Chapter 173

Chapter 173: Divination by Drawing Lots

In the darkness, the massive steam train continued to rush forward, not stopping at the supply station along the way as originally planned, but instead heading straight for a city in the distance.

In one of the spacious second-class carriages, numerous passengers sat in rows of seats, quietly moving forward with the train, waiting for their destination to arrive. As it was already quite late, many passengers had begun to rest their eyes or even fall asleep.

Among them, there was one passenger who could not close his eyes or fall asleep no matter what.

This man was dressed entirely in black, wearing a black hat, with a small bag at his feet. His skin was slightly pale, and his expression was serious and solemn. His face was so thin that it resembled a skeleton’s outline.

This man was a wall-crosser who had infiltrated this train, responsible for killing Sodod and stealing his belongings. Having completed his mission, he was waiting for the train to stop so he could use his ability to escape through the walls and return to his society.

Originally, before taking action, this man had used his wall-crossing ability to sneak into the conductor’s room and check the schedule. He confirmed that the train would stop at a small station in a town within twenty minutes, where he could get off. However, more than half an hour had passed, and the train showed no signs of stopping. This made the man suspicious.

“Wasn’t the train supposed to stop soon? Why hasn’t it stopped yet? Has something happened? Could that guy still be causing trouble? Impossible, an inspector from the An Yin Bureau wouldn’t be able to solve the venom of the Red Silk Spider.”

Thinking to himself, the man realized he hadn’t seen Sodod’s body since the latter had disappeared. After Sodod had vanished, he had used his wall-crossing ability to search extensively through nearby carriages, even checking the entire first-class carriage, but found nothing. Due to the previous detection efforts, which had depleted much of his spirituality, he had been forced to end the search prematurely. The lack of Sodod’s corpse left him somewhat uneasy.

Faced with this situation, he could have chosen to jump off the train. The common speed of steam trains in this world was around 60 kilometers per hour. Since he wasn’t an “Extraordinary Being” like a “Cup,” relying solely on his barely hardened apprentice-level skin for protection, derived from his “Stone” auxiliary spirituality, jumping off the train would have been dangerous. At such speeds, even apprentice-level hardened skin was insufficient to ensure safety.

If he jumped, the man, being an Extraordinary Being, might survive, but he would certainly be injured. More importantly, in remote areas, transportation was inconvenient, and injuries would leave him in a difficult situation. Therefore, for the man, jumping off the train was unnecessary. He could simply wait for the next stop, confident that the train would eventually stop.

Aside from the defeated Sodod, everyone else on the train was an ordinary person. If his spirituality were sufficient, he could k*ll all of them. However, adhering to his assassin nature, he did not want to attract too much attention and thus did not do so. Instead, he chose the second-class carriage to avoid drawing too much notice.

Just as the man decided to continue waiting, he suddenly heard some commotion in the carriage. Looking over, he saw several train attendants questioning passengers one by one, collecting their tickets.

“Collecting tickets? What are the train attendants doing? Don’t they just need to check the tickets?”

The man thought to himself, and at that moment, the train attendant approached him.

“Please show your ticket, sir. We need to keep it for a while and will return it to you later.”

“Why are you collecting tickets?” the man asked directly, and the train attendant immediately replied.

“Don’t worry, sir. It’s just a thorough check. Our conductor suspects someone used a fake ticket to board the train.”

Hearing this, the man didn’t say much and silently handed over his ticket. The train attendant thanked him and continued collecting the tickets.

…

“Mr. Detective, all the tickets are here. As you requested, we’ve written down the corresponding seat numbers on each ticket. For those without tickets, we’ve helped them purchase them and placed them inside. This includes our work badges for all crew members.”

Standing in the corridor of the first-class carriage, a train attendant held a box filled with tickets in front of Edric.

“Thank you all for your hard work. These tickets will be important clues for my deductions.”

Taking the tickets from the attendant, Edric smiled. Hearing this, some of the attendants and the conductor looked puzzled.

“Mr. Detective, I’m curious. What kind of deduction requires these things? Can you really find the culprit just by looking at these tickets?” the conductor asked Edric, who replied mysteriously.

“Hehe… I can’t tell you that now. I need some time to analyze and deduce. I need some alone time.”

“Hmm… Let me think… My cabin’s table isn’t very level, so I’ll switch to this one. Is that okay, conductor?”

As he spoke, Edric pointed to a nearby cabin, and the conductor answered without hesitation.

“Of course, I wish you success in your deduction.”

“Thank you for your cooperation, conductor.”

While speaking, Edric entered the cabin, closed the door, and lit the lamp. Then, he took out a large piece of paper from his clothes and spread it on the table. The paper was covered with a complex magical array symbolizing “Enlightenment” and “Lamp.”

At this moment, Dorothy, who had been hiding under the bed, crawled out and muttered to herself.

“Deduction, deduction… Deduction is useless… Divination is much better.”

Yes, Dorothy intended to use divination to find the killer. Although the killer could move through walls, it consumed spirituality, making it impossible to stay in the walls indefinitely. Thus, under normal circumstances, he would be disguised as another passenger. Dorothy had the train attendants collect all the passengers’ tickets, including his own, which would serve as the medium for her divination.

Dorothy had Edric lay out the paper with the magical array and place the box on top. Then, she walked over and took out three gold coin-shaped “Lamp” storage items and placed them on the array.

Divination could accomplish many things, but different methods had different limitations. Pendulums could only be used for location divination, coins for yes-or-no questions, wands for direction, and dials for time. None of these were suitable for finding the killer.

Pendulums required a complete and precise map, which was not available on the train. Dorothy lacked the necessary spirituality to use coins for trial-and-error searches, and wands couldn’t be used indefinitely to confirm directions. Dials were also unsuitable.

Therefore, a new divination method called “sign divination,” commonly known as “drawing lots,” was needed.

After preparing everything, Dorothy had enough “Enlightenment” and “Lamp” to break through the killer’s anti-divination defenses.

The divination began. Dorothy reached into the box containing the tickets, shuffling them thoroughly. Finally, after a while, she drew one out. At the same time, she expended 1 point of “Enlightenment,” and a gold coin on the table dimmed, indicating that the killer had no anti-divination measures. Dorothy had successfully divined the killer with minimal spiritual expenditure.

“No anti-divination? A Black Tier like him seems quite poor… No, even those two Bone Craftsmen earlier had no anti-divination. Perhaps this is the norm for a Black Tier? Indeed, Lue is too rich, surpassing the usual standard for a Black Tier.”

Dorothy muttered to herself, but it made sense. Lue was nearing the peak of the Black Tier and had his own business, unlike other Black Tiers who worked for large societies.

Ignoring other thoughts, Dorothy looked at the ticket she had drawn. It bore the name of the ticket holder and the seat number assigned by the train attendant as per her request. In this era, train tickets were not pre-assigned to specific seats.

“Carriage 7, Row 5, Seat 4… Kim Cook…”