Chapter 63: Rafter Pound

Chapter Sixty-Three
Rafter Pound

Midseashire lay in the western part of the Loen Kingdom, facing the Intis Republic across the Hornacis mountain range. And in Backlund, there was a street named after it, located at the edge of Queen’s Borough—the street where the capital’s police headquarters stood.

Quite a few people chose to settle on that street for the sake of peace of mind. Rafter Pound was one of them.

Inside the street-facing house marked number 29, the baronet wore a velvet-lined sleeping robe and stood in the warm living room, beside the tightly shut window, gazing at Sivellaus Yard diagonally across from him.

He was only in his early forties, yet his temples were already graying, his eye bags swollen, his wrinkles obvious. His entire body seemed to give off the smell of alcohol at any time, in any place.

On the floor behind Rafter lay several torn pieces of women’s underwear, thrown about in disorder. Opposite them, from far away, the fireplace burned with leaping flames.

The baronet lifted the wineglass in his hand and drained the remaining liquid in one breath. Then he slowly walked toward the door, intending to return to his bedroom and sleep.

Because no heat-transmission pipes had been attached to the fireplace, the moment he left the living room, he felt the late autumn chill seep into his bones.

“Damn it!”

Rafter Pound cursed in a low voice, swaying as he arrived at the bedroom door and turned the handle.

Inside the bedroom, all was dim. Only weak crimson light spilled inward.

Rafter was just about to shut the door and let himself collapse onto the bed when his gaze suddenly froze.

Beside the curtains, on a chair, a figure sat there quietly.

That figure wore gray-blue clothes and trousers, and a dark peaked cap. His entire body was hidden in shadow.

Sensing Baronet Pound’s stare, the figure slowly lifted his head and looked over.

His face was covered in red, yellow, white, and other colors of greasepaint, making him look like the most ridiculous clown.

Rafter was just about to shout loudly and turn to flee, but he saw a revolver aimed at him and heard two low, hoarse sentences:

“I advise you not to do anything unwise.

“If you cooperate properly, I will not hurt you, nor will I take any of your property—if you still have any.”

Rafter Pound’s expression changed several times. Then, with great honesty, he shut the bedroom door, half raised his hands, and sat down at the edge of the bed.

“Wh-what do you want me to do?” He hiccupped from alcohol and reminded him with a faint tremor in his body, “Sivellaus Yard is right across the street!”

“I know. But I believe I am closer to you than Sivellaus Yard is.”

Klein, disguised as a clown, altered his voice and intonation as he offered the warning.

“And my purpose is only to ask you a few questions.”

Before coming to Sivellaus Street, he had performed divination above the gray fog regarding whether the trip would be dangerous, and had obtained the answer that it was very safe.

“Questions?” Rafter’s lips moved for a while. He gave a bitter laugh. “Here it comes again… Will I never escape this nightmare?”

“Many people came to ask before?”

Klein followed his words and asked.

“No. Not just ask! After my cousin-uncle, the respected old viscount, passed away, far too many things happened around me. The kindly old butler resigned for no reason and went who knew where. The attendants and maids were changed one after another without warning, becoming unfamiliar and cold. They were searching for something. Yes, searching for something. I was less than ten years old at the time. All I could do was watch. I did not dare tell anyone. I was afraid I would never wake up again!”

Rafter answered in a nearly broken state.

Searching for something? Were they searching for that underground structure, or for the Pound family’s treasure—such as the Beyonder characteristics and mystical items buried near that evil spirit? The royal family and the Churches should not have failed to notice. The higher-ups must know the Laws of Beyonder Characteristics Indestructibility and Conservation! Since the Pound family had declined, similar things should have been taken back, right? Unless the old viscount paid an enormous price to buy additional Beyonder characteristics and mystical items from the same pathway and thereby concealed the matter of the underground structure…

Klein quietly listened to the end, forming many guesses.

He seemed relaxed, but in truth, he was ready to act at any moment as he asked, “How long did days like that last?”

“I do not know. I do not know. Everyone around me was a face I did not recognize. How could I confirm that the remaining people were not their accomplices? Heh, heh. I pretended not to notice anything and spent several years trembling in fear. Then, under their guidance, I drank heavily, played with women, gambled, smoked hemp, and did all kinds of things that made me look like a wastrel!”

Rafter Pound gave a somewhat neurotic laugh.

“They were finally reassured. They stopped watching me so closely. When I even sold that house, they—hoo—left. I do not know where they went. No, they must still be secretly monitoring me, not letting me call the police. Yes, not letting me call the police!”

This fellow has a mental illness… I wonder whether what he says is true or false. The changes in his emotional colors fit the logic very well, but what if he merely feels guilty toward the old viscount, and so fantasized such a drama to find an excuse for his own depravity, then constantly self-suggested until he completely believed it…

As a qualified keyboard expert who knew a little about everything, Klein had seen similar cases in his previous life.

After two seconds of thought, he asked, “What did those people ask you?”

“They asked me how the old viscount’s two children actually died. They asked me whether the old viscount had acted abnormally during those years. I was less than ten years old then! I knew nothing at all!”

Rafter waved his arms, unable to suppress his voice as he growled.

“Calm down. Please, calm down.”

Klein pressed down with his left hand and turned to ask about other matters, trying to confirm from multiple angles whether Baronet Pound knew of that underground structure.

As the questions and answers continued, time swiftly passed. Finally, Klein spoke in a hoarse voice.

“You do indeed seem to know nothing.”

“My apologies for disturbing you. I should take my leave.”

He stood and bowed slightly, appearing highly cultivated.

Almost at the same time, the collapsed and agitated emotions on Rafter Pound’s face vanished in an instant. His pale-blue eyes became unusually deep, as though examining him.

Seeing the clown-dressed intruder about to straighten again, he immediately returned to his earlier state: grief, fury, madness, bitterness, and neuroticism.

Just then, a mysterious voice suddenly sounded beside his ear.

“Crimson!”

Klein poured spirituality into a Slumber Charm and threw it at Rafter with his left hand, the one not holding a gun.

Amid the tiny sound of burning, dense and powerful serenity spread outward, enveloping the baronet, making his eyes uncontrollably close and his body soften and fall onto the bed.

“My apologies. The questioning just now was only for comparison with what follows. Next, there are still procedures such as dream invasion and spirit channeling.”

Klein patted the other party’s sleeping robe, pressed a hand to his chest, and bowed once more.

Then, using a Dream Charm, he entered the other party’s dream like a Nightmare.

Inside that gray, fragmented world of constantly flashing images, Klein walked awake and rational beside Rafter. He watched him encounter one attendant and maid after another whose faces were blank and featureless, terrifying beyond words. He watched him, whenever turning or glancing back, see an aged face silently watching him. He watched him curl up in a corner, shivering. He watched him gradually covered by shadow, bit by bit.

This matches what he described just now…

Klein tried to guide the dream in order to understand the cause and course of the matter. But Baronet Pound seemed to carry an extremely severe psychological shadow regarding those events. With the slightest stimulation, he would scream and shout neurotically inside the dream, then run wildly.

This left Klein completely unable to obtain more information.

Thus, he exited the dream, added another Slumber Charm to Rafter Pound, then took out materials such as Amanda hydrosol and began preparing the spirit-channeling ritual.

After responding to himself, Klein’s spirituality passed through the storm of thoughts and saw the other party’s illusory figure—a figure based on the Mind Body.

“Before the old viscount died, did he say anything to you?”

After some consideration, Klein opened with that question.

Rafter Pound answered in a daze, “He told me to preserve the family.”

“And?” Klein deliberately asked again in a certain tone.

“He told me to remember our ancestors’ glory,” Rafter answered blankly.

Klein nodded lightly and shifted the question.

“What were those people searching for?”

“I do not know.”

Rafter’s answer remained the same as before.

Klein continued questioning, comparing the results with the earlier exchange. He concluded that Baronet Pound had not lied, and that what he had said earlier was sufficiently real.

Having reached this point, he lingered no longer. He passed through the other party’s storm of thoughts and withdrew his extended spirituality back into his own body.

Immediately afterward, Klein tidied up the scene in an orderly fashion, then took out Azik’s copper whistle and tossed it a few times, using its level to interfere with any possible divinatory investigation afterward.

“Thank you very much for your cooperation, Baronet.”

After finishing all of that, Klein, his face painted like a clown, bowed once again.

Then he turned, opened the window, leapt down into the street, and vanished into the vast night.

A short while later, Rafter Pound suddenly opened his eyes.

Around those pale-blue eyes was a circle of burst capillaries.

He abruptly sat up and stared toward the open bow window.

…

After making a large detour through the East Borough, Klein washed off his disguise, changed back into normal clothes, and returned to 15 Minsk Street in Cherwood Borough as though nothing had happened.

He did not rest, nor did he think about how to handle that underground structure next. Instead, he once again entered above the gray fog.

At the seat of honor at the ancient long table, Klein slowly opened his palm, revealing a few strands of brown hair. They came from Rafter Pound, collected before he had entered the man’s dream.

One final procedure remains—divination confirmation above the gray fog…

Klein silently murmured to himself. He manifested paper and pen and wrote the words he had already considered:

“Rafter Pound’s future.”

I will see what happens to you in the future, and use it to corroborate the past!

Klein leaned back in his chair and silently recited the divination statement.

Because that ancient structure involved the six orthodox deities, he was afraid that directly divining related content would cause problems. Therefore, he changed his approach and asked about Rafter Pound’s future instead.