The next day, they had breakfast together in the cabin. Professor Seward had a pile of bacon, sausages, and mashed potatoes, wolfing it all down within seconds. Of course, she also had a big mug of coffee by her side.
But Harker only had some soft boiled eggs and legumes, seeming to eat less than she expected. He was even separating the yolk and only eating the egg whites.
She was about to ask if he was on a diet or something, when Harker spoke before her.
"I asked the bodyguards to seek out the local soothsayer. They found one from the Nottoway tribe who's the real deal, 96 years old. They said this woman used spodomancy. It's a divination through cinders and ashes."
Professor Seward scoffed at this. "As a scientist, I thought you knew better than to believe that crap."
"Well, there are things in life that's still unexplainable by our known science, Prof." Harker took a small bite with his fork, and seemed to be chewing slower than usual.
He continued as he chewed: "Probably because we weren't able to study them and developed an arrogant skepticism after the Enlightenment, thinking we now knew everything. Which is a shame, but also a blessing seeing how we are today. Power hungry monsters that's fueled by money."
"Whoah, Jones." She blinked. "I didn't mean to make you all cynical like that. I just didn't peg you for a believer in mysticism and all that jazz."
Harker shrugged. "Anyway, we have no choice since we didn't gain anything even after finding your old house. You sure you don't remember anythin' else that could lead to Victoria's whereabouts?"
"I thought for sure it would be here. But guess I was wrong." The professor looked down on her plate.
"I see. How about places you lived in besides Jamestown? Your house in London?"
Joan shook her head. "I don't even remember where we lived in London anymore. The house was probably demolished anyway."
Harker sipped his water. "Hah. Must be a very old house then."
"Hey, what's with that tone?"
"Nothing."
They finish their meal in awkward silence.
Harker took a shower before heading for the soothsayer afterwards. He was deep in thought, letting the water flow through his shoulders. There were far too many things going on at once, far too many questions that were still yet to be answered.
"Yan. Are you there?"
The eyeball materialized by his side. "Yes, Master."
Harker turned to him and realized that he was wearing a hairnet and scrubbing his wings with a brush and soap.
He raised an eyebrow. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Um…. Taking a bath too? An eyeball needs to clean itself after all. How will the eyeball ladies like me if I stay grimy and even worse— have eye boogers???"
Harker's eye twitched. "You…. Nevermind. I have a question."
Yan brushed his own sclera, which looked pretty painful but he seemed to like it anyway. "Go ahead, Master."
"Do people who have been resurrected from the dead through means other than zombification get registered as humans? Because I remember watching this fantasy kung fu movie once. This monk gave his student a pill that brought him back to life after he died." Harker thought. "Does this mean that he's still registered as human?"
"Well… That's a little complicated. If the student was a cultivator, the system will show you that it's a Cultivator Ability, not a nameless one. Nameless ones apply to normal humans, animals and plants that don't hold any special skills and have low stats."
Harker nodded. "I see. But if it's a human resurrected through science and not a cultivator? Will it be nameless?"
"It depends on how they were resurrected. If resurrection gives them any special trait like the zombie's regeneration, it won't be nameless. But if they could simply pass as a normal human and live on, then yes. It could be."
Harker turned off the shower, seeming to have formed a final conclusion. "I see. Thanks."
Yan beamed. "Master thanked me for once!??"
He ignored this statement and dried himself with a towel, thinking that his hunch was the only explanation. With how good Victoria was in resurrecting the zombies, she could have done the same to her whole family. Yet they do not regenerate, and they have thicker and murkier blood.
Harker needed confirmation, though, and if Joan really was just a resurrected human that posed no harm.
As he pushed through the door with only a towel on his waist and a toothbrush on his mouth, he was met by the undead elephant in the room herself.
"O-Oh. Jones. I was going to take a shower since I wanted to meet this soothsayer too….." She reddened, her eyes flitting downwards quickly before going back up.
"Go ahead. The floors are slippery, make sure not to fall and hit your head. You did say your legs aren't as sturdy as before." Harker said and just walked past her. "Also, you gotta hurry up. They said Lady Ojistah only accepts visitors before noon."
"Why? Does it affect her divination in any way?"
"No." Harker grinned. "It's because she needs her beauty sleep."
This made Professor Seward get over her flusteredness from seeing Harker's bare body and she elbowed him. "I prefer it when I'm the one doing the teasing. You just keep making jabs about my age."
"Eye for an eye, Prof. You make jabs on my sexuality. It's just fair."
'And you're wrong about it anyway.' Harker thought internally. 'I don't know if I can't take any more of the gay jokes, but I don't trust you yet. Especially since you may be a highly-functioning, less scary version of a zombie."
They still continued to bicker back and forth during the trip to the native shaman lady. But once they got past the building and got into the swamps and lush green fields of the woodlands, they stopped for a moment to listen to the sounds.
There was the sound of a howl not too far away. Harker thought he caught sight of a pack of wild coyotes just now.
And he was right. As soon as they reached the small hut that served as Lady Ojistah's home….
It was full of coyotes living in every corner.
"Gahhhh!! Fucking fuckers!" Professor Seward quickly flung herself towards Harker as soon as she saw the grinning big dogs.
Harker had no choice but to catch her bridal style, rolling his eyes. "I never thought you'd be scared of coyotes, Prof."
"And you aren't!? They're basically like smaller, skinnier wolves!" She exclaimed.
"Or bigger puppies." Harker leaned down to pat one of them in the head. "They only attack if you attack. They're practically harmless."
"Ugh! That's exactly something he would say…" Professor Seward mumbled under her breath.
Harker still heard it. "Who now?"
Suddenly, they were greeted by a voice from within the hut, behind a curtain of what seemed to be real coyote fur.
"Sodogweta." A raspy voice came with the tapping of a cane.
This was Lady Ojistah. She was wearing bright and colorful clothes full of different knick knacks and all sorts of accouterments. She had a headband with three feathers and the furry tails of an animal hanging on both sides, probably a raccoon's. Even when she's almost a century old, she still looked quite strong and healthy, with only one eye having cataracts.
She continued to speak. Harker turned to the translator, and it turned out that Lady Ojistah said:
"Greetings, spirits bound by the past. Have you come to seek freedom? Or have you come to be further entangled in the webs of deceit?"
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