"Luvia Anat?"
Her Royal Highness the Princess said softly, then nodded in understanding:
"If you have something to do, go ahead and do it. But don't forget to make time to date me next time."
It was already five in the evening when Shad returned to Stonemason Street, where the Stonemason Association was located. He walked through the bustling crowd and entered the bustling tavern. He glanced around and saw Mr. Antonio sitting in the corner against the wall.
After the waiter left, Shade, who sat down next to Mr. Antonio, apologized softly:
"I'm sorry I may be a little late. I'm sorry I didn't get to see old Huck."
"No need to apologize. I think even with the power of the Earl, it would be difficult for you to meet the criminal who assassinated the prince for such a reason."
The middle-aged playwright understood this, and Schade added:
"Of course, although I didn't meet him in person, I investigated his neighbors and got some stories from the children in exchange for a few pieces of candy."
The two of them ordered a glass of honey beer, a local specialty of the Randall Valley. Shad never liked alcohol, so he just took a sip to broaden his horizons.
"It's good that I can achieve my goal. Do you have any good stories to share with me?"
"certainly."
Shade then told the story he had heard this afternoon, and Mr. Antonio recorded it excitedly. When Shade finished talking about his gains, the middle-aged man also talked about his gains:
"I asked the association about the old man Humphrey who was crushed to death last year. The middle-aged stonemason we met this afternoon did not lie. He was indeed crushed to death by the tilted full-body statue during the earthquake last fall. The wound was on his head."
He also pointed to his head and explained the specific location:
"It is said that he died instantly on the spot. There were red and white spots on the ground..."
Mr. Antonio's mouth twitched, and he was obviously not used to this kind of topic:
"What's interesting is that since old Humphrey's death, the Stonemasons Guild occasionally heard the sound of stone chiseling at night, which was the prelude to the ghost rumors. Because of this incident, the top leaders of the association invited the local Sun Church to perform an exorcism."
He lowered his voice slightly:
“My friends in the church told me that there was a real ghost involved in that incident.”
This world is rich in ghost stories and legends, so it's okay for ordinary people to know these things. What can't be spread casually are things about relics and gods, and specious ghost stories are actually a means of covering up dangerous information.
"But after the church exorcised the demons, even if there were ghosts originally, they should be gone now, right?"
Shade asked, but Mr. Antonio shook his head:
"Since then, the carving sound has occasionally appeared. However, people have searched carefully but found nothing, and no one was in danger. Later, I heard from an architect that it was the sound caused by the deformation of the materials inside the building due to the large temperature difference between day and night after the house aged... I don't know if you believe it or not, but I... don't know whether I should believe it or not."
"So now we have all these stories but no clues for further investigation."
Xia De said while holding the wine glass, but Mr. Antonio laughed:
"Mr. Watson, aren't we here for the story? Investigating the truth is not our purpose. You've gone too far and forgotten your original goal."
"That's right. We have heard enough stories today. Even our investigation process can be called a good story."
Shade said, and Mr. Antonio agreed. So the two chatted for a while over their glasses, exchanged their own intelligence and recorded it, and then left separately.
Or rather, Shad sat there without moving, and Mr. Antonio took the initiative to stand up and say goodbye to him, and agreed to go to the Prophet's Association to play Rhodes cards together when they have time.
Xia De continued to hold the dirty wooden wine glass and looked around:
"Mr. Antonio is gone, and the next step is to go find Luvia..."
What are you looking around for
"She" suddenly asked in Xia De's ear.
"I was wondering if Mr. Sean Asmon, the demonologist, would suddenly step out from the crowd at this time. Since there may be evil spirits in the Randall Valley, we cannot rule out that they are demons."
But it seems that the demonologist who always meets Shade by coincidence is probably not in the local area now.
After leaving the tavern, Shade went to the Plenty Land Inn to find Luvia who had just gotten off work. After hearing about Shade's investigation this afternoon, Luvia was also very interested in it, so she agreed to go with him in the evening.
Of course, before that, the two had dinner together. Luvia smiled and said that since she came to Randall Valley on a business trip, she and Shad had spent more time eating alone than in Tobesk.
This was probably a hint to Shad.
The Stonemasons Guild usually closed at 8pm, and only three gatekeepers were left after 8:30pm. Shade calculated the time and came to Stonemasons Street with Luvia around 8pm. He waited for a while with Luvia at the evening tavern, and only walked over with Luvia after making sure that the lights in the Stonemasons Guild building were turned off.
The two did not choose to climb over the wall from the backyard. With the help of Shade's illusion, they pushed the door open and walked in from the main entrance. The gatekeepers who were gathered together playing Rhodes cards did not notice them at all.
The Stonemason Association was decorated with stone statues. Without lights, it was a bit scary to walk in such a place. The president's office was on the top floor. The two of them found the location easily according to the house number.
After Shade unlocked the door with the key, he saw an office that was larger than his bedroom. The owner of this office was very stylish, with a carpet on the floor that was not very luxurious and dark brown wallpaper. There was a stone round stool next to the wooden bookshelf, and a stone statue of a philosopher's head on a small table next to the clock on the wall.
Luvia followed Shad in, looked around in the dark, and immediately saw the safe in the corner.
Xia De walked over, apologized softly, and knocked on the side of the safe. Then, the sound of gears turning and pistons pushing and pulling came from inside the box. After waiting for a few dozen seconds, with a click, five alloy metal bars popped out from both sides of the box, accompanied by steam and smoke, and the safe opened automatically.
He squatted down to check, and Luvia summoned a small ball of light that flew into the safe to illuminate the interior.
"Let me see what we have. Cash, a small bag of gems... gold?"
It was a gold bar of very poor quality, less than half the size of Shade's index finger, wrapped in paper and placed in the corner of the upper layer of the safe. Shade did not open the paper, but the paper was too thin, and the light of Luvia's light ball directly penetrated the paper:
“I didn’t expect that the president of the Stonemasons Association would have such a hobby of collecting.”
Shade would not touch other people's things. He was here to find documents and contracts. There were indeed a lot of documents in the safe. Shade pulled them out and checked them one by one with Luvia.
There were documents for the election and appointment of the president of the association, as well as the real estate and property contracts of the Stonemasons Association. Shade even saw the letters that the association had sent to His Majesty the King of Willendel over the past decade, but each envelope had a blue post office stamp of "returned", which was a sign of rejection.
"I didn't see the ancient contract."
Xia De muttered, and Luvia shook her head to indicate that the documents in her hand did not contain what he was looking for. So Xia De put all the documents back to their original places, restored the safe, and looked at the bookshelf behind the office:
"Is it in the bookshelf? Search in the library!"
He stretched out his hand towards the bookshelf, and although the spell was successfully cast and the location was judged to be an environment where spells could be used, no ancient parchment or the like flew towards him.
"Shad, stop wasting time, let me do it."
Luvia said softly, taking out a half-thumb-sized amethyst tied with a thin line, and then holding one end of the thin line to let the amethyst hang in the air. This is a more traditional "pendulum divination", which is also a compulsory course for fortune-tellers.
Common pendulum hammers are amethyst or obsidian, but compared to card divination, Luvia's talent for pendulum divination is very limited. And "Pendulum divination" itself has great limitations, but this divination skill is quite useful when looking for small things such as lost keys and socks.
"The target is an ancient contract..."
Luvia whispered softly, letting her spirit infuse the amethyst, then closed her eyes and emptied her mind, letting her consciousness touch the thread that represented fate and time. As the amethyst emitted a beautiful faint light, the pendulum that was originally pointing vertically downward began to slightly deviate to the side:
“Found it.”
"Speaking of which, can your pendulum divination find cats? If it can, I, as a detective, will be out of a job."
Xia De asked curiously, and Luvia gave him a reproachful look:
"Don't always ask such questions when we are doing something serious... Any fortune-teller can find a cat, but fortune-tellers won't do such boring things... If Mia gets lost one day, I can help you find her."
Somehow, Shad suddenly remembered the little girl with silver eyes who was hugged by another Luvia in his dream.
The amethyst pendulum pointed to the wall where the office door was. Luvia pulled the pendulum in that direction and found the safe embedded in the wall behind the oil painting next to the gas lamp. On the painting was the holy emblem of the old man with a lantern, the god of the sun and the god of the earth.
It was still Xia De who opened the safe, and this safe was obviously much emptier than the one in the open. Xia De saw the document he was looking for at a glance. Because this was a document from hundreds of years ago, in order to preserve it, each page of the document was framed and strictly sealed. Fortunately, the original simple contract was not long, only twelve pages.