Seventy-Three: Transaction
Inside the carriage of the carriage, having overheard Brandon and Buck’s conversation and obtained crucial intelligence, Dorothy sat in the carriage pondering over this information.
It was clear that this time, the Holy Communion wanted to have their cake and eat it too, using the name of the “Mysterious Society” to lure out the search team from the An Yin Bureau, providing an opportunity for the inside man to steal something, while also ambushing the search team to deal them a heavy blow. As long as everything was done properly, they could even pin the blame on the “Mysterious Society” when avenging Albert, which would create obstacles for Dorothy’s subsequent actions.
Dorothy had to admit that the Holy Communion had indeed thought this through well. However, personally, she didn’t really need to care about the search team; she could focus solely on intercepting Brandon. The losses suffered by the search team were actually irrelevant to her. Even if Gregor fell into an ambush, to corrupt Gregor as a new inside man after Brandon, the Holy Communion would likely spare Gregor’s life.
Therefore… with the most secure method, Dorothy decided to confidently intercept this time, without worrying about the search team, ensuring a win-win situation. Even if the search team was ambushed later, the An Yin Bureau’s attitude towards the so-called “Mysterious Society” might change due to suspicion, but it wouldn’t affect her temporarily… But if Dorothy prioritized safety in every action, she wouldn’t have taken such risks as launching a surprise attack on Burton immediately after her promotion, or pretending to be corrupted.
“Huh… It feels really unsatisfying to completely ignore this,” Dorothy sighed deeply. Now, she had already decided that in the upcoming actions, she wouldn’t just intercept things; she would help the search team.
But now, the problem was how to help… She didn’t even know where the ambush point was, and Buck wouldn’t reveal such information unrelated to himself to Brandon.
“Forget it, it’s getting late, I should go back now, get home before Gregor goes crazy, lie down and think slowly.”
With a thought, Dorothy awakened the coachman zombie puppet leaning against the carriage, then drove the carriage slowly away, heading back.
…
The next day, in the western suburbs of Igewent, at St. Amanda School.
In the morning, in the basement of St. Amanda School, dust flying around, Dorothy, wearing a scarf tied around her head as a makeshift dust mask, walked down the stairs into the basement and saw Odric carving a new piece of work there.
“Oh… Miss Meyshos, did you bring some new business this time?” Seeing Dorothy enter his workshop, Odric put down his chisel, placed his tools on the table, and said humorously.
“Let me guess, is it the secret problem consulting encyclopedia? Or the full-year leave service?”
‘You still have a sense of humor.’
Dorothy thought irritably, then got straight to the point.
“Do you have any storage items containing the spirit of ‘Lamp’?”
“Lamp? This thing is more common in the church. I do business with the church, so I have some inventory, but not much. Tell me, how much do you need?” Odric didn’t hide anything, speaking directly, and Dorothy responded immediately.
“Not much, just a little, um… enough to complete a small ritual,” after a moment of thought, Dorothy continued.
Listening to Dorothy, Odric nodded and turned to open a door, entering a room. A short while later, he came out with a small box about two inches wide in his hand.
“The spirit of ‘Lamp’ storage item, the standard minimum amount for a ritual is 150 pounds…”
Odric said slowly. Hearing this, Dorothy couldn’t help but complain internally.
‘d*mn… so expensive, buying spirits directly is much worse than extracting them from the secret transmission.’
While thinking, Dorothy took out a small booklet with a faint “Cup” mark from her bag, with several banknotes inside. Holding the booklet and banknotes, Dorothy continued.
“This is the ‘Cup’ secret transmission, the fragment of the ‘Sacred Body Deconstruction Technique,’ and 10 pounds as a confirmation fee, estimate the price for me.”
As she spoke, Dorothy placed the book in front of Odric’s table. After glancing at it, Odric smiled and said.
“The ‘Sacred Body Deconstruction Technique’… I’ve heard of it. It’s now one of the required courses for most ‘Cup’ societies. Looks like Miss Meyshos has a deep connection with the Holy Communion.”
As he spoke, Odric took the secret transmission and went to a workbench, taking out the banknotes and placing the fragment of the ‘Sacred Body Deconstruction Technique’ in the center of a magical array marked with the “Stone” symbol, lighting two incense lamps around it. He then took out a pair of reading glasses from a drawer, with dense mysterious runes engraved on the lenses.
As the smoke from the incense swirled above the magical array, Odric put on the rune-covered reading glasses and quickly flipped through the dark red booklet, skimming each page roughly without reading them thoroughly.
‘Is he preventing poisoning?’
Watching Odric’s actions, Dorothy couldn’t help but think. Never having been troubled by poisoning before, she was quite curious about what Odric was doing.
After quickly scanning it once, Odric closed the ‘Sacred Body Deconstruction Technique.’ When he finished looking at the last page, the right lens of the reading glasses he was wearing suddenly cracked with several fissures, startling Dorothy.
“Hey, that…”
“Hehe, looks like this one is worn out…,” Odric laughed, then took off the rune-covered reading glasses and said to the surprised Dorothy on the other side.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s normal wear and tear. Don’t worry, I won’t charge you extra.”
Hearing Odric’s words, Dorothy slightly relaxed. Seeing a book crack her glasses was something she had never seen before, and it gave her a certain understanding of the danger of poisoning.
Although it was useless to her, it was a significant threat to the other residents of this world.
“The depth of the secret transmission can be judged by the strength of the poison. I just randomly felt the poison in this book… um… I can offer 350 pounds,” after judging the value of the ‘Sacred Body Deconstruction Technique’ fragment, Odric said directly. Dorothy nodded after hearing this.
“Alright, then we have a deal. Give me the ‘Lamp’ and give me 200 pounds in change.”
“No problem.” As he spoke, Odric took money from the drawer on the workbench and placed the small box in front of Dorothy.
After putting away the money, Dorothy picked up the small box and examined it twice, silently thinking.
‘With this, I can also do divination…’
