In the living room of Number 2 Narcissus Street, bathed in the colors of dusk.
Klein stood with his back to the bay window and said to
"I've gotten the divination results. I saw a grayish-blue two-story house in my dream. All the windows on the first floor were shut tight with curtains drawn. The soil within several meters around it was dark brown, without a single blade of grass or a single flower planted. It also had a dilapidated, gloomy garden—the kind you'd commonly see in ghost stories."
"The only symbol that could identify its location was a river not far from it—a fairly wide river."
"It could be the Tasok River or the Hoy River. We'll have to search through elimination. I hope we're still in time."
The Tasok River was the largest river in the
Its intersection with
These were the two main rivers around Tingen; everything else could only be called a brook, incapable of supporting a wide surface of water.
After hearing Klein's account, Frye—pale-skinned and cold in demeanor—nodded slightly, agreeing with the other's reasoning.
With no other clues to work with, elimination was the only effective approach.
Just then, Leonard spoke up with a smile:
"Perhaps we can narrow down the area where the target is located."
"How?" Klein held his silver pocket watch with its vine-patterned case and frowned in response.
Leonard chuckled:
"For a criminal with plans and objectives, the targets chosen in the early stages would certainly be far from the area where the altar is located. It's an instinct born from the pursuit of safety."
"Once there are only a few 'near-death' targets left in the other areas and the difficulty of finding them increases, only then will he consider the nearby ones."
"So what we should do is go through the records again and filter out the areas where the number of death incidents was at a normal level in the beginning but has risen sharply over the past few days."
Klein's eyes lit up:
"Excellent reasoning!"
At the same time, he sighed internally: "As expected, I really don't have the talent to be a detective!"
Frye nodded, picked up the documents on the coffee table, and began flipping through them again.
Within a few minutes, he said in a deepened voice:
"There is indeed such an area, and there's only one."
"Which district?" Klein blurted out.
Flaude handed the thick dossier to Leonard beside him, his thin lips pressing together as he spoke:
"The West District."
It was the West District? Klein clenched his fist and immediately suggested:
"Then let's start searching the southwestern corner of the West District first. That area isn't large!"
"I agree." Leonard waved the folder in his hand and chimed in with exaggerated ease, as if the one who'd just proposed narrowing down the area hadn't been him at all.
…………
A light two-wheeled carriage trundled along the somewhat muddy, grimy road. Not far off, a broad river caught the glow of the setting sun.
Klein and Flaude each peered out from their respective windows, scrutinizing house after house. They were looking for grey-blue buildings with overgrown, dilapidated gardens—and, if the angle allowed, checking whether the first-floor curtains were all drawn shut.
Leonard sat back in his seat in a leisurely posture, his back against the carriage wall, softly humming a tune with a local flavor.
Dingy scenery swept past in a succession of dim frames. Out of the corner of his eye, Klein suddenly caught sight of a grey-blue two-story house.
Before it lay a garden that radiated a sense of decay and gloom.
"I found it!" Klein said, keeping his voice low.
Before his words had even faded, Flaude and Leonard simultaneously pressed forward, craning their necks toward the distance with such speed it was as though no time had passed at all.
As the carriage drew closer to the house, the first floor came into full view—every window hidden behind dark, drawn curtains. All three Nighthawks saw it at once.
There was no need for divination to confirm it. Klein knew with absolute certainty that this was the very house he had seen in his dream—the place where the evil altar stood!
Neither he, nor Leonard, nor Flaude called out to stop the carriage. They let the driver keep going, rolling past the target, pulling farther and farther from it, as if merely passing through.
Only when the building had vanished behind them and could no longer be seen did Leonard hail the driver and bring the carriage to a halt.
"Klein, take this carriage back to Zouteland Street and swap places with the Captain so he can come help," Leonard said, snapping his fingers and fixing his teammate with a smile.
He thinks I'm too green for something this dangerous? Still, that's decent of him… Klein blinked in surprise for a moment, then quickly grasped what Leonard meant.
Flaude nodded in agreement from the side:
"You've only just started practicing combat, and you're a support-role Beyonder to boot."
"I know. Besides, whoever managed to stage that many deaths for a ritual definitely won't be easy to deal with. Only the Captain can keep things from getting too terrifying…" Klein drew a breath and agreed, reasoning overriding pride.
Then he looked at Leonard, then at Flaude, and forced out a smile.