Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

Upon seeing the MI6 identification, the old man inside immediately showed an expression of terror. Shard gave him a hard push, causing the old man to stagger backwards a step as he himself took the opportunity to enter.

With a bang, he shut the door behind him, raised his right hand to press down on his hat, and stood in the shadow of the entryway, towering over the old man. At that moment, his oppressive demeanor was fully apparent:

"If there's no problem, don't come to the attic to disturb me. I'll leave naturally after I take what I need."

"You, you..."@@novelbin@@

The old man, leaning on his cane with both hands, slanted against the wall, hadn't expected the young man to barge in like this.

"Any other questions?"

"No, none, but you can take his things. I'm not refunding the rent!"

He said in a loud, fearful yet resolute voice.

"Rent? Do you think I care about that?"

Shard deliberately laughed, then ignoring the old man behind him, began to climb the creaking staircase.

He was very pleased with his own performance.

Lemer had complained about the landlord of this house in his journal, describing him as a typical bully who is a coward at heart. When Lemer first came to rent the place, the old man had tried to overcharge him, but after the ship crew revealed their worse and more offensive character, the landlord immediately offered a more reasonable price.

Being a landlord in such a relatively chaotic dockside district, the old man wheezing against the wall was certainly no good Samaritan. According to Lemer's guess, it seemed the man was using the basement workshop to smuggle prohibited items from the New World, producing some shady medicines.

It's puzzling that someone of his age would still engage in such activities, but Shard had no intention of investigating further for the time being.

According to the journal, Lemer, who had secured his position two years earlier, only entered the Second Ring this spring. He didn't describe in his journal the security measures he had put in place for the attic, but since he was neither a Church Ring Sorcerer nor an Academy Ring Sorcerer, the methods at his disposal should have been limited.

The door to the attic was locked, sealed shut by three large locks.

It just so happened that last night he had obtained a new sorcery, "Key of the Door," which can open anything with the concept of a "lock." The actual effectiveness depended on the strength of the lock itself and Shard's own power.

After hesitating for a moment, he tapped the topmost black iron lock, and with the power of sorcery, the lock clicked open.

"Oh? This effective?"

Shard looked at his fingers, then with great anticipation, tapped on the middle brass lock, which also unlocked itself on cue.

"With this skill, if I were a crook, Tobesk would probably have an expert thief by now."

Shard mused to himself and, after chatting with the smiling woman for a couple of lines, tapped on the lock of the bottom bolt that inserted into the floor. However, this time he encountered some resistance. He clearly felt some force hindering the use of sorcery but, fortunately, it wasn't very strong. With a little touch, the last lock gave in as well.

Picking up the rusty iron lock to inspect it, he found hardly noticeable scratches on the inside of the lock head. Strictly speaking, this lock wasn't an alchemical item; it was merely treated with runes to cause it to explode and sever a person's hand if they tried to break it open by force.

This might work on the average person, but for a Magician, a little caution would prevent them from falling for it.

He opened the door and waited a moment. Hearing no unusual sounds from inside, Shard then entered the attic.

The entire attic was open-plan, amounting to one large room, about the size of two of Detective Sparrow's master bedrooms. The room was dimly lit, furnished with common household items such as a wardrobe, bookshelves, a desk, and a bed. There were some black and white printed color magazines on the desk and a pile of tax documents on the coffee table. It looked like the monotonous room of a single man, with no suspicious items visible on the surface.

He first used "Echo of the Past" to listen to the sounds from the past 48 hours. After confirming that no one had recently visited, he then began to look around:

"Can you feel the traces of the Relic?"

After lighting the gas lamp, Shard stood by the window, slightly prying open the gap in the curtains with his fingers, cautiously looking outside as he asked.

"There is a strong Whisper Element, look to the left."

To the left was a wardrobe, with some cardboard boxes on top. The element was mainly inside the wardrobe, so Shard put on gloves before reaching out to open the wardrobe doors.

But no sooner had his hand touched the handle of the wardrobe, a chill as if penetrating to the marrow blew through the room with its doors and windows shut. Then footsteps sounded from behind, and as Shard turned around, he saw a fully decomposed corpse lunging at him. Even prepared in mind, the horrific sight startled Shard.

"Thief!"

The red of the gaping mouth's gum line was vividly visible.

"Illusion."

"I know."

The palm released the handle, and both the chill wind and the lunging corpse disappeared. Grasping the handle again caused the corpse and wind to reappear.

So Shard bent down to take a closer look and indeed saw Runes carefully inscribed on the handle:

"This person is really skilled at Runes, but he's just been promoted to Second Ring and his foundation isn't solid," he thought, as a beam of moonlight flew from his hand, splitting the wardrobe handle in two and allowing him to open the doors.

A musty smell wafted from inside. The small wardrobe contained a few men's garments, two breezy women's dresses, and a white garter—whether they belonged to a technician or Lemer had some peculiar fetish, they were all just ordinary outfits.

On the right, there was something covered with a red cloth. Shard reached out to lift the cloth, but his hand had barely extended when he frowned and immediately stepped back.

By its shape, the object was very similar to a Mermaid Statue he had seen covered with cloth before.

"I knew there would be trouble," he muttered. Continue your journey with My Virtual Library Empire

At present, Shard didn't know the exact transmission method of this strange and deadly Curse, but avoiding contact with the Source of the Curse was certainly the best way to resist it.

Therefore, not worrying about whether there was anything else of value in the wardrobe, he found a poker from the side and carefully shut the wardrobe door. He watched the door for half a minute without any anomalies appearing before he allowed himself to relax a little. Even if there were thousands of pounds in cash inside the wardrobe, Shard would never open it again.

He then continued the search, but unfortunately, the only Relic in the attic was the one in the wardrobe. Besides the Relic, after carefully searching the room, Shard also found 23 Gold Pounds and 7 Krone in cash—the currency of Carsonrick. It made sense for seamen who worked year-round on the sea and the New World to carry foreign money.

The money was just a minor gain—the most important finds were actually an old book related to the "Wind" Spirit Rune, titled "Windy Abyss," along with Lemer's Academy Ring Sorcerer notebooks and letters.

Any Ring Sorcerer is bound to be affiliated with an organization; stern entry requirements and a complex power structure ensure that there are no solitary Magicians. And from those letters, it was evident that Lemer's opportunity to become a Ring Sorcerer came two years ago when his Talent awakened during an encounter with a traveler headed for the New World, thus setting him on the path of the Ring Sorcerer.

The name of their organization was "Seabreeze Club," an entity Shard had never heard of. Judging from the knowledge recounted in Lemer's notebook and his everyday interactions with friends, it seemed like a small club formed by a few Magicians, possibly slightly more powerful than Dr. Schneider's group of five.

Beyond his own experiences, Lemer's leftover materials also described events after he realized he was cursed.

Realizing the Curse began the third month after receiving the statue from the warehouse dispatcher. The eerie Dreams led him to think of the Mermaid Statue, and upon understanding it was the Source of the Curse, the slow-witted Lemer finally recognized it as a Relic.

After writing to the club for help and describing his predicament, the club immediately severed all contact with him. Then, like the dispatcher whom Shard had shot, Lemer knew that resorting to the Church for help, given his past deeds, would mean certain death. He hoped his own research could uncover a way to lift the Curse.

Though he ultimately died of the Curse, in a strict sense, this abandoned Low Ring Sorcerer did discover something.