Witch, Fireball and the Evil God of Steam-Chapter 673 - 66: The 14th
Thus, the murder of Shuga, the Security Officer, became linked to Fisher's murder case.
Shuga took over the missing student case, which in his career as a Security Officer was just one of many unremarkable cases, even counted as a successful closure since Duke Bellamo generously provided compensation, making the missing student's family satisfied with this outcome.
Everything concluded perfectly, except for Fisher, who liked to meddle.
After glimpsing the fragmented thoughts of the librarian, Ethan connected many disjointed events, and then he flipped the book "Dark Furnace City Anecdotes" back several pages, where the previously seemingly meaningless background introduction of Dark Furnace City suddenly became insightful.
Generous on the surface, but hypocritical aristocrat.
Arrogant, bribed Security Officer.
Ignorant, easily deceived residents of Dark Furnace City.
And, deeper secrets hidden in Dark Furnace City.
If the novel's plot matches real-life prototypes exactly, then is the story in the book artistic creation or actual life? The true identity of "Mr. Anonymous" seems to be emerging. As the one who called upon Dark Furnace City residents to renovate the library, Fisher naturally managed to place a book containing "private goods" covertly within the occult books section under the ghoul classification.
It wasn't deeply hidden, yet Duke Bellamo never had the habit of coming to the library to read. The Security Officer and ignorant residents mentioned by the author wouldn't come to the library to read, so even if it was placed in the most noticeable corner from the start, it was hard to discover.
In fact, even a year later, with Julius's forces extinguished and Dark Furnace City thriving, the residents here still didn't have the habit of coming to the library to read, and with Fisher's passing, the Truth Society branch he established in Dark Furnace City also ended.
Through the words in "Dark Furnace City Anecdotes," Ethan could clearly feel Fisher's difficult situation back then.
After the student disappeared, Fisher became the only one concerned with what actually happened to the student that night. Even the student's family received compensation money and stopped pursuing the matter, closing their mouths.
The third chapter of the novel mentioned the Dark Furnace City disappearance case.
This wasn't a random occurrence. When the story's protagonist—a detective who graduated from the Truth Society—began investigating, he discovered many astounding similarities in the numerous disappearance cases in Dark Furnace City.
Similar times and places.
The last sightings of the missing persons were often near the post office.
Witness statements considered these missing persons normal. If including the recently disappeared student, then in the past three years, there had been as many as 28 disappearance cases with similar characteristics, meaning nearly every month, as night fell, someone would consistently disappear near the post office.
Unfortunately, the family of the most recent missing student was unwilling to cooperate with the detective's investigation. When the detective visited them asking if the student had encountered anything strange recently, or mentioned being followed, or had conflicts with anyone, the family saw the detective as meddlesome and kicked him out of the house.
The Security Office was equally unwilling to provide any clues to the detective, and as for the hypocritical aristocrat? He would always display a sad expression, uttering pointless talk that provided no help to the case.
The detective couldn't find any clues from the missing persons. The missing persons' ages and occupations varied across all groups, mostly having no intersections in life, seemingly only misstepping into a special zone at a special time and place.
Investigation of the post office yielded nothing as well; when the detective went to great lengths to sneak into the basement of the post office, he found it was just an ordinary storage room.
"This seems like some sort of Evil God ritual."
This line was specially highlighted in the book.
The detective believed that typically only Evil God rituals would require sacrifices to be offered by a fixed method at a specific time and place to the Evil God.
If "Dark Furnace City Anecdotes" is seen as a detective novel, it is undoubtedly a waste of effort, for the protagonist achieved almost nothing in the investigation process. Moreover, the novel abruptly ended when the author proposed many question marks and didn't unravel them one by one.
The time finally stopped on April 14th.
This is the last clue the author left in the book.
The novel's detective decided on this special day to take risks and test the correctness of the reasoning.
Fisher's body was discovered by a caravan on the outskirts of the city on the morning of April 16th, with many chewed marks on his body.
This news made many deeply saddened, yet it seemed to confirm the detective's reasoning was correct.
Only those who knew the truth were silenced, and before death, Mr. Fisher seemingly had little means to leave the truth he knew.
Thinking of this, Ethan suddenly froze.
He vaguely understood the hidden information in Lady Valerie's letter.
May 14th, morning.
At the end of the letter, Valerie specifically marked the sending time of the letter, which actually did not conform to the Empire's usual letter format, as they wouldn't specifically add morning or dusk after the date.
But indeed, no one truly knew Lady Valerie's exact disappearance time, and for a long time, both Duke Bellamo and Security Officer Shuga believed that Valerie returned to the Imperial Capital after unsuccessful investigation.
"Does this library offer book lending? Or can I buy this book?"
Ethan put the other books back on the shelf, keeping only "Tales of Dark Furnace City" to take to the counter. The librarian, whose emotions had calmed, once again fell into silence and nodded wordlessly.
Ethan decided to tell Ave, who was still at Duke Bellamo's estate, about his discovery. However, as he stepped out of the library, he suddenly slowed his pace.
The long-lasting smog easily induced hallucinations, and the moment Ethan walked out of the library, he heard sounds coming from the depths of the fog.
It seemed to be the noise of children playing and laughing. If one listened more carefully, one could hear the clanging of metal and more lively sounds from the urban area. The sky outside also appeared to be bright. This hallucination lasted about three or four seconds before the street view returned to its original state.
It was getting deeper into the night, and even the patrolling officers were nowhere to be found. The entire city felt so desolate it seemed as if he were the only one left.
Simultaneously, a vague sense of restlessness welled up within him.
Ethan quickened his pace and plunged into the fog.
Unlike the timid officers from the Security Office, he almost wished for a murderer or ghoul to leap out from the depths of the smog to attack him. Yet, his journey was unexpectedly smooth. Even though he deliberately made his footsteps sound obvious, the ghoul hidden somewhere in the city showed no interest in him.
It seemed that the ghoul was in a satiated state after having devoured Sheriff Shuga and his pet monster not long ago.
The lights at Duke Bellamo's estate were still on, and what surprised Ethan even more was that as soon as he entered, he saw the anxious Duke Bellamo.
In an instant, the restlessness in his heart became unprecedentedly intense.
Duke Bellamo lived in great luxury, a bit overweight yet not entirely due to fat owing to his penchant for hunting.
This means...
His flesh would likely have a very tender texture when chewed.
Ethan stood there, stunned, unable to understand why such a thought suddenly popped into his mind, even changing his perception of Duke Bellamo from a hypocritical noble to a delicious piece of meat.
Ethan quickly dispelled this evil thought, and as he attempted to probe the source of this notion, the feeling of restlessness in his heart vanished immediately.
He returned to the real world, noticing apart from Duke Bellamo, the maids busily fetching water repeatedly entered and exited Ave's room, which gave Ethan a sense of foreboding.
"What's going on?"
"Well, it seems Ave has caught a cold from overwork and the long journey," Duke Bellamo said quickly. "Don't worry, I've already summoned the best doctor in Dark Furnace City, and the priest from the Life Divine Teachings has visited as well... Oh, I mean, they are now hospital staff. That's their diagnosis. Fortunately, Ave isn't seriously ill; she just needs to rest well for a few days to recover."
"I'll go see her."
Ethan walked into Ave's room.
At this moment, Ave was tightly wrapped in a quilt, her petite body outlined, the quilt trembling slightly. On the bedside table was a basin of water, which the maids had repeatedly brought.
She had taken the medication prescribed by the doctor and should be settling into a good night's sleep.
The doctor's diagnosis seemed logical. In the new cabinet, Ave was known to work late into the night as a workaholic. Recently, she had also been losing sleep over the strange letters from Valerie. Overall, Ave's body had been quite resilient, but even the strongest succumb at times.
"... Ethan?"
A weak call from within the quilt.
"I'm here."
Ethan moved to her side. "Regarding your teacher and Mr. Fisher's case, I have some leads. You should rest well for these few days, I—"
As Ave on the bed opened her eyes, Ethan's words came to an abrupt halt.
What he saw were a pair of bloodshot eyes, the whites of Ave's eyes having turned completely red.
"I'm sick..." she curled her body, "and I feel the doctor's diagnosis is wrong; this... isn't a cold symptom."
The maid had wiped her face with a towel, but could not stop the cold sweat from seeping out. Her golden hair melted into her beautiful blonde locks, now seemingly in a dormant state.
Ave's sapphire blue pupils offered a stark contrast to her bloodshot eyes.
"I'm very hungry, Ethan."
She said, "Very, very hungry."
