Chapter 28

89

Early morning, October 7.

Klein woke in the one-room apartment he rented in the East Borough just as dawn was breaking. There had still been no word since he passed the new lead to Miss Justice. He changed into shabby, plain work clothes, went downstairs, and slipped into the crowd like a genuinely unremarkable laborer.

As he walked, he noticed a man in his forties or fifties ahead and to one side, his temples streaked with gray, clutching a paper bag containing a few pieces of black bread. He wore a simple, heavily patched thick jacket, with a patchwork scarf around his neck that was just as coarse but considerably more carefully made. He breathed out a few clouds of white vapor in the cold wind and stepped in place to ward off the chill, smiling with satisfaction and relief at the unappetizing-looking black bread in his arms.

He tried to take something out of his pocket, but it was awkward with only one free hand. A cigarette case tumbled out and landed right beside Klein's feet. Klein bent down, picked it up, and returned it.

"Thank you, thank you! This is an old friend of mine. There are only a few left inside." The older man thanked him sincerely.

His face was pale, but it had a faint touch of color. He looked a little better than the other homeless people Klein had seen in the East Borough, though only a little. The older man opened the cigarette case, carefully took one out, and held it at the corner of his mouth without lighting it. Then he suddenly added, "Sir, your clothes are a little torn. Do you need them mended?"

Klein paused. He examined his jacket and only then discovered several tears in the backs of its sleeves, letting the wind whistle through. An ordinary person would probably have found it unbearable, but he was a Sequence 8 Beyonder, and his enhanced body felt only a slight chill. With the peculiar feeling he had experienced in his previous life when refusing flyers handed out on the street, he wanted to ignore the offer. But when he met the older man's expectant gaze, Klein could not quite bring himself to do so. He sighed. "They are, indeed. Do you know where I can find a tailor?"

"Thank you! You-you really are a good man."

The older man's eyes brightened, and he hurriedly thanked Klein over and over. Visibly more cheerful, he walked beside Klein toward a place that might have been the end of the fog-or somewhere deeper within it.

After walking about a hundred meters, they saw a girl sitting beside the street. She had an extremely rudimentary sewing machine, so battered that its cracked sections were even tied together with string. The girl worked the pedal rapidly, absorbed in her sewing, with two large sacks of old clothes at her feet. Klein instinctively compared them with the disguise he was wearing and discovered that his jacket, with its several tears, was actually the most "respectable" garment there.

"Tyler!" The older man smiled and hurried over. "This gentleman needs his jacket mended."

"Of course, sir. Could you please wait to one side for a little while?"

The girl called Tyler looked up from her work and greeted Klein warmly. Although she was a seamstress, her clothes were very thin, and her face and hands were red from the cold. She looked about Melissa's age. Tyler cupped her hands together and breathed into them a few times, then looked at the older man and relaxed. "Dad, how much bread did you buy today?"

"Thanks to the Grain Act, even black bread has become cheaper. I went to line up before dawn this time, and sure enough, I managed to get some discounted bread that was nearly due to be thrown out!"

Joy appeared on the older man's aged face as he patted the paper bag in his hands. "We won't have to worry about going hungry for the next three days."

Klein stood quietly beside them, listening to the father and daughter talk. He glanced at the paper bag in the older man's arms. It held only three or four pieces of coarse, poor-quality bread, perhaps four or five pounds in total, yet it had to feed two people for three days... He sighed silently, handed his jacket to the girl, and shivered in the cold wind before saying with a smile:

"Sorry, I haven't introduced myself. I'm actually a reporter working on a story about the East Borough. May I interview you? It's a little cold right now, so we could go to that café up ahead."

The older man paused, then smiled. "Of course. It's much warmer inside than out on the street."

The café's tables and chairs were all quite greasy, but with walls, windows, and a fair number of customers, the average temperature inside was indeed much higher than on the street.

Klein motioned for him to sit down and ordered two large cups of tea, a plate of lamb stewed with tender peas, two loaves of bread, two slices of toast, a serving of low-quality butter, and a serving of margarine, for a total of 17.5 pence.

The older man hugged the black bread in his arms a little awkwardly, trying to conceal the movement of his throat as the aroma made him swallow.

"Eat. You need a full stomach for an interview." Once all the food was ready, Klein carried it back to their table.

"For me?" the older man asked, both hopeful and surprised.

"Apart from one slice of toast and one cup of tea, it's all yours," Klein replied with a smile.

The older man froze. He wiped his eyes and said, slightly choked up, "...You-you really are a kind man. But this is far too much. Could I-could I take whatever I can't finish back to my daughter?"

"Of course." Klein calmly ate his toast and margarine, sighing inwardly while keeping a smile on his face and pretending he really was a reporter. "Could you tell me about yourself? Your family, too, if you like."

"It's an unfortunate story. I used to be a reasonably good worker. I had a wife and two lovely children, a boy and a girl. But a few years ago, an infectious disease took my son and my wife. He had been a strong young man, but he was exhausted from overwork, and he died soon after falling ill... I was hospitalized for a long time, too. I lost my job and my savings, and all I had left was my daughter, who was lucky enough to receive treatment at the Charity Hospital. We had only each other. From then on, I often couldn't find work. I had no money for rent or food, which made me weak, and that made it even harder to find work. I couldn't support my child..." the older man said with a touch of wistfulness and sorrow.

He took a sip of tea, sighed, and reflected for a moment before speaking again:

"But my daughter works very hard. She worked in a poorhouse in the East Borough and earned herself a place at the Charity School, where she learned some basic sewing. Later, she managed to find an old sewing machine. Every day, she earns a pittance sewing clothes for people and gluing paper boxes together. It's only thanks to that money that we can scrape by. Without Tyler, I probably would have given up long ago."

"I'm telling you, I should have been a good worker. My daughter shouldn't have to work so hard, either."

Klein was not a professional reporter, and for a moment, he did not know what to ask. Fortunately, by then the older man had finished his portion. He carefully wrapped up the larger half that remained and tucked it into his coat, hoping to bring his daughter food that still retained a little warmth. Klein watched him leave the café on his own and say a few words to Tyler. Then the two of them brought back Klein's mended jacket, never mentioning payment.

"By the way." Seeing that this trip was about to yield nothing, Klein could not help calling the older man back and asking casually, "Has anything happened in the East Borough lately? Fraud or robbery, for instance."

Before he finished speaking, he saw the puzzled look the man gave him and realized that such things were as normal as breathing in the East Borough.

"Er, sir, those things are too common. I don't have any information for you," the older man said awkwardly. But when Tyler heard the question, she looked up and ventured:

"Sir, I have heard a few things lately, though I don't know whether they're what you need."

"What is it?" Klein asked without much hope.

"Miss Maria told me."

Tyler spoke naturally, offering no further introduction, as though she assumed anyone who came to the East Borough should know the name. "Miss Maria told us not to go out lately. The trafficking of women has been getting worse and worse. There have also been several very strange murders that Miss Maria mentioned one day. There seems to be a deranged killer in the East Borough. Several bounty hunters have already been killed, and every one of them was tortured beyond recognition."

"Well, these are just things I happened to hear. If you want to know more, you can interview Miss Maria!"

Tyler did everything she could to help this kind reporter. "She's been at the Dockworkers' Association almost all day lately, so she should be easy to find."

90

"...Speaking of which, I keep forgetting to ask you: what sort of ending are you planning for this story?"

Fors thought for a moment. "I have a plan drafted, but this is a play being staged for New Year this year, so it ought to be a comedy with a happy reunion."

"But the prerequisite for a happy ending-the male lead-is already dead. You could have the female lead find someone new and move on, but overall, that would leave an absolutely awful impression," Edward reminded her. "You don't actually need to let New Year constrain your ideas. Comedy or tragedy, as long as it's beautiful enough, it can sell tickets. You'd like to earn more from the subsequent payments, too, wouldn't you?"

"Then I have an idea!" Fors hurriedly sifted through discarded plans in her mind. "After the female lead kills her enemy with her own hands, how about having her become a pirate with no ties, robbing the rich to help the poor? Adventure elements are very popular right now!"

"Are you planning to write a sequel?"

"Huh? No, I'm not. Isn't this a standalone play?"

"Then why design an ending like that?" Edward quipped. "Building an ongoing story of your own is certainly good, but you need to be careful about giving the audience unrealistic expectations. Besides, Miss Wall, you don't seem to have any experience with adventure. It wouldn't feel authentic. How about having her die for her unwavering love, seeing a vision of her lover coming to welcome her just before she dies?"

The homebody romance novelist instinctively wanted to scratch her head, but stopped herself from making such an unladylike gesture. Fors racked her brains for a few seconds, then suddenly had a flash of inspiration. "Right, how about having her pray to a god? The sincere love between her and her lover, and her devotion to the god, move the deity, so an angel brings her lover's soul back to earth, and they live happily ever... Huh, why does it seem to have turned into a happy ending again?"

"...That works, too. At least it's better than the current version. In that case, you'll have to invent a god. Preferably an entirely fictional one. If it alludes to a particular deity, it might upset the followers of other gods."

Edward remained noncommittal. After turning a few pages, he gathered all the manuscript pages together and set them aside. The editor, well aware of his writer's nature, said, "We can tentatively settle on that. If I remember correctly, the deadline is the end of this month. Of course, I can help you secure a few extra days for revisions. After all, the plot and my score still need more work to fit together."

"Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. You really are so considerate." Fors let out a long breath, a happy smile appearing on her face as she unconsciously relaxed a little. "New Year is almost here. Do you have any plans?"

"I remember you mentioning, Miss Wall, that you were planning to take a holiday somewhere relatively warm, in the Southern Continent or by the Sonia Sea."

As the conversation moved into pleasant, relaxed small talk, the gentleman ordered two cups of coffee and two slices of cake to enjoy a simple afternoon tea. "I don't have any plans this year. Heh, when my wife was still alive, she would always drag me off on short trips to interesting places every year."

Yes, such as surveying the Death God Ruins in the Southern Continent, going on archaeological adventures-or grave digging, rather-climbing the Amanda Mountains and gazing at the Church of Serenity, the Church of Evernight's headquarters, in the distance. Sometimes we would visit the Feysac Empire to see the Twilight Giant Palace in its capital. She was also curious enough to search for the Forsaken Land of the Gods...

"That sounds so romantic." Fors cut off a small piece of cake and eagerly got to the point. "I'm very interested in the secret history of the Fourth Epoch you mentioned last time. Could you tell me a little more? Oh, I'm also curious about a legend I happened to see in an ancient book. Mr. Vaughn, you're so knowledgeable-have you heard of anything like 'Deathly Whispers at the Full Moon'?"

She had deliberately altered the term, adding a few words.

Edward dropped a sugar cube into his coffee and stirred it slowly. After considering for a moment, he said, "I have indeed looked into something related... Coincidentally, it was also in an ancient book. It said that Deathly Whispers at the Full Moon first appeared in the Fourth Epoch. Supposedly, an unknown evil god was conveying information."

Clang!

He looked up, entirely unsurprised, to see the bestselling novelist staring wide-eyed. The sound had come from the metal fork crashing heavily onto her plate after she accidentally let go of it in surprise.

"Ah, I'm terribly sorry!" Fors hurriedly picked up her fork again and restrained her eagerness as she asked, "Did that ancient book mention what information the evil god was conveying? Could you sell it to me?"

"Unfortunately, that was the only sentence, and the book has been lost."

"Ah..."

"There's really no need to be so upset." Edward smiled. "After all, sometimes ignorance is a good thing."

Because you're of no use right now. He calmly took a sip of coffee, which tasted just right. You'll only have value once you reach at least Sequence 5 and become a Scribe or a Traveler. Then I'll exchange more detailed information for your soul.

"In any case, thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Your answer has satisfied my curiosity." Fors felt a little lost, but when she saw the payment form and envelope Edward handed her, she quickly brightened.

"I'll definitely get the manuscript to you quickly this time!"

TBC

An update! Readers, my mission is complete! Ha~ hahahahaha!

*Lanevus's current collaborator is the Devil Jason Beria, so the bounty hunters investigating him were taken away by the Devils to be toyed with.