Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic-Chapter 561 - The Last Mission of the Ash-Headed
Chapter 561: Chapter 561 The Last Mission of the ‘Ash-Headed Eagle Chapter 561: Chapter 561 The Last Mission of the ‘Ash-Headed Eagle Matching the numbers with words in the books according to the idea, none of the six possible book and number combinations resulted in any meaningful sentences.
“Hmm… I must have guessed wrong. Is my entire thought process off, or is it more complex than I imagined?”
Thinking that this matter had nothing to do with him, he decided to try again, and if it still wasn’t right, he would burn the letter. So Shard took another look at the characteristics of those numbers and when he came to the last digit of each group, a new idea came to him:
“Could it be that the last digit corresponds not only to the book number but also to a shift? Does the number one indicate that after finding the matching word, one should jump to the next word?”
This idea had no basis, yet trying it didn’t cost a Gold Pound. Hence, he tried twelve more possibilities by “shifting forwards by one, two, or three words” and “shifting backwards by one, two, or three words”.
Even though the densely packed page of sentences still did not make any real sense, Shard saw a pattern:
“Western Front Memorabilia corresponds to 1, The Queen and Her Lovers corresponds to 2, The Silver Knight corresponds to 3. After finding a word and shifting backward by the corresponding number of words, the alignment, while still not forming comprehensible sentences, seems to make some sense when skipping over the words corresponding to ‘2’… Could it be…”
Shard’s eyes widened slightly:
“The numbers 1 and 3 indicate a shift backwards; number 2 indicates a shift forwards?”
Shard felt warmth spreading up his back and then realized it was the cat’s tail brushing against him as it ran over his shoulder.
His excitement made him eager to try translating again. This time, for the first ten groups of words, he simply needed to re-examine the words corresponding to the last digit “2”. Subsequently, the first ten words formed half a statement:
Grey Hawk, original urgent mission notice
“Oh, that was easy.”
A smile uncontrollably spread across Shard’s face, and he glanced at the clock on his desk—it was eleven in the morning:
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“What an interesting morning.”
[But utterly meaningless.]
“Yes, utterly meaningless, but quite fun. I really am clever… and bored.”
He derived immense satisfaction from this puzzle-solving game:
“However, Grey Hawk? Yes, I’ve heard that codename.”
He thought for a moment as he gazed at the misty square outside his window, his eyes narrowing slightly:
“A month ago, when I went to get my salary, Mr. Giles Johnson mentioned that this is Carsonrick’s ace agent. Two years ago, MI6 received a message that Carsonrick had secretly dispatched two ace agents from the Gray Gloves Organization to lurk in Tobesk. Half a year ago, one was captured but committed suicide. The other one, the renowned ‘Grey Hawk.'”
Although he was an adversary of MI6, Mr. Johnson’s tone also conveyed admiration for this agent. Grey Hawk had done quite a lot—stealing the records of a special alloy from the City of Steel, Gondor City, ten years ago, the gold heist, the accident at Coldwater Port Shipyard…
When Shard superimposed the image of the seemingly omnipotent but identity-unknown foreign ace agent over the image of the unfortunate detective who died in a foreign land, he felt a strange overlap as though the two were meant to be the same person.
“Was Detective Sparrow Hamilton actually Carsonrick’s ace agent, Grey Hawk?”
He sat in his chair, holding the cat, looking out the window:
“Despite being so remarkable and having such exciting stories, he still died here for laughable reasons, and except for me, no one knows where he’s buried.”
Thinking so, was indeed a bit sad.
“The first time I heard of ‘Grey Hawk’ was at the ‘fortunate’ dinner at Lakeside Manor. That night, I also learned many things that all proved to be directly related to me. So it seems, I had already gotten the clues back then. Sparrow… Grey Hawk…”
Although he, the Outlander, had spent no more than ten minutes with Detective Sparrow while he was alive, he still greatly missed the detective. After the detective’s death, through piecing together clues step by step, he had come to roughly reconstruct the life of that fellow foreigner detective; Shard could only say, the world is too cruel and dangerous for an ordinary person.
The cryptic letter in his hands was a mission order, requesting the agent Grey Hawk to, before the end of the 1853 autumn Big City Player Roder Card tournament while using the high-level connections made during three years of mingling in Tobesk and ensuring his own safety, make the greatest possible attempt to contact Vigil Cameron, the court jester from Duchy of Seth.
In the order, it was demanded that Grey Hawk personally retrieve a cryptic letter from Vigil Cameron’s hands and deliver it as directed to a pre-determined location.
“Where is the pre-determined location? That’s not important, but the fact that they’re willing to risk blowing Grey Hawk’s cover to personally retrieve the letter means this must be a very significant mission.”
Shard exclaimed in his mind, but then he remembered the orders given to him by Director Anlos:
“Director Anlos said that MI6 suspects that Vigil Cameron will make contact with a Carsonrickian during the finale of the Big City Player; he asked me to monitor him as much as possible, while Carsonrick wants me to obtain and deliver a cryptic letter… So, MI6 really did get the correct information this time, Duchy of Seth indeed has connections with the Carsonrickians.”
He seemed to have suddenly become a pivotal figure in this mission, or more precisely, Shard was now fully capable of saying he could control how this event would unfold.
“But Grey Hawk should not be the one MI6 has detected to meet with Cameron, because the orders Grey Hawk received were merely to do this before the Big City Player’s end, not as MI6’s intelligence indicated, during the Big City Player’s finals. Hmm…”
He looked at the envelope, set the cat on the desk, stood up to get a brazier, then lit the envelope and letter on fire, watching them burn to ashes.
Shard had no intention of carrying out this task, as he had no reason to do so; Detective Sparrow had only asked him to burn the letter. He also had no intention of sharing what he learned with MI6; that would mean he’d have to explain a lot more.
“I didn’t see this letter, I don’t even know what identity Sparrow Hamilton really had, I am just continuing to run this Detective Agency as Uncle Sparrow’s successor. I know the orange cat Mia, but not the Grey Hawk.”
Shard whispered to himself in his heart.
Because of the “Whispering Verses” and The Chosen One affair, he already had enough trouble; he definitely could not get entangled in foreign spy matters.
After burning the envelope and letter, he had planned to celebrate finally settling all accounts and ending the two-and-a-half-month mission with the Hamilton Detective by taking the cat out to eat. He had truly inherited all of the detective’s legacy.
But thinking about the burned envelope, he felt the password composed of eight digits seemed somewhat familiar. It wasn’t until then that he remembered picking up a newspaper after someone bumped into him and dropped it on the weekend Lecia returned to Tobesk, while he was waiting for a carriage at the entrance of Silver Cross Avenue. The newspaper also had a similar password on it.
“Is there such a thing?”
He sat in the chair at his desk, recalling that day.
The method Dorothy told him to meet with the carriage was to wear gray gloves on both hands and to wear an animal breastpin on his chest. That breastpin was a brass brooch with an eagle’s head image that Shard found in the bedroom desk of the late Detective Sparrow.
“Hmm…”
Later, he met President Stan of the Prophet’s Society on Silver Cross Avenue. Of course, Shard wouldn’t say he was waiting for Princess Lecia. Instead, he blurted out that he was preparing to meet up for a detective mission.
That’s when President Stan gave Shard a divination on the spot and suggested, “Wear the gray gloves inside out, change the newspaper in your hands to the ‘Threepenny Gazette,’ and then buy a red rose to hold in your hand.”
“Is there really such a thing?”
President Stan was the most outstanding diviner in the Tobesk region, and the divination he had done for Shard about “the knight” was very accurate. And if President Stan was really divining “how to make Shard’s meet-up go more smoothly,” then the advice he gave might indeed be helpful for the “meet-up.”
With that in mind, Shard pulled out the newspaper he brought back that day from the row of bookshelves behind him. After copying the numeric password from the edge of the newspaper, he decrypted it according to the pattern he had just learned, and he actually came up with a complete sentence:
[Confirming that Grey Hawk has requested single-line communication, providing a dynamically changing intelligence network—]
This was the sentence on the top edge of the front page, which means the person who lost the newspaper didn’t know Grey Hawk’s true identity either, as he hadn’t recognized Shard. And Detective Sparrow seemed only able to receive information, unable to actively reach out, thus failing to report his own impending death.
[The special mission planned for September will continue as scheduled, with no information changes. If abandoning the mission, please visit the old place tomorrow night and inscribe ‘Eternal Loyalty’ in the Draleon language. If the mission isn’t carried out and no response is given, your identity is considered compromised; please evacuate of your own accord.]
This was the sentence on the bottom edge of the front page, and “tomorrow night” had long passed.
Shard finally understood why he had been asked to burn the letter. Of course, it seemed that Detective Sparrow might have just died on his own without seeking anyone out, but the detective probably feared his unusual death and the sudden closure of the detective agency in the city center or the strange transfer of ownership of this “haunted house” would attract the attention of MI6.
Given the location and the identities of the neighbors, this was almost certain. Hence, they sought Shard, the man with “some problems in his head,” to temporarily operate for three months. Once everything had blown over, and the Gray Gloves had given up on the long-unresponsive Grey Hawk, it would all be over.
“That’s truly ‘Eternal Loyalty’.”
Shard remarked with a sense of poignancy.
[Pass on the intelligence obtained before the Month of Harvest, to 1 Victor Street, and collect your operational funds of 2000 Gold Pounds for the year.]
“2000?”
Shard now understood how Detective Sparrow’s agency, which solely dealt with finding pets and investigating mistresses, could still afford his consumption of high-end tea.
[Will you go claim that 2000 Gold Pounds?]
“Of course not, I am now playing the role of a loyal Draleon citizen; how could I pass intelligence to an enemy country?”
[What about the truth?]
“I’m not short of money now; there’s no need to get involved in trouble for 2000 Gold Pounds. Besides, the address wasn’t written in the command. Detective Sparrow surely knew it, but for others, except for the fact that I happened to run into President Stan and received this secret intelligence, no one would be able to get involved in this matter even with Mr. Cameron’s cryptic letter.”
Then there was the last line of cryptic text in the newspaper:
[Unless specifically needed, please do not frequently activate the intelligence network.]
This sentence was written in the gap of the advertising area on the second page.
Shard sighed, tossing the pen in his hand onto the desk.
He was certain that what he was now glimpsing was just a corner of Carsonrick’s Gray Gloves organization’s complex intelligence system. Detective Sparrow was dead, and no one could know how that complex system was actually run.
But one thing was certain: Detective Sparrow Hamilton’s mission was to infiltrate long-term. He couldn’t actively provide any information to his superiors; they might not even know his real identity. His sole purpose was to remain silent, accept missions, and then accomplish them.
“Such spies are formidable; if it weren’t for acquiring some of the information, I couldn’t imagine that an ordinary detective could have such an astonishing background.”
Thinking thus, he threw the newspaper and the translated text into the fire pit, burning them to ashes.
In the glow of the fire, the pages burnt away bit by bit. Watching the bright fire pit, Shard momentarily realized that the last traces of the former detective had also disappeared from this home.
He sighed softly,
“Farewell, Detective Sparrow Hamilton.”
