Chapter 85: Possibility

Chapter 85: Possibility

A smear of orange lit the horizon, and one manor after another on the north bank of the Tussock River gradually awakened amid the morning mist.

Tall and heavyset, Framy Cage came to the guest room where Qonas Kilgor had slept the previous night. He raised his hand and knocked on the door, preparing to have breakfast together with the deputy director of MI9.

However, no one inside responded.

“Has the major general already gone to the dining room?” Framy Cage turned around in slight confusion and left that floor.

Only after breakfast ended did everyone discover that Qonas Kilgor had disappeared. Under Dwayne Dantès’s lead, they came outside that guest room and watched the manor steward, Richardson, unlock the door with a key.

The inside was empty.

“Does Major General Kilgor have the habit of taking morning walks?” Member of Parliament Macht pinched both cheekbones and asked in puzzlement.

Framy Cage shook his head without hesitation.

“No.”

“Did any of you hear anything last night?” Portland Moment, the president of Backlund Technical University, looked around and asked.

Member of Parliament Macht thought back briefly.

“No. This place was very quiet, very suitable for vacation.”

Beside him, Hazel looked into the room with some curiosity, but she could not imagine what might have happened.

At that moment, Framy Cage proposed his own guess:

“Major General Kilgor is an important figure in the military. He often has sudden matters that require him to deal with them. Perhaps he left the manor very early and returned to Backlund.”

This steam-powered vehicle tycoon was clearly trying very hard to make the matter seem less serious.

He seems to know a little, or at the very least, he can guess that Qonas Kilgor came to Rose Song Manor with a purpose of his own… Listening to their conversation, Klein said to Butler Walter and Manor Steward Richardson with a grave expression,

“Ask every servant in the manor whether they saw Major General Kilgor last night or this morning.

“If no one did, send someone back to Backlund to visit Major General Kilgor’s family. Inform them of this matter, and let them decide whether the police need to be contacted immediately.”

After giving the instructions, Klein touched his graying temples and said to the guests, including Member of Parliament Macht,

“The matter cannot be clarified for the time being. Perhaps Major General Kilgor truly did leave because of urgent business. We should not let this delay everyone’s vacation. Let us continue with the hunting arrangement. If the police arrive, we will return then.”

Because Major General Qonas Kilgor’s companion, Framy Cage, had proposed the reason of urgent business—and because that reason was quite convincing—Member of Parliament Macht and the others all agreed with Dwayne Dantès’s opinion and left the place one after another.

Hazel walked at the very end. She glanced at the guest room where Major General Qonas Kilgor had stayed and then at the neighboring room, feeling that something was not quite harmonious. Subconsciously, she wanted to use a Cryptologist’s ability to reconstruct what had happened there.

However, a powerful fear immediately surged from deep within her heart, though she did not know what she was afraid of. In the end, she gave up on the idea.

She vaguely felt that she had some experience with similar matters, and that those experiences told her: one must not look at things one should not look at, nor listen to sounds one should not hear.

After all the guests and servants left that floor, inside the room beside Qonas’s guest room, the thick carpet supporting a tea table suddenly moved.

Little by little, it pulled its own body out from beneath the sofa and tea table without creating much noise.

Immediately afterward, that yellowish-brown carpet stood upright, revealing the situation on its other side.

It was flesh and blood that seemed to have congealed!

As the flesh squirmed and reassembled…