Byrne remained silent for several seconds after the images in the light screen faded, finally letting out a long sigh.
Poor Tim.
To his very end, the man never realized he was merely a pawn being used by others. It was truly ironic.
Through the power of his "cheat" ability, Byrne now knew the truth behind Tim's disappearance that night. However, new questions immediately surfaced. Who was the "Boss" Tim mentioned? Was it the same employer who gave him the private job?
Tim had entered the storage room at night and managed to come out safely. This implied that the spatial folds inside must have formed after he vanished. When Byrne investigated previously, he hadn't thought much of it. But after seeing the playback, he realized the storage room lacked the natural conditions to form such folds. They had to be man-made.
Old Anton had mentioned that he stayed awake the entire night Tim disappeared, only daring to check at dawn. At that time, the storage room was empty. Could the spatial folds be related to that iron box?
Byrne pondered for a long while before turning his gaze toward the stairs. It seemed he needed to look further back.
He returned to his room on the second floor to attempt another playback. This time, the location was Tim's bedroom, and the time was set to one hour before the disappearance. Byrne intended to see exactly what Tim had done on the day he died.
Within the light screen, the bedroom—Byrne's bedroom, or rather, Tim's—was revealed. On the nightstand sat a half-finished cup of nutrient paste, cold and neglected. Beside it lay several crumpled freight receipts and two or three old copper coins. Unlike the tidy state in which Byrne rented it, the room in the projection was a mess.
Before long, Tim appeared. He looked haggard, clearly exhausted from a recent freight run. Ignoring the state of the room, he flopped onto the bed. His gaze drifted to the nutrient paste; he looked as if he wanted to drink it but didn't reach out.
"That private job three days ago was hell. Dammit, I almost died on the road."
Cursing under his breath, Tim pulled a crumpled cigarette pack from his inner pocket. After shaking it for a while, a single, crookedly rolled cigarette fell out. He fumbled with a lighter, needing three tries to spark a flame. The orange glow illuminated the exhaustion and panic in his eyes, and his fingertips trembled slightly.
"Phew—"
As he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, Tim's shoulders relaxed slightly, though the tension between his brows remained. He instinctively touched his collar, his body jolting as a look of terror flashed through his eyes, as if recalling something horrific.
Once the cigarette was finished, Tim seemed to feel a bit better. He moved to the nightstand, pulled open the bottom drawer, and took out a photograph. It showed a girl with a bright smile whose features resembled Tim's.
"Little sister, just hold on a bit longer. Once I finish what the Boss asked, I'll get five hundred silver coins. With that money, your illness can be treated."
Seeing this, Byrne's brow furrowed. He had seen this photo in the cardboard boxes earlier but hadn't paid it much attention then. Five hundred silver coins was a significant sum. An ordinary freight driver might not save that much even after ten years of work. No wonder Tim took the risk.
In the projection, Tim stared at the photo for a while before returning it to the drawer. Then, he pulled out a notebook. Byrne recognized it instantly—it was the same notebook he had found in the boxes.
Tim spread the notebook open on the nightstand. Then, he took out a palm-sized iron box from his inner pocket—the same one he was seen clutching during the previous playback.
"Heh, the Boss's requirements are bizarre. If it weren't for the money, I wouldn't do this."
Tim grumbled as he opened the box. Byrne looked closely; there was only a quill pen inside. Before this, Byrne had imagined countless possibilities for the contents of the box, but he never expected it to be a pen.
The quill radiated a dull golden luster. A thin silver chain wrapped around the base of the feather, its links etched with tiny, distorted patterns that were almost imperceptible. The barrel was neither wood nor metal; it looked more like the bone of some creature.
"According to the Boss, the next step is to use this pen to write down my experiences from the past three days in the notebook. I'll find out what to do after that."
Tim took a deep breath. His hand hovered over the quill, hesitating. His fingertips trembled—not out of fear of the pen itself, but because the Boss's instructions made him inexplicably uneasy. However, thinking of his reward and his sister's sudden, strange illness, Tim stopped hesitating and grasped the quill.
The moment he touched it, his entire body jerked as if he had been stabbed by an icicle. A bone-chilling cold spread from his fingertips to his entire body. He instinctively tried to pull his hand away, but his fingers were stuck to the barrel like they were held by a powerful magnet.
"What's happening?"
Tim's pupils shrank, his exhaustion replaced by sudden panic. He shook his arm violently, but the quill was fixed to his hand as if it had grown there.
"No... let go of me!"
Tim roared, the veins in his neck bulging. He exerted all his strength to break free, but his arm felt as heavy as lead. At that moment, the dark golden quill began to vibrate. The silver chain at the base emitted a low hum, and the distorted patterns on the links glowed with a faint purple light.
The light crawled up his fingers like vines, wrapping around his right arm. Wherever it passed, the veins beneath his skin bulged, turning an unnatural purplish-blue. Tim could clearly feel a foreign energy surging into his body, battering his consciousness. Faint whispers began to echo in his ears.
Then, the quill moved on its own, guiding Tim's hand to the open notebook. His consciousness felt as if it were being pulled away; his body was completely out of his control. He could only watch helplessly as his own hand gripped the quill and wrote rapidly across the blank pages.
Byrne watched intently. Every word the quill wrote corresponded exactly to the strange contents he had seen in the box earlier. Finally, when the writing was finished, the quill detached from Tim's hand and flew back into the iron box on its own.
At the very end of the final page, a line appeared that hadn't been there when Byrne last saw it:
"Tim, put the iron box in the storage room, and your task will be complete."