Chapter 72: Tracking

Chapter Seventy-Two
Tracking

The puppet’s face had been painted in the common style of a clown with red and yellow greasepaint. The corners of its mouth curved high on both sides, forming an abnormally ridiculous smile.

As its mouth split open, revealing the dark, fathomless hollow within, Klein met its gaze and felt every hair on his body stand up. A sudden, intense fear rose in his heart without reason.

The sight before him dimmed at once, as though he were watching the world through a thick pane of tea-colored glass.

Klein’s thoughts rapidly slowed. Instinctively, he wanted to call for help, but his neck felt as though it had been tightly bound by a rope. Not a single sound could leave his throat. The word remained trapped inside, reduced to silent thought.

At that moment, Dunn noticed that Klein’s arm-bending movement had suddenly turned sluggish and heavily shoved him.

The tea-colored glass before Klein’s eyes shattered at once. The word “Help” in his throat finally burst out, echoing through the carriage with a trace of sharp panic.

“It has become stronger,” Klein said with certainty.

To stay beside a bizarre Sealed Artifact like 2-049 was truly dangerous. The slightest carelessness could make one fall into a horrifying crisis—no, it could not even be guarded against properly. One could only use other methods to avoid it.

“That is normal,” El Hassan said, nodding steadily.

Lorotta gave a soft laugh.

“It seems to have taken a liking to you. Relax. Among Grade 2 Sealed Artifacts, it is one of the relatively less dangerous ones.”

While her naturally lazy voice sounded, the puppet, whose joints were so distinct that they seemed to correspond one by one with those of a human body, stood up. It staggered toward its own left.

Its movements were full of difficulty, like an old steam machine rusted by age and forgotten by all lubricating oil.

Robot dance…

Those Chinese words suddenly flashed through Klein’s mind. Immediately, he gained a new guess about the reason 2-049 was dangerous.

Does it assimilate the living beings it controls?

If no one had awakened me in time just now, would I have become a human-sized puppet, a real-life Barbie doll?

While Klein’s thoughts tumbled, El Hassan, awakened by Dunn, pointed toward the direction in which the puppet was slowly walking while bending and stretching his arm.

“That way!” he called to Leonard, who was driving.

Leonard could not make the carriage pass straight through buildings, so he had no choice but to make a half circle. During this process, 2-049 constantly adjusted its direction, stubbornly acting as a “compass pointing toward the Antigonus family.”

Watching this, Klein, though still tense and constantly “exercising” his arm, almost felt like laughing.

I heard 2-049 was made by the Antigonus family… Does this count as loyalty, or as a textbook case of betraying one’s own creator?

After that, under El Hassan’s intermittent instructions, Leonard drove the carriage through streets toward a certain direction.

Each time the strange puppet 2-049 was about to reach the carriage’s edge, El Hassan would grab it back and make it start over.

And every time that happened, its mouth would split wider, and two people would be controlled at once.

The tension in Klein’s heart gradually eased. He unexpectedly began to feel that Sealed Artifact 2-049 was not so frightening after all. As long as more than three people were present, as long as everyone knew to keep moving their arms, as long as they had mastered the trick of waking their companions in time, 2-049 was merely a somewhat special puppet.

The carriage sped ahead and soon entered the docks district, arriving at a place where warehouses gathered.

After circling a few times and confirming that 2-049 wanted to go to the innermost gray-white warehouse, El Hassan’s expression turned grave. Moving cautiously, he grabbed the strange puppet and stuffed it back into the iron-black box.

Thump, thump, thump!

Amid the continuous violent pounding, El Hassan, with Borgia and Lorotta’s help, was awakened again and again. With difficulty, he fastened the mechanical switch, then poured in spirituality, activating the symbols of stars and the crimson moon on the iron box.

The invisible seal reappeared. El Hassan exhaled deeply.

“Get off,” Dunn Smith said in his deep, mellow voice. “Leonard, just tie the horses here.”

Six gentlemen and ladies—some wearing windbreakers, some formal suits, some shirts—left the carriage and walked toward the innermost warehouse. As they moved, they all bent and stretched their arms in near-perfect unison.

This added a few notes of comedy and absurdity to the slightly frozen tension.

The Nighthawk awkward-dance troupe…

Klein could only rely on silent mockery to ease the feeling.

But there was no helping it. Based on his observations, 2-049’s influence first showed itself in the upper body. To notice it in time and avoid sliding into greater danger, the only options were bending and stretching the arm, turning the neck, or shaking the body. The latter two would make a person look like a street thug.

As for blinking or tapping the glabella, such movements were either too easily overlooked or too broad in range, making them similarly unsuitable.

Better an awkward-dance troupe than Causeway Bay gangsters…

Klein sighed and resigned himself to following Captain Dunn and the others.

Yet the closer they came to the warehouse door, the heavier the anxiety and worry in his heart became.

No one knew what kind of change that notebook had brought to Ray Bieber.

If something major happened, Klein would not dare hope he could transmigrate again. Besides, while cutting meat and cooking normally, he had discovered that he could still be injured, still bleed, and that his wounds healed at an ordinary speed. He was not some monster who neither feared death nor blows.

As they walked, Dunn suddenly pressed his free hand downward, signaling everyone to stop about ten meters from the warehouse entrance.

“Klein, divine whether there is danger inside. If you can roughly determine how severe it is, that would be even better,” Dunn said, turning his head toward Klein.

His gray eyes remained deep and quiet, showing not the slightest fear.

Klein nodded almost imperceptibly. He stopped the arm exercise, reached his right hand toward the left cuff, and unwound the silver chain with the citrine pendant.

Because his other arm was still moving, the moment he suffered brief sluggishness in the middle of the action, Dunn discovered it immediately and shoved him awake.

Klein held the silver chain with his left hand, allowing the citrine to hang naturally downward, while controlling his right hand to keep bending and stretching in small movements.

After the citrine stabilized, he half-closed his eyes, outlined the sphere of light, entered meditation, and silently recited in calmness:

“There is danger inside the warehouse.

“There is danger inside the warehouse.

“…”

After seven repetitions, he opened his eyes and saw the citrine pendant slowly begin to spin clockwise.

It spun faster and faster, until finally Klein felt as if it were pulling at his left hand.

“There is danger. Great danger,” Klein reported truthfully.

Clockwise meant affirmation of the silently recited statement; counterclockwise meant negation.

For other Beyonders, even Mystery Pryers, using the pendulum method could at most reveal whether danger existed. It could not provide further information on the degree of danger.

But Klein had discovered that when he used pendulum divination, the pendant’s speed displayed different levels, indicating different degrees within the answer.

Although this was not precise and remained very vague, it was enough to roughly distinguish the circumstances.

As expected of the Seer potion…

Klein felt rather pleased by this.

Just as he was about to put away the citrine pendant, Leonard Mitchell, who had remained silent behind him, suddenly spoke.

“Divine again whether there is danger around us.”

“Yes. I am worried the Secret Order refused to give up. They may have kept watch over Ray Bieber’s home, followed us here, and are waiting to interfere at the crucial moment,” Dunn said with a nod of agreement.

Klein immediately inhaled, once again entering that ethereal, tranquil state.

When the silver chain stabilized again, he silently recited:

“There is danger nearby.

“…”

“There is danger nearby.

“…”

After repeating the statement again and again, Klein opened his eyes and looked at the silver chain.

In his deep-brown pupils, the citrine pendant first struggled to move counterclockwise. Then it suddenly froze, shifting into a clockwise circle.

“There is danger nearby,” Klein said solemnly, his heart tightening.

And someone had tried to interfere with the divination, but had lost to him in that invisible contest!

The moment he finished speaking, an orange fireball the size of a fist suddenly flew from afar.

It shot rapidly toward the center of the group.

Dunn Smith, who had already drawn his long-barreled revolver before Klein even began the divination, immediately raised his hand and pulled the trigger with a slight lead.

Bang!

Amid the gunshot, the fireball did not tremble in the slightest. It continued along its original trajectory, seemingly meant to force everyone to scatter and dodge.

Originally, Klein had not cared too much about the trackers and saboteurs. After all, they had six Beyonders present, including Sequence 8 and Sequence 7 experts. In a small place like Tingen, this was practically a lineup that could swagger sideways.

But when the fireball came crashing toward them, he suddenly realized a fact.

For them, the most dangerous enemy was not the tracker, not the saboteur, not even Ray Bieber inside the warehouse in whatever state he might be in. It was Sealed Artifact 2-049.

Once they scattered and entered battle, unable to wake one another in time, they would one by one become living puppets.

As thoughts flashed chaotically, Klein was pulled by Leonard. He rolled outward with the other man, avoiding the fireball.

With no time to mourn his clothes, he saw the Nighthawks split into two groups to dodge, orderly and well-practiced.

Puff!

The orange fireball struck the ground, yet did not stir even the slightest dust, as if nothing had happened at all.

An illusion?

That thought had only just emerged in Klein’s mind when he saw El Hassan lift the iron-black box and throw it far aside, at least ten meters away.

“Stay away from it! Guard it!” El shouted.

Before he even finished, Leonard and Borgia had each moved closer, standing guard at least seven meters from the box and preventing anyone else from approaching it.

Dunn and Lorotta each held firearms, while El Hassan drew a slender silver sword. The three of them formed a semicircular formation and swiftly rushed toward the place from which the fireball had been shot, covering the side area at the same time.

Seeing this, Klein, who had no cane because he had needed to keep performing the arm movement, finally relaxed. He understood that he had overlooked an important issue.

2-049’s influence had a range. As long as they kept far enough away from it, they did not need to worry about the danger.

Klein abruptly rolled to his feet. With one hand, he stuffed the citrine pendant into his pocket. With the other, he drew the revolver from the holster under his arm.