Westminster Bank

"Mr. Pelton...? I’m very sorry to inform you... he’s passed away..."

"I know. But as his guarantor, I’m now saddled with his debt. I was hoping I might get some form of consolation from his death."

"Sir, Mr. Pelton did in fact express his apologies to you for his death."

"Apologies?"

"His will states, ’I bequeath everything to Constantine.’ You must be that Constantine, I presume?" the old woman said. "Please, come with me."

Baron and Jack exchanged a look, then followed her.

The old woman was the owner of the villa. Though wealthy, she was childless and found the idea of moving into a nursing home uncomfortable.

So, she had converted her villa into a sort of community center for seniors.

She was essentially the landlady of the place.

She primarily took in lonely, childless seniors with no money, allowing them to live here together.

Mr. Pelton’s room was on the second floor of the villa. According to the landlady, a younger Mr. Pelton had served in the Royal Navy during World War II and had played a part in sinking Germany’s Bismarck.

The room was small, with just a window, a bed, a nightstand, a desk, and a stool. The bed and desk were pushed up against the window, on which sat a bouquet of long-withered flowers.

The landlady said that everything Pelton had left behind was in the desk drawer. With those words, she departed.

Baron pulled open the drawer. Inside, there was only a diary.

Jack clicked his tongue. "Tsk, tsk. So he leaves his ’entire inheritance’ to you, and after all that, it turns out to be just a single diary..."

Baron shot Jack a sideways glance, silently telling him to be serious. He then opened the diary. The very first sentence left both Baron and Jack stunned.

Baron couldn’t understand the writing in the diary. It looked like some variant of English script.

But Jack, the language expert, said, "These are Rune Runes, a script only an Alchemist would know. It translates to: ’The Evil God Summoning Ceremony went wrong.’"

"Evil God Summoning?"

Baron had seen this specific term long ago in news reports from the Bagins Family and related Alchemy documents. It basically involved using items tainted with fragments of ’Law’ as a catalyst to strike a deal with a ’Law Demon’ or the ’Ancient Gods’ they represent, all to obtain something of great importance.

’So Mr. Pelton knew about things like this?’ This undoubtedly confirmed Baron’s suspicion: Mr. Pelton was definitely not someone from the Outer Side. ’To think he’d go so far as to write his diary in Rune Runes... Was he afraid that people from the Outer Side would be able to read it?’

’It looks like I’m another step closer to the truth.’

Speaking of which... "How do you know Rune Runes? It’s a language only Alchemists are supposed to know." Baron was amazed at how absurdly good Jack’s talent for languages was.

"Because I work in transnational containment," Jack said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It’s perfectly normal to have a few extra languages in my back pocket."

"Translate the entire diary for me. Pay special attention and mark down anyone he met with recently."

So, Jack quickly translated the diary, relaying its contents to Baron.

Sure enough, the diary revealed that Mr. Pelton’s identity was far from simple. In the Inner Side, he was an Alchemist.

An underground Alchemist, however.

The Alchemy Ceremonies he performed were mostly ones not sanctioned by the Prole Court, or if they were, they were classified as evil rites.

This had even landed him on the Inquisition’s wanted list.

In the end, he had evaded capture only by hiding out on the Outer Side.

In the diary, Baron confirmed that several years ago Mr. Pelton had gone to the Bagins Family to "procure supplies," which was likely when he obtained the Mistletoe Liquid.

He also learned that after arriving on the Outer Side, Pelton had met a woman and sold some of his Mistletoe Liquid to her.

Baron stopped him at that point and asked if the diary mentioned the woman’s name.

Jack flipped ahead a few pages. "Only a single name is used to refer to her."

"What is it?"

"Fla."

Baron’s pupils constricted. He remembered hearing that name somewhere.

Outside Prole’s Fude City, that mysterious Undead Knight seemed to have cried out that woman’s name as well.

’An Undead Knight is the spirit of a dead person... Only the powerful can ascend to the Spirit Realm... Could it be that the Spirit Realm is actually Prole?’

’If that’s the case... then this Fla might be connected to that Undead Knight.’

"Is there anything else about Fla?"

"That’s it. Let me look again." Jack understood that Baron’s excitement meant he must have had some kind of breakthrough.

"Anthony... Anthony, the Knight Order Leader of the Lion Eye Knight Order. Have you ever seen him? Are there any photos of him?" Baron asked suddenly.

Jack thought for a moment. "I’ve snuck into Buckingham Palace a couple of times, but from what I recall, this Knight Commander doesn’t make many public appearances... You rarely see him in the papers, either..."

Baron said nothing, but he couldn’t suppress the smile spreading across his face. "This is enough," he said. "As long as we can figure out who Fla is, we can probably reconstruct the truth behind Anthony’s murder..."

"I wouldn’t get so excited just yet," Jack said suddenly.

Just as Baron was beginning to feel surprised, Jack handed him the diary, pointed to a line of runes, and read aloud:

"Mr. C came to me today to buy a little Star Night Grass and Mistletoe Liquid. He said the ceremony is almost at the final step, and the other personality almost never appears anymore..."

Baron was stunned.

But Jack had already started muttering to himself, "Mr. C? Using a codename, so mysterious. ’The other personality’... so he has a split personality? When you put it that way... could C stand for a last name? Like, Constantine?"

"Come to think of it, Baron, you must have come looking for Mr. Pelton before. And analyzing the diary, it seems you had strong schizophrenic impulses back then... just like that Lankao fellow said. The Constantine Clan’s Blood Curse... Actually, now I have a question."