"Honorific Name?"
At the tea house, Adèle raised an eyebrow upon hearing Ed’s suggestion, her face showing clear surprise.
"Detective, are you referring to the Honorific Name of some deity? What can I gain by praying to Them?"
"Yes, this is the Honorific Name of a deity from the other world. You might not have heard of it, Miss Adèle, as Their name is generally only circulated within our Rose Cross Order. If you pray to Them, I can share the vision of my flesh puppets with you. This way, you can observe the situation inside the police station from here."
After taking a sip of tea, Ed responded to Adèle, who continued to show interest.
"A deity secretly revered within your Rose Cross Order? That’s quite intriguing... Could you tell me more about this deity? Praying to an unfamiliar Honorific Name can be quite dangerous."
Adèle pressed further, seemingly wanting to learn more about this Honorific Name or the Rose Cross Order. Facing her inquiry, Ed calmly replied.
"Well... I can’t say I can’t tell you, Miss Adèle, but the detailed information about this Honorific Name contains a significant amount of cognitive poison. Without proper preparation, it could be dangerous for you to hear it. However, just the Honorific Name itself is harmless."
Ed explained, essentially telling Adèle that the waters surrounding this Honorific Name were too deep for her to navigate. The cognitive poison was too potent for her to handle!
In reality, the Honorific Name Dorothy had in mind didn’t have much detailed information. Given that her knowledge of the mysticism world and ancient lore might not even match Adèle’s, making up details on the spot could lead to glaring mistakes. So, Dorothy decided not to fabricate anything and simply told Adèle that the detailed information was too dangerous without proper preparation. Given the urgency of the situation, there wasn’t enough time to delve into it."A deity whose detailed information contains powerful cognitive poison? Hmm... It seems this is a closely guarded secret of your Rose Cross Order. To share even a part of it with me... I must thank you for your trust. However... reciting the Honorific Name of an unfamiliar deity is always risky. Can you guarantee my safety, Detective?"
Adèle asked, and Dorothy immediately manipulated Ed to respond.
"You can trust me completely, Miss Adèle. If I wanted to harm you, I’ve had plenty of opportunities before. I have no intention of causing you any harm. If you don’t trust me, that’s fine too. I can continue to monitor the police station with my small flesh puppets and wait for the mole to reveal themselves. But who knows how long that will take? The longer we wait, the more unpredictable the situation becomes."
Ed spoke with a serious expression. After hearing his words, Adèle paused for a moment before slowly responding.
"Sigh... You’re right, Detective. This matter concerns my teacher, and we can’t afford to delay. You’ve already helped me so much, and since I’ve hired you, it would be meaningless not to trust you... Please give me the Honorific Name."
Adèle said to Ed. Hearing her words, Ed smiled slightly and took out a small piece of paper from his pocket, carefully handing it to Adèle.
Adèle took the paper and slowly unfolded it, examining it carefully as if checking for any mental influence or cognitive poison. After a while, she finally finished reading the information on the paper and frowned.
"It really is a deity I’ve never heard of... A..."
Adèle was about to recite the Honorific Name written on the paper when Ed raised a finger to his lips, signaling her to be silent, and whispered.
"No need to say it out loud. Just pray silently in your heart. As long as we both pay our respects to Them, our senses will be connected."
Ed spoke mysteriously. After hearing his words, Adèle hesitated for a moment. Thinking of her teacher, she finally decided to close her eyes and silently recite the Honorific Name she had just read on the paper.
“The Boundless Above of This World…”
On the other side, inside the carriage, Dorothy immediately established an information channel to Adèle upon hearing her prayer. Using this channel, Dorothy shared the vision of her marionettes inside the police station with Adèle. In an instant, Adèle felt as though she had gained four or five additional pairs of eyes and ears, seeing more scenes and hearing more sounds. A flood of new information rushed into Adèle’s mind, overwhelming her for a moment before she managed to regain her composure.
"Ah... This is truly... a fascinating experience..."
Adèle sighed, holding her forehead. At this moment, she could feel herself simultaneously viewing multiple perspectives, monitoring several rooms from different angles—some from above, some from below, some from narrow crevices, and some from small holes. She watched the bustling scenes inside the police station, seeing numerous officers in uniform rushing about. From their conversations, it seemed that the recent sandstorm caused by the black dog had stirred up chaos throughout the Coal Ash District.
"So, can you identify which officers are acting suspiciously?"
Ed asked Adèle, who immediately began using her abilities with the vision provided by Dorothy’s puppets. She sensed the desires within the hearts of the officers in the police station, detecting their most urgent thoughts at that moment.
"These officers... seem quite panicked. The sandstorm caused by that black dog has caused widespread alarm. Many people are coming to the police station to report incidents, and most of the officers are frustrated. Their desires are focused on the civilians coming to report. They want to restore calm and quickly send these people away... Some officers have never seen such an abnormal sandstorm before, and their desires are directed at the sandstorm itself, hoping it will end soon..."
Sitting in the tea house, Adèle used the small marionettes Dorothy had placed inside the Coal Ash District police station to spy on the crowd. She observed the overwhelmed officers and the panicked civilians reporting incidents, using her abilities to secretly inspect each officer and report her findings. Hearing Adèle’s words, Ed remained calm and continued.
"Do any of them seem unusual?"
"No, these desires are typical reactions of ordinary people in such a situation. I don’t see anything unusual about anyone here. You should move the flesh puppets around to let me see more areas and more people."
Adèle responded, clearly indicating that no one in the current field of view was acting suspiciously and that they needed to change perspectives. Dorothy followed Adèle’s suggestion and began manipulating the small marionettes inside the police station to change positions and angles, observing other officers.
In this way, Dorothy and Adèle worked together to search through the personnel inside the Coal Ash District police station. Soon, Adèle noticed something unusual.
"Wait, I think I’ve found someone interesting. That guy is sitting in a separate office. Judging by his clothes and the office environment, he seems to be the chief of this police station. He’s sitting alone behind his desk, completely uninterested in the sandstorm outside or the civilians flooding into the station to report incidents... It’s as if he doesn’t care at all…”
"This guy seems a bit anxious, but his desires aren’t directed at the sandstorm or the civilians. He doesn’t care about those things. His desire... is actually a desire to communicate and understand. Who does he want to communicate with? What does he want to understand? And what’s even stranger is... the target of his communication seems to be himself?"
Adèle murmured as she analyzed the desires of the police chief in his office. Out of everyone in the police station, the chief’s desires were the most peculiar. Hearing Adèle’s words, Dorothy was momentarily stunned, then had Ed smile and speak.
"A desire to communicate... but the target is himself? Interesting... It seems we’ve found our man, Miss Adèle. Can you stimulate his desires now? Make him act without hesitation and do what he truly wants to do."
"Certainly."
Adèle responded simply, then began using her abilities to influence the police chief in his office.
…
Inside the Coal Ash District Police Station, in a quiet office, the well-dressed police chief sat behind his desk, gazing out the window at the lingering sandstorm with a worried expression. Although he appeared calm on the surface, a faint trace of anxiety was visible between his brows.
The police chief sat at his desk, seemingly doing nothing, his mind preoccupied with thoughts. However, it was clear that his anxiety was slowly growing. He began to tap his foot unconsciously, then drummed his fingers on the desk, and finally stood up and started pacing around the office, growing increasingly restless.
After pacing around the office a few times, the man, unable to suppress his urgent thoughts, returned to his desk. He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a small mouse, placing it on the desk. He then spoke softly to it.
"Your Excellency Alex, how are things now? Have the black dogs been lured into the trap? How did I perform in my task?"
The man spoke to the mouse on his desk. After a moment, the mouse began to move. It scurried around the desk, knocking over an ink bottle, then dipped its paw in the ink and clumsily wrote a phrase on a blank sheet of paper.
"Don’t disturb me now!"
"Yes, yes! I won’t disturb you anymore. I was just nervous. I’ll continue to wait here for your updates!"
The police chief hurriedly apologized to the mouse on his desk. Hearing his words, the mouse stopped moving and lay still on the desk. The man quickly picked up the mouse and put it back into his inner pocket, then sat back down at his desk with a sigh of relief.
…
Not far from the Coal Ash District Police Station, inside the tea house, Adèle and Ed remained seated. Through the vision provided by the marionettes in the police station, both of them had witnessed the scene in the chief’s office. Now, a playful expression appeared on their faces.
"That mouse... is it a flesh puppet? He was talking to the puppet, using it to relay messages to its controller?"
Adèle analyzed the scene, stroking her chin. Ed, sitting across from her, nodded and spoke.
"Exactly. Since those people know you have Chalice spirituality perception and can detect flesh puppets without Shadow protection, and small flesh puppets can’t carry or use mystical items, the chief must be wearing a Shadow item himself and carrying the small flesh puppet close to his body. This way, he can shield it from your spiritual perception."
Ed sipped his tea and continued, gazing out the window at the distant police station.
"The police station is a public place, not his home. It’s difficult to set up an altar or something similar for remote communication. The Dream Anchor Sigil requires both parties to enter a dream simultaneously to communicate, and without a way to notify the other party to sleep and enter the dream in advance, using it to relay information would be too slow. Using the telegraph would also take a long time to encode and decode, and if he doesn’t understand it himself, he’d need to arrange for additional personnel.”
"So, for this mole of a police chief to quickly relay information to the mastermind, the best method is probably to carry a small flesh puppet controlled by the mastermind. Whenever he has something to say, he just takes out the puppet and speaks to it. It’s quite convenient, like using a phone to make a call. A flesh phone."
"A phone? A call?" Adèle tilted her head at the unfamiliar terms Ed had mentioned. Hearing her question, Dorothy was momentarily stunned, then had Ed continue to explain.
"Well... I read about it in some ancient mystical texts. It’s a mystical item used by an ancient civilization, capable of efficiently transmitting information across thousands of miles. It’s very reliable and far more efficient than most mystical items and methods today."
Dorothy had Ed explain this way, essentially telling the truth. Many mystical communication methods in this world were indeed less efficient than a phone. Her Literary Sea Logbook was essentially equivalent to the functionality of WeChat.
Given that inventions like the internal combustion engine carry cognitive poison, it’s likely that telephone technology also has cognitive poison. If Dorothy were to actually invent the telephone, it wouldn’t be wrong to call it a mystical item.
"A phone... a mystical item that can efficiently transmit information? Interesting... I hope I can see it someday. But for now, we have more pressing matters, Detective... Now that we’ve found the mole, how do you plan to use him?" Adèle asked Ed, who furrowed his brows and pondered before responding.
"At the moment, it’s not easy to make use of him. The mastermind doesn’t seem to want to engage with the chief right now. He didn’t answer the chief’s questions at all, so we can’t extract any crucial information from him.”
"Although I could try to take control of that mouse phone and pretend to be the mastermind to trick the chief into revealing information, interrupting the control would alert the mastermind. It’s not a good idea to startle the snake now."
Ed spoke with difficulty, voicing Dorothy’s dilemma. Although they had found the mastermind’s mole, since the mastermind hadn’t revealed any valuable information, they still couldn’t locate him.
“So... how can we find that guy now?”
Sitting in the carriage, Dorothy pondered in her mind. After a while, she came up with an idea.
“Got it... Maybe we can try this…”