Klein felt a sharp, painful pain as five white-knuckled fingers gripped his wrist. Instantly, he felt a chill run down his spine and instinctively tried to pull his hand away, frantically attempting to retreat.
A heavy feeling came over him, and Klein pulled on his forearm with all his might.
thump!
The pale, naked corpse was pulled askew and fell from the long table to the ground.
However, those cold, pale fingers still gripped Klein's wrist tightly.
Klein momentarily lost his ability to think; his mind was filled with thoughts of drawing guns and firing.
However, because he couldn't retract his dominant hand, he dropped the black cane and tried several times, but still couldn't successfully retrieve the revolver from the holster under his arm.
Just then, the corpse's eyelids suddenly lifted, revealing a pair of unfocused blue eyes.
His lips moved, and he murmured:
" Hornacis... Hornacis... Hornacis..."
After three calls, Klein, who was in a panic, felt the fingers gripping his wrist begin to loosen, and then they fell limply to the ground.
The Clown in the tuxedo closed his eyes again, as if nothing had happened.
If it weren't for the pale corpse lying on the stone floor, Klein might have thought he was being Illusion.
He staggered back a few steps, feeling multiple parts of his body convulsing from shock and fear.
Huff... Huff... Klein gasped for breath, slowly regaining his ability to think, and looked at the corpse on the ground with wariness and fear.
He removed his revolver and cautiously retreated from the room step by step. Only after confirming that the corpse was no longer moving did he glance at his wrist where he was holding the gun.
There were five deep, dark red finger marks there, silently telling the story of what had happened.
Klein calmed down considerably, a curse word echoing in his mind:
Holy crap, that scared the hell out of me!
After catching his breath for about ten seconds, he began to mentally visualize the objects, trying to quickly regain his composure.
Upon careful recollection, Klein replayed the events of the past moment frame by frame.
Although he still didn't understand why the tuxedo Clown "turned into a zombie," he keenly grasped the key point: the " Hornacis " that the other party kept muttering!
" Hornacis again..." Klein frowned. " The Antigonus Family's notes record the Nation of Evernight of the Hornacis Mountain Range. When I heard voices I shouldn't have heard during Cogitation and Spirit Vision, the name ' Hornacis ' also appeared. And now this dead man is emphasizing Hornacis in my ear again in a strange way... Could the answers to many questions lie in the Hornacis Mountain Range...? Perhaps, perhaps there is still great danger lurking there, such as some evil god being sealed within the mountains, seeking escape through similar 'temptations'."
Lost in thought, Klein cautiously entered the room, touched the corpse a few times, and confirmed that the person was truly dead.
Thinking he couldn't let " Corpse Collector " Frye see the mess he'd made, he mustered his courage and, by hand and shoulder, carried the body back to the long table.
Throughout the entire process, Klein was not only constantly on edge, as if the slightest movement could snap his nerves, but he was also extremely nauseous from the cold contact between the corpse and his own skin.
Having painstakingly completed the task, he remembered why he had approached the corpse earlier, and so he focused his gaze once more on the Clown in the tuxedo, on the peculiar brand.
The brand had fallen off at some point, condensing into a ball of blood with a slight blue tinge.
The blood cell, no bigger than a thumb, floated silently in mid-air, defying the laws of physics.
"What is this?" Klein whispered, not daring to touch it rashly again.
He never considered keeping the strange blood sphere, firstly because he had no idea whether it was good or bad, and secondly because he believed that Frye had carefully examined the corpse, must have already discovered the brand on the wrist, and might even know what the strange blood sphere was.
Even if Frye doesn't know the answer, handing it over to the captain and letting the entire Nighthawks team explore and research it is obviously much better than me trying things out randomly... Klein thought to himself.
When you're in an organization, you need to know how to make the most of its resources.
Klein waited tensely for a few minutes before seeing Frye, with his black hair, Blue Eyes, and thin lips, return to the room.
His gaze was instantly drawn to the strange blood sphere, and he asked the question that Klein had asked himself before:
"What's this?"
"I don't know." Klein shook his head honestly and described what had happened without hiding anything.
"The brand faded and turned into blood globules..." Frye nodded as if deep in thought, "The corpses of Beyonder always undergo some strange changes..."
He looked up at Klein and said:
"Go and fetch the captain, and tell him what the corpse was muttering."
"Okay." Klein had wanted to leave this place for a long time.
"You don't need to come with the captain," Frye added. "I think you definitely won't like to see what's coming next."
As he spoke, he picked up the silver-white scalpel beside him.
Klein nodded with lingering fear:
"That's exactly what I wanted."
He picked up his cane, put on his hat, and turned toward Chanis Gate, where he saw Captain Dunn, no longer listless, in the guard room.
After listening calmly to his account, Dunn nodded almost imperceptibly and said:
"I will report this matter to the higher authorities and let the Holy Cathedral handle it. Perhaps they will send someone to take a look at the main peak of the Hornacis Mountain Range."
Klein hummed in agreement, and seeing that only the captain and " The Sleepless " Kenley were in the guard room, he casually asked:
"Have Mr. Al and the others gone to rest?"
Dunn nodded and said:
" Al and Borgia are at the Saint Selena Cathedral, while Lolota is probably looking for a café."
"A coffee shop? Ms. Lolota's injuries shouldn't have healed yet, right?" Klein asked in surprise.
Dunn rubbed his brow bones and smiled, saying:
" Lolota has three great loves: coffee, desserts, and maids. She says she needs these three things to speed up her recovery."
"A maid?" Klein asked blankly.
Does Ms. Lolota have some kind of fetish?
Dunn shook his head helplessly and said:
"She likes maids, yes, that's right, and she likes them, she likes them with big breasts."
"... She's a really strange person." Klein didn't know what expression to wear.
Dunn didn't linger any longer and walked out of the guardhouse. Klein watched his retreating figure, quietly waiting for him to turn around.
At the same time, out of the corner of his eye, he saw " The Sleepless " Kenley take out his pocket watch and turn it on.
Three, two, one... Klein had just finished counting silently when Dunn stopped, half-turned his body, and said:
"I forgot something else, Klein. You've been through too much today, you're bound to feel tired after relaxing. You don't need to stay here this afternoon, go back and get some rest. Tomorrow, submit the application tomorrow, listing the losses in detail."
"Well, don't worry too much about killing Beyonder. Killing him is equivalent to saving many more people."
"Actually, I'm much better now." Klein sighed silently.
Dunn nodded slightly, and just as he was about to turn around, he suddenly slapped his forehead lightly and said:
"Also, I've given Leonard the portrait of that Beyonder, and I've put him and the police department in charge of the follow-up investigation. I think that Beyonder will definitely be traveling by carriage, enjoying food, and having a place to stay in Tingen City."
"Every step leaves a trace; this saying of Emperor Roselle is indeed very true."
"... Yes," Klein replied blankly.
After the captain left, he also left the duty room and slowly walked towards the second floor.
On the way, something suddenly occurred to him, and a sense of dread inexplicably crept over him:
"The tuxedo Clown claims that the Secret Order mastered the Sequence Pathway corresponding to ' Seer '... Even if this is an exaggeration, they certainly don't lack the recipes for High-Sequence, but they certainly don't lack the Low-Sequence."
"In other words, they have quite a few Seer."
"What if the Divination revealed that I killed the tuxedo Clown and is now seeking revenge in secret?"
"If you can't deal with the Nighthawks, you can't deal with a ' Seer ' like me who doesn't have any direct means of defeating enemies..."
Klein stopped on the stairs, seriously considering the problem, and quickly realized that he was worrying unnecessarily:
"First, the Secret Order has no idea who the Nighthawks members actually are."
"Secondly, even if they knew one or two, it definitely wouldn't include me, a clerical worker."
"Third, in this situation, unless one is a ' Prophet,' it's impossible to Divination who the murderer is."
He breathed a sigh of relief, left Blackthorn Security Company, and took a public carriage back to Daffodil Street.
Although he hadn't eaten anything at noon, he still lacked appetite.
Klein entered the bedroom, first taking off his tattered suit and removing his top silk hat, then lay down on the bed, trying to get some sleep.
His mind was still racing, and he seemed unable to relax. But the image that kept replaying in his mind was no longer the tuxedo Clown being shot, but the scene of himself moving the corpse, and that chilling touch.
He felt less uncomfortable about killing for the first time, but more disgusted by the mere thought of it.
"Perhaps this was Frye's intention, hoping that I could overcome my psychological trauma by facing corpses... However, while the previous psychological trauma is gone, a new one has appeared..." Klein chuckled self-deprecatingly, his mind calming down.
He fell asleep at some point, and when he woke up, his stomach was making rumbling noises.
"I feel like I could eat a whole cow!" Klein muttered, looking out the window as the Sun dipped low in the west, the sky ablaze with color.
After changing into his old but comfortable home clothes, he hurried downstairs. Before he could even think about what to make for dinner, he heard the Door Opening.
Melissa... he thought with a slight upturn of his lips.
Since we started taking the public carriage, my sister no longer comes home so late.
The key turned, the door opened, and Melissa, carrying a bag of books and stationery, stepped in.
She looked towards the kitchen doorway and said:
" Klein, there's a letter for you, a letter from your advisor."
A letter from my mentor? Right, I wrote to him asking about the history of Main Peak of Hornacis... Klein paused for a moment, then remembered.
PS: Second update, please vote!