Chapter 240: “Stairway”

Chapter 240: “Stairway”

Red Rose Manor, outside an extravagant room filled with various antiques.

Klein stood at the door, questioning the sixth maid he had encountered today.

The young maid wore a black-and-white servant dress distinctive to the era. She had pretty features and was in the bloom of youth, while her brown hair curled slightly on its own, giving her a touch of playful charm.

“When Mr. Talim came here to visit, whom would he usually come into contact with?” Klein repeated the question from before, his expression numb.

The maid answered almost without pause.

“Mr. Talim would usually seek an audience with His Highness the Prince, or accompany him riding, or discuss matters with him. If His Highness happened not to be here, he would meet that lady. They were very good friends and had the butler’s permission.”

Talim and the commoner woman Prince Edessak likes were good friends? They would sometimes meet in private? He was probably persuading her to leave this place so she wouldn’t affect the prince’s reputation… Klein nodded thoughtfully.

“What would they talk about? I mean, Mr. Talim and that lady.”

When asking that question, Klein naturally remembered Talim’s behavior during the previous period, when he had seemed to have fallen in love. With the rich “experience” of the information age, he somehow imagined an extremely melodramatic romance story.

The maid was not afraid of the great detective. She revealed a smile, shook her head, and said, “At those times, we would all be asked to leave the room.”

This… Klein increasingly could not restrain his imagination from running wild. He even felt that Prince Edessak’s top hat, helmet, and the like ought to be repainted green.

Before he could ask another question, the maid laughed softly.

“Detective Moriarty, if you want to understand what exactly that lady and Mr. Talim spoke about, you can ask her directly.”

“The old butler does not permit it.” Klein confidently pushed out a shield to block the incoming arrows.

He changed the subject with a smile.

“You seem to know more than the earlier servants. You even know to call me Detective Moriarty.”

The maid glanced left and right and kept smiling.

“That is because I serve that lady in rotation. She has always wanted to meet you, Detective Moriarty. After all, she and Mr. Talim were friends, and she cared greatly about his death.

“Unfortunately, she always missed you.”

“Always?” Klein was extremely sensitive to words like “always,” “happened to,” and “missed.”

The maid nodded seriously.

“When His Highness first invited you here as a guest, she deliberately lost her temper, wanting to use the opportunity of going downstairs for a walk to meet you. Who would have thought you would leave in such a hurry?

“Afterward, she volunteered to go in His Highness’s place and lay flowers at Mr. Talim’s grave. But because she did not know what you looked like, she failed to find you.

“And today, she just happens to have gone to the golf course behind the house to ride and clear her mind. Otherwise, even if the butler did not allow it, she would certainly find some way to meet you.”

How very coincidental… Klein had just begun to sigh when he suddenly grasped a key point.

On the day of Talim’s funeral, the one who had gone in the prince’s place to lay flowers was the commoner woman he loved!

And what had concerned Klein most that day was the woman whose face had been covered by a black veil and whose hand wore a sapphire ring. She very likely possessed a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact, or was herself a powerful existence of that level!

All at once, the scene from that time flashed back through Klein’s mind:

That woman with the sapphire pinky ring had worn a heavy black dress, gradually walking into the distance under the accompaniment of two maids…

One of those two maids had natural brown curls…

The maid’s image rapidly overlapped with the maid before Klein’s eyes, fitting with abnormal precision!

Klein’s body abruptly tightened. Sweat seeped drop by drop from his back, yet his expression did not change in the slightest.

Using his Clown abilities, he put on a look of recollection and asked with a smile, “On the day of Talim’s funeral, were you accompanying that lady?”

The maid replied without caring at all, “Yes.”

…Damn. It really was her! Klein maintained his smile.

“Very good. Next question.”

He proceeded to ask other questions step by step, as though nothing had happened, then continued by changing to another servant.

However, in secret, Klein shortened the process and quickened the pace.

He had to leave Red Rose Manor before that lady returned from riding!

At four in the afternoon, while the sky had yet to darken, Klein took his leave far earlier than expected and rode the carriage sent by the old butler back toward the city.

Sitting by the carriage window, leaning against the wall of the carriage wrapped in silk and cotton cloth, he finally let out a breath of relief and had the energy to savor the entire matter:

The one who cursed Talim to death was the commoner woman Prince Edessak loved…

Why would she deal with the descendant of a fallen noble family? To retaliate against Talim for trying to break her and the prince apart?

But she had no need to personally act at all. She only had to find an opportunity in bed to reveal the matter, and Prince Edessak would have plenty of ways to make Talim disappear silently…

Before his death, Talim was completely in a state of passionate love. Mm… the earliest sign appeared after he successfully persuaded that commoner woman to leave Prince Edessak… Did the two of them have an affair? So, after being brought back to the manor, the commoner woman cursed Talim to death to eliminate a hidden danger?

Logically, that makes sense. But the problem is, how could someone who possesses a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact, or a powerhouse of that level, be restricted by Prince Edessak? Even though the Augustus family is an angel family with sufficient accumulation, they would have to mobilize immense power and use special methods to confine her. That is not something a prince can accomplish…

Moreover, how could someone like that possibly be interested in Talim?

Why has she always wanted to meet me? Did she detect me using the gray fog to spy?

No. If that were the case, I would have been buried together with Talim on the day of his funeral… Furthermore, when she first wanted to meet me, I had not yet obtained the flesh, hair, and personal item. I had performed no divination!

Klein thought in confusion. In the end, he decided to bury the matter deep in his heart: not explore it, not investigate it!

I hope the Machinery Hivemind, with my previous warning, can discover the royal family’s unusually serious attitude toward this matter. Yes, perhaps their seriousness is not for Prince Edessak’s reputation, but for some other reason! I hope the royal family continues to properly restrict that lady and prevents her from coming to visit me… In a few days, when the timing is right, I will hand in this mission and say that I am incapable of solving it. Then, under the excuse of going south for a vacation, I can change identities and hide for a while! Klein’s mood gradually calmed.

…

Backlund’s dusk was always replaced by dim clouds and drizzling rain. Klein, physically and mentally exhausted, pressed down his half-top silk hat, bent slightly, and quickly crossed the wet street beneath the light of gas lamps, returning to 15 Minsk Street.

After a short rest, taking advantage of the dim environment, he walked four steps counterclockwise and entered the world above the gray fog.

After advancing to Sequence 6, Faceless, he had always wanted to check whether anything had changed in the mysterious space. But because he had been too tired last night and failed to wake in the middle of the night, and had been “busy” outside throughout the day, he had been forced to wait until now.

In addition, Klein had another matter to divine after excluding interference.

That was the fact that, after this advancement, when his spirituality had not yet stabilized, he had no longer heard that illusory raving:

“Honages… Flegrea… Honages… Flegrea…”

He wanted to understand whether this was a natural change after rising to Sequence 6, or whether there was another reason.

Inside the grand, majestic palace, the mottled long bronze table and the twenty-two high-back chairs bearing different symbols stood quietly, as though unchanged since time immemorial.

The gray fog beneath them, and the endless surrounding emptiness, were likewise the same.

But the instant Klein entered this place, his spiritual intuition keenly discovered that the mysterious space was slightly different from before.

He did not rush to explore or test it. After calming his emotions, he sat at the seat of honor, materialized paper and pen, and wrote a divination statement:

“The reason I did not hear ravings after advancing.”

Holding the paper, softly reciting the statement, Klein leaned back against the chair and, with the help of meditation, quickly entered a dream.

Within the gray sky and earth, images flashed one after another, finally settling upon a single scene.

It was Klein when his face and body had still been covered in pale flesh sprouts. Around him floated a thin layer of illusory grayish-white mist, one that others could not detect.

The dream shattered, and Klein opened his eyes, roughly understanding the reason.

“The gray fog intertwined with reality and helped me block the ravings coming from some unknown source…

“After advancing to Sequence 6, my connection to this mysterious space above the gray fog has become closer, producing a certain change and allowing me to naturally borrow a small amount of power?

“At present, that should be the case.

“Mm. I’ll try exploring the surroundings and see what specifically has changed.”

Klein slowly rose. Following his inspiration, he headed toward a certain direction outside the ancient palace. Beneath his feet, gray fog spread like the sea.

After walking for an unknown length of time, just as he was about to stop and give up exploring, light suddenly flickered at the end ahead.

Joy rose in Klein’s heart. He quickened his pace and drew closer.

Seven or eight seconds later, he saw a stairway—a stairway that seemed to lead to heaven!

The stairway was formed from pure light, sacred, translucent, and brilliant. It could shock the soul of any who beheld it.

The stairway extended upward into the void. It had only four steps, each extraordinarily tall, as though prepared for a creature even larger than a giant.

Klein lifted his head along its direction and saw a layer of grayish-white fog. It hung in midair, seeming to support something, while there was still a certain distance between the stairway of light and that place.

Four steps. Do they represent the Sequence 9, Sequence 8, Sequence 7, and Sequence 6 potions I have already drunk? What exactly lies above that layer of fog? Klein cautiously moved forward, arrived before the stairway of light, and stepped onto it.

There was nothing strange about the step. It was as solid as though made of stone.

Klein followed the stairway upward, scrambling and climbing until he reached the fourth step. Then he tried to gaze past the grayish-white fog above. Unfortunately, his sight could not penetrate it at all.

After thinking for a moment, he took two steps forward and jumped upward with all his strength.

However, the instant he left the stairway of light, he lost his upward momentum and the instinctive ability of a spirit body to fly. He fell straight downward, landing on the gray fog that served as the bottom layer.

Looks like I still need to advance another two or three Sequences. If Sequence 4 truly is a qualitative change, then after becoming half-god, half-human, I should be able to do it… Klein looked upward and made his judgment.