Chapter 46

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Blegh! Blegh!

Klein crouched there, vomiting involuntarily. He soon finished heaving everything he had since he had yet to eat breakfast.

At that moment, a tin-colored, square flask that resembled a cigar box appeared in front of him.

When uncorked, the opening emitted a smell reminiscent of a mixture of tobacco, disinfectant, and mint leaves. It cleared Klein’s nose and refreshed his mind.

The powerful odor continued to linger around him, but Klein no longer felt nauseous. He soon stopped vomiting.

His eyes followed the flask upward and saw a hand so pale it did not seem to belong to a living person. He saw the cuff of a black trench coat, then Corpse Collector Frye with his chilly, dark bearing.

“Thank you.” Klein had now recovered and, with his hands on his knees, stood back up.

Frye nodded without expression. “You’ll be fine once you are used to it.”

He replaced the flask’s stopper and slipped it into his pocket, then turned and walked up to the highly decomposed corpse of the old woman. Without wearing any gloves, he began his examination. Meanwhile, Dunn Smith and Leonard Mitchell paced slowly around the room, occasionally touching a table’s surface or the pages of a newspaper.

Old Neil pinched his nose and stood outside the door, grumbling in a nasal tone, “This is disgusting. I’ll have to apply for additional compensation this month to make up for this!”

Dunn turned his head as he touched the dust on the wall beside the fireplace with his gloved right hand. Looking at Klein, he asked, “Does this place look familiar?”

Klein held his breath and conjured the image of his silver pocket watch in his mind to calm down. Since his spirit vision was already activated, he immediately sensed something different. A scene from the deepest recesses of his memories flashed before his eyes.

Fireplace, rocking chair, table, newspapers, iron nails on the door mottled with rust, tin cans inlaid with silver...

The scene was dark and dull, like an old documentary he had watched back on Earth, but even more blurry and illusory.

The image in his mind quickly overlapped with the scene before his eyes. The feeling of déjà vu and of having been here before presented itself clearly. An illusory, ethereal scream once again pierced an invisible wall to his ears:

“Hornacis... Flegrea... Hornacis... Flegrea... Hornacis... Flegrea...”

“It feels a little familiar,” Klein answered honestly. He felt a stabbing pain in his brain, so he quickly tapped his brow twice to turn off his spirit vision.

Hornacis... The Hornacis mountain range mentioned in the original Klein's diary?

That's content that was deciphered from the Antigonus family's notebook...

The murmurs just now were very similar to one from a previous instance that also mentioned the word “Hornacis"... Is...this a form of enticement?

Gripped by sudden horror, Klein didn’t dare pursue the thought any further, fearing he was on the path to losing control.

Dunn nodded slightly and walked up to a cabinet. He suddenly reached out and pulled open the wooden door on the upper half.

The bread inside was moldy, with seven or eight dead gray rats lying next to it, their bodies already stiff.

“Leonard, go downstairs and fetch the policemen on patrol. Find out what happened here,” instructed Dunn.

“Yes, sir.” Leonard turned and left the apartment.

Following that, Dunn opened the door to the two bedrooms and conducted a careful search.

By the time Dunn confirmed there were no clues or any sign of the Antigonus family’s notebook, Frye also stood up. He wiped his hands with the white handkerchief he always carried and said, “The time of death was more than five days ago. There are no external injuries, nor are there any obvious signs of supernatural powers. Further examination is necessary to ascertain the exact cause of death.”

“Did you find anything?” Dunn asked, turning to look at Old Neil and Klein.

The two shook their heads in unison, having long turned off their spirit vision.

“Apart from the corpse, everything else is normal. Actually, there was an invisible energy field sealing the apartment in the beginning. As you know, we usually use a similar process when we perform ritualistic magic,” Old Neil added after a few seconds of thought.

Dunn was just about to say something when he suddenly gazed out the door. Only a few seconds later did Klein and Old Neil sense something as well, and together they turned to look at the stairwell.

After another few seconds, faint footsteps grew louder as Leonard walked up the stairs with a policeman in tow.

As soon as the policeman caught the noxious smell, his expression changed. He immediately cooperated with his colleagues from the Special Operations Department and knocked on the doors of the residents on the second-floor landing to get a better idea of who lived on the third floor.

Moments later, the officer with two silver chevrons on his shoulder returned. Looking at the corpse in the rocking chair, he said, “This is Katy Stefania Bieber, aged between fifty-five and sixty. She’s widowed and has been renting this apartment with her son, Ryer Bieber, for more than ten years. Her late husband was a jewelry maker. Her son is about thirty years old and unmarried. He inherited his father’s trade and earns about one pound fifteen soli a week. According to their neighbors, they have not been seen for more than a week.”

Before the policeman could continue, Klein already knew the key piece of information would be.

The missing, or to be more precise, the unknown whereabouts of Ryer Bieber! The ancient notebook could very well be with him!

“Do you have a photograph of Ryer Bieber?” Dunn asked the police officer. His role was that of a high-ranking inspector—a position he actually held, as evidenced by his listing on the police department’s roster. His salary and various allowances were paid according to his rank, though this did not include the portion from the church.

The police officer shook his head nervously and said, “I’m not sure... I’ll have to return to the station to search for it. It’s not typical for us to keep photos of every single person.”

“I see. Continue questioning the residents on the first floor. Be as detailed as you can,” Dunn ordered.

Watching the officer leave, he closed the door and turned to Old Neil. “I’ll leave the rest to you. Otherwise, I will have to put all the residents in this building to sleep and look for Ryer Bieber’s face in their dreams. Hmm, I don’t really trust sketches based on verbal descriptions.”

Old Neil nodded. He pulled a few thumb-sized bottles from a pocket in the belt of his black robe and scattered the liquids on the floor in a specific order.

Following that, he took a handful of powder and scattered it in a circle around himself. A strange, sharp smell spread through the air, unaffected by the nauseating odor already lingering in the room. Klein suddenly noticed an invisible forcefield had formed around Old Neil, isolating him from the environment and everyone else. It was as if the room had reverted to its previous state.

Old Neil half-closed his eyes as his lips moved, mumbling a low, indiscernible incantation. With no preparation, Klein only vaguely heard the words, “Goddess, give me strength,” and “I look forward to the protection of the Evernight..."

Whoosh!A sudden gust of wind tore through the windows, scattering the powder into the air.

Klein’s heart quaked as goosebumps spread over him. He sensed an unbearably terrifying, indescribable odor rapidly permeating the area. His mind grew confused and tense, unable to relax. It felt just like finishing a set of highly advanced math problems in school.

Suddenly, Old Neil’s eyes snapped open, now pitch-black. He pulled a fountain pen from his pocket and began sketching on a scrap of paper on the table. He worked so quickly that his whole body shook with each movement.

Klein focused on the paper and saw a face with deeply recessed eyes and a tall nose bridge rapidly emerge. When Old Neil finished drawing the short, curly hair, he wrote a line of text beneath the portrait:Black hair, deep blue eyes. One ceramic tooth implant on the left side of his teeth.

Clack!The fountain pen fell from Old Neil’s hand onto the paper as his body convulsed.

“This is the image of Ryer Bieber, according to the traces left in this room,” Old Neil whispered as the color of his eyes quickly returned to normal.

Then he walked back to his original spot and slowly turned in a full circle. The invisible forcefield that had isolated him immediately dissipated into a breeze.

“Praise be to the Lady.” Old Neil tapped four spots on his chest, forming the shape of the crimson moon.

Klein’s taut nerves relaxed as he examined the portrait. He found nothing extraordinary in Ryer Bieber’s features. The man had a relatively mild bearing. The only notable detail was that the smile lines on either side of his nose sagged noticeably.

“I’ll try using rod dowsing,” Klein said, picking up the portrait and rummaging through the bedroom for male clothing, which he then spread on the ground. Neither Dunn, Leonard, nor Old Neil stopped him as he placed his cane atop the clothes and portrait. Frye remained as silent as always.

Klein’s eyes changed from brown to black as he finished his recitation, and then he released his grip. The black cane stood silently, as if embedded in the ground.

Ryer Bieber's location.Klein silently repeated to himself.

Amid the whistling wind, the cane toppled. Yet as it fell, it kept changing direction until finally, it began spinning in a small circle. Without any external help, the black cane righted itself once again.

Klein repeated the ritual a few more times to no avail, so he shook his head at Dunn and Old Neil.

A mysterious power was interfering with his divination...

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Dunn removed his black glove and said to Leonard and Klein, “Take Ryer Bieber’s portrait and question the residents here for a final confirmation. After that, we will issue a warrant of arrest against him for the murder of his mother.”

“All right.” Klein took his cane and bent down to pick up the portrait.

Once the neighbors confirmed that the man on the portrait was indeed Ryer Bieber, Dunn instructed Leonard and the police officer to complete the paperwork at the station while he and Frye headed to a few bars around Tingen to conduct their search via other channels.

Klein and Old Neil returned to Blackthorn Security Company on a coach. It wasn’t even eight in the morning by the time they got back; Rosanne hadn’t arrived yet.

After closing the door, Klein cocked his head at Old Neil and, partly out of confusion and partly to learn, asked, “Why...? Why would I deliver the Antigonus family’s notebook to Ryer Bieber’s home?”

This was in a totally different direction from Ironcross Street, where Welch lived.

Old Neil walked over to the sofa and chuckled. “Isn’t that obvious? Who knows what powers inside the notebook you three invoked. Or maybe out of curiosity, you carried out some ritual described within and ended up provoking a strange existence you shouldn’t have. Meanwhile, the goal of this mysterious entity was to deliver the notebook to Ryer Bieber and erase all clues to prevent anyone from discovering it.

“While you were chosen to carry out this task, Welch and Naya both committed suicide at the scene. And...to be frank, I still have no idea how you managed to survive.”

“I would like to know, too...,” Klein replied with a deliberately wry smile as he sat down. “I’ve also thought about what you just said regarding how it happened, but there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why did Ihaveto give the notebook to Ryer Bieber?”

Old Neil shrugged and said, “Perhaps his Life Path Number matches the requirements,(7)or maybe he’s one of the last remaining descendants of the Antigonus family. In short, there are too many possibilities... There may be similar reasons, like why the notebook was sold to Tingen in the first place.”

“I think the descendant theory is more likely.” Suddenly enlightened, Klein soon sighed again. “Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it immediately. Now both Ryer Bieber and that notebook are gone.”

Old Neil laughed. “That’s something for Dunn to worry about. As for you, it’s a good thing.”

“Why do you say that?” Klein frowned.