Chapter 202: Confirming the Situation

Chapter Two Hundred Two
Confirming the Situation

After folding the letter paper, Klein took out the copper whistle, brought it to his lips, and blew hard.

Soundlessly, he saw hazy, illusory white bones flung up from the surface of his desk, one after another, turning into a fountain and assembling into an enormous monster. It was still close to four meters tall. It was still covered in faint light. Its head still drilled through the ceiling, seemingly no different from before.

With a flick of his wrist, Klein tossed the letter upward and saw the white-bone monster catch it steadily.

He blew the copper whistle again, watching the “messenger” collapse into illusory white bones. One by one, they fell like rain and vanished through the surface of the desk.

After completing this, Klein felt considerably calmer. Yet he did not stop there. He pushed the chair back, stood, and walked four steps counterclockwise, entering above the gray fog.

The towering, magnificent palace and the ancient, mottled long table entered his eyes, as though they had remained unchanged for millions of years.

Klein sat in the high-backed chair that belonged to the Fool. Silently, he untied the pendulum hidden inside the cuff of his left wrist, then manifested yellowish-brown parchment and a round-bellied fountain pen.

He intended to divine the Captain’s condition tonight.

After pondering for a moment, Klein wrote down the first divination statement:

“Dunn Smith’s abnormality will place me in danger.”

In mysticism, divinations involving one’s own safety were the hardest for external forces to interfere with. They belonged to spirituality’s instincts.

In other words, unless the interference was especially powerful, when it came to divinations involving his own safety, Klein could obtain relatively accurate results.

This was also the reason he had still performed a divination about whether the mission was dangerous despite knowing that Madam Sharon possessed the ability to interfere with divination. He knew very well that Madam Sharon was not powerful enough to influence that kind of result.

And now, in order to determine Dunn Smith’s situation, he had decided to eliminate all interference and divine above the gray fog.

Holding the pendulum in his left hand, Klein silently recited the divination statement seven times, then closed his eyes and entered a meditative state.

After several seconds of stability, he opened his eyes. The darkened color of his pupils had already returned to normal.

He looked toward the citrine pendant, and his heart slowly sank.

The pendulum was rotating clockwise. The range was not small, and the speed was not slow.

This meant the answer was affirmative.

This meant Dunn Smith’s abnormality would put him in danger.

And the danger was not low.

Closing his eyes once, Klein wiped away the previous content and wrote a new divination statement:

“The reason for Dunn Smith’s abnormality.”

He placed the citrine pendant down, leaned back against the chair, silently recited the divination statement, and entered a dream with the help of meditation.

In that gray, illusory world, he saw nothing and discovered nothing. Aside from grayness, there was only more grayness.

“This means the information is insufficient. The divination failed…”

Klein opened his eyes and looked toward the parchment on the bronze long table, murmuring bitterly and helplessly.

Suddenly, he felt an intense fatigue. He understood that this was the combined result of fierce battle, repeated rituals, and several divinations.

Wrapping himself in spirituality, Klein plunged into the gray fog and returned to the real world.

That whole night, he had several nightmares. At the end of each dream, he saw either Kernli vomiting up his organs, or Dunn Smith with dark-red blood covering the area around his mouth.

…

The next morning, Klein, who would soon take his turn guarding Chanis Gate, arrived early at Blackthorn Security Company.

At this hour, Rozanne, Madam Orianna, and the other civilian staff had not yet come to work. Klein passed through the partition and looked toward the open door, seeing Dunn Smith inside the Captain’s office.

Dunn had taken off his coat. He wore only a white shirt and black waistcoat over his upper body. He sat in his seat, holding a cup of coffee and staring blankly at the wall ahead.

His hair looked slightly dry. His gray eyes were dim and lifeless. His hard-lined face showed obvious exhaustion and haggardness.

Even the Captain, who has experienced similar matters many times, would find losing two teammates in such a short time unbearable…

Klein’s heart tightened. Suddenly, the image of that shattered mirror surfaced in his mind again—the image of Dunn half crouched, half prone, with dark blood staining his face.

Klein abruptly clenched his teeth, turned his head, and looked to the side.

More than ten seconds passed. He controlled his expression and reached out to knock on the office door.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Dunn set down the coffee cup, and his gray eyes once again became deep and shadowed.

He inhaled soundlessly and said, “I have already reported the matter to the Sanctuary. They have also given an initial response.

“The Church will compensate Kernli’s family with three thousand pounds, and the police department will provide one thousand pounds in pension…”

Altogether, that is four thousand pounds. For most middle-class families, that is wealth they could never save in a lifetime… Kernli’s weekly salary was seven pounds, three hundred sixty-four pounds a year. Including bonuses and additional income, it should reach at least three hundred eighty pounds. Four thousand pounds is equivalent to ten years of his income… Such a sum, even with the lowest return, can yield two hundred pounds a year. It can barely make up for the harm Kernli’s death causes his family… Although money cannot replace feelings, cannot replace Kernli, this is the only relatively effective method at present…

Many thoughts flashed through Klein’s mind. In the end, what left his mouth was only a sigh.

“That is all we can do.”

In this respect, the Church of the Evernight Goddess was still very conscientious.

Dunn tugged once at his collar and said in a low voice, “Go underground. Replace Royale.”

“All right.”

Klein nodded slightly.

He turned, walking toward the door, and heard the Captain add in a nearly self-talking tone:

“We will send Kernli home shortly…”

Send Kernli home… His father, his mother, his siblings, his fiancée—how will they react?

Klein’s heart clenched. For a moment, he even felt fortunate that he did not need to face that grief.

He knew this was a form of avoidance, but he was truly afraid of seeing the heartbroken eyes of Kernli’s parents, afraid of seeing the soulless appearance of his fiancée, afraid of witnessing expressions that hid blame, and afraid of hearing sob after sob.

His steps quickened. Klein arrived before Chanis Gate and silently completed the handover with Royale.

He sat inside the guard room, occasionally taking out his silver pocket watch, watching the minutes and seconds flow by.

After some unknown length of time, illusory, overlapping voices suddenly sounded beside his ears.

He glanced at the back of his hand, where four black dots had surfaced, and understood that Justice, the Hanged Man, or the Sun was praying to him.

But he had no way to respond in time. He could only endure until the prompt ended, endure later prayers, and endure until the next morning, when he returned home.

He had just taken out his key and opened the front door when he saw the maid Bella wiping the dining table. His younger sister Melissa and elder brother Benson, meanwhile, were each dressed for going out and descending the stairs.

“Did you not attend Mass just last week?” Klein asked, somewhat confused.

Benson smiled.

“I can understand the memory of someone who has been awake all night.”

“Ah?”

Klein grew even more bewildered.

“Today is the first day ticket reservations open for The Return of the Count,” Melissa explained on her own initiative.

Klein slapped his forehead and removed his hat.

“I have been too busy lately. I forgot about it.”

Especially these last three days…

He sighed and added that inwardly.

Melissa looked at him with concern.

“Your breakfast is in the kitchen. Eat quickly, then go sleep. Benson and I thought that since we were already going out, we might as well attend Mass at Saint Selena Cathedral.”

“All right.”

Klein waved farewell to his elder brother and younger sister. After eating a simple breakfast, he returned to his bedroom.

Once prepared, he walked four steps backward and entered above the gray fog. He saw that the crimson stars corresponding to Justice and the Hanged Man were both swelling and contracting in an illusory rhythm.

Extending his right hand and spreading his spirituality, Klein saw a blurry, unclear image appear before him, while Miss Justice’s prayer sounded beside his ears:

…

“I pray for Your hearing.

“Because of Qilangos’s matter, my father has hired a Beyonder to protect me. There is also secret monitoring I do not know about. It was not easy for me to find an opportunity to pray to You. I wish to request leave from next week’s gathering. I believe these matters will soon fade.”

Klein subconsciously glanced at that blurry image and saw spreading mist. He saw an enormous bathtub where water seemed to ripple. He saw Miss Justice wrapped in a bath towel.

He withdrew his gaze and began listening to the Hanged Man’s prayer instead.

The other party’s description differed from Justice’s, but the request was the same: due to the lingering effects of the Qilangos incident, he also wished to take leave.

Klein nodded slightly and replied to each of their prayers:

“I know.”

Immediately afterward, he sent an intention to the crimson star corresponding to the Sun:

“The upcoming gathering is temporarily canceled.”

…

The City of Silver.

Derrick Berg was standing on the training grounds, listening to instruction. The sky overhead remained dark, with lightning occasionally tearing across it and illuminating everything.

Suddenly, his vision blurred. He saw dense fog. He saw that ancient palace like a giant’s residence. He saw Mr. Fool seated high within the depths of the gray fog.

“The upcoming gathering is temporarily canceled.”

The voice was still echoing when everything before Derrick’s eyes returned to normal.

He was not surprised by this miracle, because every time before the gathering, Mr. Fool gave him notice in this way.

Derrick instinctively lifted his head and looked at the woman standing ahead: one of the six members of the City of Silver’s council, the Shepherd Lovia.

This terrifying powerhouse constantly shifted between a smile and coldness. She was telling every youth present that they would next join patrol teams to clear out the dark monsters nearby, and that this was no longer training.

Elder Lovia did not notice anything abnormal… Her state is becoming stranger and stranger. Is it because one of the souls she herds is an evil spirit equivalent to a high-Sequence powerhouse?

Derrick let his thoughts scatter.

…

Klein returned to his bedroom, lay down on his bed, and soon fell asleep, dreaming of the events from the past several days.

Suddenly, he felt as though someone were shaking him. He instantly woke.

Opening his eyes, Klein saw an enormous white-bone hand.

That giant hand paused once, dropped the letter it was holding onto the bed, then vanished.

Mr. Azik’s reply…

Klein understood at once and picked up the letter paper.