It was the same dream divination, but this time Klein saw more.
The first scene was still the small, dark, squalid room with Ian Wright sleeping soundly on a bunk bed.
The second scene was the same sewer they had both gone to. Ian squatted in front of Zreal’s mutilated body, reached out with his hand to rub the two rows of white teeth, and removed one of them.
The third scene was a busy and noisy street. The passersby were all dressed in plain clothes, some of which that could be described as old and tattered.
In the middle of the street, there were gardens and lawns, surrounded by low chimneys that were puffing out smoke. Ian, in his old overcoat and round hat, warily watched as he entered the telegraph office not far from the center of the street. Diagonally across it was the mall entrance to the steam metro.
The image quickly turned transparent. Klein opened his eyes, tapped his index finger on the edge of the long bronze table and made a preliminary judgment.
Klein was in no hurry to deeply analyze it, as he didn’t want to stay too long above the fog.
Leaving the high back chair belonging to The Fool, he went to a corner, rummaged through the paper bag that he had been placed there previously, and found Meursault’s Beyonder characteristic.
Holding the crimson, jelly-like object, Klein sat down again and wrote a new divination statement: “The corresponding potion name.”
As he silently recited the statement, he held onto the Beyonder characteristic with one hand and the piece of paper with the divination statement in the other. With the help of Cogitation, he fell into a deep sleep.
In the gray, dreamy dream, the ambassador who was dressed to the nines, appeared again before Klein with his thin, stubbly face.
Holding a bottle of crimson liquid, he said to Meursault, “Drink it, drink this Hunter potion, and you’ll rule the Zmanger gang. Of course, money is also indispensable, as Emperor Roselle once said—a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other.”
“Hunter? Backlund is a huge metropolitan city…” Meursault frowned and asked curiously.
To someone illiterate like him, hunters were associated with the wilderness and animals.
The middle-aged ambassador chuckled and said, “The biggest city is the largest dark forest.
“Here, everyone has two identities. One, the prey, and the other, the hunter.
“Even the weakest hunter is a hunter. It’s possible for them to harm stronger prey.
“Go, join this magnificent hunt.”
…
As his mind churned, Klein wrapped himself in his spirituality and began the rapid descent.
As soon as he returned to his room, he immediately checked his surroundings vigilantly, but he didn’t notice any unusual changes.
He rummaged through the map of Backlund that he had bought on the steam locomotive, looking for a telegraph office that was along the subway line, one that wasn’t far from the middle of the street.
There were only a few subway lines in Backlund, so Klein quickly identified three targets: one in West Borough, one in St. George Borough, and one at the junction of East Borough and the Backlund Bridge.
He recalled how most of the pedestrians in his dream were dressed to determined their socioeconomic statuses and arrived at the final answer.
After he finished writing, Klein didn’t fold the piece of paper and put it away. Nor did he burn it with his spirituality. Instead, he allowed it to remain spread out on the desk, freely revealing its contents.
After giving it a deep look, Klein went back to the bed and took off his clothes to sleep.
Outside the tightly closed curtains, the crimson moon peeked out from the layers of clouds, shining brightly and perfectly.
…
In a house at Hillston Borough.
Fors, who didn’t sleep with Xio, sat up suddenly and put her hands to her head.
Her relatively pretty face was extremely twisted as if she was a devil.
Fors pressed against her ears and constantly tossed about in bed, as though she was resisting the illusory muttering.
Sweat trickled down her forehead, and veins bulged on the back of her hands.
Her body randomly tensed up or rolled. Her originally teasing and languid pale blue eyes were filled with pain.
In the depths of those pupils, countless layers of light and shadows seemed to appear.
“No!” Fors finally couldn’t hold it in anymore as she let out a low tragic cry.
Her hands stopped covering her ears and resorted to yanking at her hair, as though she was going to fight pain with pain.
After a few minutes of writhing, she finally stopped.
She released her hands, looked at the handful of slightly curled brown hair, and weakly laughed at herself.
“I lied to Xio, telling her that the murmurs every full moon don’t have much of a negative effect on me… At least losing hair is a serious concern…”
With difficulty, Fors sat up and looked at the curtain that half covered the window. Through it, she could see the dreamy crimson moon outside.
“It’s getting worse each and every time. Will I lose control the next time because of this…” Fors could no longer suppress the weakness that she had buried deep in her heart.
She had attempted to separate herself from the bracelet that allowed people to teleport through the spiritual world, but it no longer resulted in the disappearance of the murmurs during a full moon.
She had tried to take sedatives, had tried chanting the name of the God of Steam and Machinery, had tried some ritualistic magic, but it hadn’t changed the fact that she was gradually slipping into the abyss.
“If only I could understand what the murmurs are saying… I wish to die in the know, and not be buried clueless… P-perhaps, I might be able to hear it clearer after advancing to Sequence 8? But I’ve never encountered anyone selling the Trickmaster potion formula.” Fors looked out the window in a daze as her eyes were dyed red by the moonlight.
…
On Monday morning, Klein woke up early from his restless sleep and got out of bed.
He went to his desk and began to draw the curtains and open the window to let the light and wind into the room.
At that moment, he caught sight of the paper on the desk at the corner of his eye.
It was facing the window, maintaining its original spot.
However, Klein clearly remembered that before he slept, this piece of paper was facing the chair and the bed!
It had flipped over and changed orientation after a night’s sleep!
Klein’s pupils constricted as he abruptly reached out and pulled the curtains open. He saw that the oriel windows were still shut tight, not letting even a waft of wind in!
Without any wind, the paper had rotated hundred and eighty degrees by itself!
He was shocked that he didn’t realize it while sleeping!
This meant that he was almost at the mercy of others, and his life and death depended solely on the other party’s mood and thoughts!
The reason he wrote those words last night and spread the paper on the desk, was to let others see it. He wanted to let the ambassador know what he wanted to know and delay any possible acts of revenge until the matter was over so that he himself could have more time to prepare.
However, Klein had expected that the other party would sneak into the room while he was out, and when the surveillance of his house by the special military department would be reduced. Who knew that the person in question was able to bypass the Beyonders around him and quietly enter the bedroom while he was still sleeping.
The feeling of having his fate controlled by someone else was extremely uncomfortable!
“Someone sneaked into this room last night.”
…
He silently chanted the statement, and with the help of his body’s concealment, he flicked the coin.
The coin tumbled in the air and fell without exceeding Klein’s shoulder height and landed in his open palm.
This time, the number faced up.
It was a negative result.
No one had sneaked into Klein’s bedroom last night!
