The girl's smile was reflected in the old man's cloudy, ginger-yellow eyes. He stared fixedly at her, as though trying to engrave her likeness in his mind.
His throat moved, and then he gently opened his mouth and took a bite of bread.
He chewed slowly. He already had one foot in the grave and could taste nothing at all, yet he still broke into a grin.
"Good child, you shouldn't have been born into these chaotic times... There's a house at No. 37 Pine Resin Alley. The key is under the paving stone beneath the mailbox by the entrance. Some of my books are inside." The old man lowered his head and spoke softly. "Go take a look at those books."
"Huh?" Vanessa froze. Just as she was about to ask more, she noticed that the old man's head had tilted gently to one side, resting limply against the edge of the cold body bag.
He still held half a slice of bread between his teeth, but a smile appeared on his face. This corpse that should have died long ago finally breathed its last.
Vanessa stood rigid behind the cart on the street as the bitter wind howled, lost in a daze for a long time.
Only when darkness fell did she silently push the cart outside the city. Without asking the gravekeeper for help, she buried the old man's body, one shovelful at a time.
By the time she returned to the hospital, it was already midnight.
She did not say another word that entire night, as though she had buried part of her soul, along with that little bit of useless kindness, beneath that patch of cold earth south of the city.
Elliot sat at the card table, watching cards automatically slide into the slots and pop back out, but his thoughts had long since wandered elsewhere.
He had seen everything Vanessa had done earlier and had chosen not to interfere.
Over the past few days, after talking with Conrad, he had devoted most of his energy to the Difference Engine and had instead shown little interest in controlling the game.
After all... this was ultimately just a game to pass the time, whereas the history behind the Difference Engine might hold clues to the supernatural.
He had asked the old butler to find him quite a few relevant books, which he carefully read through and searched.
He had indeed learned quite a bit. This world's alchemy and occult studies were both fascinating. Although the books explicitly stated that they had been disproven, Elliot still read them with relish.
He had come to this secret chamber today to examine the Difference Engine's workings against what he had read, only to witness such a scene.
To be honest, Elliot had not felt all that much. Before him was a table covered in cards, with neither a life at its last gasp nor a difficult choice amid the bitter wind. All he could see were simple descriptions on the brass character wheels, without even any images.
Yet he still felt something slam heavily into his heart through those weightless words.
For most people, kindness was harder to forgive than wrongdoing, whether it was kindness bestowed by others or what remained within their own hearts.
It more easily stirred painful memories.
Elliot was no exception. As he watched the girl's actions, an inexplicable trace of irritation and disgust arose in him, and he could not tell whether that disgust was directed at the girl or at his own helpless self.
"If it were me..." Elliot considered it seriously. "At most, I'd drape a piece of clothing over him and wait until he'd breathed his last before taking him away. That would be my limit."
In his previous life, he had only been a nobody, too, and had needed to armor himself with indifference. If he showed his kindness, others would expect him to be kind all the time. He had no room to spare for that.
In this life, though, he had become a noble...
He shook his head, as though trying to dispel the jumble of thoughts in his mind.
Thinking of Vanessa's past, when she had even managed to starve herself to death on the streets, he sighed helplessly.
These past few days of "observation" had allowed him to roughly piece together the girl's background-a graduate who had only just stepped out of her ivory tower and had not yet been thoroughly tainted by society would make such foolish moves.
His gaze shifted to a newly appeared card, and he reached out to pick it up.
[Clue · No. 37 Rosin Alley] Description: "The mysterious old man left you a clue. His collection of books is hidden in the old house at No. 37 Pine Resin Alley."
He had learned quite a bit about the Difference Engine over the past few days, which had also made him somewhat more interested in these cards.
This clue card was now lying quietly in Vanessa's "supply storage area"-all item cards she obtained were automatically sorted and filed here by the Difference Engine.
As long as a card was placed on the table, no matter where it lay or which side faced up, it could be drawn into a slot when used, provided it remained within the tabletop's boundaries.
Elliot had specifically observed the process. A protrusion would rise from the tabletop, followed by an extending push rod that pushed the card in a particular direction, guiding it into place like an invisible hand.
His gaze returned to the enormous machine before him. The exposed section alone was the size of a shipping container, while its deeper parts merged into the walls, emitting a cold, regular hum.
A bold thought arose. Elliot took a deep breath, pinched both ends of the [Clue · No. 37 Rosin Alley] card, his knuckles whitening with the pressure, and pulled hard-rrrip!
The tough, specially made cardstock gave a tearing sound as it yielded to the strain and was ripped in two by brute force.
He casually tossed one half of the torn card onto the table.
A moment later, several tiny protrusions silently rose from the tabletop, and the familiar metal push rods popped out. Working deftly together, they flicked the torn half precisely into an inconspicuous recycling hole in just a few movements.
Almost at the same instant, a rapid series of meshing gears and clicks from a printing mechanism sounded inside the Difference Engine, and the card outlet swiftly spat out a brand-new card:
[Clue · No. 37 Rosin Alley]
Identical to the previous one in both appearance and texture, it was automatically moved by the push rods to the supply storage area.
Elliot looked at the newly appeared card, then placed the remaining torn half in his hand onto the table as well.
The push rods appeared again and flicked this half into the recycling hole with the same precision.
This time, however, the card outlet remained utterly still. No new card was printed.
He then picked the card up from the table and tucked it into his pocket. A few minutes later, the machine printed another [Clue · No. 37 Rosin Alley]. Elliot took the one from his pocket and placed both cards on the table together.
Almost as soon as he set them down, a push rod appeared and pushed one card into the discard slot, leaving only one on the table.
Elliot drew a deep breath. This Difference Engine really was remarkably intelligent. On Earth, it would have needed a whole array of cameras for recognition and assessment, along with servomotors to drive the push rods. He had no idea how the Difference Engine here managed it.
He had seen the blueprints for those Difference Engines. They were frighteningly complicated, and just a few glances had made his head spin.
"Looks like exploiting a bug won't work," Elliot muttered to himself, looking at the girl's card.
"She triggered this clue entirely on her own. It looks like letting her act freely isn't completely pointless. Perhaps she happened to fulfill certain conditions that made the old man leave this clue."
Something stirred in Elliot's mind, and an idea occurred to him.
Before you continue