Under the gaze of Brian's doubt-filled eyes...
Elias made up a few random excuses and half-forced the great detective down the stairs.
Watching the man walk out of the hotel entrance...
Elias's tense nerves finally relaxed slightly.
He turned around and quickly headed back up the stairs.
As soon as he returned to the dusty murder scene...
He closed the door behind him and quickly turned the lock.
“Kid.”
Old Ed's voice immediately echoed in Elias's mind.
“The thing you were most worried about has happened after all.”
“It's highly likely that John is this Martin.”
The old ghost's tone was heavy with gravity.
“Damn it!”
Elias leaned his back against the door, gritting his teeth as he cursed in a low voice.
“When a coincidence is this convenient, it's absolutely no longer a coincidence!”
Elias's gaze shifted as his mind raced.
“This means that John and Crowley...”
“The item they want to retrieve has extremely deep implications!”
So deep that it might attract a high-tier transcendent who could crush him like an ant.
But before completely resigning himself to fate, Elias wanted to struggle a bit more.
He began to try and logically dismantle this dead end in his mind.
“Even though Brian mentioned the Lily of the Valley Convent, there's actually another possibility.”
“It could be that these two bodies just happened to both be buried there.”
He paced back and forth in the room.
“Originally, the Lily of the Valley Convent was a place for taking in and burying unidentified bodies.”
“So this Martin who died at the Golden Rose Hotel, and John, who died who knows where...”
“It's very possible they just happened to both die in Hope County during the same period.”
“Then, because no one claimed them, they were collectively transported by the authorities to the Lily of the Valley Convent for burial.”
The more Elias spoke, the more reasonable it sounded to him.
“Logically, it makes perfect sense!”
“Stop lying to yourself.”
Old Ed ruthlessly poured a bucket of ice water over his theory.
“Use your brain and look at all the clues together!”
“Supernatural case!”
“Unidentified body!”
“And the most crucial part... the disguise!”
These three terms were like three iron nails, pinning Elias's logic chain firmly in place.
“Everything matches up!”
Old Ed snorted and directly handed down the final verdict.
“This Martin is almost certainly John's alias.”
“Or rather, it's simply another identity he used to deceive people!”
“And as for John...”
“Perhaps his purpose in asking you to go to the Lily of the Valley Convent to retrieve the item in his stomach was very clear.”
“It was to have you complete the unfinished transaction from when he was alive and deliver it to Crowley!”
Elias stopped his pacing.
He didn't argue, because this logic was airtight.
“I have to say.”
Elias walked to the corner and looked at the leather suitcase filled with soul coins.
He reached out, a faint etheric light flickering at his fingertips.
On the brass lock of the suitcase, he cautiously placed another layer of hidden spiritual seal.
Only after ensuring the loot was safe did he slowly straighten up.
“Reasonable.”
Elias responded in his mind.
“This line of reasoning is logically sound.”
“According to your conclusion, as long as I do this, there will be double benefits.”
“But within this, there is still one fatal flaw.”
Elias's gaze became sharp.
“It doesn't explain why he, a person who died in Hope County, would specifically seek me out.”
Edmond remained silent for a while after hearing this question.
After a long pause, the old man spoke again.
“Actually, for a spiritual body, that isn't much of a problem.”
“How so?”
Elias immediately pressed.
“If it's a spiritual body with a clear consciousness...”
Old Ed began to lecture on supernatural common knowledge.
“They are able to move across space based on coordinates in the spirit world that correspond to reality.”
“However, don't think this ability is too powerful.”
The old man added.
“Because for these conscious spiritual bodies, which we'll call ghosts for now...”
“While ghosts can quickly reach corresponding locations based on spirit world coordinates...”
“Aside from that, they are limited by their lack of a physical body and possess no other ability to interfere with reality.”
Old Ed didn't forget to talk himself up.
“Of course, spiritual bodies of ascetics like us are a different story; we're much more advanced than them.”
“So...”
Old Ed summarized.
“At least from John's own supposed motive, it holds up.”
“That's not it.”
Hearing this, Elias directly interrupted Old Ed's lecture.
“Old man, you don't understand. I'm not talking about distance at all.”
Elias frowned, his speaking speed increasing.
“Even if he really was a scholar researching Moon Bay history while he was alive, so what?”
“If this thing is so important, why did he have to go all the way back to Moon Bay for help?”
“Are the people from the Society of Freemen unreliable?”
“With the reward he promised me, anyone from the Society of Freemen would be willing to do it.”
“They could have dug the thing up on the spot and sent it directly to old Crowley.”
“There wouldn't have been any problem.”
“But he insisted on traveling across half of Velen to Moon Bay to seek help.”
“Isn't that just taking off your pants to fart?”
“Therefore, at the very least, we can't simply conclude that John is Martin.”
“...”
“Taking off your pants to fart...”
Deep in his mind, Old Ed was stunned for a moment, slowly repeating the idiom.
He seemed to be carefully chewing over the profound truth of redundant effort contained within the saying.
“What time do you think it is?!”
Elias keenly noticed the old ghost going off track and couldn't help but complain in his mind.
“Stop pondering the wisdom in my words of wisdom for a second, will you!”
“Wisdom my foot!”
Old Ed, having his thoughts exposed, retorted loudly in annoyance.
However, Old Ed also immediately turned serious.
“But you have a point.”
“I suggest we search this place carefully to see if there are any other clues.”
The old man's tone became incredibly cautious.
“At least we can be certain now that if John and Martin are the same person, he definitely has something he's hiding from us.”
“It's certainly not wrong to be on guard against him.”
Elias nodded in total agreement.
“The next time I see him...”
“I'll just ask him directly if he knows a man named Edward Crowley.”
“And see how he reacts.”
With that, Elias no longer hesitated.
He took a deep breath, activating the Rational Circuit within him.
He opened his Spirit Vision once more and scanned the room meticulously.
Even though a month had passed since the case occurred...
And despite the police station's interference and the ventilation at the scene...
There was still a faint, lingering trace of negative spirituality in this room.
This was also what Elias had seen at a glance earlier when confirming if there were any ghosts nearby.
Now, under Spirit Vision, that negative spirituality appeared as an eerie black color.
That's right, it looked very similar to the kind found on Firth.
Elias had long since become numb to the Mist Veil Society's involvement in various incidents in Hope County.
He carefully tracked these black spiritual trails.
What made his skin crawl was...
Everything was exactly as Brian had previously reasoned.
This trail of negative spirituality did not extend to the door crack, windows, or ventilation ducts—any known channel.
It had no physical entry path.
This patch of negative spirituality was as if it had appeared out of thin air in the middle of the room!
Even after a month of dissipation, it currently appeared very ethereal.
“Just as I suspected.”
Edmond said in a low voice in his mind, his tone filled with deep wariness.
“This guy is definitely no small fry.”
Elias swallowed hard and continued to observe with Spirit Vision.
In the entire room, only a few specific areas were tainted by this negative spirituality.
One was not far from the footprints on the carpet.
It could be inferred that the killer was initially standing half a meter away from the victim.
One was at the bullet hole in the wall.
Within the shallow pit in the wall, a thick mass of negative spirituality was gathered.
One could imagine the killer holding a containment object capable of firing spiritual bullets.
Something like an elemental revolver.
The last place was by the tightly closed window.
The concentration of negative spirituality here was consistent with that on the carpet.
Elias slowly approached that window.
Under the extreme observation of Spirit Vision, he discovered an anomaly.
Within that black negative spirituality by the window...
There was actually another faint, differently colored residual spirituality interwoven with it.
This should be the spirituality of the deceased.
Except...
This spirituality hadn't completely dissipated either.
Instead, it formed a broken, intermittent trail.
This trail directly penetrated the glass window, which was locked from the inside...
Pointing all the way toward somewhere outside the window.
Elias suddenly narrowed his eyes.
“Oh?”
“There really is a clue?”
Rate on N.U.
