Chapter 26: Practice

Chapter Twenty-Six
Practice

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Footsteps echoed through the narrow, shadowed corridor, carrying far into the silence without any other sound to disturb them.

Klein kept his back straight and followed the middle-aged priest at an even pace. He asked no questions, made no idle conversation, and held himself calm as a windless lake.

After passing through a heavily guarded passage, the middle-aged priest took out a key and opened a hidden door. Pointing toward the stone stairway leading downward, he said, “At the crossroads, turn left for Chanis Gate.”

“May the Goddess bless you.”

Klein tapped four times over his chest, outlining the shape of the crimson moon.

For secular situations, one used secular etiquette. For religious settings, religious ritual.

“Praise the Goddess.”

The middle-aged priest returned the same gesture.

Klein said nothing more. Following the stone steps, and relying on the elegant gas lamps embedded along the walls, he descended step by step into the depths of the darkness.

Halfway down, he subconsciously looked back and saw that the priest still stood at the door, still at the top of the stairs, still within the shadow cast by the gaslight, like a wax figure that could not move.

Klein withdrew his gaze and continued downward. Before long, his feet touched the cold flagstone floor, and he arrived at the crossroads.

He did not turn toward Chanis Gate, because Dunn Smith, having just finished his duty there, definitely would not still be in that direction.

Following the familiar path on the right, Klein climbed another set of stairs and returned to the interior of Blackthorn Security Company.

Seeing that the doors were either closed or half-open, he did not rashly search through them. Instead, he entered the reception hall, where he saw the sweetly smiling brown-haired girl reading a magazine with great concentration.

“Hi, Rozanne.”

Klein walked up from the side and deliberately tapped the table.

Clatter!

Rozanne shot to her feet, knocking over her chair in the process. In a fluster, she said, “Hi! The weather is nice today, you—you—Klein, why are you here?”

She pressed a hand to her chest and panted twice, like a little girl terrified of being caught slacking off by her father.

“I have business with the Captain,” Klein answered simply.

“…You scared me to death. I thought the Captain had come out.”

Rozanne glared at Klein.

“You did not even knock! Hmph. You should count yourself lucky that I am a magnanimous and merciful lady—no, I prefer the word girl. What do you need the Captain for? He is in the room opposite Mrs. Orianna’s.”

Even with his nerves stretched rather tight, Klein could not help being amused by Rozanne. After thinking for a second, he said, “Secret.”

“…”

Rozanne’s eyes rounded in disbelief. Klein bowed slightly and quickly took his leave.

Passing once more through the partition door beyond the reception room, he knocked on the first office to his right.

“Come in.”

Dunn Smith’s deep, gentle voice sounded from inside.

Klein pushed the door open, entered, closed it behind him, removed his hat, and saluted.

“Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning. What is it?”

Dunn’s black windbreaker and hat hung on the coat rack beside him. Without them, he wore only a white shirt and black waistcoat. Even with his receding hairline and deep gray eyes, he seemed much fresher.

“Someone is following me,” Klein answered honestly, without any unnecessary embellishment.

Dunn leaned back, interlaced his fingers, and quietly looked into Klein’s eyes with his deep gray gaze.

Instead of pursuing the topic of being followed, he asked, “You came from the cathedral?”

“Yes,” Klein replied with certainty.

Dunn nodded faintly. He gave no judgment of good or bad, and returned to the main matter.

“It may be that Welch’s father does not believe the cause of death we reported, and hired a private detective from the Wind City to investigate.”

Conston City in Midsea County was also called the Wind City. It was a region of highly developed coal and steel industries, ranking among the top three cities in the Loen Kingdom.

Without waiting for Klein’s opinion, Dunn continued, “It may also be connected to the source of that notebook. Heh. We are investigating where Welch obtained the Antigonus family notebook. Of course, we cannot exclude other individuals or organizations seeking that notebook.”

“What should I do?” Klein asked in a low voice.

There was no question: he hoped it was the first possibility.

Dunn did not answer immediately. He lifted his coffee cup, took a sip, and said with no ripple in his gray eyes, “Return along the path you came by. Then do anything you want to do.”

“Anything?” Klein asked back.

“Anything,” Dunn confirmed with a nod. “Of course, do not scare the other party off, and do not violate the law.”

“All right.”

Klein inhaled, said goodbye, turned away, left the room, and returned to the underground level.

At the crossroads, he turned left. Bathed in the spaced pools of gaslight on either side, he walked quietly through the empty, cold, dim corridor.

The echoes of his steps overlapped, making the place seem all the lonelier, all the more frightening.

Soon, Klein approached the stairway and climbed it step by step. He saw the middle-aged priest still standing in shadow, still at the door.

When the two met, neither spoke. The priest silently turned and moved aside.

With no words exchanged, Klein returned all the way to the great prayer hall. The pure light from the round holes behind the arched altar remained unchanged. The dim, peaceful darkness of the room remained unchanged. The gentlemen and ladies lining up outside the confessional remained as before, though the line had shortened considerably.

After waiting a while, Klein carried his cane and newspaper and slowly left the great prayer hall as if nothing at all had happened. Then he left Saint Selena Cathedral.

The moment he stepped outside and saw the blazing sun, that familiar feeling of being watched appeared again. He felt like prey beneath the gaze of a hawk.

Suddenly, a doubt rose in his mind.

Why had the watcher not followed me into the cathedral?

If he had, I could still have used the dim surroundings and the priests’ help to vanish briefly from his sight. But would it have been difficult for him to pretend to pray and continue his surveillance?

If he had done nothing wrong, what problem was there with walking in openly?

Unless he had a dark history, feared the Church, feared the bishop, and knew that the other party might possess extraordinary powers…

Looking at it that way, the possibility of a private detective became very, very low.

Hoo.

Klein exhaled. No longer quite as tense as before, he leisurely walked around to the rear, onto Zouteland Street.

He stopped before an old-style building with mottled walls. Its doorplate read Number 3, and its name was Zouteland Shooting Club.

The police department’s underground shooting range opened part of its facilities to the “public” in order to earn additional funding.

The moment Klein entered, the feeling of being watched vanished. Seizing the opportunity, he handed the badge of the Special Operations Department to the attendant responsible for reception.

After a brief verification, he was led underground to a small, enclosed shooting range.

“Ten-meter target,” Klein briefly told the attendant. Then he took out the revolver from the holster beneath his arm and the box of brass-colored bullets from his pocket.

Being suddenly targeted had allowed his desire for self-defense to defeat his procrastination. He was now impatient to practice shooting.

Snap!

After the attendant left, he flicked the cylinder open and removed the silver Demon-hunting Bullets one by one. Then he picked up the brass-colored ordinary bullets and loaded them into the chambers.

This time, he did not leave an empty chamber to guard against accidental discharge. Nor did he remove his formal coat or take off his half-top hat. He wanted to practice in his most ordinary appearance. After all, when encountering an enemy or facing danger, he could hardly shout, Please wait a moment while I change into lighter clothes.

Click.

Klein snapped the cylinder shut and thumbed it into place.

Suddenly, he gripped the gun with both hands and raised it straight, aiming at the target ten meters away.

He did not fire in a hurry. Instead, he seriously recalled his military training days, his past experience of missing the target, and common knowledge such as lining up three points and accounting for recoil.

Rustle. Rustle.

Amid the sound of his clothes pulling and shifting, Klein practiced aiming over and over again, practicing his grip and stance with the seriousness of a student sitting the most important examination of his life.

After many repetitions, he retreated to the wall, sat on the soft long bench, placed the revolver beside him, and massaged his arms, resting for a long while.

Spending several minutes reviewing what he had just done, Klein picked up the wooden-gripped, brass-cylinder revolver again. He returned to the shooting position, assumed a standard stance, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

His arms jerked, his body leaning back slightly, and the bullet missed the target.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Having absorbed that lesson, he fired shot after shot, groping for the feeling through practice until all six rounds had been fired.

At least I am hitting the target now…

Klein retreated and sat down again, panting twice.

Snap!

He flicked the cylinder open, letting the six spent casings fall to the floor with metallic clinks. Then, expression unchanged, he loaded the remaining brass-colored bullets one by one.

After loosening his arms and moving them a little, Klein stood again and returned to the shooting position while summarizing his mistakes.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Gunshots echoed. The target swayed. Klein practiced again and again, rested again and again, until he had fired all thirty ordinary rounds issued to him and the five he had previously carried. Gradually, his shots steadied onto the target, and he began to pursue higher scores.

Shaking his aching arms, he emptied out the last five spent casings. Then he lowered his head and loaded the silver Demon-hunting Bullets engraved with complex patterns one after another, leaving an empty chamber as a precaution against accidental discharge.

After returning the revolver to the underarm holster, Klein patted the gunpowder dust from his clothes and walked out of the private range with a looseness that spread through his whole body. He returned to the street.

The feeling of being scrutinized appeared once again, but Klein’s mood was much calmer than before. He walked slowly to Champagne Street, spent four pence on a tracked public carriage, returned to Iron Cross Street, and entered the apartment building where he lived.

The sense of being watched vanished without a sound. Klein took out his key, opened the door, and saw a man close to thirty sitting at the desk. He wore a linen shirt and had very short hair.

Klein’s heart tightened, then immediately relaxed. He greeted the man with a smile.

“Good morning—no, good afternoon, Benson.”

This man was the elder brother of him and Melissa, Benson Moretti. He was only twenty-five this year, but his receding hairline and older-looking face made him seem nearly thirty.

He had black hair and brown eyes, and bore some resemblance to Klein, though without that faint scholarly air.

“Good afternoon, Klein. How did the interview go?”

Benson stood, a smile at the corner of his mouth.

His black coat and half-top hat hung from a protruding part of the bunk bed.

“Terribly,” Klein answered without expression.

Seeing Benson freeze, Klein added with a soft laugh, “In fact, I never attended the interview at all. I found a job in advance. Three pounds a week…”

He repeated the explanation he had given Melissa before.

Benson’s expression relaxed. Shaking his head with a smile, he said, “I feel as if I have just watched a child grow up… Mm, this job is not bad.”

He sighed.

“To come back from a tiring trip and hear such good news—that really is nice. We ought to celebrate tonight. Buy some beef?”

Klein smiled.

“All right. But I think Melissa will feel distressed. Shall we go buy the ingredients together this afternoon? Bring at least three soli? Uh, to be honest, one pound equals twenty soli, one soli equals twelve pence, and there are half-pennies and quarter-pennies on top of that. This currency system is completely counterintuitive and extremely troublesome. I think it must be one of the stupidest systems of money in the world.”

After saying this, he saw Benson’s expression suddenly turn serious. Klein immediately grew a little uneasy and wondered whether he had said something wrong.

Could it be that among the original owner’s missing memory fragments, Benson was a pure and extreme supporter of the Kingdom, unable to tolerate even the slightest criticism?

Benson paced a few steps, then refuted with a grave face:

“No. Not one of.”

Not one of…

Klein froze for a moment, then quickly understood. He and his elder brother looked at each other and laughed.

As expected, this was Benson’s specialty: sarcastic humor.

The corner of Benson’s mouth lifted. With complete solemnity, he added, “You should understand that creating a reasonable and simple currency system requires one prerequisite: knowing how to count, and mastering the decimal system. Unfortunately, among those great personages, such talent is all too rare.”