench of decaying, rotting flesh that we had smelled in the basement of Dagon’s temple. Crayfield boldly approached the sink and took a deep sniff.

“This. It’s that smell from the temple basement. Why is this smell here too? Since it’s coming from the sink, it must be rising from the sewers.”

The smell didn’t leave us even as we slowly walked back to the hotel. It rose from manholes throughout the streets. Even at the Gilman House hotel, which we reached after much struggle, the smell was terrible. The frog-like gloomy woman at the desk handed over the key without a word this time too.

“Don’t you smell anything?”

Crayfield asked with a smile, but,

“I already cleaned up.”

The young woman was defensive.

“No. I mean, there’s a smell all over the city.”

“Then go somewhere else.”

“What I mean is, I’m not particularly fussy about these things.”

Crayfield didn’t lose his smile. He opened his wallet and took out a small tip.

“You must have received many complaints today.”

The gloomy woman took the bill and sighed deeply.

“You have no idea. The smell reaches all the way to the top floor. It even comes from the water. Whether it’s from the shower or the kitchen, it’s full of a rotten smell.”

“How strange. The smell comes from both the water supply and sewage at the same time? Could it be contamination?”

“I don’t know about that.”

But with the additional bill Crayfield pulled out, the woman slightly puffed her lower jaw. Looking at her like that, she really did resemble a frog.

“Has this happened before? Where is the water supply connected to? The Miskatonic River?”

“It’s never been this bad before. And as far as I know, Innsmouth’s water supply is connected to the Miskatonic River. There’s never been a problem before, but since the collapse of the underground houses beneath the Dagon temple, sometimes soil gets mixed in.”

“Soil?”

Crayfield tilted his head.

“Yes. Soil. I thought the water pipes might be damaged, but the city isn’t investigating… Actually, I’ve never seen the city do anything enthusiastically. Especially after what happened two years ago and last year.”

The gloomy woman’s eyes darkened, so we decided to stop bothering her.

“It feels a bit better in the room, I suppose.”

Contrary to his words, Crayfield immediately turned on the water. After filling a cup, he carefully smelled it.

“Here, would you smell this? I can’t tell if the smell is coming from the water or if the stench of rotting fish has completely settled in my nose.”

I was in a similar situation, but I could be certain. This smell was coming from the water. Crayfield filled a clear glass with water and held it up to the light.

“It is soil. Floating around. We’ll have to boil the water and drink only half of it. Though I doubt anyone would drink such water unless they were extremely thirsty.”

Completely exhausted, Crayfield roughly removed his outer clothes and flopped onto the bed.

“Don’t rush me. I’ve sweated as much as you have. So what if the water smells a bit? The smell from my body is probably worse. And that’s not what’s important.”

Crayfield turned toward me.

“One thing is clear. The people of Innsmouth have sinned. Not only did they kidnap outsiders and offer them as sacrifices to an evil god, but they also treated them like livestock to spread their offspring. And this is also clear: the young generation born that way couldn’t get proper jobs, couldn’t show themselves to others, so they couldn’t leave their homes and were rotting away. Think about Professor Gordon Whateley of Miskatonic. Even he couldn’t settle in this American land and fell for Soviet temptations. I’m not saying he did the right thing. I mean we should see why he made such a choice.

The older ones are only waiting to return to their ancestors, and they want their children to continue the tradition like they did. The never-merciful god continues to bestow excessive grace to find excuses to punish his followers, and the ancestors who have already become Deep Ones will never tolerate it. Today, there were unexpected events, and Dagon’s command didn’t come down, so they returned quietly. But I don’t think tomorrow will be the same.

And the politicians. Our protagonist, I mean. They have no interest in resolving this conflict and correcting what’s wrong. They only want to use this conflict and crime to their advantage. No matter what games Clarice Holmes and James Moriarty play, what’s important is that the Federal Security Bureau is playing with them like puppets. Even Katherine Scully can’t do anything about it.

But what I’m curious about, assistant, is your thoughts and opinions. We will always prevent our protagonist from seeing a proper ending. That fact won’t change. But, as I said during our first adventure, your opinion is important in this whole process. I have no intention of forcing you to accept anything. I’m just curious about your thoughts and opinions.

Should we prevent destruction? Or should we let it happen? And if we should, what would be the reason? Simply because we need to stop what the protagonist is doing? Or for some other reason?”

Of course, our goal is to stop the protagonist. The protagonist’s goal is the destruction of Innsmouth. So we must prevent Innsmouth’s destruction. The question is whether Crayfield and I can save this city from the angry hand of Dagon. Not even everyone in the city wants salvation. The majority seems to want to continue living as they have, committing evil acts, and even the young people deny Innsmouth because of how miserable their lives have been, without acknowledging their own wrongdoings.

Should we save even those who don’t want salvation?

Should we give sinners the chance to survive and continue sinning?

Unable to easily answer these questions, I unconsciously looked out the window. The pale moon was shining. A silver moon without a hint of yellow light. I thought it looked just like the color of Abashina’s hair.

“We cannot give people to beasts.”

Abashina had asserted. Although she herself was once human and still longs for the time when she was human, she chose the difficult path to become human again and live like a human.

“This is my land. Whatever nonsense they do over there, I won’t tolerate them crossing over here.”

Aurora declared so on 15th Avenue on Pollard Island. In the midst of a disaster that would drive even the wisest and strongest person insane, Aurora stepped forward to protect what was hers. Even as sixteen suns flickered, she withstood ‘it’ with just a human body.

Strings.

I recalled the strings. The strings Katherine Scully spoke of. We are all beings connected by thin, countless strings, and those strings hold us when we are about to fall into the wrong place. Sometimes overly strong strings drag us into sin, but if there is a slender, thin string of hope, we can lean on it and live on.

Innsmouth is the land of people. There are people living in Innsmouth. Who has sinned and who is innocent is a matter for later. In fact, whether they have sinned or not is meaningless. Still. If there is even one out of a thousand, ten thousand. If even one very thin string exists, wouldn’t there be a way out of the downfall?

My answer was, ‘There are still people living in Innsmouth, people who must continue to live. We cannot give this land to a false god.’ Crayfield smiled brightly.

“Yes. Just as I thought. I told you we’re meant to be together for a long time. Now, let’s wash up and get some sleep. We have a lot to do if we’re going to set out tomorrow morning.”

But Crayfield jumped up and prepared to go out. I asked where he was going.

“Ah. I need to go to the lobby. I want to call the Innsmouth police station. I’ll tell them that Federal Security Bureau’s Katherine Scully has assigned me a task and ask them to connect the call, and once I get through, I’ll exaggerate a bit and say that there seems to be a planned terrorist attack against the congressional investigation team.”

Crayfield grinned like a mischievous child.

“The navy has already been deployed to Innsmouth once. And many of Innsmouth’s leaders are still in prison. If they hear news of remaining culprits, wouldn’t glory-seeking dogs come running with delight? Then at the very least, they’ll bring enough firepower to counter those Deep Ones and Shoggoths. Ah. You just get some good rest. I’ll take care of the work.”