Chapter 37: Sacrificing Himself

Chapter 37: Sacrificing Himself

At ten o’clock at night, a fine drizzle once again began falling over Backlund. The thin mist of rain gave the glow of the gas streetlamps a hazy beauty.

Isengard Stanton’s assistant, Bowen, had finished patrolling the ground floor and walked to the bay window, preparing to close the final window.

Just then, a black shadow darted in and landed steadily on the protruding section of wall.

It was actually a blue, short-haired stray cat!

Seeing the cat’s large, round yellow eyes look his way, Bowen could not help chuckling softly.

“There is no food here.”

Detective work easily invited revenge, and the household itself had many secrets that needed concealing. For that reason, the cooks and servants in Isengard Stanton’s home were all hourly workers. They only came at fixed times each day and never prepared too much food at once, so after dinner, there was rarely anything left behind.

The blue shorthair cat opened its mouth. Instead of meowing, it spoke like a human being.

“I am Sherlock Moriarty. I need to see Mr. Isengard Stanton.”

“…” Although Bowen was a Beyonder cultivated by the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, his Sequence was not especially high, nor had he seen that much. This was the first time he had encountered a talking cat, and for a brief moment, shock and blankness were unavoidable.

Only several seconds later did he recover and begin to process what the blue shorthair cat had just said.

It said… it said it was Sherlock Moriarty?

That great detective really isn’t simple!

He can actually turn into a cat—no, control a cat!

This ability is truly both bizarre and terrifying!

Bowen quickly calmed down. He did not immediately answer the blue shorthair cat, but reached out and closed the glass window.

Only after doing that did he lower his voice and say, “Follow me.”

The blue shorthair cat immediately leaped down from the ledge behind the bay window. With its tail raised and steps nimble, it walked slightly behind Bowen, following him all the way to the second floor and watching as he knocked on Isengard Stanton’s bedroom door.

“What is it?” Isengard asked as he opened the door in a set of pale striped pajamas.

He had been enjoying his bedtime tobacco.

Bowen cautiously pointed to the blue shorthair cat sitting beside him.

“Mr. Sherlock Moriarty is looking for you.”

Isengard, his temples graying and his face lean, raised his eyebrows slightly. He lowered his head for a glance, then stepped back two paces, allowing the blue shorthair cat to swagger into his bedroom.

“Go back to your room and sleep. Wake up on time tomorrow. We still have a case to investigate,” Isengard instructed Bowen as if nothing unusual had happened.

After his assistant left, he closed the door and turned to look at the blue shorthair cat sitting beside the easy chair. He laughed softly.

“I had not expected you to have such a Beyonder ability. I was worried you would come in person.”

“I noticed the exclamation mark,” the blue shorthair cat said, revealing a smile.

It had to be said that such an expression appearing on a cat’s face was extremely discordant. Anyone who witnessed it would feel a chill run down their spine and their hairs stand on end.

Isengard, however, showed no abnormal reaction. He took a draw from his pipe, sat down in the easy chair, and slowly exhaled in satisfaction before saying with a smile, “I trust your wisdom.”

“Thank you for the praise.” The blue shorthair cat politely extended a paw and gave a bow.

Isengard watched it, rubbing his pipe as he smiled.

“You should already understand what has happened.

“Although those people do not dare conduct overly strict surveillance, fearing that I might discover them and report it to the Evernight Church and the Church of Steam—heh, if they were exposed, they would likewise face no small amount of trouble—I believe there must be a demigod among them. This is both a deduction and a conclusion supported by certain feedback, considering I have lived on this street for many years.

“So, humans and animals entering my house will not be stopped. You have clearly already thought of that. However, upon leaving, they will inevitably be followed. What method do you have to shake them off? Mm… that sum of money is not small. Carrying it out would be extremely conspicuous.

“Let me think. You plan to communicate with me and have me deposit the money into a designated bank account, then find quite a few people outside Backlund to withdraw it in batches at the same time from different places?”

At that point, Isengard smiled self-deprecatingly.

“That is the best method I can think of, but it would be extremely troublesome to execute.”

The blue shorthair cat did not answer directly. It laughed in a low voice.

“I only need you to lend me an empty room and three candles.”

“No problem.” Isengard Stanton did not ask further. Instead, he said, “This transfer of shares was priced at twelve thousand pounds. The buyer was Earl Hall’s daughter, Audrey. Mm, hiring the solicitor and accounting team and publishing the advertisement cost a total of six hundred pounds. In addition, there was a 0.5% stamp tax and a 20% Class D income tax. What remains is 8,940 pounds.”

Class D tax referred to income tax on commercial, financial, and professional earnings.

I still have to pay tax? More than two thousand pounds vanished just like that… For a moment, the blue shorthair cat’s expression went slightly blank.

Klein had once been a Nighthawk, and his salary had not required individual income tax. Later, as a private detective, his earnings were difficult to monitor, so he had never voluntarily reported them. Later still, he became an adventurer, and pirate bounties enjoyed preferential treatment and were exempt from taxation. He had also lacked awareness in that regard. Therefore, even though Isengard Stanton had mentioned taxes last time, Klein had not taken it seriously, never imagining it would amount to much. Reality had now struck him a heavy blow.

As for why the previous equity transaction had not been taxed, that was because the Loen government encouraged early investment in inventions and creations, so corresponding reductions and exemptions existed.

After a brief silence, the blue shorthair cat’s whiskers twitched twice.

“Alright. Bring the cash to me—uh, move it into that empty room.

“There is no problem with the money, is there?”

“I have already checked. They would not play tricks in that regard. That would be an insult to my intelligence.” Holding his pipe, Isengard stood. “Afterward, remember to send me a signed confirmation of the transaction by post.”

“It is already on the way,” the blue shorthair cat replied, clearly prepared.

Isengard then walked toward the safe inside the master bedroom. Using the combination and a key, he opened it, took out stacks of cash, and stuffed them into different document bags.

Then he carried the document bags out of the master bedroom and entered the guest room diagonally opposite.

“Count it,” Isengard said while placing the document bags full of cash down and addressing the blue shorthair cat that had followed him in.

“I trust you,” the blue shorthair cat replied after glancing over them a few times.

Isengard nodded and pointed toward a cabinet.

“There are candles inside.”

With that, he stepped back to the door, grasped the handle, and said with a smile, “I am truly curious how you plan to leave… I imagine it will be a splendid ‘magic trick.’”

With a click, Isengard Stanton closed the door, and the guest room once again became quiet and cold.

Beside the blue shorthair cat, a figure wearing a dark-red coat and an old tricorn hat swiftly appeared. It was Klein’s marionette, the Wraith Senor.

He found the candles and quickly arranged a simple altar, omitting all the preliminary steps and directly chanting in a low voice in Elvish:

“Favored of the sea and the spirit world, protector of the Rorsted Archipelago, ruler of the creatures beneath the sea, controller of tsunamis and storms—the great Kalvetua.

“Your faithful servant prays for Your gaze;

“Prays that You accept his offering;

“Prays that You open the gates to Your kingdom.”

Within the wall of spirituality, the wind abruptly intensified. Senor swiftly used his fingernails to cut the skin on the back of his hand and flung out drops of blood.

As a Sequence 5 Wraith, every part of his body was equivalent to a material rich in spirituality!

The wild wind carried away the blood and poured it into the candle flame symbolizing Sea God Kalvetua, causing it to swell outward and transform into an illusory door covered with magical markings and symbolic signs.

Only after more than ten seconds did the door let out a heavy creak and slowly open, inch by inch.

Senor immediately picked up the document bags containing the cash one by one and threw them into the illusory door.

When nothing remained, a gold coin housed within his body flew out and landed upon the altar.

The Wraith’s figure then vanished, projecting itself onto the coin’s smooth surface.

The gold coin rose unsteadily into the air and, following the document bags ahead of it, entered the illusory sacrificial door.

Soundlessly, that mysterious door closed. The three candle flames returned to normal.

Only then did the blue shorthair cat seem to recover itself. It looked left and right in confusion and let out a meow.

After a while, Isengard opened the door and came in. He saw that every document bag containing banknotes had vanished. Only three candles remained, quietly burning. Only the blue shorthair cat arched its back warily.

As he watched the scene deeply, at a fork in the street some distance away, a boxy rental carriage rolled past at an unhurried pace.

…

The same night, inside a building in the Cherwood Borough.

Xio returned home through the thin drizzle. As she dried her hair with a towel, she said to Fors, “Your letter has been sent.”

Fors gave an “Mm,” inwardly guessing when her teacher might reply.

At that moment, Xio set down the towel and casually said, “News has come regarding Mr. X’s gathering. Same place as before, Friday night.”

Excellent. I can tell Mr. World now! I wonder how much compensation I’ll need to pay…

Fors’s eyes lit up.

Before she had the chance to ask about details, Xio added on her own, “Mr. X also issued a mission said to offer very generous compensation. Mm, tell him about people one knows whose luck is abnormal.”

“People whose luck is abnormal?” Fors murmured in confusion. “Does this gentleman have something wrong with his brain? Who would reveal information about the people around them at a gathering like that? It would make it very easy for others to discover their real identity.”

“Who knows? Maybe he really is a madman.” Xio did not know anyone with abnormal luck, so she responded without much concern.

Fors thought about it carefully for a while, but still could not understand the true purpose behind the mission. She could only cast it to the back of her mind and wait until Xio went to bathe before praying to Mr. Fool and passing the relevant information to the World, Gehrman Sparrow.