Lord of the Mysteries

“Honorable Arrodes, my second question is: ‘How did Sherlock Moriarty escape from the ruins?’” Ikanser’s mood was a lot more relaxed than before.

The surface of the silver mirror shimmered, rapidly outlining Sherlock Moriarty leaning his back against the wall, his fists clenching and tightening.

Then, Ikanser Bernard and the surrounding Machinery Hivemind deacons and captains saw the private detective’s exaggerated smile before turning around and dashing out with his gun drawn.

At this moment, under the influence of the composed scene, they all felt an inexplicable sense of sadness and excitement.

The image in the mirror jumped, revealing Sherlock Moriarty wielding his revolver as he shot at the altar to no avail. The scene of those disintegrating bullets caused everyone present to be a little worried.

Then, Sherlock Moriarty threw out a brass key, and the altar showed signs of instability due to corruption.

With the erupting air blast, Mr. A fell to the ground and Sherlock Moriarty pathetically fled out of the temple building.

At this point, the image changed to have the slightly turbid Tussock River as the main background. Sherlock Moriarty and Mr. A floated in the water, looking up into the sky where there were no clouds or fog.

Almost instantly, Mr. A. became transparent and disappeared, leaving only Sherlock Moriarty looking around in astonishment.

“… The Church of Evernight’s reinforcements?” Ikanser said with a frown. “Unfortunately, he didn’t mention what appeared in his letter. We have no way of guessing. Was he trying to sell this secret for a good price, or was he simply affected by it and lost the relevant memories? Also, his experience of escaping from the underground ruins doesn’t show anything. It seems like the corresponding clues have been concealed at the same time…”

He analyzed it quickly, in procedural sentences, and then without too great a psychological burden, he chose to answer with reciprocity instead of taking a risk.

Arrodes doesn’t seem to be in the mood to be a prankster today. I can make the most of it… In his self-consolation, Ikanser saw bloody words appear on the surface of the mirror.

With a skip of his heartbeat, he had a bad premonition, suspecting that Arrodes had already recovered to his usual “state.”

The blood-like words wiggled and quickly formed into a question:

“Who was the person you gave your all to while trying your best to win the favor of, only to end up being abandoned?”

With his head buzzing, Ikanser’s face drained of all its color before flushing red.

The question pierced a deep wound in him while leaving him at a loss as to what to do.

If I mention who he is, then his reputation would be ruined before tonight… I’ve already become a kind of “legend” in some sense… Ikanser swallowed his saliva with great difficulty and bitterly said, “I choose punishment.”

A bolt of lightning immediately descended. However, it was different from before. It was no longer silvery-white and had been dyed with slight green.

It hit him right on the head, causing his hair to stand on end and flash with the color of lightning.

He shook violently like shaking dice, as though he had been drugged with a hallucinogenic drug.

Archbishop Horamick sighed, closed his eyes, and muttered to himself, “A Grade 0 Sealed Artifact?”

When Ikanser recovered, he looked around and said, “There’s one more question. Where did the key that Sherlock Moriarty used to destroy the descent ritual come from?

“Which one of you is going to use 2-111?”

All the Machinery Hivemind deacons and captains looked at each other. For a moment, no one responded.

…

The sound of water splashing against the ship’s hold seemed to be the only sound left in the world. The sea at night was both noisy and quiet.

Klein suddenly woke up and opened his eyes. He saw the wooden ceiling covered with a crimson moon veil.

His spiritual intuition told him that there was something happening outside.

Is someone having a rendezvous? He tilted his head to listen, vaguely able to hear some unnatural sounds.

He sat up, put on his gloves, and put on his coat.

His eyes turned dark as he took out a gold coin, flipped it, and quickly performed a divination.

After receiving no revelations of danger, he took out the revolver under his pillow and put it in his pocket.

After making the appropriate preparations, Klein opened the door and walked out of the room, following the sound to the upper deck.

At this moment, at sea, away from the industrial pollution, the crimson moon quietly hung there, mysterious and dreamy.

After carefully bypassing a few patrolling crew members, Klein arrived at the area where there was a commotion. He could smell the faint scent of blood.

With the help of the moonlight, he looked over and saw the former adventurer, Cleves, squatting to the side of the ship and setting up something.

There were three people hiding in the shadows of the cabin about a dozen meters away from this gentleman. One of them was a companion of Cleves, the female bodyguard in the black coat, and the remaining two were the children of their employer, a girl of fourteen or fifteen years of age and a young gentleman of no more than ten years of age.

The two youngsters wore thick cotton nightgowns and outer coats. It was obvious that they had come out in a hurry.

They trembled amidst the chilling night wind, but they still squatted there full of energy and vigor, looking at Cleves with their bright eyes.

Playing hide and seek? Klein joked inwardly.

He purposely increased the volume of his footsteps, causing Cleves and the others to turn their gaze towards him.

“Friend, what happened?” Klein recalled the expressions of some bounty hunters he knew in East Borough.

But he still maintained Gehrman Sparrow’s unique identity of being cold and sharp.

Cleves replied, unperturbed, “A private job, a hunt that came by accident, but one that’s worth looking forward to.”

A Hunt? Klein’s interest was suddenly piqued.

The reason he had named himself Gehrman was that it represented the first hunter of a game he had played in his previous life, and it suited his idea of hunting evil at sea.

Klein was in no hurry to inquire about the reason. Using his left hand which wore Creeping Hunger, he pointed at the shadow next to him with his left finger, “Private job? Doing a private job in front of your employer?”

Cleves, who was squatting there, glanced at the boy and the girl and said, without changing his tone, “Cecile wasn’t careful enough and ended up waking Donna and Denton up. She had no choice but to let them follow.”

The girl called Donna wrinkled her nose when she heard her name mentioned. She curiously looked up and asked Klein, “Uncle, are you also an adventurer?”

Uncle? Even if it’s the me from Earth, I’m at most 10 years older than you! Klein said in amusement, “No, you can’t use the word ‘also.’ Strictly speaking, I’m the only adventurer here; they’re just bodyguards right now.”

He turned to Cleves and said, “Hey. Mate, what prey did you discover?”

Cleves looked into the faint crimson waters and said, “A murloc.”

Murloc? That’s a Beyonder creature! Even though it’s of the lowest grade, it’s still quite difficult for ordinary people to deal with them. They would need at least five to six people and four to five spears to have a chance… That’s right, the scales on a murloc’s body are very hard. Revolvers can only deal a little damage. They need to have a rifle… Klein raised his eyebrows and asked, “What do you plan on doing? And how are you sure it’s a murloc?”

Cleves pointed to the edge of the ship and said, “There are traces of its body’s mucus here. One to two hours ago, it tried to climb onto the ship to attack the passengers, but the deck was still bustling with activity and there were lots of sailors and crew.”

Klein took a few steps forward and saw that there were some traces of green corrosion on the side of the ship.

He recalled the information he had come into contact with in Tingen City, and it coincided with the content in the books. He asked with great interest, “Why must it be one, and not a group?”

He remembered that murlocs had a tendency to live together.

“If it’s a group, then they’ll directly destroy the ship’s hull and let everyone sink. Moreover, the area around this channel and the surrounding sea have already been cleared of murlocs. The Church of Storms really enjoy hunting them,” Cleves solemnly explained.

That’s because murlocs are probably one of the main ingredients of the Sequence 9 Sailor potion… Klein stroked the revolver in his pocket and asked with a smile, “Are you confident?”

Cleves didn’t directly answer him and instead opened a paper bag beside him. Inside the bag were some pig organs still stained with blood. This was the source of the smell of blood that Klein noticed.

“All murlocs like this kind of food and are unable to resist its allure. Of course, these monsters love human organs the most, so in many sea legends, it’s emphasized to prepare some pig or beef organs from the ship’s kitchen or canned organs,” Cleves said as he sprinkled some granules. “Pepper granules can cause the murlocs to feel the excitement of smoking marijuana and lose some of their sense of balance. This can last for about a minute, and after that, the murlocs will be exhausted after the high state of excitement has subsided.”

He then took out a wooden box from his clothes and placed the dark green paste on the tip of the trident, dagger, and short knife.

“The mint cream that’s popular in Pritz Harbor is a unique sweetener for humans, but in the eyes of the murlocs, it’s a deadly blood toxin.

“In addition, I borrowed two rifles from the sailors. I got an agreement to not disturb this area for twenty minutes, and I spent a sizable sum of money. However, as long as I can successfully kill a murloc, then I’ll be able to reap ten, twenty, or even thirty times the cost.”

As expected of an experienced adventurer, he’s exceptionally aware about the weaknesses and problems of his prey… Listening to him speak, I feel like they have a chance of successfully hunting the murloc, even if they aren’t Beyonders… In the face of traps and firearms, Low-Sequence Beyonders really aren’t much stronger than the average person… It’s not like there are no Low-Sequence Beyonders who die in gang wars… However, murlocs are creatures that seem to wear full-body armor. It’s not easy to kill them. They would be injured, but it’s not like they can’t escape…Klein curiously asked, “You seem to have killed quite a number of murlocs?”

“Understanding the characteristics of common sea monsters is a prerequisite for an adventurer’s survival.” Cleves didn’t show the joy of being praised as he remained calm and silent.

As they conversed, the girl, Donna, and the boy, Denton, squatted in the shadows and listened with relish. They found all of this to be the most interesting thing in the world.

Yes, I also need to brush up on my studies in this area… Klein smiled and said, “So that’s how it is. I didn’t disturb you, did I?”

Cleves pierced a portion of organs on a rod and said with a deep voice, “If you want to participate, take care of Donna and Denton so that Cecile won’t be distracted.”

“Sure.” Klein, who wanted to watch from the sidelines, smiled and agreed.