Part 2 The Faceless Man Chapter 55 The Cemetery and the Hospital

After arriving at the south bank of the Tassock River by steam subway, Klein hired a rented carriage and traveled to the Austen Cemetery on the outskirts of the Southern District, which belonged to the administration of the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery.

　　In the dimness of the evening, the trees around the cemetery flared up and blocked out the light, as if a monster lurked in the darkness of the night.

　　The driver, after collecting the 4 Sule fee paid by Klein, glanced at the cemetery and muttered a question:

　　”Do I need to wait for you here?”

　　”No, no need, I’m here to visit a friend.” Klein casually broke off a reason, and instantly noticed the cart driver’s face change abruptly.

　　This is a cemetery …… to visit a friend …… It is already dark …… The carter heard the sound of his heart plopping.

　　Klein then looked back and added with a smile:

　　”He’s the tomb keeper here.”

　　The coachman was relieved, but he didn’t dare to stay any longer, and was busy driving his horse and quickly leaving.

　　Klein, on the other hand, circled the cemetery most of the way around until night truly fell.

　　After dark, the emission of smoke and dust decreased a lot, coupled with the bitter cold wind, the fog in the mid-air thinned out quite a bit, and although he still couldn’t see a few stars, the scarlet moon vaguely penetrated, covering the ground with a light veil of light.

　　Klein drew the Crimson Moon with four clockwise taps on his chest, then put on his gloves, and with a press and a brace he went over the iron fence and into the cemetery.

　　Looking around on high alert, he found a secluded corner at random and pulled out the Aztec Copper Whistle, holding it in his palm.

　　Not far in front of him was a headstone with a dirty picture and an epitaph that looked so blurry in the moonlight that it took Klein a few seconds of careful identification to figure out what exactly was written:

　　”Passing by, please give me a hand, thank you!”

　　Very humorous gentleman …… just you! Klein stopped in his tracks, leaned his back against the nearby trees that sheltered the catacombs from the sun and rain, and waited patiently in the cold, chilly night.

　　He tossed the Aztec copper whistle high, caught it securely again, tossed it high again, caught it again, and so passed the time until twenty minutes later.

　　There was no sign of necromancy …… Klein snapped his pocket watch closed, examined the surrounding area, and confirmed the result.

　　”Come back here in a couple of days to see if there are any additional changes, and if indeed there are none, it means that Mr. Aztec’s copper whistle was unable to affect the corpses that received the requiem rituals from the priests of the ministry.” Klein muttered wordlessly to himself and slipped the ancient and delicate copper whistle back into his coat pocket.

　　In the Kingdom of Ruen, burial is generally divided into three types, the first type is with a coffin and a corpse, suitable for the middle and upper class who live a more affluent life, the second type is without a corpse, directly cremated and buried in an urn, which is the choice of the lower middle class and the skilled workers who can pay for cremation but feel that a coffin is too wasteful, but there are times when there is a religious and governmental factor influencing it, for example, the believers of the Eternal Sun of Eternity, where cremations are predominant, such as the The poor who receive help from the government, all cremated for a small fee.

　　The third type only belonged to the poor people, who could not afford a coffin and did not want to be cremated, so they were buried wrapped in whatever they wanted.

　　And Klein had just judged from the shape of the tombstones and graves that the object of his experiment was the kind with coffins and corpses.

　　If the Aztec Copper Whistle can really make the other party’s corpse, even though the target may have rotted into white bones early, it won’t be unresponsive, even if it can’t lift the lid of the coffin which is pressed with thick soil and stone slabs, at least it can create a dull sound of thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud.

　　Taking a step towards the fence, Klein suddenly thought of a sloppy part of the experiment earlier:

　　”Well, it has to be categorized, it’s a long-buried body, and a freshly buried target.”

　　”Only then can we make the most accurate judgment.”

　　After that, Klein played hide-and-seek with the grave keeper and found a grave where the burial ceremony had only been completed during the day.

　　This time, he waited for half an hour and still found no anomalies.

　　”Phew, basically we can judge that Mr. Aztec’s copper whistle can’t affect corpses that have received the requiem ceremony, that’s a bit weak, no, no, the copper whistle itself isn’t meant to be used to create necrophilia, its function is to summon messengers, affecting corpses belongs to the negative effect!” Klein tightened his double-breasted long gown and walked towards the iron fence.

　　He planned to go home to change his clothes and conduct the second group of experiments.

　　The targets of the second group were corpses that hadn’t received a requiem ceremony and hadn’t been dead for long.

　　Such targets were often found in hospital morgues!

　　Rolling out of the fence, Klein took a step back towards the South Side in the bleak, deep night, surrounded by dead silence and peace, with only the evergreen trees covered in powdery dust, swaying gently.

　　It reminded him of the night he came back from the dead, when he was also walking from the cemetery to the city.

　　Hey …… Klein sighed and suddenly began to run, as if trying to shake that melancholy far away.

　　Most of an hour and a half later, he had hired the rental carriage in the southern district, destined for the nearest steam subway stop.

　　There was still almost an hour before the steam subway would stop running, which would save him a lot of money.

　　……

　　In the wee hours of the morning, Klein changed into a gray-blue worker’s uniform and wore a top hat, shedding his distance to St. Estienne’s Hospital in the Beckland Bridge area.

　　This was a charity hospital belonging to the Church of God of Steam and Machinery.

　　Many poor people from the lower class died here due to illness, and there was no place to put their bodies at home, so they had to be stored in the hospital’s morgue, waiting for the government to cremate them or donate them to the medical school, and this phenomenon was especially common in the summer, but not so much in the fall and winter after it cooled down.

　　However, in the era of no air-conditioning and no cryogenic devices, the hospital morgue will not let the body put too long, willing to donate to the embalming process in a hurry, to be buried every other day will be cleaned up a batch, of course, this is the rule of the summer, the fall and winter will be relatively relaxed a lot, so during this period of time, the morgue every night or a lot of corpses stayed over night.

　　St. Estienne Hospital’s morgue was on the first floor, and even in summer, it was quite cool here, and it was even colder and more bone-chilling in fall and winter.

　　Based on the knowledge he had learned in the Night Watchman Squad, Klein relied on the Joker’s agility and balance to sneak in with familiarity, avoiding the doctors and nurses on duty, and entered the basement level.

　　Before he even got close to the morgue, he felt cold and eerie in the neighborhood.

　　Quickly flashing past the janitor’s room, Klein took out a wire and lightly unlocked the door of the morgue.

　　This was one of the techniques of infiltration and stalking!

　　He slowly and silently pushed open the door of the morgue with his black-gloved right palm, at the same time, he spread out his spirituality and wrapped it around the Aztec Copper Whistle, wanting to confirm if this way could eliminate the negative effects.

　　The temperature inside the morgue seemed to be lower than the corridor, most of the dead were in body bags and placed in different metal cabinets around the room, and only a few of them were placed on a long table in the center of the open space, as if waiting for inspection.

　　As a Sequence 8 Joker, Klein had little fear of this scene, but only an instinctive discomfort.

　　Keeping his guard up, he closed the door carefully and circled the tables again and again.

　　After ten minutes or so, Klein puffed out his cold breath to make sure the body hadn’t mutated.

　　Almost …… he pulled out his gold cased pocket watch and pressed it open to look at it.

　　After making preparations, Klein withdrew his spirituality and no longer used it to wrap the Aztec copper whistle.

　　I don’t know if it was a psychological effect, but he inexplicably felt that his surroundings had become even more silent.

　　As a diviner, he fully trusted his intuition and stopped walking back and forth, stepping backward near the gate.

　　Time passed, and Klein thought it had been about two minutes.

　　Just then, a body on the long table suddenly sat up!

　　BANG! BANG! Bang!

　　Intense slapping noises ensued from the one steel cabinet around it, as if something was about to hatch!

　　Bang! Bang! Bang! Klein listened to such a commotion and looked at a body sitting up, and suddenly spoke in a low voice:

　　”Crimson!”

　　Immediately afterward, he infused his spirituality into the “Soul Restoration Charm” and threw it out.

　　Ice-blue flames burned quietly, a peaceful and soft black color filled the air, the corpses lay down again, and the tapping sound from the iron cabinet ended abruptly.

　　Klein, who had experienced a similar scene, did not let up, and once again used a “soul-restoring spell”.

　　Due to the large number of corpses here, he used a third one to be on the safe side, using up his stock.

　　”It’s not bad ……, it really only affects corpses that haven’t received the Requiem Ceremony and haven’t been dead for a long time, including the living corpses, and covering them with spirituality can block this effect.” Klein thought with a smile on his face.

　　Seeing that the corpse had no more abnormal reactions, he was ready to pull the door and leave.

　　At this time, he suddenly heard footsteps coming from outside and saw a faint light penetrate inside.

　　The old man who was watching the door, attracted by the tapping sound inside the morgue, carried a horse lamp and leaned in!

　　Crane looked round, pressed his hand against the door, and with a dexterous leap and climb, stayed where the door intervened with the ceiling.

　　Fingers digging into bumps and crevices, he kept his balance very well.

　　Creak!

　　The old janitor opened the door with his key and entered the morgue.

　　He took a few steps forward and raised his horse lantern, scrutinizing the iron cabinets and long tables, examining the corpses.

　　And behind him, Klein leapt lightly and landed noiselessly.

　　Seizing the opportunity, Klein made a quick escape from the morgue, taking refuge for a few seconds with the help of the janitor’s small room before carefully returning to the upper floor.

　　The old watchman checked and found nothing out of the ordinary, he muttered something a little afraid of the corpse and flew away, locking the door and not lingering any longer.

　　Back in the watchman’s room, he wrapped himself in a thin blanket and took several minutes to calm his rapid heartbeat, whispering a few words to himself:

　　”Those old guys always tell me about the abnormalities that happened in the morgue, trying to scare me, that strange sound just now should also be considered, it’s nothing, those corpses didn’t come to life either!”

　　”Yuck, there are no such things as living corpses and ghosts!”

　　Meanwhile, Klein was walking comfortably on the quiet and deep street, happy to have solved a hidden danger.

　　He looked at the elegant gas street lamps on both sides, and was looking forward to the extraordinary person’s party afterwards.

　　As long as he can get a weapon with a special effect, he can get one of the main materials of the “magician”!

　　Although I don’t have much money at the moment,……, I still have a lot of assets that can be used for exchange, such as the formula for the “Mind Reader” magic potion, such as the “Chanting Man”, “Prayer of Light” formula, and my “clown” magic potion digestion progress, because of the successive events and comprehension of the essence of the play, much faster than expected, close to completion …… night On the streets of Birkeland, Klein was rambling with his thoughts.