Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 160 Mysterious Card
After traversing this damned forest, the group finally arrived at their next stop. One can imagine how surprised the platform staff were when they saw such a train appear.

As for the specifics, Li Wei naturally said it was due to the flash flood, forcing him to risk crossing the area. The railway company staff didn't ask any further questions and just accepted that as the case.

After that, the staff naturally prepared a new train for everyone, and as for the passengers in the second and third class carriages, Levi gave each of them a compensation of ten pounds.

Although these inventors seem unreliable, it was thanks to their... inventions that Levi was able to escape the pursuit of that eerie forest. Since these unfortunate souls' luggage and belongings were destroyed in the explosion, Levi is willing to give them some compensation.

Besides, Li Wei also wanted to cultivate a relationship with them. After all, in terms of explosive power, these inventors'... ingenious ideas were truly devastating. Who knows, some explosive genius might emerge from among them in the future, and what Li Wei currently lacks most in dealing with those monsters is powerful firepower.

The inventors were overjoyed at Li Wei's compensation. They weren't particularly wealthy to begin with, and their participation in the steam engine exhibition was primarily to attract investment. Although their inventions had essentially vanished, they were still alive, and the manufacturing processes were still etched in their minds. With enough money, they could simply go back and recreate them.

The compensation Li Wei had given them had the inventors extremely excited. After all, for ordinary people, this was no small sum; it was enough to offset their losses. Therefore, they were naturally very grateful to Li Wei. They promised that if they made any further inventions in the future, they would definitely let him know first… Yes, this was exactly the effect Li Wei wanted.

Compared to these jubilant inventors, Anthony was incredibly unlucky. The man he was tracking and monitoring was dead, and now he wasn't even left with a complete corpse. He had practically torn down the walls of that carriage, but hadn't found anything useful. He was certain he was going to die when he got back.

Therefore, when he bid farewell to Li Wei, his face was ashen.

"Well then, I'll take my leave now, boss... sigh..."

"So exaggerated?"

"You don't know, our boss isn't someone who's easily fooled. I've made such a big mistake this time... If I get fired, will you take me in?"

"We'll see how things go then..."

Just as Levi was casually dealing with Anthony, he saw Olivia walking over.

"Miss Olivia, is there anything I can help you with?"

“There is something strange, Mr. Levi.”

Olivia nodded to Anthony, then looked at Levi and took a punch card out of her bag.

"Actually, I should have told you last night, but so many things happened and there wasn't enough time... Please see this."

As she spoke, Olivia handed over the black punch card.

"What is this? A punch card?"

Li Wei curiously took the punch card and looked at it, but he clearly knew nothing about it.

"This punch card is not mine."

"Hey?"

"I asked Anna, and she said she probably put it in her bag by accident while tidying up on the floor..."

"Pick up the floor... Ah, right, I remember now."

Upon hearing Olivia's account, Levi pondered for a moment and suddenly recalled that when Olivia collided with the victim, not only did the victim's suitcase shatter and fall to the ground, but the bag she was carrying also fell to the floor. However, Olivia herself didn't clean it up; instead, she had her maid gather the items away.

In other words, the maid accidentally put this in her bag at that time?

Li Wei glanced at the punch card in front of him. It wasn't entirely unreasonable; after all, the card was black and didn't look particularly remarkable, resembling more of a comb or something similar. If the maid had simply slipped it in without noticing while tidying up, it wouldn't be entirely unacceptable.

Wait, that means...

"These belong to the victim?"

"I think so..."

"real!?"

This time, it wasn't Levi who screamed, but Anthony. He practically pounced on Levi's side, staring wide-eyed at the punch card.

“Miss Baskerville, are you sure?”

Olivia paused for a moment in response to the excited Anthony, but still spoke up.

“I’m not sure, but this strange thing wasn’t in my bag when I left the room yesterday afternoon. I found it in my bag last night. The only time this bag was out of my hand was when I bumped into that man in the afternoon, so I think it must be his.”

"Thank you so much, Miss Baskerville!"

At that moment, Anthony was like a drowning man grasping at a straw, examining the black punch card with immense excitement. Olivia, on the other hand, looked at Anthony with a puzzled expression, wondering why he was so excited about the card. However, seeing Levi's gesture of reassurance, Olivia didn't ask further and quickly turned to leave.

After seeing Olivia leave, Levi looked at Anthony again.

"Is this what you've been looking for?"

"Very likely!"

Anthony stared at the black punch card and nodded vigorously.

"When that guy was killed before, wasn't he looking for something in the box? I suspect he might have been looking for this!"

"So what exactly is this? Do you want to take it back and take a look?" "Um...no, I can't."

Anthony was momentarily excited, but quickly regained his composure and shook his head.

"I need to figure out what this is, otherwise if I'm stupid enough to take it back and it turns out to be some love letter from that man, my superiors will kill me..."

"so?"

"So I'll continue to go with you guys, boss. I happen to know an expert in this field at Subaru. I'll have him take a look. If he can figure out what this punch card is for, maybe we can find out what the other side is up to."

After that, the railway company dispatched another train for everyone, but unlike the Orient, this train did not have any extra carriages. Most of the people in the second and third class carriages did not intend to go to Bisubaru anymore, and most planned to take the return train.

Therefore, only the first-class passengers, along with Anthony and a few second-class passengers, boarded a new train to continue their journey to Bisubaru, while the others waited on the platform for their return trip.

Compared to the Dongfang, the rooms on the new train were not as luxurious, but after a night like this, Li Wei was too lazy to dwell on these trivial matters. After entering the room, he collapsed onto the bed and opened the system's task list.

[Mission "Escape from Danger" Completed]

[Time consumed: s]

Search and rescue efficiency: S

[Impact/Effect: S]

Overall Rating: SSS

[Lifespan +300, additional +100]

This task is quite difficult.

Looking at the extra 400 days of lifespan, Li Wei frowned. Indeed, if it weren't for the Ghost Ship Core as his trump card, given the environment last night, he would have been lucky to have survived and come out of the forest.

But this isn't over yet!

Li Wei had secretly made up his mind that once he got to Bismarck, he would find an opportunity to report him to MI7. If that worked, he'd lead a squadron of bomber airships back to settle the score! He'd just bomb them with incendiary bombs and burn the entire forest down. Let's see how long they can keep gloating then!
[Mystic Resistance +10%]

Strength attribute +10

[Additional Skill Selection]

[Stable Shot/Burst Shot/Piercing Shot]

Ah, here we go again.

The last time Li Wei saw this skill selection option was before. At that time, he gave up [Burst Shot] and [Piercing Shot] and chose [Bouncing Shot]. As it turns out, this move is indeed very useful.

Now it's a choice of one of three shooting skills again. [Bouncing Shot] is gone, replaced by [Steady Shot].

Let's continue with the same strategy as last time, abandoning [Burst Shot] and [Piercing Shot], and choosing [Steady Shot].

As a passive skill, [Stable Shooting] is quite simple: it allows the user to shoot steadily, somewhat like pressing SHIFT to stabilize aim when using a sniper scope in an FPS game.

This skill is quite useful for Li Wei, especially now that he can dual-wield, so stable aiming is definitely the top priority.

Then there's [Mystic Resistance]... It's now up to 45% in total.

I wonder if adding it to 100% would grant me magic immunity or something.

It would be even better if there was magic reflection; Levi hates reflective monsters the most when he plays games.

Conversely, it would be even better if he could live the kind of life he hates most.

This time, I did get 10 points in [Strength], bringing it to 50, but it's not very useful. After all, 50 is a base attribute value, which is at the level of an average person.

Li Wei had already discovered that in the system's attribute values, 90 should be considered the peak of humanity, while 50 is the average value of ordinary humans.

In other words, a score below 50 is equivalent to being below the average person...

If Li Wei had a choice, he would prefer to increase his Agility or Perception, but since the system gave it to him... he didn't really have a choice, did he?
Incidentally, unlike [Bouncing Shot], which is placed after the [Shooting] attribute, the [Steady Shot] skill is placed after the [Strength] attribute value. This allowed Li Wei to discover some patterns in the system's skill allocation.

It is clear that the skills provided by the system are calculated based on the amount of attribute values.

Because my [Strength] attribute value has reached the requirement, the system has given me the [Steady Shot] skill to choose from.

If you add other attribute values, the shooting skills given by the system might be different.

After confirming his gains from this mission, Li Wei yawned and then drifted off to sleep.

He was exhausted after a whole night of running around and hoped that the train wouldn't cause him any more trouble.

Fortunately, as Levi had hoped, the train did not encounter any trouble such as murders after that. A day later, Levi and his companions finally arrived at the steel city—Bisubaru.

(End of this chapter)