Chapter 66: A Midnight Fright

Chapter 66: A Midnight Fright

“Why would the confidential document I am escorting mention Utopia?”

“What is special about this place?”

“…”

One thought after another flashed through Wendel’s mind. His ears seemed to echo with a buzzing sound.

At that moment, he felt as though he had just relaxed after overusing his brain, as if he were about to fall ill.

Wendel swiftly forced himself to calm down. He carefully reviewed all his experiences since arriving in Utopia and discovered that no detail of anything had been problematic. Every single thing could have happened in ordinary daily life.

The only thing that left him a little uneasy was that his own arrival was too much of a coincidence.

Storms forcing steam trains to stop temporarily were common. But the station where the train had stopped being related to the confidential document in his hands was absolutely not something coincidence could explain.

With a solemn expression, Wendel stared at the confidential document on the table, hesitating over whether he should open it and read carefully.

Perhaps it only mentions “Utopia” in passing, and my actions would seriously violate internal discipline. Or perhaps this is a report written after some intelligence operative secretly investigated “Utopia,” and the contents inside will to some extent decide whether I live or die… After struggling for a while, Wendel glanced at the deep darkness outside the window and reached toward the document.

Only by staying alive can I consider whether I will be disciplined!

Having made his decision, Wendel swiftly opened the outer envelope and began reading the typed document inside.

As he read, his hands trembled slightly. He felt a chill run down his back, one even the burning coal stove could not save him from.

No matter how it was interpreted, the confidential report in his hands showed that there was a problem with Utopia. There was a problem with the entire town.

Perhaps this was not a town that existed in the real world!

Wendel’s mouth and tongue became dry. He seemed to hear Death dragging a scythe, slowly approaching him step by step.

Instinctively, he was about to stand up. Yet in the end, he controlled himself and did not blindly make an intense reaction.

That was because he felt that, in the darkness outside the window, in the rooms upstairs, and in the corridor by the door, pair after pair of eyes were watching him.

What should I do? Until now, nothing abnormal has happened… This means that if I know nothing, I may be able to safely greet daybreak… A great deal of material I’ve read shows that rashly revealing that one has already learned there is something strange about the surrounding environment will only cause danger to break out ahead of time… But I also can’t do nothing and entrust my fate to luck… Wendel recalled all kinds of dangers he had previously experienced and swiftly made a decision.

He would return to the steam train immediately and distance himself from Utopia to a certain extent.

The place had at least mostly normal people, while everywhere inside the city was dangerous.

Of course, Wendel could not simply rush back like that. He had to make himself appear normal enough, as if he were leaving the inn in the middle of the night and returning to the steam train station for some other reason.

Amid his surging thoughts, Wendel put away the confidential report, stood steadily, put on his coat, and wore his top hat.

Then, holding his suitcase in one hand and his umbrella in the other, he calmly walked to the door and turned the handle.

At that moment, the corridor was dim. Only several gas wall lamps on each side emitted insufficiently bright light, adding a hint of human presence to an environment so quiet that one could hear a sewing needle fall to the floor.

When Wendel stepped into the corridor, the wooden floor underfoot gave a faint creak. In the incomparably cold and silent night, that sound was so obvious, spreading very far, very…