Chapter 118: August

Chapter One Hundred Eighteen
August

Time flowed peacefully onward. Tingen saw off the tail end of summer and entered mid-August, the temperature holding steady at twenty-six or twenty-seven degrees Celsius.

Splash!

Klein abruptly stood up from the bathtub and stepped out, scattering droplets of water over the floor.

He stood there naked, lowering his head to look at his own abdomen. With a slight exertion, clear lines of muscle appeared.

This was the result of the training he had persisted in over this period. Aside from that, his entire person looked much more spirited.

And on this very day, his combat teacher Gawain had begun teaching him basic boxing footwork and force-generation techniques.

Pap, pap, pap. Klein’s bare soles struck the washroom floor. Sometimes he slid forward; sometimes he abruptly retreated; sometimes he dodged to the right, all while throwing punches and making blocking movements.

Hoo. He stopped and breathed out with delight. Then he picked up the towel nearby and began wiping himself dry.

In the two-plus weeks after making contact with the asylum doctor Daxter Guderian, Klein seemed to have escaped coincidence and left behind the strange loop of constantly running into supernatural incidents. His life became steady. He received his salary step by step, studied mysticism in depth, practiced shooting and combat, transplanted and developed new dishes, accumulated respectable utensils and furnishings piece by piece with his elder brother Benson and younger sister Melissa, asked Captain Dunn, teammate Leonard, and others about past Beyonder cases, and went to the club to perform divinations for others, strictly following the code he himself had summarized.

All this brought his heart a sense of peace. If not for the fact that he still missed Earth late at night when silence was deep, if not for the fact that the red-chimney matter still had not been investigated clearly, and if not for the fact that the pattern conveyed by the Misfortune Puppet still occasionally appeared in his dreams, he might almost have begun to grow accustomed to, and even attached to, his current life.

During that time, the Tarot Club had convened three times. Klein had not obtained any new pages of Roselle’s diary. But according to Justice, she had newly met two Beyonders and was making natural contact with them. Once she entered the corresponding circle, she should be able to trade for more pages of Roselle’s diary.

The Hanged Man had also expressed that he had returned to land and was currently handling certain matters. As soon as he had free time, he would immediately begin searching.

Beyond that, Justice felt that the two Beyonders she had newly met were both people worth developing. For example, each possessed fairly good cover identities on the surface; each had a certain, different resource channel; each had their own principles and distinctive traits; neither seemed the type to casually sell secrets. The only problem was that both were merely Sequence 9 and were not especially suitable for a high-end, strict secret organization like the Tarot Club.

High-end organization? I feel like it is more of a pyramid scheme…

At the time, the Fool, Klein, had only wanted to cover his face and sigh. He had found no words with which to respond to Miss Justice’s excellent opinion of herself. He could only agree to let her continue observing those two Beyonders.

Of course, Justice was no longer the innocent, carefree girl from the beginning either. She had prudently avoided mentioning the names or traits of the two Beyonders, worried that the Hanged Man might trace her through them.

“Miss Justice said she can clearly feel signs of her potion digesting. Perhaps in another three or four weeks, she will be able to complete her acting as a Spectator… The formula for Telepathist needs to be placed on the agenda…”

Having wiped himself clean, Klein set the towel aside. As he put on his underclothes, he thought back to the Tarot Gathering from the day before yesterday.

Over the past nearly twenty days, he had arranged only one meeting with Dr. Daxter Guderian. Holding to the principle that haste makes waste, Klein had only talked about the other party’s condition and asked about several inconsequential matters regarding the Psychology Alchemists.

Justice’s speed in digesting her potion, however, forced him to begin considering ahead of time how to obtain the Sequence 8 Telepathist formula from Daxter.

Buttoning his shirt one button at a time, Klein picked up another dry towel, wrapped it around his head, and used it to absorb the moisture from his short hair.

Compared with Justice, his own speed in digesting the Seer potion was no slower—if anything, faster. By this week, when he entered meditation or spirit vision, he no longer heard sounds he should not hear or saw scenes he should not see.

Turning the towel over, Klein rubbed his hair again, then lifted his head toward the door and muttered soundlessly to himself:

“The Seer’s code I summarized really is effective. Next week… next week, I should be able to completely digest the potion… I still do not know where to get the crystallized horn of an adult Hornacis gray mountain goat or a complete human-face rose from the Clown formula… Perhaps I could learn from Madam Daly and submit a special application… but that would definitely draw attention from higher up… I only want to develop quietly for now…

“The Aurora Order believer hidden inside the police department has already been found, but Mr. Z’s identity is still unknown…

“Henry said he should finish the red chimney commission before the week ends… My private savings have recovered to a little over seven pounds, so I no longer need to worry about paying the final balance…

“The partial housing and tenant information he provided earlier temporarily shows no problems. I do not have time to check them one by one…

“Perhaps I can first see which red-chimney houses have recently changed tenants?

“Mm. That is one possible direction.”

…

After sitting quietly for twenty or thirty seconds, he put on dark gray-black trousers, fixed his bow tie, fastened his holster, tossed the knight’s practice clothes he had changed out of into the laundry basket, opened the washroom door, and stepped outside.

He had just finished his Wednesday afternoon combat training not long ago and was still at his teacher Gawain’s home.

“Good day, Mr. Moretti.”

Gawain’s maid-of-all-work happened to pass by and hurriedly bent in a bow.

Klein nodded slightly and pointed toward the disordered, wet washroom.

“Please clean it up.”

“That is my duty. The clothes will be handled by the washerwoman. She comes after six,” the maid-of-all-work replied with her head lowered.

Washerwomen did not receive board and lodging, and their pay was very low. Therefore, they were not employed by only one household. They often took on washing from several nearby residents, either hurrying from house to house each day, immediately going to the next after finishing one, or collecting everything back to their own home to deal with together, then delivering items back in order. Only in this way could they barely survive.

Klein said nothing more. He arrived in the sitting room and said farewell to the owner of the house.

He saw Gawain, whose temples were already white, nod without much vigor. A light-brown blanket lay over his legs, while he held a copy of the Awwa Evening News in his hands.

Klein knew that the man before him, bathed in the slanting western sunlight, was actually only a little over fifty. Yet he carried such heavy twilight that he seemed eighty or ninety.

During ordinary combat training, Gawain maintained the same silence. He spoke only when he needed to give instruction, never saying more, never chatting idly. Klein, meanwhile, was always so exhausted that he was half-dead and lacked any desire to take the initiative in conversation. Thus, their relationship remained cold even now.

“Judging from Teacher Gawain’s demonstrations, his strength is still rather astonishing, and his footwork is agile enough. He could probably beat three of me without a problem… He has a salary from the police department, and he bought a piece of land in a village outside Tingen from which he receives fixed rent… He employs a cook, a maid-of-all-work, and a washerwoman… In the great foodie nation back on Earth, a gentleman in his fifties or sixties with that sort of assets would already be traveling all over the world…”

Klein withdrew his gaze from Gawain and silently shook his head. Then he walked to the coat rack and took down his half-top silk hat and thin black windbreaker.

Once dressed properly, he picked up his cane, left the house, and followed the weed-lined stone path toward the gate.

At that moment, he saw a two-wheeled carriage stopped outside the iron fence. Beside it stood a familiar man.

“Leonard?”

Klein looked doubtfully toward his Nighthawk teammate with wildly disheveled hair and murmured the name under his breath.

Leonard wore a white shirt, black trousers, and buttonless leather boots. He was spinning his hat in one hand. Seeing Klein come out, he smiled and said, “Surprised?”

Only surprised. No joy…

Klein ignored the other man’s lack of seriousness and stared into the green eyes of this false poet.

“What happened?”

Leonard put his hat on.

“The Captain asked you to cooperate with Frye and me. We will explain on the way.”

“All right.”

Klein followed him into the carriage compartment.

Once the scenery on both sides began retreating, Leonard picked up the document bag beside him and tossed it across.

Klein caught it steadily, took out the documents, and began reading through them carefully.

“August 11th, 11 p.m. Inside the West Borough workhouse, bankrupt Sols attempted arson to create a tragedy, but ultimately burned only himself to death…”

“August 11th, 10 p.m. Dockworker Zedd jumped into the Tussock River, ending his impoverished life…”

“August 11th, 8 p.m. On Iron Cross Street, Lower Street, Mrs. Lorris, who made a living pasting matchboxes, died of sudden illness…”

…

When he saw the first two matters, Klein felt puzzled. He believed similar death incidents were far too ordinary and common. They should not have drawn the Nighthawks’ attention, and even the police department ought to avoid wasting manpower on them.

But as he continued reading downward, his brows gradually furrowed.

After flipping through two pages, he suddenly raised his head and looked toward Leonard.

“Isn’t this a little too many?”

When ordinary death incidents became numerous enough to shock people, it was difficult to call them ordinary anymore.

Leonard nodded seriously for once.

“The number of death incidents over the past two weeks is five times the normal value.

“When Tingen City Police Headquarters compiled the data, they discovered this problem and hurriedly transferred the matter to us—to us, to the Mandated Punishers, and to the Machinery Hivemind.

“Although the initial verification of these death incidents shows no problem, the Captain believes we must investigate them again. That may require the aid of divination or ritual magic.”

Klein understood.

“I see.”

Leonard snapped his fingers.

“I, you, and Frye form one group. He is waiting for us on Iron Cross Street, Lower Street. Siga, Royale, and Old Neil form another group, investigating corresponding incidents in the North Borough. The Captain will stay at the security company to handle any accidents.”

“Mm.”

Klein nodded solemnly, then abruptly remembered something and hurriedly asked, “Can I go home first and leave a note?”

He needed to tell his elder brother and younger sister that he had something to handle tonight and would not eat dinner at home.

Leonard laughed.

“No problem. It happens to be on the way.”

Only then did Klein settle down. He once again flipped through the death incidents, attempting to find connections among the different causes of death, different names, and different times.

As he read, a thought naturally rose in his mind:

So this is my first collective mission after becoming a Nighthawk?