Chapter 55: Cemetery and Hospital

Chapter Fifty-Five
Cemetery and Hospital

After taking the steam metro to the south bank of the Tussock River, Klein hired a rental carriage and headed for Oston Cemetery on the outskirts of the South Borough. The cemetery was managed by the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery.

In the dimness of evening, the trees around the cemetery twisted and clawed at the air, blocking the light like monsters hidden in the night.

After the coachman accepted the four soli fare Klein paid, he glanced at the cemetery and muttered, “Do you need me to wait here?”

“No. No need. I am here to visit a friend,” Klein casually fabricated, only to discover a moment later that the coachman’s expression had abruptly changed.

This is a cemetery… here to visit a friend… and it is already dark…

The coachman heard his own heart pounding in his chest.

Only then did Klein realize what he had said. He smiled and added, “He is the gravedigger here.”

The coachman immediately breathed out in relief, but he still did not dare linger. He hurriedly drove the horses onward and quickly left.

Klein, meanwhile, circled more than halfway around the cemetery and waited until night truly descended.

After darkness fell, the amount of smoke and dust released into the air diminished greatly. Together with the bitter cold wind, the fog hanging in midair thinned quite a bit. Although there were still not many stars visible, the crimson moon faintly showed itself, laying gauze-like brilliance over the ground.

Klein tapped his chest four times clockwise, drawing the crimson moon. Then he put on gloves, pressed one hand down, braced himself, and flipped over the iron fence into the cemetery.

Highly alert, he looked around once, casually found a secluded corner, took out Azik’s copper whistle, and held it in his palm.

Not far before him stood a gravestone. The photograph upon it had already become filthy, and under the moonlight, even the epitaph seemed very blurred. Klein carefully identified it for several seconds before finally making out the words:

“Passing friend, please give me a hand. Thank you!”

A very humorous gentleman… You will do!

Klein stopped where he was, leaning against the trees nearby that shielded graves from sunlight and rain. In the cold, eerie night, he patiently waited.

He tossed Azik’s copper whistle up, caught it steadily, tossed it again, and caught it again, passing time in just that way until twenty minutes had gone by.

No sign of corpse transformation…

Klein snapped his pocket watch shut, examining the surroundings and confirming the result.

“I will come here again in a couple of days and see whether there are any additional changes. If there truly are none, that means Mr. Azik’s copper whistle cannot affect corpses that have received rites of requiem from priests.”

Klein silently murmured to himself, then tucked that ancient, exquisite copper whistle back into his pocket.

In the Loen Kingdom, burials were generally divided into three types. The first involved both coffin and corpse, suitable for the relatively comfortable middle and upper classes. The second lacked a corpse; the body was cremated directly, and the ashes were buried in an urn. This was the choice of lower-middle-class people and skilled workers who could afford cremation but felt coffins too wasteful. Sometimes, however, religious and governmental factors exerted influence: for instance, believers of the Eternal Blazing Sun were often cremated, while paupers receiving government aid were all cremated at only a token fee.

The third type belonged solely to the poor. Those who could not afford coffins, yet did not want cremation, would be wrapped in whatever could be found and simply buried.

From the gravestone and grave’s style, Klein had already judged that the target of his experiment was the kind with both coffin and corpse.

If Azik’s copper whistle could truly make the other party transform into a corpse, then even if the target might long ago have rotted into white bone, it would not be completely unresponsive. Even if it could not push open a coffin lid pressed down by thick earth and stone, it should at least produce dull thudding sounds.

Klein started walking toward the fence. Then he suddenly thought of a flaw in the experiment just now.

“Mm. I need categories. That was a corpse buried long ago. I also need a target that has just been buried.

“Only that way can I make the most accurate judgment.”

Afterward, Klein played hide-and-seek with the gravedigger and found a grave where the burial rite had been completed that very day.

This time, he waited half an hour and still discovered no abnormalities.

“Hoo. I can basically judge that Mr. Azik’s copper whistle cannot affect corpses that have received rites of requiem. That is a little weak… No, that is not right. The copper whistle itself is not meant to create corpse transformations. Its function is to summon a messenger. Affecting corpses is a negative effect!”

Klein tightened his double-breasted frock coat and walked toward the iron fence.

He planned to return home, change clothes, and conduct a second group of experiments.

The second group’s targets would be corpses that had not received rites of requiem and had not been dead for long.

Such targets often existed inside hospital morgues.

After climbing out over the fence, Klein walked step by step through the desolate, deep night toward the South Borough. The surroundings were deathly quiet and peaceful, with only evergreen trees, covered in dust, swaying lightly.

It made him think of the night when he had died and come back to life. Back then, he too had walked from a cemetery toward the city.

Sigh…

Klein exhaled, then suddenly broke into a run, as though trying to fling that melancholy far behind him.

More than half an hour later, he hired a rental carriage in the South Borough, headed for the nearest steam metro station.

There was still about an hour before the steam metro stopped running, which would save him quite a bit of money.

…

In the small hours of the morning, Klein changed into a gray-blue worker’s uniform, put on a peaked cap, and took a deliberately indirect route to Saint Estin Hospital in the Backlund Bridge area.

It was a charity hospital belonging to the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery.

Many impoverished people at the bottom rung died of illness there. With their families having nowhere to place their bodies, the corpses could only be kept in the hospital’s morgue while waiting for government cremation or donation to medical colleges. This phenomenon was especially common in summer, while autumn and winter, after the weather cooled, had fewer such cases.

However, in an age without air-conditioning or low-temperature storage devices, hospital morgues would not keep corpses for long. Those willing to donate would be treated for preservation as soon as possible, while those awaiting burial would be cleared out in batches the next day. Of course, that was the rule for summer. In autumn and winter, things were relatively more relaxed, so during this period, many corpses still spent the night in the morgue.

Saint Estin Hospital’s morgue was on the basement floor. Even in summer, it was quite cool; in autumn and winter, it was cold enough to bite.

Using the knowledge he had learned in the Nighthawks squad, and relying on the Clown’s agility and balance, Klein skillfully infiltrated the place, avoiding the doctors and nurses on duty before entering the basement floor.

Before he even approached the morgue, he already sensed that the surroundings were chilly and sinister.

Swiftly passing the caretaker’s room, Klein took out a thin iron wire and deftly opened the morgue’s lock.

This was one of the techniques of infiltration and tailing.

With his black-gloved right palm, he slowly and soundlessly pushed open the morgue door. At the same time, he extended his spirituality and wrapped it around Azik’s copper whistle, wanting to confirm whether this method could eliminate the negative effect.

The temperature inside the morgue seemed lower than that of the corridor. Most of the dead had been sealed in body bags and placed inside various iron cabinets around the room. Only a small number lay on the long tables in the central open space, as though waiting to be examined.

As a Sequence 8 Clown, Klein no longer felt much fear toward such a scene. He merely felt instinctive discomfort.

Remaining cautious, he carefully closed the door and circled the long tables again and again.

More than ten minutes passed. Klein exhaled a breath of cold air and confirmed that no strange change had occurred among the corpses.

About enough…

He took out his gold-cased pocket watch, opened it, and glanced at the time.

Once fully prepared, Klein withdrew his spirituality and no longer wrapped it around Azik’s copper whistle.

Perhaps it was only a psychological effect, but for no reason, he suddenly felt the surroundings become even more silent.

As a Diviner, he trusted intuition completely. He stopped walking back and forth and retreated to the area near the door.

Second after second passed. Klein estimated that roughly two minutes had gone by.

Just then, one corpse on a long table abruptly sat up!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

From the surrounding iron cabinets came dense knocking sounds, as though something inside were about to hatch!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Listening to those sounds and watching corpse after corpse sit up, Klein abruptly spoke in a low voice:

“Crimson!”

Immediately afterward, he poured spirituality into a Requiem Charm and threw it.

Ice-blue flames quietly burned. Calm, gentle blackness spread outward. The corpses lay back down once more, and the knocking from the iron cabinets abruptly ceased.

Having experienced similar scenes before, Klein did not relax. He used a second Requiem Charm.

Because there were many corpses here, he chose caution and used a third one as well, exhausting his entire stock.

“Not bad… As expected, it affects only corpses that have not received rites of requiem and died not long ago. Living corpses are included as well. Wrapping it with spirituality can shield that effect.”

A smile appeared on Klein’s face as he thought this.

Seeing that the corpses no longer showed any abnormal reaction, he prepared to pull open the door and leave.

At that moment, he suddenly heard footsteps from outside and saw faint light seep in.

The old caretaker had been drawn over by the knocking from inside the morgue and was approaching with a lantern.

Klein looked around once. Pressing a hand against the door, he nimbly jumped and climbed, stopping in the gap between the door and the ceiling.

His fingers hooked onto protrusions and cracks, maintaining excellent balance.

Creak!

The old caretaker opened the door with a key and entered the morgue.

He walked forward a few steps, raised the lantern, and examined the iron cabinets, the long tables, and each corpse.

Behind him, Klein lightly dropped down, landing without a sound.

Seizing the chance, Klein quickly escaped the morgue, used the caretaker’s little room to hide for several seconds, then cautiously returned to the upper floor.

The old caretaker checked around once but found nothing abnormal. Slightly afraid of the corpses, he muttered something and swiftly left, locking the door and no longer lingering.

Back in the guardroom, he wrapped himself in a thin blanket and needed several minutes before his rapid heartbeat calmed. In a low voice, he mocked himself a few times.

“Those old fellows always told me about strange things that happened in morgues, trying to scare me. That odd sound just now should count, and nothing happened, did it? Those corpses did not come back to life, did they?”

“Bah. Living corpses and vengeful spirits do not exist!”

At the same time, Klein was walking comfortably along the quiet, deep street, happy at having resolved one hidden danger.

He looked at the elegant gas streetlamps on both sides and felt especially expectant toward future Beyonder gatherings.

As long as I can obtain a weapon with special effects, I can acquire one of Magician’s main ingredients!

Mm… Although I currently have little money, I do have quite a few assets I can use for exchange, such as the Telepathist potion formula, or the Bard and Light Suppliant formulas. And my digestion of the Clown potion, because of successive events and acting that grasped the essence, has gone much faster than expected. It is close to completion…

On Backlund’s streets beneath the night, Klein let his thoughts drift without boundary.