Part 1 The Joker Chapter 210 The Story
On the outskirts of Tingen, a house containing a green and blue lawn.
It had gardens that had begun to fade in early September and a dark red chimney.
Behind the bedroom window of this house stood a desk with a plain notebook spread out on it.
A slightly pale hand turned the note to the first page, and then kept turning it backward rapidly.
The lines of text loomed over the clatter of paper:
”It is a logical coincidence that Riggins, a member of the Secret Cult, mistakenly sold the Antigonus Family Notebook as a general antiquarian book due to the dual effects of exhaustion and hallucinations.”
”Called by the Antigonus family bloodline, the notes quietly influenced one of its owners, rolling over to Tingen and into the hands of Auroran Society members Cyrus Arepis and Hyannis Vansant.”
”After flipping through what the notes temporarily presented and transcribing the corresponding magical potion recipes, both Cyrus and Haynas were worried that the mithraeum, who specialized in divination, would track them down, and after discussing the matter, they decided not to take that risk and resell the notes to someone else.”
”They didn’t wait for Mr. Z’s reply, which was probably because the other party resided in Enmat Harbor.”
”Through Cyrus’s introduction, Haynes met Welch McGovern, a history student at Hoy University, and sold the Antigonus family notes to the other party as an ordinary antiquarian book.”
”After that, Cyrus, attracted by the possible treasure on the main peak of Hornachis, began to go in and out of the Devereux Library, looking through the appropriate materials, and did not think there was anything wrong with leaving his real address and name, which was very much in keeping with his character.”
”It was during this process that he met Lanlus, who was looking through the information on the iron mines in an attempt to carry out a fraudulent operation.”
”Lanlus’ hidden madness and cunning was so admired by Cyrus that he decided to develop the other party into a member of the Aurora Society, but of course, before that, examination was an inevitable thing.”
”Cyrus covertly revealed the evil ritual of praying to the ‘True Creator’ to send down an heir to Llanerus, but he knew that the other party’s chances of success were very low, as the ritual was very difficult and required rather harsh conditions, while the latter expressed a strong interest in it, and was exceptionally interested in the possible divine reward was unusually heartfelt, and planned to accomplish the rite at the same time that he was preparing the steel company.”
”The cunning Lanlus saw that something was amiss with Cyrus Arepis, but he did not expose the other for his own purposes.”
”He once again visited Hood Eugen within the madhouse; they had long known each other and knew something of each other.”
”After a black divination, the power of the Antigonus Family Note is fully awakened, Welch and his classmates die, and the survivor, Klein Moretti, is driven by the Note to deliver it to the home of Rielle Beebe, a doomed end.”
(Many lines are scrawled below, followed by a new one.)
”Inexplicably, and lacking sufficient justification, Klein did not commit suicide afterward and managed to survive.”
”Through the Welch case, he met Dunn Smith and joined the Nightwatchman Squad.”
”This goes beyond Ince Zangwill’s description, but it doesn’t seem to affect the story.”
”When Bacchus and his brothers’ luck turns bad and they lose their last chip at the gambling table and are very much in debt, they decide to get a fortune and decide to kidnap a certain wealthy businessman for ransom.”
”When they chose their final hiding spot, they coincidentally looked at the room across the hall from Rell Beebe’s house.”
”By this time, Riel Bieber had been drawn to the power of the Antigonus family notes, hoping to digest the gifts of his ancestors.”
”But, swept away and in a state of semi-madness he failed to make the best and safest choice, he abandoned his dead mother, but still remained in Tingen City, only to find a more secluded place to perform the digestive rituals… It’s pathetic… If he’d been just a little bit smarter this story would have been a lot more complicated, but again, his choices were in line with his state of mind at the time and the implied logic of the situation.”
”Bacchus and the others purchased weapons and targeted Elliot, the youngest son of the tobacco merchant Vickroll.”
”Eventually, they succeeded in carrying out the kidnapping, bringing Elliot back across the street to the Reel Beebe home, where Vickroll’s old butler, Carvingley, accepted his master’s commission and began to enlist the help of a security company.”
”With the security company and the private detective industry experiencing a manpower crunch due to Welch’s death, Carvingley stumbles upon a delivery waiter and coincidentally learns of the existence of Blackthorn Security.”
”Leonard Mitchell and Klein accepted the commission and, relying on the abilities of the Extraordinary One, quickly rescued Elliot, making it regrettable that Klein didn’t immediately discover the clue to the Antigonus family notes hidden across the street.”
”However, his aura alerted him in a dream, and the Tingen City Nightwatchman’s Squad obtained the appropriate clues.”
……
”The seal ‘2-049’ arrived in Tingen, and with the aid of this Antigonus family puppet, Dunn Smith led the Night Watchers to Ryle Bieber, interrupting his digestive process.”
”Rell Beebe turns into a monster and the scene gets out of control for a while.”
”Eventually, the skillfully coordinated Nightwatchmen took care of the monster Bieber, but they were immediately faced with another attack by members of the Order of the Secret Doctrine.”
(Again, many lines have been defaced, making it difficult to see what was originally there.)
”Leonard, who is harboring a secret, is about to let things end without suspicion when Crane, who is supposed to be dead, once again incomprehensibly takes out the Sequence 7 members of the Order of the Secret Doctors.”
”It didn’t hurt the story that Dunn Smith came into contact with the Antigonus family notebook, pored over its contents, and was covertly tainted a bit!”
……
”Completing all aspects of his preparations, Lanlus compelled Hood Orgen to help him perform the ritual to conceive the heir of the ‘True Creator’ using his fraudulent fiancée, Megoos, as the vehicle.”
”Llanerus had little chance of success, and the most serious problem was that even with the protection of the power of the ritual, Megoos could not withstand intercourse with an illusory projection of the deity, which would have killed her on the altar.”
”At this time, the kind-hearted Ince Zangwill secretly helped Llanerus by dividing half of the collected Death Descendant traits and implanting them into Mego Oss’s body a certain amount of time in advance.”
”Hood Ogan put Megoos into a semi-coma, allowing her to take the illusory projection of the ‘True Creator’ as Lanlus, and nourished by the resentment that had accumulated day and night in the factory district, and catalyzed by the substantial dimness and oppression, the ritual succeeded, and Megoos became pregnant with the heir of the ‘True Creator’, a deity who saw the coincidence of events, but who wished to break through the Seven Gods’ blockade of k did not refuse.”
”Hood Eugen was infected.”
”After the success of the ritual, the insane Lanlus regained his sanity, knowing very well that if the deity’s heir was actually born in the real world, then he would be one of the sacrifices, and how could a mortal be the father of a deity’s heir? It would be a great blasphemy!”
”Lanlus decided to leave Tingen early and tell the Nightwatchman, the Substitute Punisher, and the Mechanical Heart about this ‘bomb’ related matter, so that they could take care of the aftermath for themselves; there is always a price to pay for madness.”
”Lanlus didn’t write directly to the squads of Extraordinary Ones though, he thought it would make him look like a fool.”
”He decided to leave the letter inside one of the houses he rented, pretending to be playing a game with the official Extraordinary Ones, and for that reason he didn’t alert Hood Orgen to the problem of being infected, while taking all the haul with him.”
”As an insurance policy, he also informed Cyrus Arepis in a safe manner, who was not quite convinced, but sensed the possibility of success.”
……
”Selene Wood accidentally and coincidentally came across the true incantation for ‘Magic Mirror Divination’ from her occult teacher, Haynas Vansant.”
”Her daring attempt coincides with Klein Moretti, who successfully solves the transcendent case that could have resulted in heavy casualties.”
”The Nightwatchman’s Squad used this to track down Haynes Vansant, but the Auroran Society member had just been rewarded, so Dunn Smith, who coincidentally saw a clear image of the ‘Real Creator’ in his dreams, was greatly hurt.”
”He did not, however, become infected by this, which would have been noticed by the higher-ups of the Night Watch.”
”This injury has furthered Dunn Smith’s infection caused by the secrecy of the Antigonus family notes, and the symptoms of trance and omission have been strengthened by the fact that he will fulfill Ince Zangwill’s demands one step at a time.”
……
(many more lines crossed out)
”It’s unbelievable! Klein Moretti sensed Ince Zangwill’s secret influence and saw that dark red chimney.”
”That, and it was due to a reminder from Azk, a faculty member of the history department at Hoy University, who was harboring many secrets.”
”But even so, the fact that Klein was able to discover specific clues is astonishing enough to be unexplainable.”
”Whatever the reason, Ince Zangwill doesn’t stop himself, and the story continues.”
”Klein stumbled upon Cyrus in the library and was unable to stay his hand to kill the other man, and so the trail of that Lanlus affair broke in half, and the discovery of the problem was delayed and pushed back.”
……
”Klein encountered Megoos, but the spirit prevented him from viewing it, and he didn’t notice the subtle anomaly afterward, which is logical; our story isn’t made up.”
”He gathered information about the Red Chimneys, but he would always pick routes that didn’t include the target, and perhaps waited until two or three months later, until the last of them, when he would discover the real ‘Red Chimney Houses’.”
……
(Line after line of text was scribbled out, more than the previous ones combined)
”Dunn Smith’s problems have been alleviated! His condition is improving markedly! He’s actually mastered the ‘play method’!”
”And it was taught to him by Crane Moretti, who found inspiration in the example of Daley Simone and old Neil, and no, Ince Zangwill didn’t believe it, but he could only alter the original plan slightly.”
”The story takes on a new twist.”
”Azk decided to travel to Berkland in order to find memories of the past.”
”It didn’t take long for Klein and Dunn to get a lead from Hood Ogan.”
……
”Mrs. Sherron decided to risk taking out Councilman John Maynard in order to pit the Conservatives and the New Party in Tingen against each other once and for all, and in order to give vent to the madness that had built up a little bit since the change of bodies.”
”Her reasons weren’t good enough, her motives weren’t strong enough, but she acted nonetheless, everyone has moments when they’re not lucid enough, she was in one of those phases, and she had plenty of confidence that she wouldn’t be found out.”
”Senator Maynard’s wife found Blackthorn Security through the tobacconist Vic Rolle, and they didn’t fail to live up to their commission, quickly discovering Mrs. Sherron’s anomaly.”
”Dunn, who had close to Sequence 6 strength, decided to take the initiative and gave the seal ‘3-0271’ to Kornleigh to use.”
”The two of them returned to Mrs. Sherron’s along with Klein, and Dunn attempted to control the target by remotely dragging someone into a dream.”
”There was no problem with that, but unfortunately, Mrs. Sherron happened to have the idol of the ‘Original Witch’ right next to her.”
”And so, the Night Watchers’ plan failed, and Cornley shone a light on herself and saw herself in her nervousness.”
”With Lady Sherron resolved and Cornley dead, Dunn blamed himself greatly and took the extraordinary properties left behind by the other, as was customary; his digestive process was thus interrupted and stalled, and his mental state became quite unstable.”
”Such being the case, Leonard and Klein found the letter left behind by Lanlus.”
”Megoos, in turn, was inexplicably summoned to Zotland Street and entered Blackthorn Security, the baby in her womb at a critical time, failing to stop her impulses.”
”Dunn made detailed arrangements, the right ones, but he did one thing wrong; if he was determined to deal with Megoose at once, it would have been better to introduce the other party behind the Charnis Gate and fight with the advantage of the circumstances and the objects, and if he was going to wait for help, then he should never have taken the ashes of St. Selene out of the house.”
”Unfortunately, Dunn, who was in a bad state and in a trance due to recent events, failed in his haste to think of the vital point that the children of the gods could perceive the threat of the ashes of the Holy One, and so the latter was stimulated and began to draw on the mother’s power in a desperate attempt to descend early, even if that wasn’t considered true maturity.”
”Azik was in Berkland, and not being a ‘traveling mage’ he would have been hard pressed to make it back on such short notice.”
(a few lines scrawled out)
”Megoos turned into a monster, the battle began, and with the help of the ashes of the saints, the ‘vein thieves’, and the strange appearance of advanced runes, Megoos died, the children of the gods were exorcised, Dunn Smith died as a result, and the power of the ashes of St. Selene was severely traumatized, which perfectly fits Ince Zangwill’s idea.”
”Ince Zangwill didn’t get the chance to perform, but that didn’t stop him from accomplishing his purpose.”
”He killed Klein Moretti, the guy who was always causing problems with his plans, and took the ashes of St. Selene.”
”Ince Zangwill set up a ritual with the remaining Death Descendant traits, took the ashes of St. Selene, and managed to advance from Sequence 5 ‘Caretaker’ of the ‘Death’ pathway to ‘Darkness’ ‘ pathway’s Sequence 4 ‘Night Watchman’, thus acquiring divinity and becoming a half-god, half-human powerhouse.”
”The sun still shines on the earth, and almost all of Tingen City is oblivious to the fact that they were lucky enough to escape a great catastrophe, which ‘Monster’ Admiral Admiral would be very puzzled by.”
The notes turned to the last page, the middle-aged man with dark blonde hair, one blind eye, pupils of deep blue and nearly black, a high nose, pursed lips, and features as profound as a statue without the slightest wrinkle, solemnly picked up a classical feather quill with a slightly pale palm, and wrote out the words clearly without dabbing the ink.
He dropped a simple sentence:
”The story of Tingen City ends here.”
With a clatter and a quick flip of the paper, the manuscript snapped closed, leaving only the brown cover facing outward.