Seeing this, Julian quickly took out a one-pound coin and flicked it upward with his thumb.
"The person following Audrey Hall means her harm."
Smack!
When Julian caught the coin again, the portrait of King George III faced upward.
In divination, this meant an affirmative result.
Julian's expression darkened. He could not turn a blind eye to this situation, or Audrey would very likely come to harm on her way home.
Nor could he simply notify the police. That would bring Audrey's status as a Beyonder to their attention, leaving her in trouble all the same.
Without betraying anything, Julian tucked the banknotes into the black leather bill folder the waiter had already placed on the table. Then he picked up the Agarwood Cane and headed across the street.
Miss Justice was completely absorbed in her nervous excitement. She had no idea someone was following her, and likewise failed to notice Julian approaching from across the street.
Only after she had disappeared through the office building's ground-floor entrance did Julian finally stop.
He rested the tip of his cane against the pavement and regarded the tall, thin young man following Audrey with the ghost of a smile.
To Julian's eyes, the glow of the man's astral body and spirit body looked fairly normal, but his ether body was clearly unlike an ordinary person's, brimming with vigor and vitality.
These signs suggested that the young man had taken a drug or potion capable of strengthening his physique and life energy.
The young man looked visibly startled at Julian's appearance. Then, without hesitation, he turned into a nearby alley, apparently intending to flee.
"Trying to run?"
Julian gave a cold snort, slipped past the pedestrians coming toward him, and hurried into the alley.
The moment he entered, Julian saw the young man sprinting away.
This reaction only strengthened Julian's conviction that something was wrong with him, and he broke into a sprint as well.
Yet, for some reason, even though Julian's physical abilities already exceeded those of ordinary people, he could not catch the young man. In fact, the distance between them kept growing.
A potion that strengthens the body, just as I thought... Hunter?
At that thought, Julian stopped hesitating, drew his pistol, and aimed at the young man's back.
Bang!
As the gunshot rang out, the young man seemed to sense it coming and abruptly leaned to the right.
His dodge worked. The bullet did not strike his back, instead grazing past the outside of his left arm.
He immediately darted into a side passage branching off to the right.
As Julian pursued him, he slipped Chris Jacob's Ring onto his finger.
In an instant, numerous clues and traces became clear in his mind. Julian realized that the passage ahead was a dead end blocked by a wall.
The young man was waiting at the corner, poised to ambush him at any moment.
Julian snorted coldly and activated the ring's mental interference ability as he approached the corner.
Whoosh!
Just as Julian had expected, the rush of a fierce attack immediately sounded beside his right ear.
Yet he did not panic at all. He merely took a step backward, evading the young man's attack with ease.
Under the effects of Mental Interference, the young man fell into a momentary daze and stopped attacking.
Now's my chance!
Julian immediately took out the Scholar's Legacy, aimed it at the young man, and used Scene Recreation.
Surging neon colors spread outward, reaching the young man in an instant and beginning to stain his right hand with brilliant hues.
Once he successfully contaminated the young man, Julian would be able to interrogate him without restriction.
But in the next second, something Julian had not expected happened.
Something seemed to jolt the young man. His entire body suddenly shuddered, and his eyes became clear again.
At the same time, freed from the control, he began retreating at tremendous speed.
Although the burning pain in his right hand twisted his face in agony, he still leaped forward, caught the top of the wall with both hands like a nimble cat, and vaulted over it.
It all happened so quickly that Julian had only just managed to draw his gun before the young man vanished.
"He managed to break free of Sequence 7 Mental Interference. He's no ordinary opponent."
Julian was rather startled himself. He had not anticipated this at all.
From every indication, the young man should likewise have been a low-sequence Beyonder. Unless he carried some mid-sequence Sealed Artifact that could protect against hypnosis and illusions, there was no explanation for what had just happened.
And that, in turn, meant this fellow had no ordinary background.
"Forget it. I should leave first... That gunshot must have alerted the police."
Although Julian had a legal firearms permit, firing a gun in Hong City as a fugitive from another country was still somewhat ill-advised.
To avoid getting into trouble, Julian took another narrow, winding path out and returned to the main road.
Next, he found a public washroom in a shopping center and began praying to Mr. Fool inside.
Although Mr. Fool had yet to formally tell Julian his three-part honorific name, the expertise in ritual magic provided by the Scholar's Legacy gave Julian other ways to pinpoint Klein through loosely associated imagery, such as gray fog and the Fool's name, and complete his prayer in a valid manner.
Sure enough, Julian soon saw layer upon layer of gray fog appear before him. He hurriedly prayed to Mr. Fool:
"Honorable Mr. Fool, please help me tell Miss Justice that the messenger who delivered my letter said someone intends to harm her.
"For now, she should stay somewhere safe and protected as much as possible, and go out less often until she can confirm that she is completely safe.
"Praise you, Mr. Fool!"
As for what he had just seen and heard, Julian did not mention a word.
This was because he did not want to tell Mr. Fool directly that he had seen Miss Justice in the real world. After all, although the convener of the Tarot Club had never expressly forbidden anything of that sort, there was no harm in showing caution.
Even if Klein learned from Dunn that Julian had visited Backlund, it would not matter-
-because Klein currently had very limited control over Sefirah Castle, so he would most likely turn a blind eye to the matter.
Only after finishing all this did Julian return with peace of mind to the inn where he had been staying.
He read the newspaper for a while as though nothing had happened. After dinner, he took the little owl Ethan with him and visited Vincent's General Store again.
"Oh, you're here."
Vincent looked rather excited to see Julian.
He immediately took out a crystalline stone and handed it to Julian.
"Take a look. Is this what you wanted?"