After making sure his own affairs were handled, the detective on the bed closed his eyes. Shard waited a while, pressed his lips together, and carefully pulled his hand away to check for breath and pulse.
“Dead?”
He couldn’t believe the other person had died so easily, and in almost exactly ten minutes.
Before he could make any further response, a black light suddenly flashed across the corpse’s face. An extreme sense of terror instantly overwhelmed Shard.
However, once he regained his senses, the black light had dissipated into the air and disappeared.
As the light vanished, the emaciated corpse, looking like it had starved to death, began to visibly grow plumper, as if someone was inflating it from within, until it returned to the appearance of a normal corpse.
“What is normal about this? What exactly is happening now?”
In the silent room, Shard anxiously looked around, feeling uneasy not because he was left alone with a corpse, but because of the unfamiliar environment. This world was not the one he knew; he had already glimpsed a part of the mysterious and dangerous truths of this world.
The woman’s voice echoed in his mind again, as if reminding Shard that this wasn’t a “human” place:
[You’ve encountered ‘Whispers’.]
“What encounter? What Whispers? Can you explain in detail?”
But the voice still didn’t respond.
[Whispers] were one of the “Four Mysteries” that the detective had just mentioned; obviously, the so-called [Relic] and [Whispers] were the truth behind his death.
Although the oppressive and unknown truth left Shard at a loss, looking at the body on the bed, he surprisingly didn’t feel much fear.
“I wish all this were just a joke,” he thought.
Right now, he hoped this was all just an act, but rationally knew it wasn’t.
After standing silently at the bedside for a while, he quietly walked around the four-poster bed, carefully and calmly pulling back the heavy curtains. Immediately, the weak morning sunlight streamed through the fog and the window glass into the room.
The light seemed to momentarily dispel his unease.
“Is it morning now?”
Because of the heavy fabric curtains, he had thought it was nighttime.
Knock, knock, knock~
Suddenly, the sound of knocking startled Shard, making him let go of the curtain instinctively, then he quickly grasped it again and fully opened it. Squinting towards the window, he saw the street outside. He had no time to appreciate the peculiar sights of the steam era through the fog; first, he looked down to confirm that the ones knocking were undertakers. He could see the cart carrying the body and turned to open the door.
“They can accurately know the time of death, so the undertakers can arrive so precisely.”
He mused while pushing open the bedroom door. Outside was the living room, with a suspected steam-era gas pipe climbing along the walls, handcrafted wooden furniture, and various stacked documents scattered around.
A small blackboard hung on the wall, with a formal tea table and a fabric sofa set, making it quite reminiscent of a detective agency’s style.
The living room curtains were not drawn, letting in the dim morning light, which slanted onto the floor at Shard’s feet.
In the light, dust floated silently, like eerie tiny creatures swimming about. The realism made Shard feel a bit creeped out.
Opening the cold bolt and security chain of the front door, he faced the descending spiral stairs, with another door next to it, indicating that this floor had two residences, similar to the apartment building in Sherlock Holmes novels.
Without finding any lights, he could only spiral down the dimly oppressive stairs, his heart seemingly pounding in his chest with each step. The dark environment made Shard’s overactive mind sense some terrifying presence watching him.
Reaching the first floor from the second, the stairs led straight to the foyer. One side of the foyer had a passage, completely nailed shut with planks, akin to a sealed coffin, leaving only the foyer usable on the first floor.
This scene further confused the already somewhat nervous foreigner:
“Why seal off the first floor? What’s going on here?”
Passing by the shoe rack, he picked up a fallen umbrella, glanced at the gas lamp on the wall above the shoe rack, carefully turned it on, and the light stabilized his heart.
He took a deep breath and opened the door.
A silent, black-coated old man stood at the door, a badge of overlapping leaves on his chest, with the gloomy sky and choking fog behind him. The old man glanced at Shard, speaking in a voice low as leaves scraping on a wet, cold ground:
“Shard Hamilton?”
He used the same language as the deceased detective, the so-called Delarion.
“Yes.”
Shard nodded somewhat cautiously, gesturing for the emotionless-looking old man to follow him upstairs.
The old man then signaled the melancholy middle-aged man behind to calm the horse; the latter’s face matched the somber weather.
The three climbed the stairs together. Unsure of what to say, Shard silently led them to the upstairs room marked “No.1”.
Throughout the process, almost no one spoke. The old man and middle-aged man carried the scent of corpses. They first put on gloves, confirmed the detective on the bed was indeed dead, and then handed Shard a document, requiring his signature.
It was a confirmation for the city’s public cemetery management to handle the body, signed by both the public cemetery management and the city funeral committee. The bottom was a prayer for the deceased, the translation of which made Shard uncomfortable.
As the two checked the body, Shard sat at the bedroom desk and picked up a cold pen.
His mind was somewhat confused, but he realized he could understand and read the text though he couldn’t write. Fortunately, the recently acquired knowledge included writing abilities along with speaking. Translating his name phonetically into the “Human Northern Common Language Delarion,” he proceeded to sign.
The contents on the cold page held nothing noteworthy, mainly confirming the handover of the body and the payment for the funeral services.
“But judging from another signature at the bottom, this world’s names, like the western world of my previous life, are in three parts, with formal documents requiring a middle name. The first name is ‘Shard,’ the last name can follow ‘Hamilton,’ but the middle name…”
In his chaotic and anxious state, Shard wasn’t sure if the late Hamilton had given the body’s original owner a middle name. Now wasn’t the time to search the room; he needed a temporary middle name quickly.
[Suellen.]
The murmuring voice in his mind made Shard nearly jump. The voice suggested a word existing in both the ancient language the woman used and the detective’s Northern Kingdom Common Language, meaning [Silver Moon].
“I can use that as my middle name, but you need to explain.”
Shard tried to communicate again, feeling exceptionally nervous; this time, the woman’s murmuring voice responded:
[This is fate, foreigner. The Silver Moon is your destiny. When you gather the Four Mysteries, push open the door of transcendence, and look into this terrifying world, its significance will reveal itself.]
Frowning, Shard suppressed his inner fear, thought for a moment, and signed his name firmly:
Shard Suellen Hamilton.
The undertakers didn’t require death certificates, cause of death reports, or an autopsy by the police. It seemed as if the detective’s death was as mundane as a stray dog’s passing.
Retrieving the “Body Handover Authorization” from Shard, they gave him a receipt with the grave location written on it before silently carrying Mr. Hamilton’s body, dressed in pajamas, away.
Shard escorted them to the downstairs door but didn’t step outside himself. He watched as they placed the body into a narrow coffin lined with brown cloth, like stained blood, on the carriage.
The middle-aged man drove the carriage, carrying the coffin and the old man, into the thick fog further down the street.
“Well then, goodbye, Mr. Sparrow Hamilton.”
He silently thought, closing the door, and standing in the dimly lit foyer for a moment before climbing the dreadful dark stairs again. His footsteps were heavy, but without anyone around, there was an inexplicable sense of ease amid the tension:
“Simpler than I thought; they didn’t question Mr. Hamilton’s cause of death, nor did they care if I was really Shard Hamilton, not even asking for a tip for moving the body. Detective Hamilton indeed had already arranged everything.”
The body left with many secrets, leaving Shard, the despicable foreigner now inhabiting another’s body, with countless mysteries. He still had numerous questions he wanted to ask Mr. Hamilton and many doubts waiting for answers.
However, the dead cannot be resurrected; he must accept the other’s death and strive to stand his ground in this seemingly bizarre world.
The only good news was that the house on the second floor, previously belonging to Sparrow Hamilton, was now Shard’s. He had instantly become a homeowner in this otherworld closely resembling the Victorian era of the mid-19th century.
With the first floor boarded up, the adjacent “No.2” room on the second floor locked from the outside, and the stairs to the third floor completely broken, Shard was now the sole occupant in this empty house.
Returning to the “No.1” room on the second floor, he thoroughly inspected every corner of the darkened study, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. Only after confirming there was no one in those shadows did he exhale in relief, sitting on the living room sofa, slightly reassured, watching the morning fog outside the window.
Shard finally had time to sort out his current situation:
“I’ve transmigrated, inherited a detective agency. The original owner’s mind might be faulty; trained by the predecessor detective to assist with a seemingly simple task after death. Detective Sparrow Hamilton had secrets; this world holds mysterious powers; his death and the voice in my mind prove it. Now I need to gather the Four Mysteries, the detective’s death has already connected me to [Whispers].”
Rubbing his face, although worried, the situation wasn’t all bad. Sparrow Hamilton’s sudden death aside, Shard had a footing in this new world.
It was enough to support his life, explore the secrets of this world, and perhaps find a way home.
Shard wasn’t one to simply accept things passively, nor to complain about everything. Unexpectedly leaving his hometown for here was, of course, unfortunate. But for now, all he could do was accept it and strive to live well here, aiming for an even better life.
“Meanwhile, let’s see what this supernatural world, the secrets of the Steam Age, those rituals and spells have to offer. How could one be content with the ordinary?”
Shard softly sighed, as the woman’s laughter echoed in his mind, pleasant like a gentle breeze over a lavender field.
