In the dead of night, the massive steam train continued to speed forward. It did not stop at the planned supply station along the way, but instead continued to press on towards the city far down the tracks.
In one spacious second-class carriage, countless passengers sat on the connected seats, quietly moving forward with the train, waiting for their destination. As it was gradually getting late, many passengers had begun to close their eyes to rest, and some had already fallen asleep.
However, among them, there was one passenger who simply could not close his eyes and fall asleep.
This was a man dressed entirely in black, wearing a black hat, with a small bag at his feet. His skin was slightly pale, his expression serious and solemn, and his face was thin, showing the outline of a skull.
This man was the Wall Walker who had been lurking on this train, the culprit who killed Sodod and stole his transported item. Having completed his mission, he was waiting for the train to stop so he could use his ability to pass through walls and escape the train, returning to his society.
Originally, before taking action, this man had already used his Wall Walker ability to sneak into the conductor's cabin and check the timetable. He had confirmed that the train would stop at a small station in a town in about twenty minutes for supplies, and he could use that opportunity to get off. However, more than half an hour had passed now, and there was no sign of the train stopping at all, which made the man feel suspicious.
'Didn't they say this train would stop soon? Why hasn't it stopped yet? Did something unexpected happen? Could it be that guy isn't dead and is causing trouble? Impossible, a Captain from the Anyin branch can't break the Red Silk Spider's poison.'
The man thought this in his heart, but then he realized he seemed to have never seen Sodod's body from beginning to end. After Sodod used smoke escape, he also used Wall Walker to search the nearby carriages for a long time. He searched all the first-class carriages silently from within the walls, but found nothing. Since he had consumed a lot of Spirituality resisting detection earlier, he had to stop searching when his Spirituality became scarce. Sodod was neither seen alive nor dead, which made him slightly uneasy.
Facing this situation, he could also choose to jump off the train. The average speed of steam trains in this world is about 60 kilometers per hour. The man was not an Extraordinary of the "Cup", so the only protection he had if he jumped directly was a layer of hardened skin, which came from his "Stone" Spirituality, but the degree was not too high. Although his hardened skin could protect him from dying during the jump, it could not ensure he would be unharmed, so there was no need to take this risk.
If he jumped off, the man, as an Extraordinary, could save his life, but he would definitely be injured. More importantly, transportation is inconvenient in the wilderness, and an injured him would be in a difficult situation. Therefore, for the man, jumping off was completely unnecessary. He could just wait for the next station. He didn't believe this train wouldn't stop, he just needed to wait patiently.
Excluding the defeated Sodod, everyone else on this train was a group of ordinary people. If he had enough Spirituality, he could kill them all. Of course, adhering to his assassin nature, he didn't want to attract too much attention, so he wouldn't do that. It was precisely because he didn't want to be too conspicuous that he chose the second-class carriage.
Just as the man made up his mind to continue waiting, he suddenly heard a commotion in the carriage. Looking over, he saw several train attendants were actually questioning the passengers one by one. From their appearance, they were collecting the passengers' tickets.
'Collecting tickets? What are the train attendants doing? If they're checking tickets, they don't need to collect them, do they?'
The man thought this, and at this moment, a train attendant also came to him to collect his ticket.
"Please show your ticket, Mr.. We need to collect it temporarily, and we will return it to you later."
"Why are you collecting tickets?" the man asked directly, and the train attendant immediately replied.
"Don't worry, Mr., it's just for a detailed check. Our conductor suspects someone used a fake ticket to board."
Hearing the train attendant's words, the man didn't say anything more and, like everyone else, silently handed over his ticket. After taking his ticket, the train attendant thanked him and continued collecting.
...
"Detective, all the tickets are here. As you requested, we have written the corresponding seat numbers on the tickets. For those without tickets, we have helped them get new ones and put them inside, including the work IDs of all our crew members."
In the corridor of the first-class carriage, a train attendant stood before Edrick holding a box containing a box full of tickets.
"Thank you for your hard work, everyone. These tickets will be important clues for my deduction."
Taking the tickets from the train attendant's hand, Edrick said with a smile. Hearing his words, some of the surrounding train attendants and the conductor were a bit puzzled.
"Detective, I am curious, what kind of deduction requires these things? Can you find the real culprit based solely on these tickets?" The conductor asked Edrick, who replied rather mysteriously.
"Hehe... I can't tell you that yet. Alright, I need some time now for analysis and deduction, I need to be alone.
"Hmm... Let me think... The table in my compartment is a bit uneven, so I'll switch to this compartment. Is that alright, Captain?"
As he spoke, Edrick pointed to a compartment next to him, and the conductor replied without hesitation.
"Of course, that's no problem. I wish you a smooth deduction."
"Thank you for your cooperation, Captain."
Saying this, Edrick entered the compartment with the box, closed the door, and lit the Light. After placing the box aside, he pulled a large piece of paper from his clothes and spread it flat on the table. This paper was drawn with a complex magic circle meaning "enlightenment" and "Light".
At this moment, Dorothy, who had been hiding under the bed beforehand, crawled out directly, muttering in a low voice.
"Deduction, deduction... Deduction my foot... How can deduction be as useful as divination?"
Yes, Dorothy was going to use divination to find the killer. Although the other party could sneak into walls and roam around, that required consuming Spirituality and he couldn't stay in the walls all the time. So, under normal circumstances, he must be on the train disguised as another passenger. Dorothy had the train attendants collect all the passengers' tickets, which naturally included his, and this would be Dorothy's medium for divination.
Dorothy had Edrick spread out the paper with the magic circle and then placed the box on top of it. Then Dorothy herself walked over and took out three gold coin-shaped "Light" storage items and placed them on the magic circle.
Divination can accomplish many things, but due to different methods, different divinations have different limitations. A pendulum can only be used to divine locations. Coins can only divine yes or no. A staff can only be used to divine direction. A dial divines time. And to find that killer, none of these were very useful.
A pendulum requires a complete and accurate large map, which this train does not have. Dorothy did not have enough Spirituality to test one by one using coin divination. The same applied to the staff; she couldn't use the staff indefinitely to slowly confirm the direction and find someone. The dial was simply not suitable for the purpose.
So, at this time, a new method of divination was needed. This method is called divination by drawing lots, commonly known as drawing a lot.
Preparation complete, Dorothy had enough "enlightenment" and "Light" ready, confident that it was enough to break through the opponent's anti-divination defenses.
The divination began. Dorothy reached her hand into the box on the magic circle and stirred the pile of tickets back and forth. Finally, after stirring for a while, she drew one out. At the same time, she consumed 1 point of "enlightenment", and one of the gold coins on the table also became dim. This indicated that the opponent had no anti-divination, and Dorothy divined the opponent by consuming only the lowest amount of Spirituality.
'No anti-divination? Pretty shabby for a Black Rank... No, those two Bonecrafters didn't have anti-divination either. Should I say this is the norm for Black Rank? As expected, that guy Luer is too rich... Rich beyond the average Black Rank level.'
Dorothy muttered in her heart, but thinking about it, it made sense. Luer was at the peak of Black Rank, close to promotion, and had his own career, which was incomparable to other Black Rank who were working for large societies.
Putting other thoughts aside, Dorothy looked at the ticket she had drawn. It had the ticket holder's name and the seat number written by the train attendant as Dorothy requested. Train tickets in this era did not have pre-assigned seat numbers.
"Carriage 7, Row 5, Seat 4... Kim Cook..."