Mystery: Survival from the Secret Doll

Chapter 271 270 Three Corpses
The patients in the ward have disappeared, and the person at 47 Golden Rose Street and the passerby I saw on the street are also dead.

Klein hurried back to his ward, took off his hospital gown and put on his regular clothes. Without waiting for Pedigru and Tang to come and "visit" him, he left St. Peter's Hospital to call for help.

As soon as he stepped out of the main gate of St. Peter's Hospital, Klein immediately boarded one of the many private carriages available at the hospital entrance. Now was not the time to worry about saving money. He gave the driver an address, and the carriage headed towards No. 32 Red Rose Street, in the direction of Blackthorn Security Company.

Upon arriving at 32 Red Rose Street and pushing open the door, Klein saw that Daly, Dunn, Leonard, and others in the lobby on the first floor seemed to be about to leave as well.

"Klein, shouldn't you still be in St. Peter's at this time... What happened?"

Looking at the panting Klein, Dunn spoke first and asked.

"That's right, Captain."

Klein had already prepared his story on the way there and quickly told them what he knew.

Since it had been determined that the cause of these events could not have been an official Extraordinary, Klein recounted in detail, aside from the divination above the gray fog, the events he had experienced in his nightmares over the past few days, in which the characters in his nightmares died in reality.

"Leonard."

Dunn turned his head to look at Leonard, who was wearing a monocle.

Leonard thought for a moment and said, "There was a serious traffic accident on Golden Rose Street this morning. Someone did die. Pedigree handled the matter."

Dunn grunted in agreement, then immediately said, "We're going back to St. Petersburg. Daly, go to the University of Tingen and ask about the current situation of the thief who was caught earlier."

“Pedigru has already gone to handle things on Golden Rose Street. Leonard, tell Cohen to inform Pedigru about Klein’s situation, and then you can come to St. Peter’s Hospital.”

"Okay, Captain."

Dunn calmly gave the order, and Daly chuckled, "What an impatient man. Ah, well, sometimes speed isn't without its advantages."

Dunn, Leonard, and Klein were all silent for a few seconds, and then none of them responded to Daly's words; they quickly got to work.

Leonard pinched the monocle in his left eye socket. The monocle reflected Klein's pale face, which looked as if he had just recovered from a serious illness.

He had that smile on his lips that made Klein a little uncomfortable, but Klein couldn't care less about that right now.

Dunn straightened his hat, then spoke to Klein in an unusually calm tone:

"let's go."

-

St. Peter's Hospital, basement level, morgue.

"Patient name: Zoltan Fleck, 37 years old, from Tingen. He was admitted to the hospital with a severe lung disease. After several treatments at St. Peter's Hospital, he was almost fully recovered. However, early this morning, his stomach condition suddenly worsened. Despite the doctors' efforts to resuscitate him, he succumbed to multiple complications and died. Time of death..."

Upon seeing this, Dunn's eyes darkened: "It coincides with the time this morning when the carriage went out of control and killed a pedestrian on Golden Rose Street."

This is the file from Klein's nightmare, belonging to a problematic patient at St. Peter's Hospital.

They went down to the basement to examine the body, but because they were not professional forensic doctors, they could only perform basic occult examinations and use the patient's detailed records from St. Peter's Hospital.

During this time, Klein also tried his methods as a diviner, but the results of the divination only proved that it was really just an ordinary, unremarkable corpse.

It was disturbed, or perhaps it was just an ordinary, unremarkable corpse.

As a fortune teller, Klein quickly figured out the problem.

Fortunately, Captain Dunn did not doubt what he said.

"Divination is not omnipotent. If the chosen divination statement itself has certain problems, or if there are extraordinary individuals who oppose divination and prophecy to interfere, or if the content of the divination is a fact but there are still certain problems behind this fact, none of these can be determined through divination."

As Klein pondered this, he felt something inside him suddenly shatter.

"The potion has been largely digested?"

Klein immediately realized something. "Is this because I summarized the first rule of the diviner's role?"

Unexpectedly, signs of significant digestion appeared here. Klein thought with a rather complicated feeling.

Soon after, two more fresh bodies were brought to the morgue on the basement floor of St. Peter's Hospital.

Accompanying them, besides the medical staff, were Pedigru and Leonard Mitchell, who wore a monocle and seemed to be hiding some secret.

"It happened very suddenly. We checked the coachman but found nothing else wrong. It seems to be just a coincidence."

"I'm afraid this is no coincidence."

Dunn spoke in a low voice, his gray eyes reflecting the three stiff corpses before him, "These people's exact appearances just appeared in Klein's nightmares, and they died just like that, with an almost inevitable coincidence..."

“The timing is really too tight.” Leonard adjusted his monocle, speaking meaningfully, “A murder happened on Golden Rose Street, and then a patient at St. Peter’s died because of a sudden worsening of his illness.”

“Indeed, rather than a coincidence, this seems more like a cover-up after the problem was discovered.” Pedigre also pondered. “To kill someone with a problem in this way, with a certain element of coincidence, is like the work of a third force that appeared in the notebook theft case…”

He looked at Klein and suddenly asked, "Klein, what are your thoughts?"

As the first extraordinary individual to discover these problems, Klein has a certain right to speak on this matter.

Moreover, as a highly intuitive diviner, Klein should be among the first to notice the problem.

“Just like you said,” Klein paused before continuing, “maybe they realized someone had discovered their problem, and then they killed them through a series of seemingly ‘normal’ coincidences.”

"This is similar to what we previously speculated about, the way the mastermind behind the missing notebook could manipulate coincidences... but I don't think it's that mastermind."

"Because these people are not ordinary people?"

Dunn seemed thoughtful. "Hmm, your idea might be right. These people, no, these corpses themselves, should have been in a state of some abnormality. After being discovered, they died, and the trail went cold." At this moment, the morgue door opened again, and Klein looked over and saw Don, Daly, and a University of Michigan investigator he had met before walk in.

“These three people have some issues, and we will conduct a thorough investigation.”

Tang, who had just entered, said, "Whether it's a coincidence or an inevitability, whether it's a living person or a secret puppet, once we examine it, we'll surely be able to dispel some of the mystery."

"After all, Emperor Roselle once wrote in his novel that wherever one goes, a trace is left behind."

Under the professional examination of the University of Michigan investigators, Klein and his team quickly learned the answer.

"It is a Mystic Puppet, and it has been Mysticized, meaning it has been dead for some time."

The investigator from the University of Michigan explained in a dry, low voice, like frosted glass, "From a mystical perspective, all the puppet masters, that is, the Sequence 5 of the Diviner's Path, the puppets they manipulate, their spirits die the moment they become puppets."

"Even if these marionettes maintain normal function in terms of brain, organs, blood flow, and breathing, to the point where it is almost impossible to detect any problems, experienced corpse collectors with high enough rank can still find abnormalities in these normal physiological phenomena."

"At the same time, the consciousness and thoughts of these puppets themselves have changed uncontrollably and irreversibly. Their fate ends at the moment they become puppets. If it is an audience member, a monster, or other extraordinary being involved in matters such as mind islands and fate, they can also distinguish whether those who seem normal are living people or puppets."

Of course, this is assuming that the rank and abilities of the Puppet Master do not involve those of extremely high rank.

For extraordinary individuals at that level, perfectly concealing their body, mind, destiny, consciousness, and all things that might change is not a problem.

Daly was clearly a "gatekeeper" who couldn't tell whether the person in front of her was a human or a puppet.

Of course, the investigator from the University of Michigan didn't say such a thing. He looked at Dunn Smith, the captain of the Tingen City Nightwalker team, and said, "The outsiders from the Tingen City Diviner Path are not just the sorcerer who was captured before. There may also be a Sequence 3 Saint who has infiltrated."

"Didn't that person react?"

Dunn asked, frowning.

A Sequence 3 Saint is a threat to Tingen University, the Night Watchers, the Punishers, and Miskatonic University.

The University of Michigan investigator shook his head and said in his still somewhat hoarse voice, "Unless it involves the survival of the entire city of Tingen, he won't get involved in matters of this level."

That is, at most, it can provide ritual magic support directed to Him, just like when He used His authority to create a closed space full of errors to make Klein recall certain things.

Dunn looked at Tang, seemingly remembering something, and asked, "What about the thief who was caught outside Tingen University? You should have confirmed his situation by now, right? How is he?"

"Before you reminded us and we went to check the situation, he fell into the Sunwell Mine and is probably now part of the ore."

Tang shook his head and spread his hands, saying, "We don't know the situation deep inside the Sunwell mine in the town of Ramd in the northwest, but based on what we've recorded, there's almost no chance of anyone who falls in surviving."

Become part of the ore?

Klein looked at Don, who maintained his smile but offered no further explanation.

Dunn turned his gaze back to Klein.

Klein shook his head and said just as sincerely, "There should be other people in my nightmares, but I don't know if I can still have that dream now that I've been discovered."

“In mysticism, dreams can also be a medium for divination. If the diviner has already discovered this through a high-ranking person and has performed a counter-divination, you will most likely not be able to dream about it,” Tang said.

As an extraordinary individual who also follows the path of divination, he clearly has the right to speak.

Then, as if he had thought of something else, Tang added, saying to Klein, "If you dream about it, the problem will be even bigger."

This means that there must be something very deep hidden in that dream, a trap that could directly lead to the death of the diviner who discovers the problem through dream interpretation.

Klein understood this almost immediately.

Of course, as long as you don't dream, subconsciously engage in divination, or fall into traps, it's fine.

One of the areas where the extraordinary members of the Church of the Night excel are in manipulating dreams.

-

At midnight.

In the peaceful, quiet basement of St. Peter's Hospital, in the underground morgue.

A strange rustling sound came from several ice coffins. In the deserted underground morgue, several cabinet doors of the mortuary opened from the inside, even more eerily.

The dead lay flat in the freezer, their eyes open, their fingers pawing at the top of the freezer, slowly being pulled out.

Three stiff corpses swayed as they crawled out of the freezer. As they sat up and their stiff feet touched the ground, a chilling smile slowly spread across their expressionless faces.

"Now, we have no choice but to have a head transplant."

"Yes, it's such a pity..."

But before they could even leave the underground morgue, beams of scorching light shone down on them.

Dunn stood in the corner, expressionless, preparing to pull the remaining spirits from these corpses, which seemed to have turned into evil spirits, into his dream.

Bathed in the sunlight, the three corpses revealed scars as if scorched by the sun's rays. Their eyes, wide and almost bulging out of their sockets, stared viciously and with hatred at the night watchman and the investigator from the University of Michigan who had been lying in wait there.

They roared and howled, but were caught between a rock and a hard place by the intense, blinding light of the burning Sunwell ore, and had to curl up to protect their most precious heads.

"The spirit has become an evil spirit, and the body has become a living corpse."

Dunn said to Tang, who was standing beside him.

Tang nodded and said with a smile, "That's true, Captain Dunn, your intuition is really sharp."

(End of this chapter)