The Secret Master

The fingers, pale and cold, clutched the wrist painfully. In an instant, Klein's hair stood on end. He instinctively pulled his hand back, desperately trying to retreat. A heavy sensation came over him. He pulled his forearm with all his strength. Thump! The pale and naked corpse was pulled crookedly, falling from the long table onto the ground. However, the cold and pale fingers still firmly clutched Klein's wrist. For a moment, Klein lost his ability to think. His mind was filled with thoughts of drawing his gun and firing. But because his dominant hand couldn't be retracted, he dropped his black cane and struggled several times, but failed to smoothly take out the revolver from the armpit holster on his arm. Just then, the eyelids of the corpse suddenly lifted, revealing two unfocused blue eyes. His mouth opened and murmured: "Honachis... Honachis... Honachis..." After three sounds, the frantic Klein felt the fingers gripping his wrist start to loosen, and then they dropped. The eyes of the tailcoat clown closed again, as if nothing had happened just now. If it weren't for the pale corpse lying on the stone floor, Klein might have thought he had encountered a hallucination. He staggered backward a few steps, feeling his body's various parts convulse due to excessive shock and fear. Huh... Huh... Klein gasped, slowly regaining his thinking ability, and cautiously looked at the corpse on the ground. He took out the revolver, cautiously stepped out of the room, and confirmed that the corpse was still completely still before glancing at the wrist where he held the gun. The deep, dark red fingerprints were silently telling the story of the previous encounter. Klein calmed down a bit, and a swear word echoed in his mind: Damn it, I was scared to death! After a dozen seconds of panting, he began to sketch objects in his mind, quickly regaining a calm state. Carefully reflecting, Klein "replayed" the entire encounter frame by frame. Although he still didn't understand the reason for the tailcoat clown's "corpse transformation", accurately grasped the key point, that is, the repeated murmuring of "Honachis"! "Again, Honachis..." Klein frowned at once, "The notes of the Antigonus family recorded the Night Kingdom of the Honachis Mountains. When I heard sounds I shouldn't hear during meditation and clairvoyance, there was also the term 'Honachis', and now this dead person emphasized 'Honachis' again in a strange way in my ears... Are many answers to the questions hidden in the Honachis Mountains... Maybe, maybe there are huge dangers there, such as a certain deity being sealed within the mountains, seeking freedom through similar 'deception'." In a flurry of thoughts, Klein carefully entered the room, touched the corpse a few times, and confirmed that the person was completely dead. He thought he shouldn't let the "corpse collector" Fleury see him messing up this place, so he gathered his courage, pulled and carried the corpse back to the long table. Throughout the process, Klein not only kept his heart in a state of anxiety and caution, ready to snap his nerves at any tiny movement, but was also extremely disgusted by the cold contact between the corpse and his own skin. He successfully completed this task and then remembered why he had approached the corpse, so he concentrated again on the tailcoat clown's wrist, looking at that peculiar mark. The mark had fallen off at some point, condensing into a ball with a few blue blood cells. The blood cell was only the size of a thumb, quietly suspended in mid-air in a manner that defied physical rules. "What is this?" Klein whispered, not daring to touch it rashly. He had never even considered looking at this strange blood ball. The first reason was that he simply didn't know whether it was good or bad. The second reason was that he believed that Fry, who had carefully examined the corpse, would have surely noticed the brand on the wrist long ago, and might even have known what the strange blood ball was. Even if Fry didn't know, handing it over to the captain and letting the entire night watch team explore and study it was obviously much better than my haphazard attempts... Klein thought to himself. Being in the organization, one must know how to maximize the power of the organization. Klein tensed up and waited for a few minutes, then saw the black-haired, blue-eyed, and thin-lipped Fry return to the room. His gaze was instantly drawn to the strange blood ball and he asked the question he had previously wondered about: "What is this?" "I don't know." Klein honestly shook his head and without any concealment, described the course of events. "The brand has turned into a blood ball..." Fry nodded as if in thought, "The bodies of extraordinary beings always undergo some strange changes..." He raised his head and looked at Klein, saying: "Go and ask the captain to come over and tell him what the whispers in the room said." "Okay." Klein had long wanted to leave this place. "You don't have to come with the captain." Fry added, "I think you definitely don't want to see the next scene." While speaking, he picked up the silver-white scalpel beside him. Klein nodded with a sense of trepidation: "This is exactly what I hoped for." He took the walking stick, put on the hat, and headed towards the Charnis Gate. In the duty room, he saw Captain Dunn, who was no longer listless. Dunn listened to his account calmly and gave a barely visible nod. "I will report this matter and let the Sanctuary handle it. Maybe they will send someone to the summit of the Hornciss Mountains." Klein "mumbled" in response, seeing that there was only Captain Dunn and "The Waker" Cohenli in the duty room, so he casually asked: "Have Mr. El and Borgia gone to rest yet?" Dunn nodded and said: "El and Borgia are at the Sanctuary of Selina, and Loretta should be looking for the café." "Café? Loretta's injury probably hasn't healed yet, right?" Klein asked in astonishment. Dunn rubbed the bones on both sides of his eyebrows and smiled: "Loretta has three hobbies, coffee, desserts, and maids. She says she must have these three things to accelerate recovery." "Maids?" Klein asked in confusion. Did Lady Loretta have some kind of particular preference? Dunn shook his head helplessly: "She likes maids. Well, that's right. And likes them, likes those with big breasts." "... "She is truly a strange person," Klein didn't know what expression to use to deal with this situation. Dunn didn't waste any more time and headed towards the guard room. Klein watched his back and waited quietly, patiently waiting for him to turn around. Meanwhile, his peripheral vision caught sight of "The Waker" Cohenli taking out his watch and turning it on. Three, two, one... Klein silently counted to the end, and Dunn stopped, half-turning his body and saying: "Another thing you forgot, Klein. You've experienced too much today. After relaxing, you will definitely feel tired. You don't need to stay here in the afternoon. Go back and have a good rest. Tomorrow, tomorrow you will submit the application and list the losses in detail." "Well, don't worry too much about killing the extraordinary person. By killing him, you have saved more people." "Actually, I'm much better now," Klein let out a silent breath. Dunn nodded slightly and was about to turn around, but then he gently slapped his forehead and said: "Also, I have already handed over the portrait of that extraordinary person to Leonard, and he will work with the police department to conduct the follow-up investigation. I think that extraordinary person will be riding a carriage in Tinggen City, enjoying food, and surely will have a place to live." "Everything that passes leaves a trace. The words of Emperor Roselius are indeed very reasonable." "... "Yes." Klein replied numbly. When the captain had gone far away, he also left the duty room and slowly walked towards the second floor. On the way, he suddenly thought of something, and inexplicably, he felt a bit of fear: "The tailcoat clown claimed that the Secret Society had mastered the 'Divination Family' corresponding sequence path... Even if this is an exaggeration, they actually don't have high-sequence formulas, and the low-sequence ones are definitely not lacking." "That means they have many divination families." "Then could it be that the divination family would predict that I killed the tailcoat clown and secretly take revenge?" "Facing the night watchman, and even me, a 'divination family' with no direct means of defeating the enemy... " Klein stopped on the stairs, seriously thinking about this problem, and soon realized that he was just worrying unnecessarily: "First, the Secret Society has no idea who the members of the night watchman are." "Second, even if they knew one or two, they definitely wouldn't include me, the civilian staff member." "Third, in this situation, unless it's a 'Prophet', it's impossible to predict who the murderer is." He let out a sigh of relief, left the Black Thorn Security Company, and took a public carriage back to Narcissus Street. Although he hadn't eaten anything at noon, he still lacked appetite at this moment. Klein entered the bedroom, removed the damaged formal dress first, took off the half-height silk hat, and then lay down on the bed, trying to sleep. His thoughts were still active, and the whole person seemed unable to relax, but the scene no longer repeated in his mind was not the image of shooting the tailcoat clown, but the scene of moving the body, and the terrifying sensation. He felt less discomfort from the first time killing, but more nausea from just thinking about it, with one after another of lumps forming. "This might be Fry's purpose, hoping that I overcome the psychological shadow by facing the corpse... However, the psychological shadow before has disappeared, and a new one has appeared... " Klein smiled self-deprecatingly, and his spirit relaxed. He fell asleep without knowing when, and when he woke up, his stomach was making rumbling sounds. "I think I can eat an entire cow!" Klein whispered, and saw the sun slanting in the west outside the window, the sky turning red like fire. Changing into old but comfortable home clothes, he walked quickly to the first floor, before having time to consider what dinner to have, he heard the sound of the door opening. Melissa... He thought with a slight upward curve of the lips. Since starting to take the public carriage, his sister's return home has never been so late again. The key turned, the door opened, Melissa carried a bag with books and stationery, and walked in quickly. She looked towards the kitchen door and said: "Klein, there's your letter, the one your mentor sent over." The mentor's letter? Right, I had written to him asking about the history of Mount Horncastle... Klein was momentarily stunned, and then remembered.