Red Rose Manor, outside the luxurious rooms filled with all kinds of antiques.
Klein stood at the door and asked the sixth maid he had met today.
The young maid was wearing a black-and-white servant dress that had the characteristics of the times. She was pretty, in her prime, and had natural curls to her brown hair. She had a hint of playfulness on her face.
“Who does Mr. Talim meet when he visits?” Klein repeated the question numbly.
The maid replied almost without a pause, “Mr. Talim usually requests to meet His Highness, or to accompany him in riding horses, or to discuss matters. If His Highness happens to be absent, he will meet with that lady. They are very good friends. He receives permission from the butler.”
“They, I mean—Mr. Talim and the young lady, what would they talk about?”
When he asked this question, Klein suddenly recalled how Talim had fallen in love just recently. With his rich “experience” from the information age, he somehow came up with an extremely contrived romance story.
The maid wasn’t afraid of the detective. She smiled, shook her head, and said, “At times like these, we’re all asked to leave the room.”
Without waiting for him to ask any further questions, the maid chuckled and said, “Detective Moriarty, if you want to find out exactly what the lady and Mr. Talim were talking about, you can ask her directly.”
“The old butler doesn’t permit that.” Klein confidently pushed out his scapegoat.
He changed the topic and said with a smile, “You seem to know more than the other servants. You even know to call me Detective Moriarty.”
The maid looked around, maintained her smile, and said, “It’s because I’ve been serving the lady during my rotations. She’s always wanted to meet you, Detective Moriarty. After all, she’s close friends with Mr. Talim and cares a great deal about his death.
“Unfortunately, she always ends up missing you.”
“Always?” Klein was sensitive to the words “always,” “just happened,” and “missed.”
The maid nodded seriously and said, “The first time His Highness invited you to be his guest, she intentionally threw a tantrum and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to walk downstairs to meet you. Who knew that you would leave in a hurry.
“Afterwards, she took the initiative to represent His Highness to place flowers on Mr. Talim’s grave, but as she didn’t know what you looked like, she wasn’t able to find you.
“And today, she just happened to go to the golf course out back to relax on horseback. Otherwise, even if the butler didn’t allow it, she would’ve tried to find a way to meet you.”
On the day of Talim’s funeral, it was the commoner lady he loved who had offered flowers in the prince’s place!
On that day, Klein was most concerned about the lady with the black veil and the sapphire ring on her finger. She might have a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact or some powerful existence of an equal level!
The image of the maid quickly overlapped with the one in front of Klein, and it was abnormally identical!
Klein’s body tensed up, and sweat rolled down his back, but his expression didn’t change at all.
Using the abilities of a Clown, he pretended like he was recalling the event, and he asked with a smile, “Were you with that lady on the day of Talim’s funeral?”
The maid replied without much thought, “Yes.”
“Very well, next question.”
As if nothing had happened, he began to inquire about other things, then he switched to another servant and continued.
However, Klein secretly shortened the process and sped up the progress.
He wanted to leave Red Rose Manor before the young lady returned from her riding!
At four o’clock in the afternoon, before the sky had turned dark, Klein left the manor much earlier than expected and took the carriage sent by the old butler back to the city.
Klein was puzzled as he thought about it. In the end, he decided to bury the problem deep within his heart. He wasn’t to probe or investigate!
…
Evenings in Backlund were always replaced by dark clouds and drizzling rain, and Klein, who felt physically and mentally exhausted, held down his half top hat and walked quickly across the wet street to No. 15 Minsk Street under the illumination of the street lamps.
After resting for a bit and taking advantage of the dark surroundings, he took four steps counterclockwise and went above the gray fog.
After advancing to Sequence 6 Faceless, he had always wanted to check the mysterious space to see if there were any changes. However, as he was too tired last night and couldn’t wake up in the middle of the night, he had to wait until he was done being “busy” outside.
In addition, Klein had to eliminate any interference in order to divine a particular matter.
That was, after this advancement, when his spirituality wasn’t stable yet, he didn’t hear the illusory ravings of “Hornacis… Flegrea… Hornacis… Flegrea… Hornacis… Flegrea…” anymore!
He wanted to know if this was a natural change after ascending to Sequence 6, or if there was some other reason.
Within the majestic palace, the mottled bronze tables and the twenty-two high back chairs with different symbols on their backs stood quietly, as if they had remained unchanged since time immemorial.
The same was true for the gray fog below them, as well as the endless emptiness around them.
But as soon as Klein entered, his spiritual intuition was keenly aware that the mysterious space was somewhat different from before.
He was in no hurry to explore or make any attempts. Calming himself down, he sat at the end of the table, conjured a pen and paper, and wrote a divination statement: “The reason why I haven’t heard any ravings after my advancement.”
Holding the piece of paper and muttering the sentence, Klein leaned back in his chair and quickly entered the dreamland with the help of Cogitation.
In the dusky sky and land, images flashed, and in the end, they all came to a stop on a particular scene.
It was Klein, whose face and body was still covered in pale granules. He was surrounded by an illusory, thin layer of gray fog that was undetectable.
The dream shattered. Klein opened his eyes and roughly understood the reason.
Klein slowly stood up and followed his spiritual perception, walking in a certain direction outside the ancient palace. Beneath his feet was the gray fog that spread out like the sea.
He finally decided to stop after walking for an unknown period of time. However, when he gave up on exploring, a light suddenly flickered at the end of the path.
In his joy, Klein quickened his pace and approached.
Seven or eight seconds later, he saw a flight of stairs that seemed to lead to heaven!
The staircase was formed from pure light. It was holy, transparent, and untainted, capable of shocking anyone’s heart.
There were only four levels as the staircase reached up into the void, and each level was rather high, as though it was meant for creatures even larger than giants.
Klein looked up, followed its path, and saw a layer of grayish white fog, condensed and suspended in midair, as though it was supporting something. It was a significant distance from the staircase of light.
There was nothing odd about the steps, and they were as solid as stone.
Klein went up the stairs, climbed up to the fourth level, and then tried to look up at the area above the gray fog. Unfortunately, his vision couldn’t penetrate anything.
He thought for a moment, then he took two steps forward and jumped up with all his might.
However, the moment he left the staircase of light, he lost his momentum and his Spirit Body’s flight instinct. He plummeted straight down and landed on the bottom layer of the gray fog.
