True World

Of course, Shade did not run in the end. There was clearly something wrong with the three-month task Mr. Hamilton had left behind, and since Shade had already been drawn into it—since he had not left before Hamilton died—there was even less chance of him leaving now.

But investigating that task and looking into Hamilton's secrets could wait. The priority now was to get enough money to survive for a week before making any other plans.

He packed the investigation report and map, making sure not to forget the compass and pocket watch in the desk drawer. For safety's sake, although he had found no firearms, he could use the cane as a weapon. Naturally, he also took a fruit knife.

For clothes, he chose an unobtrusive black buttoned coat and trousers, perfectly suited to the dress habits of Tobesk City at the start of summer.

Room 1 on the second floor had two bedrooms in total, and Shade found clothes in the other one that suited his current build. Unfortunately, the room that seemed to have belonged to the original Shade contained neither a diary nor any hints written in the original Shade's pitifully limited literacy. Otherwise, life would have been much easier.

After finishing all that, the grandfather clock in the corner of the living room was already nearing eleven in the morning.

In a bowl on the cabinet by the door, Shade found the keys to his room and the building's front door downstairs. He carefully locked the door, drew a deep breath, and gritted his teeth as he plucked a hair from his head. Crouching on the floor between the door and the stairs, he placed the hair in the gap beneath the door, squinted his left eye, and made sure it pointed inward, aligned with the raised corner on the left side of the bedroom door inside.

The stairwell window was shut, the first floor had been sealed off, and all the windows in the room were closed, so he did not have to worry about wind moving the hair. As long as Shade did not stomp around at the doorway when he returned and was careful while opening the front door downstairs, the hair's position would show whether anyone had passed through here or entered the room.

He was about to stand up when he looked at the locked door of Room 2 next door. After thinking for a moment, he painfully plucked another hair and wedged it into the door crack, level with the lock.

Mr. Hamilton had left behind far too many secrets, so it was always better to be cautious.

He spiraled down the stairs, and the thudding of his footsteps in the silent space somehow made Shade tense up again.

There was no dust on the stair railing, and the decorative oil paintings on the walls seemed to be wiped regularly. The closer he came to the ground floor, the faster his heart seemed to beat.

He knew there was nothing to panic about, but this was the first step into this place—the first true step into this world.

After changing into his boots by the door, he grabbed the black bowler hat from the standing coat rack and put it on. Only after a long while did he finally grasp the Door Handle and push open the door.

The instant the door opened, his heartbeat sped up again. The feeling of completely entering an unfamiliar environment and accepting the fact that he had transmigrated was truly unbearable.

He stepped over the threshold but did not look outside immediately. Instead, he hurried out with his head lowered, then turned around and locked the door with the key.

Only then did he close his eyes and slowly turn toward the street, backing up until his back rested against the door. His head pressed against the cold metal number plate: "6."

"There's nothing to be nervous about. I've only stepped into another world and most likely can't go back."

He spoke to himself, struggling to suppress the urge to gulp in air. Then he raised his head, opened his eyes, leaned against the door, and looked at everything before him—

Smoke hung in the air, and the weather was gloomier than it had been that morning. Yet the bustling square was still packed with people: gentlemen in formal suits and top hats, ladies in dresses with powder on their faces, porters carrying wooden crates, barefoot newsboys shouting at the tops of their lungs, shy flower girls soliciting customers, Four-wheeled Carriages rushing past, and plump housewives clutching paper bags beneath lace-trimmed hats.

The air carried a burnt smell. All kinds of people mingled along the streets bordering the smoke-shrouded square, their cries and arguments almost completely overlapping. On the far side of the square stood three-story buildings much like the ones behind him, dense metal pipes clinging to their walls like vines and spiderwebs, glinting under the weak midday Sunlight.

A fountain stood at the center of the square, topped by a maiden holding up a water jug. No water flowed from it, and the statue had already yellowed somewhat. A patrolling officer seated beside the fountain, his badge visible, looked curiously at Shade. The middle-aged man silently asked with his eyes whether he needed help, and Shade hurriedly looked away.

A newsboy passed before him, and the scrape of his feet against the grit-covered ground made the hairs on Shade's body stand on end. The jingling bells of a Four-wheeled Carriage passing the doorway, along with the inquisitive gazes peering out from its windows, made his heart pump even faster.

Feeling his heart pound, he spread his hands against the door behind him and instinctively leaned back, frightened by the reality before him. His blood pressure surged, his heartbeat accelerated, and then a sudden distant bell rang out. It was almost like a bomb exploding inside his head, leaving Shade on the verge of fainting.

It was so real, so incredible, so utterly contrary to everything he had known for more than twenty years. This was another world. He had truly left his homeland, arrived in another world, arrived in a completely unfamiliar world.

"Don't panic! Don't panic!"

Shade repeated it over and over in his heart, but his body's instincts could not be suppressed so easily.

"It's all right. I'll get used to all this. I'll fit in here!"

He desperately kept telling himself that, but his body still involuntarily pressed against the door. His back was already soaked with sweat.

Then the woman's murmuring voice sounded again. Though it too was a voice from another world, it seemed to pull Shade back to reality at once and force him to face everything before him. Like someone reciting poetry, the murmur declared:

You have obtained "Enlightenment."

His heart slowed at the sound, and his elevated blood pressure gradually returned to normal beneath the murmur's Whisper. The voice echoed in his mind.

"What Enlightenment?"

It was not that he had failed to hear it clearly, but that he did not understand what it meant. Enlightenment was also one of the mysterious Four Elements that the detective had vaguely mentioned before his death, but Shade needed a further explanation. He was now completely certain that the thing in his head was not a system. That voice was very likely part of this world's mysterious framework.

You are me, and I am you. Outsider, you manipulate the course of destiny from before the curtain, and destiny unfolds because of you; I touch the truth of the world from behind the curtain, and you grow stronger because of me. Even if you distrust me, we are one. There is no difference between us.

The woman's voice did not answer his question, but Shade was not angry. Instead, he felt rather happy.

His guess had been right. Within this world's occult system, the voice in his mind was most likely one part of contacting and using the mysterious. This world's worldview seemed somewhat close to Cthulhu and agnosticism. The supernatural and the mysterious possessed power, and existence itself could affect mortal things. That was why another force was needed to help ordinary people come into contact with those strange and dangerous things.

"You are me, and I am you. Even if you say that, you are definitely not an ordinary case."

He wanted to ask the whispering voice in his mind to confirm his thoughts, but all he received was the woman's soft laugh.

No matter what, he had at least come into contact with this world's mysterious elements. Even if he understood nothing, at least he stood here now, with a goal of his own.

His earlier panic gradually subsided, as though he had become a little closer to this smoke-wreathed Steam Epoch. The solid feeling beneath his feet steadied Shade further. He told himself to gradually accept all this rather than panic uselessly:

"Earn the money from a commission, investigate Hamilton's story, gather the Four Elements, study the voice in my head, and keep moving forward. Don't panic."

Repeating it continuously in his heart finally made him leave the door. Abandoning the thought of going back to change clothes, Shade carefully—very carefully—walked down the three steps from the entrance and stopped on the street at the edge of the square. He widened his eyes amid the crowd and looked up at this world, letting the world reflect in his eyes:

"No matter what, move forward."

He said it in his heart. After a brief pause, following the plan he had made in the house, he started along the circular street of Ring Square toward the entrance to the road leading out on the other side.

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