Another Coincidence?

Klein raised his gun along with Lynch and stared at the pair of eyes across from them. There was something strange about them, like the gaze of a beast fixing on its prey—bloodshot and fearful.

The door to the room remained still.

The eyes were still there, unchanged.

Lynch finally sensed something was wrong. He walked over and kicked the door open.

The eyes fell to the ground.

They were a pair of eyes that had fallen out, still reeking of decay. Someone had hung them on the door, where they stared at everyone who passed by.

"Those are the eyes of the corpse inside the house."

Frye stood behind Lynch, holding a small bottle. It smelled of tobacco, mint, and disinfectant, which eased Lynch's nausea.

"Thanks."

Lynch took the bottle. He watched Frye pick up the eyes from the ground with his white-gloved hand, then start examining the room.

"This is unbearable. I'm getting old, Dunn. Couldn't you stop calling me out at night? I'm definitely applying for an allowance this month!"

Old Neil pinched his nose and complained.

He'd already been tired, and now he had to look at scenes that made him want to throw up.

Dunn ignored him and called Lynch and Klein over instead.

"Does this look familiar?"

He pointed to the image on the wall.

Klein immediately thought of the scene he'd seen after taking the Potion. "Hornacis..."

It was the Hornacis Mountain Range.

"Take a look at this notebook. Is it the one you studied with Mr. Welch?"

Dunn asked again and handed Klein the Antigonus Notebook.

Klein picked it up with some revulsion, since it was still smeared with the corpse's foul, sticky fluids.

He opened it, took a look, and quickly nodded.

"This should be the one. This is the real one."

In fact, he thought it was the same notebook Lynch had handed over before, but the contents were different.

He didn't dare examine it closely. His Spirituality warned him that if he kept looking, he might lose control.

Dunn nodded, then turned to Lynch.

"It seems the person behind this wanted you to bring us the real Antigonus Notebook."

Lynch said nothing. He frowned at the notebook as if he couldn't understand why this had happened.

Dunn didn't say anything more. He searched through the room until Frye came over, then looked up.

"How is it?"

"The time of death was more than five days ago. Someone hung the eyes on the opposite door. Based on the time Elliott was kidnapped yesterday, during the day, the eyes must have been hung there sometime yesterday afternoon or later. But the footprints aren't Lynch's."

Frye took off his gloves and accepted the bottle Lynch handed back.

He put the stopper back in and tucked the bottle into his pocket. Then he looked at Lynch and asked quietly, "You don't seem well. Do you need to go back and rest?"

Lynch shook his head.

"Not for now. I want to know what happened too. Why did I end up here, and why did I leave the Antigonus Notebook here? If it weren't for the stuff on it, I would've thought it was the fake one I handed over last time."

He pointed to the notebook Dunn had picked up.

Dunn stared at the notebook in front of him, frowning. "It looks a bit like that one, but we'll need to examine it further. I just don't understand why anyone would use you to leave the real notebook here."

"Could this person know we were looking for the real Antigonus Notebook, and have sent it over?"

Leonard looked over curiously, and glanced at Klein too.

Honestly, the only person who could have controlled Lynch was Klein.

In theory, if he could control Lynch, he could have killed him too. But Lynch had arrived at the Nighthawks' place unharmed and left the real Antigonus Notebook here. The only person kind enough to do something like that seemed to be Klein.

Perhaps Klein had had the real Antigonus Notebook from the start. Otherwise, Lynch wouldn't have kept insisting that he could see the contents.

Back then, they'd thought Lynch had taken a blow to the head and was confused, so he'd imagined there was something on the pages.

Now that Leonard thought about it, Lynch must have been holding the real one, and then Klein had switched it.

Klein had given them the fake one and kept the real one.

The Antigonus Notebook, the Hermit Order, the Seer.

It all made perfect sense.

The only question was why Klein had returned the real notebook now.

Perhaps he no longer needed it. He'd studied it thoroughly and realized that keeping it would risk getting him caught by the Hermit Order, so he'd used this opportunity to hand it over to the Nighthawks.

As for how he'd controlled Lynch, who knew?

Everyone had their own lucky breaks. It made sense that Klein had Old Man.

Of course, he was still the protagonist.

His abilities were nothing Klein could match. He'd already seen through Klein's methods.

Even Old Man had fallen short. Old Man kept saying there was something wrong with Lynch, but he hadn't noticed a thing. Compared with the mysterious, crafty Klein, Lynch, who was willing to take a knife for the captain, seemed like a kind, righteous, warmhearted, and generous young man.

Old Man was just refusing to admit he'd misjudged someone!

Leonard understood how that felt. If Old Man insisted right now that Klein was innocent, Leonard would be unhappy too, and he'd stick to his own opinion.

Of course, he'd stick to his opinion without saying too much.

With Old Man around, Leonard couldn't feel confident in the Nighthawks. He could only tell himself that as long as a team member didn't endanger the Nighthawks, he was a good teammate.

But that was the problem. Before, he could leave Klein alone. Now Klein had used his methods on one of their teammates, and Leonard couldn't just let that slide.

At that thought,

Leonard raised his voice and asked, "Klein, do you really know nothing about the Antigonus Notebook?"

Klein frowned.

"I think I've already told you. I was just a student. If my classmate, Mr. Welch, hadn't bought this notebook, I'd never have had anything to do with it."

Leonard laughed and asked with studied nonchalance, "I heard the Antigonus Notebook came from the Hermit Order, and all the members of the Hermit Order are Seers. Was it a coincidence that you chose the Seer Pathway?"

Leonard remembered Old Man saying that one of the later Sequences of the Seer Pathway was Marionettist, which could control people through their Spirit Body Threads and make them do things.

Lynch's current state really looked like he'd been controlled that way.

Klein opened his mouth to refute him, but then a thought struck him.

A coincidence?

After he'd transmigrated, someone had given him a tarot reading and drawn the Fool Card. And his identity in Sefirah Castle happened to be the Fool.

Later, he'd seen Roselle's Notes at Old Neil's place. Roselle had written that he regretted not choosing the Seer, Traveler, or Marauder Pathways.

That was why he'd chosen the Seer Pathway.

Were all of those coincidences?

Klein forced down his shock and looked at Leonard's suspicious gaze. He immediately explained, "I don't know whether it was a coincidence, but at the time, I just thought the Seer was interesting."

"That explains your choice, but I don't understand how you could have failed to notice when your roommate was being controlled."

Leonard looked at Klein with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

Klein gave a bitter smile. Even he thought he looked suspicious.

But he really hadn't noticed anything.

There had been nothing unusual. He'd only been woken by the captain. He truly hadn't noticed anything amiss about Lynch; his Spirituality hadn't even warned him.

It was unbelievable.

Unless Lynch hadn't been controlled, and had planned all of this himself.

But...

Klein glanced at Lynch, who still looked confused, and shook his head.

Impossible.

Lynch had been dragged into the whole affair by him. Lynch had no reason to do something like this. It wasn't as if the guy had nothing better to do.

So was all of this another coincidence?