The archives were managed by an elderly priest with a hunched back, messy sparse white hair, and a complex lens set made of brass cranks and crystal lenses on his head. He also smelled of motor oil.

The old priest was sitting behind a dark-colored circular table, concentrating on studying a mechanical creation that looked like a Rubik's Cube with a lens group. With the help of some sophisticated tools, he disassembled the Rubik's Cube into a pile of parts. The light from the gas lamp shone on those parts, making them glow brightly.

When Vanna approached, her tall body blocked the light from the side. The old priest raised his head and used his fingers to move the lens in front of him. After seeing the person clearly, he smiled and said, "Oh, it's Your Excellency the Judge. How do you need help today?"

"Where are the records of various disasters and accidents in the city-state before and after 1889?" Vanna nodded to the old priest and asked.

"Disaster records of 1889?" The old priest muttered as he knocked on a surface of the large circular table. A slight mechanical friction sound was immediately heard from under the table. Then a table top moved downward, and a mechanical platform with many cranks, number disks and paddles rose from it.

With the creaking sound of mechanical operation, the old priest began to operate this sophisticated machine with the help of the dials and number disks. After inputting the necessary information, Vanna heard the unique roar of large machinery in operation. She felt the floor under her feet vibrate slightly, and countless gears and connecting rods were running happily under the impetus of the steam core. Then, she heard a crisp "ding" sound from the mechanical device in front of the old priest, and a printed paper tape was spit out from the machine.

"Go forward along this road, turn left at the third row of bookshelves, and turn right at the end. A light has already been turned on in one of the bookshelves. That row is the one with the light on. The contents are very diverse, and all incidents that can be called disasters are recorded, including the smallest steam-related injuries. Just ring the bell if you need help."

As the old priest spoke, he handed over the note - he was holding the note with a prosthetic hand. The brass palm and forearm had a sophisticated mechanical structure, and in a transparent window on the back of his hand, one could see a gear set ticking inside.

Vanna thought that this might be a veteran Guardian who had retired from the front line - such veterans were not uncommon in the civilian department of the Storm Church.

Their bodies have been damaged, but they have proved their faith and loyalty with blood and sacrifice. The assistance of steam engines or magical prosthetics allows them to continue serving the Church, and various positions dealing with archival files are the final destination of some of these veterans.

In a sense, this is of course preferential treatment for the soldiers. The relatively idle and well-equipped archives department is suitable for "retirement", and from another perspective, this is actually an excellent "talent-based employment" - the bodies of these veterans may no longer be suitable for continuing to fight heretics, but their wills are still strong, and the work of guarding books and archives... has always required a strong will.

A trace of respect emerged in Vanna's heart. She took the paper tape with both hands and bowed her head slightly: "Thank you."

"Remember to put the books away after reading, and don't touch the books that are not in the catalog," the old priest waved his hand, "Many of the books here have been there for a long time, don't disturb them casually."

After saying this, he returned to his "work" and ignored Vanna.

Vanna didn't care. She just took the paper tape with the book list and walked deeper into the archives. Bookshelves that were so tall that they could be described as "magnificent" were neatly arranged on both sides of her, connected to the dome above one after another, like ancient guards lined up in a queue, looking down at the tiny figure below. Bright electric lights and gas lamps with precisely calculated positions were arranged alternately between the bookshelves, making the place brightly lit, and there was not a trace of dark shadow even between the deepest bookshelves.

Vanna found the bookshelf that the old priest mentioned - a row of small light bulbs were lit on the bookshelf, indicating the files that she could read.

The files were not placed low, but fortunately Vanna was very tall, so she didn't need a ladder to take the books down, which made her feel relieved.

Pushing a ladder around in such a huge library is not an easy job.

She took a deep breath, found the beginning of the file on the bookshelf, pulled out the numbered file, and began to flip through it quickly.

What she was looking for was simple: the fire that happened eleven years ago, or the fire that was disguised as a factory leak.

In fact, this was not the first time she investigated this matter - as an inquisitor, she was sensitive to all "unusual phenomena", including what happened to her. After knowing that she was the only one who remembered the fire in her childhood, she privately investigated some of the information from that year, but those superficial investigations did not yield any results.

At the time, she quickly put the matter behind her.

Because no matter what, she was only twelve years old when she encountered the accident. She was neither a believer of the goddess nor had an outstanding mind. It was not impossible for a panicked child who inhaled toxic smoke to have some false memories. There was really no need for her to be too obsessed with this matter, so after checking some public files, she let it go.

But now, she suddenly discovered that there were people in the city-state of Plande who had experienced the fire that she remembered.

The doubts and countless speculations that had been put behind her mind suddenly came to her mind, and her "professional alertness" as an inquisitor was ringing wildly in her mind.

It was precisely because of this professional vigilance that she rejected Heidi's suggestion to "go back to the antique shop" at the time, and waited quietly until today, and went directly to this archive favored by the goddess to investigate the original materials that were not open to the public.

The reason is simple, there is a dangerous atmosphere in this matter - erasing a fire sounds easy, but in fact it involves the cognition and memory of thousands of people, and this incident also involves a large number of sabotage activities carried out by cultists at the time. If all this is really done by a "mastermind", then this mastermind will definitely not sit idly by and watch someone discover the truth.

The remaining memories in his mind, the remaining memories in the mind of the girl named Nina... these "remnants" are most likely the omissions of the mastermind. The "person" hidden behind the scenes may not have discovered these omissions yet, but if he finds out... he is not afraid, because Nina and her uncle, and the girl named Shirley, are all ordinary people.

So she rejected Heidi's suggestion at the time and asked Heidi not to mention the matter again in the future - on the one hand, she did not want to alert the enemy and wanted to conduct the investigation in secret, and on the other hand, she did it to avoid implicating innocent people.

Before you have some information, you must not show any more attention to that antique shop than is necessary.

Vanna's mood fluctuated as she slowly flipped through the files.

For some reason, as soon as she noticed a shadow, she had the illusion that she was being watched and followed by omnipresent eyes. The awful feeling of being monitored in the dark was like a thorn in the back, making her feel a little irritated.

She put the file down and picked up another one next to it.

At the same time, she was also thinking about what had happened in the city-state in recent times.

At present, many solar heretics active in the city have been arrested. It seems that the resolute actions of the city-state have effectively deterred those heretics, or it may be that the channels through which they infiltrated have really been destroyed. In short, the number of solar heretics in the city has been greatly reduced, and the heretic prisons under the cathedrals are filled to the brim.

The purpose of the solar heretics' activities in the city-state has long been discovered.

Searching for the "sun fragment" that briefly appeared eleven years ago and may still be hiding somewhere.

The fragments of the sun...the fire eleven years ago...

The "vision" that Heidi had previously glimpsed in the museum.

Vanna stopped flipping through the files. Some clues that she had not paid enough attention to before suddenly connected together and became more and more prominent as she began to examine the fire in her memory again.

"There is a connection between these events... The fire eleven years ago was definitely real..." The young judge took a deep breath, and at the same time, her eyes inadvertently swept over some words on the file:

〖…On X month X day, in XX block, a vicious heresy occurred. Three households built altars in their homes, offering blood and praying to some evil creature that had never appeared in the records, causing panic and nightmares among a large number of nearby residents. The sacrificial ceremony was later reported and destroyed, but the clues left at the scene could not point to any known evil god or evil spirit…

Theoretically, this sacrificial ritual could not have any effect and should have been a blind attempt by ignorant fools for their own selfish desires, but the mass panic and nightmares of the local residents did occur. Subsequent investigations confirmed that the area was indeed affected by supernatural forces at the time...〗