A Direct Approach
(Many more lines had been crossed out.)
"The Nighthawk Dunn Smith encountered an anomaly during the dream interrogation, but noticed nothing amiss after waking. That memory was perfectly replaced, and Ince Zangwill knew nothing about it."
"Leon Kaspar survived and joined the Nighthawks. This was consistent with Dunn Smith's recruitment plan and the Nighthawks' standard procedure for replenishing their ranks."
"The Secret Order and the Aurora Order, having failed, learned from their mole in the police department that the Antigonus Family's notebook was about to be transported away. This was their last chance."
"The two forces independently came together and decided to seize the notebook after Dunn handed it over to the person sent to collect it. But the Church of the Evernight Goddess had gathered too many people, so, to prevent Dunn and his group, who would not have gone far, from coming to their aid, they chose to have the Secret Order's Sequence 7 attack the undermanned Nighthawk base."
"On the night the Sequence 7 attacked the Blackthorn Security Company, Leon Kaspar and Klein happened to be left at the base. It would be reasonable for them both to die in an ambush carefully prepared by a Sequence 7."
(Several lines below were scribbled out, followed by new content.)
"This is unbelievable! The plan failed. The Church of the Evernight Goddess had made preparations in advance. The notebook was never transported away; they only wanted to draw out those hiding beneath the surface."
"But the strangest thing was that the member of the Secret Order did not die at the hands of the Nighthawks lying in wait, but at the hands of two people who should have died long ago according to the script."
"This can be explained by his underestimating his opponents, bad luck, and the unexpected sturdiness of the Kaspar family cane-all these factors combined to produce an outcome that, while rare, was not impossible."
"Meanwhile, Hanass Vincent of the Aurora Order received a letter from 'Mr. Z' that night."
"He should have taken part in the fight for the notebook, but when he prayed to his lord, another unexpected event occurred."
"The response that should have come from the Aurora Order's deity was suddenly cut off by that destructive flame. The damned flame had not disappeared. Instead, it infected Hanass and drove him to follow some kind of aura into Leon Kaspar's residence, only to be killed by some undetectable force."
"This was also the main reason the operation failed."
"Fortunately, no trace that could be followed was left at the scene. The Nighthawks attributed it to a Potion running out of control, and no one raised any objection to that conclusion..."
"Damn Leon Kaspar! And that damned flame! He was only a tool for moving the plot along, yet he survived again in defiance of all reason! They will..."
Several pages had been torn from the notebook, and the smudged ink marks gave off an air of agitation. Just as he tried to make fate point Leon down the road to destruction once more-
Countless flashes of spectral blue and dazzling gold burst from between the lines. A mighty power that transcended fate shattered the paper, and the quill writing in midair fell onto the desk as though struck by lightning.
Not until the sun had slowly reached its zenith did the quill begin writing on the paper again:
"That powerful and respectable existence is just like that annoying Klein Moretti, constantly disrupting Ince Zangwill's plans..."
Just then, a somewhat pale hand seized the quill and solemnly started a new line:
"But it doesn't matter. The story of Tingen City is not over."
"You could go home and catch up on sleep, you know."
At around ten in the morning, Leon emerged from the Tingen Housing Association and spoke to Klein, who had come along to help.
When this friendly colleague learned that Leon's residence had been damaged after becoming a crime scene and needed to be rebuilt, and that Leon wanted to buy a house worth 800 pounds, he immediately stopped him and offered some advice.
His reasoning was that the damage was not irreparable, and the house would be repaired afterward anyway, so there was no need to buy another such expensive house. The more expensive the house, the higher the taxes would be.
Klein therefore suggested that Leon become his neighbor on Daffodil Street for a while, then move back once his old house had been repaired.
What impressed Leon about all this was Klein's older brother, Benson.
In all his years of life, it was the first time he had seen anyone bargain like that.
Benson had managed to get the weekly furniture usage fee waived entirely.
Leon was very grateful for that. After all, who wouldn't want to spend a little less?
He had saved quite a bit of money. Perhaps he could treat Klein to a meal, Leon thought.
Klein was looking at the rental contract Benson had bargained down. Hearing Leon, he looked up, a trace of heartfelt gratitude flashing in his brown eyes.
"Compared to a little sleep..." Klein paused. "You really did save my life. This is nothing but a small favor."
"Is that why you thought of giving false testimony for me?" Leon smiled and tucked his cane under his arm. "To make the captain believe that somewhat clumsy but somewhat plausible account of what happened?"
He walked on as he spoke, his tone a little wistful. He couldn't quite make sense of the letter of appointment from the Holy Cathedral.
He had originally planned to attempt a large-scale hypnosis after the captain returned, to deal with anything that might expose him.
But he hadn't expected a letter of appointment from the Holy Cathedral to appear. It puzzled him somewhat, though it had indeed saved him a lot of trouble.
Of course, what he had expected least was for Klein, on slowly waking up, to start arranging the scene right away.
"I panicked at the time and couldn't think of a better way." Klein paused in surprise, then blushed a little as he recalled what had happened.
He went on in a voice only the two of them could hear, "You saved me. If saving me got you into trouble, I had no reason to stand by and do nothing."
"But aren't you curious how someone who had just become a Beyonder could do that?" Leon stopped and turned to look at Klein, a different kind of emotion in his eyes.
"Don't you have anything to say? About the things we've been through, for example."
Klein had been using the art of language to leave everything unsaid, but Leon had never been interested in playing the riddler.
You saw something unreasonable, yet you did something just as unreasonable yourself, and now you want to gloss over it? It's not that easy.
After facing a life-and-death crisis, Klein had still been in the mood to help a colleague. Even a dog wouldn't believe he had nothing else to say.
"Uh..." Klein froze. He hadn't expected Leon to be so... so... He didn't even know what word to use for this highly capable new colleague.
He had meant to express his goodwill subtly. There was no real conflict between the two of them.
Although he didn't know what secret Leon was hiding, the Holy Cathedral's endorsement at least established that the man couldn't be some undercover villain. Besides, given the strength Leon had shown so far, Klein had no reason to ignore him.
If, as his divination had indicated, supernatural powers were involved in everything behind this, then every bit of preparation would mean one more possibility later on.
But he hadn't expected Leon to disregard convention from the outset and lay everything out so directly.
But this isn't the place to talk! Klein suppressed a twitch at the corner of his mouth.
"I..." After thinking for a moment, Klein was just about to speak when Leon raised a hand to stop him.
"Let's talk somewhere else." Leon hailed a carriage and looked back. "Get in."
The carriage traveled slowly along the street. The compartment wasn't very spacious, and the two sat facing each other, knees opposite. The streetscape slipped past the windows on either side, and pedestrians receded one after another.
Klein was the first to break the silence. "What do you want to say?"
"It's not what I want to say." Leon leaned back in his seat, his cane laid across his knees, his posture relaxed. "It's what you want to say. As a Seer, you must have sensed more than once that something was wrong. You may very well already know something."
"Otherwise, you wouldn't have said those things that night. You were sending everyone a signal that all of this might not be as simple as it seems."