In the dark of the night, a massive steam train continued to speed forward. It did not stop at the scheduled supply station along the way but kept racing ahead toward a distant city along the tracks.
Inside a spacious second-class carriage, countless passengers sat quietly in rows of seats, traveling together with the train, patiently awaiting their final destination. As the night deepened, many passengers had already closed their eyes to rest, some even gradually falling asleep.
Among them, however, one passenger simply could not shut his eyes, no matter how hard he tried.
This was a man dressed entirely in black, wearing a black hat, with a small bag placed by his feet. His skin was slightly pale, his expression stern and grave, and his face had grown so thin that it outlined the contours of a skull.
This man was a "Wall Walker" lurking aboard the train—the culprit behind the murder of Sodod and the theft of his transferred goods. Having completed his mission, he was now waiting for the train to make a stop so he could use his ability to phase through the walls and escape, returning to his organization.
Before taking action, he had already infiltrated the conductor’s cabin via his wall-walking ability to check the timetable. He confirmed that in just over twenty minutes, the train was scheduled to stop at a small station in a town for supplies, giving him the perfect opportunity to disembark. However, now that more than half an hour had passed, the train showed no signs of stopping, causing him to feel a sense of unease.
"Wasn’t this train supposed to stop soon? Why hasn’t it stopped yet? Did something unexpected happen? Could that guy still be alive and causing trouble? No, that’s impossible. A mere district captain from the Serenity Bureau wouldn’t be able to counteract the venom of the Scarlet Silk Spider."
Such thoughts ran through his mind, but then he suddenly realized—he had never actually seen Sodod’s corpse. After using his smoke escape ability, he had spent a long time searching the surrounding carriages by phasing through the walls. He had silently scoured every corner of the first-class cabin but found nothing. Eventually, he had to halt his search due to excessive spirituality depletion after counteracting detection spells. With Sodod neither alive nor dead, a faint sense of unease crept into his heart.
Faced with this situation, he could, of course, choose to jump off the train. However, in this world, steam trains generally travel at around 60 km/h. He was not a Chalice pathway Beyonder, so jumping off would leave him with only his hardened skin—an ability derived from his Stone pathway spirituality—as protection. But this hardening wasn’t particularly advanced. While it would prevent him from dying in the fall, he would not emerge unscathed either. There was no need to take such a risk.
As a Beyonder, he would certainly survive the jump, but he would definitely be injured. More importantly, in the middle of nowhere, with poor transportation options, an injured man would be at a great disadvantage. For him, there was absolutely no reason to jump. He firmly believed that this train would have to stop at some point. All he needed to do was wait patiently.Aside from Sodod, whom he had already defeated, the rest of the train was filled with ordinary people. If he had enough spirituality, he could kill them all. However, adhering to his assassin’s nature, he didn’t want to attract too much attention. That was precisely why he had chosen to stay in the second-class carriage.
Just as he resolved to keep waiting, he suddenly heard a commotion in the carriage. Glancing around, he saw several train attendants moving through the rows, stopping at each passenger. From their actions, they seemed to be collecting tickets.
"Collecting tickets? What are the attendants doing? There’s no need to take the tickets for a routine check, is there?"
As he pondered this, an attendant finally reached him.
"Sir, please present your ticket. We need to collect them temporarily and will return them to you afterward."
"What are you collecting them for?" the man asked directly.
"Rest assured, sir, this is just a detailed inspection. Our conductor suspects that someone has boarded the train using a fake ticket."
Hearing this, the man said nothing more. Like the other passengers, he silently handed over his ticket. The attendant took it, expressed gratitude, and continued collecting tickets from the other passengers.
...
"Detective, all the tickets are here. As per your instructions, we’ve noted the seat numbers on each ticket. For those without tickets, we issued replacements and included them in the collection. We’ve also added the work badges of all train staff."
In the corridor of the first-class carriage, a train attendant stood before Edrick, holding a box filled with tickets.
"Thank you all. These tickets will be key to my deduction," Edrick said with a smile as he took the box. His words puzzled some of the nearby train staff, including the conductor.
"Detective, I’m curious—what kind of deduction requires these tickets? Can you really identify the culprit using them alone?" the conductor asked.
Edrick responded with an air of mystery, "Heh… I can’t reveal that just yet. Now, I need some time to analyze and deduce the truth. I’ll need some privacy."
"Hmm… let me think… The desk in my cabin is a bit uneven, so I’ll use this one instead. Is that alright, conductor?"
As he spoke, Edrick pointed to a nearby compartment. The conductor, without hesitation, nodded.
"Of course, no problem. I wish you success in your deduction."
"Thank you for your cooperation, conductor."
With that, Edrick carried the box into the compartment, closed the door, and turned on the light. Then, he placed the box to the side and pulled out a large sheet of paper from his clothes, spreading it out on the table. The paper bore an intricate magical array representing Revelation and Lantern.
At that moment, Dorothy, who had been hiding under the bed, crawled out and mumbled, "Deduction, deduction… What a joke… When is deduction ever better than divination?"
Indeed, Dorothy planned to use divination to locate the assassin. The target, despite being able to phase through walls and roam undetected, still needed spirituality to do so and couldn’t remain inside walls indefinitely. Most of the time, he had to disguise himself as an ordinary passenger. By having the attendants collect all the tickets, Dorothy had ensured that the assassin’s ticket would be among them, which would serve as the medium for her divination.
After Edric laid out the magic array paper, Dorothy placed the box on top of it. Then, she walked over, took out three coin-shaped Lantern spiritual storages, and placed them within the array.
Divination could accomplish many things, but different methods had different limitations. Pendulums could only divine locations, coins could only provide yes-or-no answers, rods could only indicate directions, and clocks could only divine time.
None of these methods were ideal for identifying the killer. A pendulum required a large and precise map, which wasn’t available on the train. Dorothy didn’t have enough spirituality to use coins to test each suspect individually. The rod was also inefficient for gradually narrowing down a suspect. The clock was entirely irrelevant.
Thus, she had to use a different divination method—"Drawing Lots."
Prepared with sufficient Revelation and Lantern spirituality to overcome the assassin’s anti-divination defenses, Dorothy began the ritual. She reached into the box, stirring the pile of tickets. After a moment, she pulled one out.
At the same time, she consumed one point of Revelation, and one of the coins on the table dimmed. This indicated that the target had no anti-divination defenses—meaning Dorothy had identified him with minimal spiritual cost.
"No anti-divination? A Black-rank assassin this poor? No… even those two Bonesmiths before didn’t have any. Maybe this is just normal for Black-ranks? That Luer guy was just ridiculously rich… way above the usual Black-rank standard."
Pushing aside irrelevant thoughts, Dorothy examined the ticket she had drawn. It bore the passenger’s name and the seat number written on it by the train attendants, per her instructions.
"Seventh carriage, fifth row, fourth seat… Jim Cook."