Mr. Rat of the Steam World

Chapter 2 Unsolved Case
Snapped.

Lu Ran clapped his hands.

He finally remembered where he had seen this coin design before.

The Manchester Times headline two weeks ago about the East End serial murders was so sensational that it was also known as the "Balance Coin Case."

Not much information about the case has been released, but all the known victims seem to have carried a coin like this with them during their lives. The strangest thing is that they cherished it when they were alive, but it could not be found among their belongings after they died, which is suspected to be a kind of mark by the murderer with a twisted sense of humor.

The police emphasized the dangers of the balance scale coin and urged any victims to seek police protection as soon as possible, but no one paid any attention. There might be other secrets that Lu Ran was unaware of. In any case, the case seemed to have reached a stalemate.

"So the people who came to see me were the police?"

Lu Ran finally realized what was going on. He was a little unsure whether this was a test. But there were people who trained birds and monkeys, so training mice should be normal too. He thought that having the gray mice do some tricks to attract customers shouldn't have attracted attention so quickly.

Lu Ran paced back and forth, his beady eyes scanning aimlessly. Driven by some force, he walked out of the lord's hall, passing by the granary, residential buildings, workshops, training grounds... Looking at his hard work over the past six months, he felt increasingly anxious.

In fact, with the city's entire sewer system at its back, his core business wouldn't be affected much if something happened. At most, he would only lose some permanent buildings. His biggest concern was that he couldn't bear to lose the detective agency, which was his source of income.

The initial idea was that fortune favors the bold, and that creating hype would accelerate wealth accumulation. But when fortune is in hand, danger strikes, and who can simply let go?

However, given his current capabilities, the countermeasures he can take against such unexpected situations caused by external factors are extremely limited. Moreover, even if he were to have the opportunity to counter these situations using the system, he would not be able to engage in a large-scale direct conflict with humanity.

Having defeated a police station, how could he possibly face the entire population of a city, a country, or a continent?

Stopping in his tracks, Lu Ran casually grabbed a mouse.

"Go and call One-Ear here."

"Squeak!" The gray squirrel, which had been pulled back, responded excitedly, and with a powerful push from its hind legs, it darted away.

One-Ear is a black rat missing an ear. Lu Ran appointed him as the police chief to monitor all the rats. Of course, he has a limited number of subordinates and his authority is vague. When he needs to go on a mission, One-Ear can also be the leader of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Anyway, Lu Ran just calls him that for fun.

Compared to the chubby one, One Ear appears much leaner and more capable, with glossy fur covering its angular muscles, exuding a sharp and efficient air.

“Identify the pattern on this coin. You’re in charge of circulating it so the rats below can search for it. If you find any clues, come back and notify me immediately. Also…” Lu Ran hesitated for a moment. “Double the scouting range of the sentinel rats near the territory. You are allowed to send more people.”

"Squeak." The sound wasn't sharp, but rather a little muffled, which was typical of One-Ear's personality.

Lu Ran sighed softly. Right now, the most important thing was to finish this deal first.

Previously, productivity was too low, and only recently have we received some orders. The territory's savings have reached £37, 5 shillings, and 8 pence. If we add other final payments, the balance coin order will soon break the £50 mark. At that time, activating the Enlightenment function should slightly change the current situation.

On the bright side, what if they're simply looking for help to solve a case?

After all, their efficiency in finding lost items and people is indeed high. Excluding the mice that need to maintain the basic infrastructure of their territory, they can send out at least two hundred mice on a single mission. In addition, the mice have the inherent stealth attribute. In terms of finding lost items and people in Baker City, no other detective agency is qualified to claim to be number one.

Of course, unless there are some mystical or supernatural means to assist in this world, that's another story.

But I'm afraid it might actually be true.

As the original body he transmigrated into, a gray rat shouldn't have many memories, but for some reason, he often flashes back to strange scenes in his dreams.

Whispers, rituals, firelight, explosions...

The messy, fragmented, and illogical appearance, along with the feeling of not being able to see clearly, makes one uneasy.

Lu Ran couldn't remember exactly which piece of memory he had lost, but no matter what, what event could a gray rat possibly be related to? And by what means could it be related to an event?
The only slightly clearer clip shows a large white dog.

Lu Ran recognized it too. It was the sled dog that had been featured in the newspapers, causing quite a stir, and that the Earl Biden family had lost and then found.

And if I remember correctly, the time when this guy first went missing was right when Lu Ran had just transmigrated, so it's hard to say that this was just a coincidence.

"Should I meet this guy or not?"

Lu Ran had a headache.

Because the fleeting fragments of memory show the original mouse running in front, with a white dog chasing behind. The specific cause and effect are unclear, but this setup doesn't look like a friendly force at all.

Just as I was pondering this, the foodie suddenly came running back, huffing and puffing.

Squeak!

Something has been delivered?

Lu Ran was taken aback, then pushed off with his hind legs and jogged up the passageway to the office.

Although his storefront is just a wall, it doesn't mean he only rents a wall. The firm has a total area of ​​30 square meters and a rent of 3 gold pounds a year, located in a location on the outskirts of the city.

The reason for only making a hole in the wall to prevent people from walking through the main entrance is that it would be too strange to leave the main entrance wide open and empty. In contrast, it would be much more normal to simply not show one's face.

Some detectives specialize in shady business and it's normal for them not to want their identities known. Using gray rats as intermediaries and maintaining secrecy by not meeting each other actually gives Lu Ran a significant advantage in certain aspects.

Upon reaching the ground, Lu Ran quickly ran to a huge mechanical facility. The foodie was squatting in front of him. Lu Ran used it as leverage to jump onto the facility, picked up the wooden container inside, and threw it out.

This thing is one of the technologies of this steam age, a pneumatic pipe mail system, a unique product of the era. It connects every household through a network of crisscrossing metal pipes. The small express delivery, daily newspapers, and letters are basically all operated by this thing.

Although the detective agency that Lu Ran rented was not large, it was equipped with all the necessary facilities expected of a building in the new city of Baker. However, such a large investment in machinery was not common in the entire Kingdom of Britannia. Lu Ran judged that it was probably for the purpose of demonstrating and promoting the new city.

In this era of transition between steam machinery and traditional industry, the old and the new were always accompanied by inevitable conflicts and frictions.

Take the city of Baker, where he lives, for example. Its full name is Warrenbaker Industrial New City. It was relocated and rebuilt after the industrialization reform of the old city. Because some people still have extreme resistance to steam machinery, the old Baker city retained some buildings and residents. Over time, it was naturally divided into two districts, the old and the new.

As productivity gaps widened, so did the economic disparity between the two urban areas, leading to a rise in extremists in the old city. They believed that the advent of the steam engine had destroyed everything for them, which resulted in the horrific explosion at the beginning of this year—a group of lunatics from the old city stormed the steam machinery factory in the new city with explosives.

However, Lu Ran only knew about this part from the newspaper news. When he transmigrated, this event had already happened for several days. In addition, he was getting used to his new body and new environment. By the time he officially learned about these things, it was already a month later, so he was not very clear about the details.

Lu Ran opened the mailbox and found that his newspaper subscription had officially started. He had previously been sneaking around to read newspapers, so this was the first time he had enjoyed such a privilege. He picked up the newspaper and began to read it with great interest.

Baker Express, a newspaper primarily focused on entertainment news, reported on a possible setback in the marriage between Birmingham's son, Zell, and Earl Biden's daughter, Afra.

Upon seeing this news, Lu Ran recalled a mysterious commission he had received some time ago, which involved investigating Zell Birmingham. After mailing his findings, he received no response and wondered if the two were related.

The Manchester Times reported that the city government is growing increasingly impatient with the old town due to the bombings and may take forced relocation measures in parts of the old town this week to free up more industrial land. This news has sparked strong dissatisfaction among residents of the old town, who say they absolutely cannot allow Mother Nature to lose her last piece of pure land.

Because the old town is different from the industrialized new town, it is still mainly natural and ecological, and many people there believe in this god.

Lu Ran recalled the previous explosives incident and felt that it was caused by a group of fanatical religious elements. In any case, the municipal government has not yet given a clear response to this matter.

The Mechanical Gear newspaper was making a fuss about two brothers who had the wild idea of ​​building a flying machine. They claimed to have a preliminary direction and hoped someone would invest some start-up capital. They were ridiculed for their wishful thinking, as they argued that a bulky machine could never possibly fly.

The "Journal of Occultism" is a group of people who are enthusiastically discussing divination, spiritualism, and alchemy. They firmly believe that occultism has the same power and potential as science, but people have not yet realized it. Among them, someone even published a judgment on the coin case, saying that the murderer killed people to complete an equivalent exchange for some kind of alchemical ritual. If the police cannot catch the murderer, an extremely terrifying monster will definitely appear.

The police responded with a single word: "Get lost."

(End of this chapter)