Waking up, it was already 6:30 on a Tuesday morning.
After preparing breakfast for myself and Mia, I glanced at the advertisent section of the newspaper and realized that in the half a month I had been raising Mia Cat, it seems that I had not given it a bath yet.
But before Shard could do anything, the orange cat, seemingly aware of sothing, darted to the first floor of the house after finishing its sheep's milk-soaked cat food. No matter how much Shard called, it firmly refused to co upstairs.
And when Shard took the initiative to go downstairs, the petite cat evaded his hands and even let out a roar-like "ow~" when Shard cornered it, the first ti the cat glared at him fiercely.
The light from the window on the first floor poured into the undecorated room. Crouching in front of Mia, Shard's face showed a look of astonishnt, then turned into a dejected expression, looking at the cat he had raised for half a month with so shock.
"You actually against ..."
His mouth opened as if wanting to say sothing, but he finally just slowly stood up and retracted his hand that had been reaching out to pick up the cat.
Standing there, looking down at Mia, his lips trembled slightly, yet he said nothing. He turned his head first, then his body, and with footsteps that carried a hint of heaviness, he walked toward the stairs.
Mia Cat stood in the corner, watching Shard's retreating figure. The cat's large eyes blinked twice, then imdiately followed him. The cat walked beside Shard's feet, looking up, trying to see his expression.
"ow~"
It let out a soft call.
Shard stopped, looked down at his feet, bent down, and picked up the orange cat, then his expression changed:
"Ha~ I got you now!"
He showed a happy smile, holding the orange cat around its waist and lifting it high. The man skilled in acting, even when performing for a cat, still displayed excellent acting skills, a basic ability for Outlanders to survive in the Otherworld.
"ow~"
The small orange cat struggled twice but failed to break free from Shard's grasp and thus resigned itself to sulk. Fortunately, Shard did not actually give his pet cat a bath that day.
Because he simply did not know how to bathe a cat.
In this world, people believed that cats possessed the ability to bring good luck, a cultural and customary view, and hence many Arcane Techniques related to "luck" could be linked to cats.
Shard's act of catching "the cat" that morning seed to have brought him good luck. That morning, he was not visited by Miss Maid Tifa Servet at his ho, but instead, a new client arrived.
Last week's advertisent in the newspaper finally had an effect.
The visiting client was a slender middle-aged woman, whose attire indicated her financial situation wasn't good. As she followed Shard upstairs with so nervousness, Shard suspected the client was there for the typical commission of "investigating a husband's infidelity"
But the situation was more outrageous than he expected.
"Hamilton Detective, it's like this. My distant relative, Mr. Jonathan Lemaire... I'm not clear how distant he is; I only t him decades ago. Mr. Lemaire has passed away, and he left
a large sum of inheritance..."
The middle-aged woman sat anxiously on the sofa, perched on the edge as if afraid to damage it. She did not touch the tea Shard had prepared, and after sitting down, she nervously clutched the hem of her skirt while explaining her commission,
The middle-aged woman's last na was also Lemaire, but her relation to the deceased Mr. Jonathan Lemaire went back to her great-grandfather's generation.
"A few days ago, his lawyer... is that the word? I think it is. His lawyer found
and said that after I sign, I could take Mr. Lemaire's inheritance. But I'm afraid it's so kind of trap.
Sir, you know, the kind where they trick people into signing docunts and then take everything away."
This was a fairly common trap of the ti, but for an Outlander, in this sowhat na??ve era, sches like the "Ponzi sche" were actually the most cost-effective traps.
Of course, Shard wouldn't do that. Even if he wanted to make money, he would do so honorably with the knowledge he had. He had always considered himself to be more or less a "protagonist"...
"Co to think of it, I haven't done anything illegal yet, and the Steam Bomb wasn't thrown by ."
He pondered in his heart, then quietly comforted the sowhat nervous woman, sensing that she was unaccustod to such places:
"So, what would you like to commission
to do?"
"Investigate that lawyer, the one who wants
to sign. I don't understand these things, not at all, so I need to rely on soone trustworthy to investigate the whole matter thoroughly. I can't read much, but I know that a detective with an office on Saint Delan Square cannot be a charlatan."
These were the innocent thoughts of the lower-class citizens; it never occurred to them that the detective on Saint Delan Square might not be a swindler, but he could be a foreign spy or an Otherworld visitor.
"Investigate the lawyer... Do you have any information on him?"
Shard inquired after so thought.
"Yes, I have his address. Sir, all I need from you is to confirm whether he really is the so-called lawyer. Oh my, that word is quite a mouthful," said the woman with a low level of education, sowhat embarrassedly. Shard shook his head, indicating it wasn't a problem.
If it was just a matter of confirming whether the man was a lawyer, that would be quite simple. A straightforward approach would be to go directly to the man and check if he was a Ring Sorcerer. If he was, Shard would imdiately advise the client to dismiss the matter; if not, he would pull out a gun and threaten the man to reveal the truth.
A less aggressive thod would involve visiting the man to engage in conversation or conducting a day's surveillance—all within Shard's capabilities.
"Let
ask, how much is the inheritance you spoke of?"
Shard inquired further, and Mrs. Lemaire was quite open:
"Around 50 pounds or so."
"That's quite a sum."
This was not an exaggeration; for the lower classes, 50 pounds was a sizable amount that could change a family's destiny.
"So what did Mr. Jonathan Lemaire do for a living, and do you know how he died?"
Shard continued to inquire, as these details, although seemingly unrelated to investigating the lawyer's identity, were important to determine whether this was a scam or not.
"I know, that attorney told ,"
Mrs. Ler recalled, but there were so details she wasn't clear about:
"In my twenties, I heard he went to sea with a fleet to explore a new northern route to the New World. Gradually, we lost contact, and I only heard occasionally that he joined a very impressive fleet... The attorney said he died in a shipwreck, and people later discovered the will he had left with a friend at the port.
It seems he had long anticipated that seafarers would sooner or later run into trouble. His estate included fifty-three pounds in cash, besides so personal items, journals, collected books, and a few odd trinkets... Oh, this is probably the poor man's lifeti savings."
Although she wasn't familiar with her distant relative Jonathan Lemaire, Mrs. Ler still dabbed her slightly reddened eyes with her handkerchief.
Letting Mrs. Ler calm down a bit, Shard considered the details of this commission and ultimately decided to take it on.
After all, investigating whether a stranger was an attorney was just a day's work.
As for the commission fee, since Mrs. Ler was a middle-aged woman who had been abandoned by her husband and was raising her children alone, Shard did not ask for a high price. Explore stories at empire
When they finally signed the commission agreent, it was decided that if the attorney was not actually an attorney, Mrs. Ler, unable to inherit the estate, would pay Shard a five shilling investigation fee.
If the man was indeed an attorney, then Shard would accompany Mrs. Ler to sign for the inheritance and collect a suitcase of belongings. After Mrs. Ler received the inheritance, Shard would receive a substantial reward of five pounds.
Both parties were satisfied with this valuation thod, and when the client was about to leave, Shard specifically asked where she had learned of this address. The advertisent was published last week; Mrs. Ler must have been drawn here by an advert in so newspaper.
"The Steam Bird Daily. I was worried about being cheated, so I didn't dare go to those detectives from small newspaper ads... My neighbor, a kind-hearted young man studying art at Tobesk University, read the ad to , as I can't read much..."
Mrs. Ler said sowhat embarrassingly. Shard escorted the client downstairs, feeling even more indebted to Miss Luisa.
"At worst, I'll just cooperate with her more on the research of 'The Little Match Girl'; right now, that's the only way I can repay her."
He thought to himself as he watched the client rge into the bustling crowd of Saint Delan Square.
Compared to when he first arrived in this world, Shard could now be considered above the poverty line. Continuing to take such relatively low-paying commissions was not because he was engrossed in his detective identity, but because he had more ideas in mind.
Firstly, leaving the civilized world to go to Saint Byrons Integrated Academy, located in the Far North, was a thing of the far future. And before that, he needed to blend in Draleon, hence maintaining a necessary respectable identity was very important.
Moreover, being a detective could also be lucrative, but this required the accumulation of countless small commissions, so looking down upon low-paying commissions was a foolish act.
Not to ntion, the study thods of Circle Sorcerers ant that correspondence School Sorcerers needed to have an identity that could deal with crises within their own areas of activity.
So, even though he was not as desperate for money now as when he first ca to this world, it was still necessary to take on commissions.
Not to ntion, Shard was actually interested in these types of small commissions, the Outlander deliberately used such ans to get a better look at this unfamiliar world.
The client ca in the morning, and Shard planned to use an entire day of trailing to confirm whether the attorney was a fake. The tracking of the attorney would start tomorrow during the day, so he spent this sowhat calm Tuesday elsewhere.
Around ten in the morning, Shard went out with Mia to "Good Man Peter's Pet Shop" located in Purple Iris Alley, which was also the place where Shard first t Miss Beyas and took Mia ho.
The shop owner, with a whiskey nose, had a deep impression of the young orange cat. Seeing Shard co in with the cat, he almost declared the shop closed for any business today.
But fortunately, Shard was not planning to have Mia fostered here again:
"I need to know how to give a pet bath."
He revealed his purpose, but the shopkeeper blocked the entrance, showing no intention of letting the man and cat inside.
"Just wash it directly, what else can you do, just make sure not to scrub it like you're doing laundry."
In this noisy era, complex and varied pet service projects had yet to be developed.
"So, can you do it for her..."
"When this cat was in the store, it was usually my wife and Miss Cindy who bathed her,"
the middle-aged shopkeeper said, shaking his head rapidly, as if he was afraid that Shard would leave the cat behind.
The cat, held by Shard, rembered this place, but seed to have a poor impression of it, refusing to budge in Shard's arms.
"So are those two ladies in the store now?"
Shard inquired further, to which the man replied without a second thought:
"They're not here, not for the past half a month, no, the past year, they... eloped. But actually, you don't need to bathe pet cats that often; cats are different from people. Mister, you can just wash the cat yourself; it's simple. Even once every three or four months is fine, cats aren't that delicate."
Shard was quite suspicious that the other party simply wanted him to leave quickly, but he also knew that Mia had left quite a "profound" impression on the middle-aged shopkeeper, so he expressed his regret at the shopkeeper's wife and the female clerk eloping before leaving the place.
While he spoke, the middle-aged shopkeeper's face was a picture, even making Shard look forward to the next ti he visited.
As for the matter of washing the cat, that still needed careful consideration.
After leaving Purple Iris Alley, it was about lunchti. Shard found a nearby restaurant and spent 1 shilling and 10 pence to have a decent lunch with his cat.
After leaving the restaurant, seeing that the misty haze still lingered and the fierce sumr sun could not penetrate the fog, he decided to stroll with Mia towards the direction of the Prophet's Society.
It was an extraordinarily dull afternoon; the ground's puddles, left by last night's heavy rain, quickly evaporated, leaving no sign that it had rained just fourteen hours ago.
The outlander dressed in a long-sleeved coat was not quite acclimated to the city's climate, but fortunately, the Prophet's Society on Silver Cross Avenue was relatively cool.
He wasn't there for the Roder Card; he was there to find Miss Annette, to tell her about the recent communication he had with Miss Beyas.
He used the contact information left by the brown-haired female diviner, first explaining in the lobby on the first floor that he wanted divination, and then ntioning Miss Annette's na. Unfortunately, Miss Annette was not currently at the Society.
The Society's Circle Sorcerers had a relatively relaxed managent, not as strict as the Church Ring Sorcerers who needed to be on duty every day. And while Shard knew Miss Annette's residence, obviously, the likelihood of her being at ho during dayti was quite low.
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