But no matter what, now that the first floor of St. Teresa's Square has been opened, the house suddenly has such a large space, and Shade still needs to consider how to use it.
After returning to the first floor from the basement, Xia De was in a very good mood as he looked at the open space and learned a new secret:
"The ancient god statue is underground. Based on a hundred years of experience, this will affect the ordinary people upstairs, so if you want to rent it out, you can't rent it to ordinary people rashly."
Renting to a ring wizard doesn't require similar concerns, but Shade doesn't know any ring wizards with whom he can live together. Among the other four people in the group, except Miss Louisa, everyone else has a good place to live. And Shade is not reckless enough to invite a single, unmarried blonde to live with him.
But thinking about it carefully, he was not short of money now. If he wanted to buy expensive relics and knowledge, renting out the house was not enough, so renting out the house was not something he had to do.
Thinking of this, Xia De temporarily gave up the plan of renting out the first floor.
He walked up the stairs to the second floor, planning his future:
"When I have enough money, I can consider hiring a maid to help with the cleaning like Professor Manning did. It's a waste of time to clean the house myself now... For now, I can use the first floor and basement as storage space. Mia will probably like to have a place to walk... But even so, it will cost a lot of money to reconnect the steam and gas pipes..."
He walked up the winding stairs while thinking about the trivialities of his life. He felt that now that the first floor had been reopened, the expenses he needed to spend seemed to be even greater.
When I opened the door to the second floor, I looked up and thought about the time. It was only eight o'clock in the evening. There were still two hours before the time I agreed with Miss Louisa to visit the girl Sophie.
So he took advantage of the time to write a report requesting to read "The Codex of Sublimation" and sent it to the college via the manuscript pages in his hand. Then he opened the story pages borrowed from Miss Louisa's friend and read them.
Mia, who was locked in the room by Shad, wanted to play with Shad for a while, but Shad, who was looking forward to the handwritten copy of the translated version of the first draft of the story, could only refuse the orange cat's request, but still found a ball of yarn for the cat to play with by itself.
After washing his hands, he sat down solemnly at the desk and then opened the cloth wrapped around the paper pages.
It seems that books that record mysterious powers don't like to use ordinary paper as a carrier. The book that Miss Louisa lent to Shade was made of an unknown leather material as the pages, which felt very smooth.
At the top of the page numbered 1, the name of this story is clearly written in ancient language—
"The Little Match Girl".
“That’s it!”
He looked at the first page with anticipation, carefully reading the densely packed strange words that looked like dancing matchsticks. Then he spent about ten minutes carefully reading the story of the poor match girl on a snowy night from beginning to end.
Nothing happened.
Even though these are pages with special powers, the feeling after reading them in their entirety is not even as great as when I told the story to my three children in the past.
"This is a bit troublesome... Do I really need to find the original manuscript in order to gain powerful power?"
He looked out at the moonlit night and thought worriedly, then looked down at the letters on the page. He admitted that this was a good story, but Shad didn't like stories with sad endings.
Miss Louisa knocked on the door downstairs at ten o'clock, and Shade, who had already prepared, set out directly with her. By the way, he also returned the pages of the story to her:
"Is this all? Can you really understand the words on it? Are the space-time runes so powerful?"
Miss Louisa said as she rolled up the paper and put it in her pocket. Ring sorcerers need materials to cast spells, so even in summer, they would avoid wearing clothes without pockets, which is why Shad also wears a coat in summer.
In this world, there is no convenient item like "space ring".
The steam bomb explosion happened last night, and the alley is still blocked. Although the fishman was blown to pieces by Miss Louisa, the traces left behind still attracted the attention of the church.
Therefore, when heading to the little girl Sophie's home, they deliberately chose to take a detour and avoid the alley.
The girl, Sophie Dice, was born in a poor family, otherwise there would be no need to let such a young child sell flowers. The Dice family lived in a slum on the riverside block near the Talarill River. A family of five lived in a house that was about the same size as Shad's basement.
Last night, the two of them sent the girl to her home and watched her enter the house before leaving. But today, they must see the girl in person to confirm whether she is healthy, so they have to think of another way.
When they set out with the blonde writer, they could still see the starry sky when they looked up, but halfway through the journey, thick fog came up, causing Miss Louisa to complain about the factories in the city.
It was around 10:20 pm when we arrived at the slums near the Tyrare River. Even idlers would not go out to wander around at such a night.
Miss Louisa had made a very thorough plan, so after entering the dark alley where the Dais's house was located, the two went straight up and knocked on the door.
There were no lights in the alley, and poor families usually went to bed early at night, so there were no lights. The knock on the door seemed to wake up the people nearby, at least the Dais family was woken up.
The candlelight lit up in the room. After at least two minutes, a nervous man's voice came from inside the door:
"Who is it?"
Even where Captain Rades lived, there were occasional gunshots from gangsters, and the slum where the girl Sophie Dais and her family lived was even worse. Shad could fully imagine that the man who was asking questions behind the door was nervously holding a weapon like a kitchen knife.
Miss Louisa glanced at Shad, then took a shilling coin from her pocket and slipped it through the crack in the door.
"It doesn't matter who it is. You don't have to open the door. Now let all the women in the house stand in front of the door in turn, each for ten seconds. If you can do it, you have money. If you can't, you have a gun."
This is what Xia De said with a held-back voice. In this kind of situation, men's speeches are more intimidating than women's.
There was an immediate commotion inside the door, with the family's heavily accented whispers mixed together, making it difficult to tell who was saying what.
"OK."
After a long time, the middle-aged man's voice came. So Miss Louisa signaled Shade to move aside, and she looked inside through the crack of the door. For such dangerous actions, it is better for a high-level ring wizard to do it.
“Now the first one.”
Xia De said outside the door, looking at both ends of the alley to prevent anyone from appearing. After waiting for a while, he looked at Miss Louisa again, and the blonde waved her hand to indicate that it was okay.
"On a foggy night, in a dark slum alley, looking through the crack of a door to see if there is anything strange inside... a good subject for a horror story."
He thought to himself and wanted to speak, but the reminder of the whispering voice in his ear made him stunned. He looked at the sorceress's back in disbelief, and then said:
"And then the second one."
The light and shadow in the crack of the door changed, and I guess someone else appeared in front of the door.
After a while, Miss Louisa waved her hand again. Xia De squinted his eyes and looked at her back, then said to the door:
"The last one."
They had already found out the composition of Sophie's family from her yesterday.
The third person had no problem either. The blonde girl left the crack in the door, lowered her head and nodded slightly to Shade, hiding her face in the shadows. She stuffed two coins into the crack in the door again, and Shade watched this scene without saying a word.
After doing all this, the two people outside the door left the alley in the night. The exit of the alley faced the Terraril River. The river bank was almost invisible in the thick fog, and only the ships anchored in the river could be vaguely seen.
The two slowed down at the alley, and Miss Louisa stopped first, still with her head down. This block could only be illuminated by moonlight, and in the foggy night, Shade couldn't see her face at all.
Her clothes had become wet without her knowing, and her body was hidden in the deepest shadow at the entrance of the alley. Standing downwind, Xia De could smell an abnormal smell of seafood.
"Detective, please go ahead. I have something else to do."
Her voice was a little hoarse.
Xia De pursed his lips and looked his friend up and down:
"I see."
He looked down at his hands, then extended his hand to the girl in front of him:
"Miss Louisa, what do you think this is?"
The blonde girl lowered her head and looked at Shade's hand. Shade whispered:
"Silver Moon."
The holy silver moonlight suddenly burst out from the fingertips. Even though Shade intended to control the output power, Miss Louisa still screamed when she touched the silver moonlight from such a close distance.
She covered her eyes and stepped back. When she looked up, Shade finally saw that half of Miss Louisa's face was covered with fish scales.
He did not run away, but followed closely and pressed his right palm on Miss Louisa's face. The latter wanted to scream, but Shade's other hand also reached out and covered her mouth.
She struggled hard, but was still firmly pinned to the ground by Shade. Her covered mouth made a "wuwu~" sound, and her golden hair fell to the ground in disarray.
Shad's hands radiated a soft silver moonlight. He squatted beside the blonde girl and refused to let go even though Miss Louisa struggled hard and kept scratching his wrist with her fingers.
Gradually, Miss Louisa's resistance became weaker until it stopped completely.
The surroundings were filled with thick fog, completely obscuring the starry sky and the three moons. The wind also stopped, as if everything had stopped at this moment.