Chapter 107: Action

Chapter One Hundred Seven
Action

An abnormal reaction? Then it really is a Card of Blasphemy!

After receiving the reply and entering above the gray fog, Klein first felt joy, then immediately found himself inexplicably amazed.

“Miss Justice’s efficiency is almost frightening.

“I only entrusted the task to her this afternoon, and by evening she had already finished verifying it…

“And this is clearly after the Kingdom Museum has closed!

“A Mind Reader definitely does not possess Beyonder abilities suited to infiltration.

“Hiss. Her family’s power is probably even greater than I imagined…

“Good thing the verification did not produce some strange phenomenon. Otherwise, I could only have had Miss Justice pretend innocence and hand the card over, which would mean I simply had no fate with the treasure… Nothing is ever one hundred percent certain…”

As those thoughts flashed through him, Klein heard Miss Justice’s following question:

“Mr. Fool, exactly what secret is hidden inside that bookmark?”

“Mm… If Your blessed one is unwilling to answer, please pretend I did not ask.”

Of course it hides the secret of a Card of Blasphemy!

Klein exclaimed silently, delighted.

After thinking carefully, he decided to wait until he had the Card of Blasphemy in hand before responding to Miss Justice, so as to avoid shocking her too much, causing her to display abnormalities and negatively affect his own operation.

Klein did not rush back to the real world. He sat inside the silent, spacious ancient palace and began considering when and how to act.

Miss Justice had inflicted a little damage on that bookmark. Who knew whether it would be discovered later… Or perhaps, because of that, the bookmark might slowly reveal something unusual and draw attention… Therefore, he could not delay. He could not wait. It would be best to act tonight!

After a surge of thoughts rolled and boiled for a while, Klein gradually made his decision.

Immediately afterward, based on what he had observed that morning, he manifested a layout map of the Kingdom Museum’s first floor, along with the rough environment around it.

Looking at that diagram, Klein began simulating different operation plans. Before long, he settled on a relatively safe one.

Finally, he once again performed divination to confirm the degree of danger.

Seeing no change, he returned to the real world and began making all kinds of preparations.

Klein’s original thought had been to use the method of praying to himself and answering himself, then “draw” the image from his memory, forging a similar bookmark. After infiltrating the museum, he would switch the two, ensuring no one discovered or knew anything for a very long time. By the time the matter came to light, it would be impossible to trace it back to him.

But after repeated deliberation, he felt that would instead be poor planning. The moment the forged bookmark was discovered, the person most worthy of suspicion would be Miss Justice, who had touched the original bookmark earlier that day.

I cannot place Miss Justice in such high risk just for a treasure. She only did this because she was helping me!

Klein finally decided on the method that would avoid drawing suspicion toward Miss Justice.

That was: not only steal the necessary bookmark, but also take part of the surrounding items as well, including several lighter books.

Hoo…

Having finished his preparations, Klein took out his gold-cased pocket watch, clicked it open, and patiently waited for the period after nine o’clock but before midnight.

If it was too early, the nearby residents would not yet be asleep, making it impossible to satisfy the needs of his plan. If it was too late, the streets would be almost empty, and merely walking outside would easily draw suspicion. At present, because of the serial murder case, the entire Backlund was tense and under heightened vigilance.

That was both advantageous and disadvantageous to Klein’s operation.

Tick. Tick. The hands continued moving. As night deepened and the crimson moon rose, they finally passed nine o’clock.

Klein pocketed the Master Key and other items, took his cane, and first went to the East Borough to change his outfit. After that, he rode rented carriages in several separate trips, arriving at a place some distance away from King’s Avenue in the West Borough.

By then, an hour and three quarters had already passed.

His initial plan had not actually been like this. He had intended to summon himself and answer himself, becoming a Spirit Body, then relying on extreme speed to fly from Cherwood Borough to the West Borough. Afterward, he would infiltrate the Kingdom Museum and use that special state to obtain the item without anyone noticing.

However, he ultimately abandoned that plan, because it carried a potential and rather high risk.

Backlund had high-Sequence powerhouses, and more than one!

With the serial murder case making everyone panic while remaining unsolved for so long, perhaps a high-Sequence powerhouse was consciously using their own Beyonder abilities or corresponding Sealed Artifacts to monitor certain areas. And the distance from Cherwood Borough to the West Borough was neither long nor short. If a special Spirit Body flew all the way over, the probability of discovery was not low.

He could not completely ignore that possibility just because divination had said “there is a certain amount of danger, but it is not especially high,” because divination rarely provided direct answers. It provided revelations that required interpretation.

In other words, the result “there is a certain amount of danger, but it is not especially high” needed a premise: that he had made a relatively good choice.

Therefore, Klein chose caution above all and modified his original plan, though he retained its core idea.

…

2 King’s Avenue, Kingdom Museum.

On the polygonal hipped roof stood four security personnel wearing woolen coats. They endured the cold wind of the late-autumn night, carefully watching the directions they were responsible for. If anyone approached the museum, even with the help of trees and building shadows, they would find it very difficult to escape those eyes.

From that arrangement alone, it was clear that the security company that had accepted the commission was very professional.

“Still half an hour until we rotate…”

One of the guards looked down at his companions patrolling around the building and shivered.

Inside the museum, the remaining guards were divided into four teams, patrolling the various exhibition halls along different routes at staggered intervals.

In the exhibition hall where Roselle’s diary was stored, Machinery Hivemind team captain Max Livermore wore the monocle that allowed him to directly see Spirit Bodies, resentful spirits, shadows, and similar monsters. Holding a lantern, he paced back and forth, checking repeatedly. From time to time, he stepped out to confirm the situation elsewhere.

His two subordinates, meanwhile, remained in the small hall from beginning to end, staying beside Roselle’s diary.

But atop the glass display case, an additional item had been placed.

It was a pile of colorful building blocks arranged into a miniature model of the museum’s first floor.

This was likewise a Sealed Artifact. As long as those shape-shifting blocks were assembled into the corresponding building, they would establish a connection with the real object. Once anyone intruded, a miniature response would immediately appear on its surface.

Of course, that correspondence had many restrictions. If the distance was too great, it would not work. If the number of blocks it possessed was insufficient to assemble the structure, it would also fail.

As for the people and objects inside, without external assistance, they would find it almost impossible to leave.

“Captain, do you really think someone will come steal this notebook? It is completely impossible to understand!”

One team member, seeing Max return with the lantern and having nothing better to do, asked idly.

Max smiled and said, “Some people’s worship of Roselle is fanatical beyond your understanding.

“Some believe they can decipher it but only need more reference material. Others believe those symbols themselves contain mysterious powers, and that as long as they find the correct arrangement, they will obtain extraordinary power.

“In previous exhibitions, criminals like that have been caught from time to time.”

“So that is why we do not take the notebook away and place it in the sealed location. This is waiting for those fellows to come ‘turn themselves in’?” the other team member asked in dawning realization.

Max nodded.

“Who would not want merit delivered right before them?”

…

Outside the building at 18 King’s Avenue, near the intersection.

Klein followed the shadows and areas of cover, occasionally using the Master Key to walk in a straight line. At last, he arrived.

He once again took out that ancient-looking brass key, aimed it at the kitchen door, and silently twisted.

Amid an almost imperceptible ripple like water, Klein entered inside. He passed through door after door, wall after wall, disturbing no one, until he found a storage room.

“This Master Key really is useful. It is only that both of its previous owners got lost into dangerous places, making me afraid to keep it on me all the time…”

Klein sighed once, put away the brass key, and, with servants’ bedrooms nearby, took out Night Sanctifying Powder. Releasing his spirituality, he sealed off the entire storage room so that no sound from inside could leak out.

Then he took out a candle and placed it on a box directly in front of him.

Snap!

He snapped his fingers, causing a pale-blue spiritual flame to emerge from his fingertip.

After the wick was lit, he followed the procedure of ritual magic, summoning himself and going above the gray fog to answer himself.

Less than a minute later, Klein floated within the room. Opposite him was his fleshly body, its eyes having lost their light.

After familiarizing himself with the sensation, he wrapped the ancient and exquisite Azik copper whistle, making his Spirit Body stable and powerful. A cold, sinister wind began to circle and whirl inside the room.

At the same time, with the help of that power, he slightly changed the appearance of his illusory Spirit Body, making it seem as though a layer of greasepaint had been applied to his face.

After doing all that, Klein picked up a box of ordinary matches he had bought casually from the street, cut a transparent doorway through the wall of spirituality, and walked out.

“Action!”

He encouraged himself soundlessly. Like a true ghost, he passed through one residence after another, smoothly arriving at the outer perimeter of the Kingdom Museum.

There was no need to activate spirit vision. In that state, he could clearly see every security guard. Their auras and emotional colors betrayed them without restraint.

After finding the withered, yellowing lawn and the black iron lamppost facing the exhibition hall window, Klein did not rely on the advantage that ordinary people could not see him and stride over openly. Instead, he followed the shadows, moved along routes difficult to observe, passed through sculpted shrubs and obstacles, and carefully reached his target, pressing himself against the wall.

He could not guarantee that among those security personnel there was not a Machinery Hivemind team member mixed in.

At that very moment, the four guards on the roof carefully scrutinizing the areas under their responsibility were like true blind men. They discovered nothing.

Klein did not enter the exhibition hall directly. This was partly because his spiritual intuition told him the museum’s first floor was shrouded by some mysterious power, and partly because he could not confirm whether Beyonders were inside.

According to his predetermined plan, he circled to the other side, to the outside of a washroom closer to the exhibition hall where Roselle’s diary was stored, and dropped the box of matches he carried through the ventilation opening.

Immediately afterward, he flew upward and entered the second floor!