"Why?"
Charlotte stopped in her tracks, standing at the turn of the stairs.
She tilted her head up, her delicate brows furrowing tightly as she looked toward the second-floor hallway with a face full of confusion.
At that moment, Elias's mind was racing, frantically searching for a countermeasure.
Think, you useless brain, think!
Actually, if it weren't for the fact that suddenly not coming home and staying in a high-end hotel would be too abnormal,
and the fact that staying in a hotel for a long time would cost a small fortune in gold crowns every day,
he would have packed his bags and found a quiet hotel to hide in long ago. Why would he bother fighting a battle of wits with Charlotte every day?
He truly didn't want Charlotte to come into contact with anything in the transcendent world.
On one hand, it was the promise he made to the original soul when they merged.
On the other, it was the power of familial love stirring in his blood.
In this world filled with indescribable monsters, the more an ordinary person knew, the faster they died.
"Lottie, think about it."
Elias leaned against the railing, beginning his sophisticated deception with a heavy, earnest tone.
"Ms. Cecil came to Hope County on business."
"She must be incredibly busy."
"If you just rush over there and interrupt her work, it wouldn't be very good, would it?"
"It would make us look very impolite."
This set of reasoning could be described as seamless.
"I suppose..."
Charlotte lowered her head, contemplating for a short while.
She seemed to think Elias had a point.
Elias was just about to breathe a massive sigh of relief in his heart.
"But it's fine!"
Charlotte suddenly looked up.
"If she's really busy and has no time to see me, then I won't bother her."
"I'll just treat it as a walk in the East District!"
Elias almost spat out a mouthful of blood onto the stair railing.
From the sounds of it, she was dead set on going!
How the hell was he supposed to stop her?
This girl's intuition had been completely piqued by the commotion in his room earlier.
If he forcibly stopped her now, what if she used the items in his room as a counter-threat?
If she forced her way in to check, he had nowhere to hide his things.
If she complained to Arthur tonight, his ass would be grass.
It seemed he really had no way to handle her.
Forcibly stopping her was out of the question.
"Which hotel is Ms. Cecil staying at?"
Elias took a deep breath, deciding to approach the situation from a different angle.
"The White Bank Hotel."
Charlotte answered without any suspicion.
"Hmm?"
Elias's gaze instantly sharpened.
The city map of Hope County he had pinned in his room immediately surfaced in his mind.
The White Bank Hotel.
It was located at the St. John's Cross intersection in the East District of Hope County.
It was a budget hotel.
According to the information he had teased out of his older brother Arthur during his complaints at the dinner table last night,
Arthur's partner, Brian, who was on mandatory leave, and the psychological treatment room where he went for his so-called treatment...
were also at St. John's Cross!
Was this a coincidence?
In this transcendent world teeming with cultists and monsters, coincidences were equivalent to meticulously designed conspiracies.
Elias immediately formed a highly logical deduction.
Ms. Cecil, as a sharp-nosed Seventh Agency investigator,
had saved that unlucky fellow Brian from nearly having his soul leave his body right after she stepped off the train.
Encountering such a transcendent case happening right under one's nose, anyone would be unable to resist following the trail to investigate, right?
So, she simply booked a hotel near the psychological treatment room?
To conduct surveillance nearby?
One had to admit, she was quite dedicated.
Elias muttered inwardly.
But he immediately realized the severity of the situation.
Elias's original plan was to visit Brian first.
He wanted to squeeze some information out of him before researching the Golden Rose Hotel murder case and the issues with the psychological treatment room.
Now, it seemed plans couldn't keep up with changes.
His sister's safety was definitely more important than any damn information.
Letting Charlotte go to Cecil's investigation site alone?
That would be no different from walking right into the lion's den!
At the same time, he could use the excuse of escorting Charlotte to scout out the situation from a distance.
"Wait a moment."
Elias suddenly raised his voice, shouting to Charlotte down the stairs.
"I'll go with you."
Charlotte stopped, looking up with some confusion.
"What are you going for?"
"Weren't you going to stay home and work on your metal business cards?"
"I'm escorting you!"
"Besides..."
"Shouldn't a proper gentleman personally escort his beautiful and charming sister?"
This sudden, direct compliment completely stunned Charlotte.
Even though Elias had already stepped back into his room,
Charlotte was still a young, inexperienced girl who had never heard such words before.
For a moment, she couldn't even focus on that strong sense of incongruity.
Her pale little face flushed a deep crimson at a visible rate.
"Wh... what on earth!"
Charlotte stomped her foot in embarrassment.
"Fine, I'll wait for you!"
"How long?"
"Twenty minutes!"
Elias shouted from inside the room.
Done!
He didn't waste a single second, locking the door again with a click.
He dipped the pure silver dagger into the glow-amber solution and quickly tapped the four corners.
A white light glowed once more.
The simple Sanctuary was reconstructed for the second time.
With the utmost speed, he spread the spirit-conducting metal plates, hematin ink, and parchment he had just bought back onto the desk.
"Old Ed, stop talking nonsense and teach me how to draw charms."
Twenty minutes was extremely tight.
He had to get the preparations back on track following Old Ed's guidance.
...
Meanwhile.
On the other side of the city, in the East District.
The third floor of the White Bank Hotel.
The gas lamps in the room weren't lit, and the light was dim.
Ms. Cecil sat rigidly in a sofa in a corner of the room.
On the worn round side table in front of her, there was no teacup.
Instead, a pitch-black crow stood there silently.
If one looked closely, the crow's feathers caught in the light shimmered with a blue glow.
It stared at Cecil without moving, like a dead object.
Ms. Cecil faced the crow, giving her report with extreme seriousness.
"Currently, I have ruled out the possibility of transcendent intervention in the Rockmire Factory arson case, it was purely a gang war between local families."
"Chief Guardian personally led the team and has also ruled out the disappearances in Pinewood Alley."
"Although the cases in Pinewood Alley are indeed related to transcendent creatures, after comparison, the characteristics of the corpses at the scene are unrelated to the target individual, John Baker."
"Therefore, next..."
Cecil leaned forward slightly, her hands crossed over her knees.
"I will shift the focus of the investigation to the Golden Rose Hotel murder case."
"In addition to that."
She paused, her tone growing a bit more solemn.
"Upon arriving at the Hope County train station, I also happened to notice an extremely severe sudden incident."
"Within Hope County, there is an unknown transcendent who is illegally extracting the spirituality of ordinary people."
"There are even extremely hidden incidents of the illegal extraction of complete souls from ordinary people occurring."
She thought of that police detective named Brian and his translucent soul, half of which had been torn out of his body.
"At the moment, it is unclear if this is related to John Baker."
"Since the Golden Rose case happened a long time ago, the clues at the scene have most likely been completely destroyed."
"So, today I will prioritize investigating this active case of illegal soul extraction."
Cecil finished her report.
The room fell into a brief, dead silence.
Suddenly.
The black crow, which had been as stiff as a statue, snapped its neck.
Accompanied by a faint sound of grinding bone,
the crow's eyes instantly lit up, flickering with two orbs of blue light belonging to the Origin Web.
Following that,
an extremely steady, mature male voice drifted out from the crow's sharp beak.
"Very well. Report on the specific investigation progress in two days."
The male voice commanded coldly.
"Remember our core mission for this trip."
"No matter what means you use, you must find the high-risk containment object as soon as possible—Fortville's Soul Pendulum."
Ms. Cecil immediately stood up and bowed her head respectfully.
"Yes."
Rate on N.U.
