After the potion entered his body through his mouth, it gradually began to churn and wreak havoc.
His internal organs also began to fall into disorder, twisting and tearing. Beneath the extremely fine fabric, his skin began to develop lumps of flesh, itching and tingling, as if tentacles were about to grow from within.
His originally clear rationality also gradually began to fall into chaos, with all kinds of disorderly thoughts flying wildly through his mind.
Yet no matter what changes occurred in his body, Hastur still stood upright with an expressionless face, doing his best to suppress the various changes taking place within him.
On one side was the cold order of rules, while on the other was an extreme chaos as lively as fire. Order and chaos continuously collided and tore at each other, as if they wanted to rip his body in half.
Amidst this tearing and entanglement, he seemed to see black chains of rules extending vertically into the sky from every corner of Backlund, eventually converging into a great mountain of rules that firmly pressed down upon everyone's heads.
The hard and cold chains of rules were difficult to shake, yet every chain of rules was surrounded by a lingering shadow that could not be dispelled.
Especially directly beneath that great mountain of rules, the crimson moonlight from the sky above was reflected down, forming a shadow of order upon the earth.
No matter how strict the rules were, and no matter how absolute and uncompromising they were, wherever rules were born, there would inevitably exist a shadow.
As the illusion deepened, he once again saw individual people beneath the chains of rules. Perhaps they could no longer be called people.
They were twisted lines, being assimilated by the so-called rules, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they were being domesticated.
Obeying laws and regulations was itself a process of domestication.
Take turkeys on a farm, for example. The farmer only provided them with a delicious meal at twelve noon and five in the evening every day.
At first, the turkeys still thought about finding food on their own. But as they grew accustomed to having two meals of feed every day, whenever mealtime arrived, they would all run from various places to the feeding area where the food was provided.
Those stubborn turkeys that insisted on maintaining their individuality could only go hungry or get beaten. After this happened several times, when mealtime arrived and food was provided, they would obediently follow the other turkeys toward the feeding area and start fighting over the food.
If there happened to be a scientist among the turkeys who was good at drawing conclusions, based on their daily experiences, it could summarize a set of rules applicable to the turkey population.
But that would be another story.
When the chaos and reason became slightly more balanced, Hastur forced himself to remain standing, left the banquet, and boarded a carriage to depart.
The carriage slowly traveled along the streets. Hastur opened both side windows, allowing the cool breeze to brush against his face. This slightly weakened the chaos in his mind, allowing reason to temporarily gain the upper hand.
In the world of the mysteries, chaos was the permanent resident, while reason was merely a brief passerby.
Therefore, after consuming the potion and advancing, he had to hurry back to Southville County.
In that land where there was only his own voice, his chaos would not be seen through by others.
If he continued to stay in Backlund, his abnormal behavior whenever he periodically fell into chaos would certainly be noticed, especially by the Loen royal family.
Therefore, before consuming the Mentor of Disorder potion tonight, he had already made some preparations.
He had already had someone purchase a ticket for him to leave Backlund tomorrow afternoon. As long as he could maintain his reason for half a day, he would have few worries left.
As for King George III, he had already taken care of matters on that side, so he would not need to report anything else when leaving.
He had also taken the time to visit Glaint, Greg, Professor Wayne, and the others. The only person he had not yet seen was Miss Audrey.
Tomorrow morning would be a good opportunity to visit her and, at the same time, see Susie and find out how her studies had been going recently.
As for dealing with the Abraham family and the followers of the stars, that could be left to Bernadette. One person like her was enough to match the strength of the entire Abraham family as it currently stood.
Just as Hastur was thinking about this, reason was once again swallowed up by chaos. His gaze became unfocused, and he appeared confused and at a loss.
After returning home, Butler Neil had a maid bring over some hangover soup. Hastur took a small sip, slightly furrowing his brows.
"Sweet? Is hangover soup supposed to taste like this?"
"Don't you like sweet things? You even specifically asked the chef to develop this sweet hangover soup."
"I like spicy hangover soup. Remember that next time."
"..." The maid stared blankly at Hastur's back as he went upstairs.
Spicy hangover soup? Was he asking them to put chili peppers into the hangover soup?
But wouldn't that make the taste very strange? Perhaps the lifestyle of their Earl in Southville County had changed his dietary habits.
She did not understand, but she was greatly shocked. She turned around and went to the kitchen to convey the Earl's latest instructions to the chefs.
In the washroom, Hastur habitually took a bath before going to sleep, but instead, he began brushing his teeth. After brushing his teeth, he called toward the door outside: "Bring me some breakfast."
Breakfast? Shouldn't he be having a late-night snack now?
The two maids standing guard outside exchanged glances and interpreted his words as meaning that he wanted to use breakfast food as a late-night snack.
After finishing a breakfast in the washroom, Hastur finally remembered that he was supposed to take a bath.
After taking a bath and returning to his room to rest, Hastur lay in his warm and cozy bed, yet he was unable to fall asleep.
There were all kinds of voices constantly in his mind.
Some voices urged him to go to sleep, some shouted at him to get up and have some fun, some wanted him to go out at night and commit theft, while another voice told him to sneak over to Earl Hall's house and knock on Miss Audrey's window.
How could he possibly do something so rude and embarrassing?
...
Earl Hall's residence.
Audrey had not attended the royal banquet tonight, because she had already declined the invitation several days ago. She could only listen to her eldest brother briefly describe what had happened at the banquet that evening.
After taking a bath and returning to her room, it was already past ten at night. She stretched lazily and lay on her side on the bed, reminding Susie not to stay up late reading.
"Audrey, don't you think the dead of night is the most suitable time to quietly spend time communicating with books?"
"No. Nighttime is for sleeping, while daytime is for working hard. That's also why a day is divided into night and day. Hmm, this is the Creator's intention."
Audrey firmly opposed Susie's secretly working herself to exhaustion at night.
"Oh."
Susie could not argue with Audrey, so she could only close the book and lie down in her own doghouse, closing her eyes to rest.
Audrey happily turned off the lights in the room, rested her head on the soft pillow, and entered dreamland.
She did not know how much time had passed when a rhythmic knocking sound came from the window.
Knock, knock, knock-knock.
Susie, who had not been particularly sleepy to begin with, immediately woke up. She crawled out of her doghouse, raised her tail, widened her eyes, and stared at the window as if facing a great enemy.
Apart from the sound of knocking on the window, she could vaguely see a black figure hanging outside.
It looked like a giant humanoid bat?
Susie hurried to Audrey's bedside and barked twice loudly, immediately waking Audrey from her hazy sleep.
"Susie, is it morning already?"
Audrey rubbed her eyes somewhat groggily.
"Audrey, there's something knocking on the window!" Susie was afraid of disturbing the unknown creature outside, so she deliberately lowered her voice as much as possible.
"??!"
It took Susie several repetitions before Audrey suddenly woke up completely, her gaze instinctively turning toward the window.
There really was a black figure that looked like a person, and the figure was still rhythmically knocking on the window.
A bat-person from one of those folk horror novels? That was the first thought that arose in Audrey's mind.
One of the horror novels she had read described a creature similar to a human that liked to appear late at night, the bat-person.
Bat-people were also accompanied by other creatures such as mothmen, owl-people, and so on.
Audrey was initially somewhat frightened, but when she remembered that she was already a Sequence 7 Psychiatrist, she felt that even if she really encountered some unknown creature, she possessed a certain ability to protect herself.
Besides, Susie was right beside her, and this was still her own home.
Audrey regained her composure. Looking at the unknown figure that continued knocking on the window, she instead felt an intense curiosity.
She cautiously got out of bed, put on a pink-and-white outer garment, and gestured for Susie to approach the window with her.
As they got closer to the window, the starlight from the night sky shone down, allowing Audrey and Susie inside the room to see the outline of the unknown creature outside more clearly.
It seemed to be a human figure? How could anyone possibly come knocking on her window in the middle of the night?
It must have been her imagination. Audrey shook her head and suppressed this absurd thought.
When Audrey and Susie were about to reach the window, the figure outside suddenly seemed to be startled by something and fell from the window.
Audrey hurried to the windowsill, pushed open the window, and looked down. She could only vaguely see a figure rapidly merging into the darkness of the night before disappearing without a trace.
She blinked and asked curiously, "Susie, did you recognize what this unknown creature was?"
Susie came to Audrey's side, placed her front paws on the edge of the windowsill, and tried her best to stand upright as she looked outside.
"Audrey, I think I smelled a familiar scent."
"A familiar scent?"
"I can't be sure. Perhaps it really was some kind of bat-person."
"What a strange night." Audrey sighed, then murmured, "It's just as well that I'm going to visit Mr. Hastur tomorrow morning. I'll ask him while I'm there whether creatures like bat-people really exist in this world."
"Audrey, I want to visit Mr. Hastur too."
Audrey thought for a moment and slightly furrowed her brows.
"Then you are not allowed to ask Mr. Hastur to send you more strange books."
"..." Susie was silent for a while before saying, "Audrey, I just want to learn knowledge."
Audrey said earnestly, "Susie, knowledge is poisonous."
"Audrey, but the books say knowledge is beneficial."
"Books are written by people, so mistakes are inevitable." Audrey sighed again. "You have to learn to think for yourself. You can't blindly learn everything from books."
"Audrey, I understand!"
Susie's eyes lit up, as if she had suddenly figured out some important point.
Audrey had a bad feeling about this, but she had no intention of investigating it right now. She still needed to get some sleep.