East Tivian, Soaring Theatre.
In the afternoon, in the private dressing room of the Soaring Theatre, Adele, dressed in a vibrant costume, sat alone, preparing for the evening's performance.
On her dressing table lay a magazine, on the blank space of which words were appearing out of thin air.
"Memory... is that it? So that Aka can directly give his memories to others?"
Putting down her eyeliner, Adele checked her makeup in the mirror while murmuring, a strange look on her face.
'What a peculiar divine existence, to be able to directly help believers in this way. However, handling trivial matters like communication between believers doesn't feel like it's His subjective will at work. Perhaps it's some kind of passive prayer processing mechanism...'
Adele analyzed the operating mechanism of the mysterious Aka in her mind. After a brief thought, she picked up her pen again and wrote on the text in front of her.
"Mr. Detective, it seems that stone monument is really important to you or your society. But I still have to remind you of one thing: I have carefully reviewed all of Davik's memories from my teacher. They are all interrogation content, and there are really no valuable clues. Moreover, these memories are very negative and may affect your mood after reading them."
Adele replied like this. Not long after her writing disappeared into the text, a new reply immediately appeared.
"Don't worry, Adele, it's no big deal if it just affects my mood. Perhaps I can find something more valuable in them."
In front of the dressing table, Adele paused slightly as she looked at the content on the magazine before her, then smiled and murmured.
"Still as confident as ever..."
With that, Adele closed her eyes and began to silently pray to Aka in her heart. During the prayer, she also recalled all the parts about Davik from Dalena's memory.
"Great Aka, recorder of all things, please show my memories to Mr. Detective..."
...
Tivian North Suburb, Green Shade Town.
In House Number 17 of Green Shade Town, Dorothy, who was sitting by the fireplace, suddenly froze, then closed her eyes as if sensing something.
After a while, she opened her eyes, let out a sigh of relief, and then picked up her pen to continue writing a reply on the logbook before her.
"Thank you, Adele, for specifically recalling these memories for me."
"It's what I should do, after all, we are friends, aren't we? Alright, now I need to continue with my makeup and prepare for the evening performance. If you have a chance, come and support me a couple of times."
Adele's words appeared again on the logbook in front of Dorothy.
Dorothy smiled slightly after reading it, and after simply replying with a 'Of course', she closed the logbook.
Then, Dorothy leaned back on the single sofa, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes again, beginning to examine the fragmented memories of Dalena that Adele had just transferred to her.
Closing her eyes, Dorothy's vision fell into darkness, and then in the darkness, a scene gradually surfaced.
In Dorothy's eyes, she gradually saw a dim room with cracked floor tiles covered in bloodstains and even minced flesh.
Not far away, bloodstained torture instruments hung on a table. In the corner of the room, a large pile of human bone skeletons with flesh still attached was piled up, and heavy panting echoed in her ears.
In the center of her vision, a figure was standing. It was a man, a short, thin man with a dark red complexion, dark hair, small eyes, and prominent cheekbones.
He wore a decent, thickened ordinary men's coat, and his shoes and clothes were covered in fine black ash, looking somewhat dirty.
He spoke to Dorothy... or rather, to Dalena.
"I have to remind you, Madam Dalena, you are now our prisoner, and you have no right to bargain.
If you cooperate with my work, I might be able to plead with my colleagues to treat you better. Otherwise, you'll have a hard time of it.
First, tell me, where is the key to the safe in your workshop hidden? What's the password? What's inside?"
'Is this Davik Jones?'
Looking at the short man who was constantly interrogating in the memory scene, Dorothy confirmed in her heart.
She carefully and thoroughly watched this segment of memory that originally belonged to Dalena and confirmed that the man in front of her was Davik, the Wolf Blood Society member she was looking for.
Dorothy began to carefully examine the memory. In the memory, Davik asked Dalena many questions about her workshop and her research.
Dalena seemed to have been severely tortured by other Wolf Blood Society members before, so her mind was in a trance and she could only occasionally answer a sentence or two.
Dorothy could not extract any information from these conversations that would help her find Davik.
After failing to get any useful information from this memory segment, Dorothy switched to another memory.
This time, Davik's image in front of her changed. He was now wearing a thin shirt and black trousers, seemingly much cleaner than before, unlike his previous dusty appearance.
However, the interrogating expression on his face remained unchanged.
"Speak! Do you have a translation of that Eagle Script secret transmission! If you do, confess honestly!
I'm telling you... those other mad dogs have decided to put you on the table. If you cooperate well with me, you might be able to live a couple more days!"
In this memory, Davik was still interrogating Dalena, but Dalena seemed to have become mentally very poor due to long-term torture and was unable to provide any valuable answers.
Dorothy also did not obtain any valuable information from this memory segment that could locate Davik's position.
Instead, she was affected by the painful and despairing mood in the memory.
Fortunately, Dorothy was an Extraordinary of "enlightenment" and had strong control over her own spirit, otherwise she might have become directly depressed.
Although she still hadn't obtained any useful information, Dorothy did not give up. She began to examine other memories one after another.
Dalena had over a dozen segments of memory regarding Davik. In these dozen segments of memory, Davik's appearance varied, with a clear change in clothing from thick to thin, which proved that Dalena had been held and tortured for a long time.
From these memories, Dorothy could see that Davik often wore clothes suitable for going out, which meant that where Davik lived and where Dalena was held and tortured were not the same place.
Davik seemed to be in a state where he was engrossed in studying the things from Dalena's workshop at his own base, and when he encountered difficulties, he would come over to interrogate Dalena.
In the memories provided by Adele, their conversations revolved around things in Dalena's workshop and did not involve anything else at all.
At first, in the early period, Dalena could still answer Davik's interrogation, but later, after Dalena was tortured to the point of being mentally unclear, it became difficult for her to provide information to Davik.
At first, Dorothy had hoped to find some clues from Davik's conversation, but now it seemed completely useless, which couldn't help but make her very disappointed.
Dorothy repeatedly watched these dozen memory segments and found that the topic of their conversations had never deviated, all focused on research.
Topics other than that were not mentioned at all.
As Adele said, Dorothy simply could not extract useful information about Davik's residence from them.
"Hiss... Can't find any clues at all, it's really troublesome..."
Opening her eyes, Dorothy scratched her head and murmured in frustration.
She had spent a lot of effort going through these memories one by one, but found no clues at all, which made her quite depressed.
"Can't find clues in Dalena's memory... Then where else can I look? Could it be that I have to force a divination? No, my 'Light' is not abundant right now..."
Dorothy murmured, her 'Light' Spirituality accumulation was only 1 point, and her storage was 3 points, totaling only 4 points of 'Light', so she didn't want to use it carelessly. Furthermore, for a society of a certain scale like the Placenta Wolf Blood Society, they had deep anti-divination resources. Although she had an advantage in divination, her foundation was still somewhat lacking. While she could bypass anti-divination by cleverly designing divination rituals, the complexity of ritual design had limits. The level of design she used to number letters and find sponsors was already the limit of ritual complexity; adding anything more would cause the ritual to fail due to being overly cumbersome.
Some time ago, her actions of speculating on "enlightenment" caused turmoil in the entire Tivian divination market. Not only "enlightenment," but now the prices of "Light" and "Shadow" have also been driven up. After Dorothy bought 3 points of "Light" last time, the price of "Light" has been soaring. The current price of "Light" storage is several times higher than before, close to over a thousand pounds per point. To avoid losses, Dorothy decided to wait for the price of "Light" to drop before buying again.
'Hmm... If possible, it's best to find someone without using divination, but now there are absolutely no clues... What should I do?'
Thinking, Dorothy crossed her arms and fell into deep thought. After pondering for a long time, she still decided to look through Dalena's memories to see if she could find any details.
This time, Dorothy did not focus her attention on Davik's dialogue but rather on the various details about him, trying to discover other clues.
And this time, she had a harvest.
"The dust on this guy's clothes is a bit familiar..."
Opening her eyes, Dorothy murmured. She recalled the image of Davik in Dalena's eyes. When he first appeared, Davik wore a thick coat, and there seemed to be a layer of fine black dust on his clothes and shoes.
Dorothy recognized this kind of black dust; it was coal ash... In the Coal Ash District, the largest coal distribution center in Tivian, people's clothes often get covered in coal ash. Last time, Dorothy and Adele were ambushed by the Werewolf Alex in the Coal Ash District while looking for Dalena and were entangled with him and the An Yin Bureau there for quite some time, so Dorothy was very familiar with this kind of fallen dust.
'So... the place where Davik lives is in the Coal Ash District?'
This thought appeared in Dorothy's mind but was quickly dismissed.
'No... The Coal Ash District is in Sitivian, and according to the information received from Grego earlier, this Davik seems to be active in the South District. Moreover, in these dozens of memories of Dalena about Davik, not every image has fallen dust on his body. About half of them are without fallen dust, with relatively clean clothes. If he always lived in the Coal Ash District, he would get covered in dust as soon as he went out, so this phenomenon wouldn't occur...'
Dorothy continued thinking, dismissing the speculation that Davik lived in the Coal Ash District. However, she also found that the dust on Davik was indeed a clue, so she began to continue her deduction based on this clue.
'Although Davik doesn't live in the Coal Ash District, the fallen dust that often appears on him could still come from the Coal Ash District. If I can figure out the pattern of the fallen dust on him, perhaps I can find the connection between him and the Coal Ash District...'
Dorothy thought this way, and then began to carefully observe the pattern of fallen dust on Davik in the dozens of memory scenes. She then found that Davik had a higher chance of having fallen dust on him when wearing thick clothes. When he wore thin clothes such as a shirt, he was cleaner and had less fallen dust.
"Hiss... So, there's more dust when it's cold, and less dust when it's hot? That's interesting..."
Dorothy murmured with a slight smile. After discovering this pattern, she had a very clear idea in her mind. She closed her eyes and recalled the many ordinary books she had read in the Crown University library. Among these books, there was one called "Prit Geography."
Dorothy recalled the content she had read in "Prit Geography." Prit was an island nation separated from the Main Continent by the sea, with three main islands, one large and two small. The climate was relatively mild throughout the year, with a temperature difference that wasn't too great but was still noticeable. It was windy in autumn and winter, less windy in spring and summer, and prevailing westerlies throughout the year...
"Windy in autumn and winter, less windy in spring and summer, prevailing westerlies throughout the year..."
Sitting on the sofa, Dorothy murmured the words from "Prit Geography." Then she raised an eyebrow and compared this information with the pattern of fallen dust on Davik, and the answer became obvious.
The coal ash on Davik was blown from the Coal Ash District by the wind, which is why it was sometimes present and sometimes not. Due to Prit's characteristic of being windy in autumn and winter and less windy in spring and summer, there was more fallen dust on Davik's thick clothes during the colder, windy seasons, and less fallen dust on Davik's thin clothes during the less windy, warmer seasons.
And an even more important point was that Prit had prevailing westerlies throughout the year, which meant that the wind blowing in Tivian, without interference from a Wind Art User, was basically a west wind.
Thinking of this, Dorothy immediately got up, opened the magic box, and took out a folded large paper from inside. When unfolded, it showed a large map of Prit. Then, Dorothy spread the map on the ground and found the location of the Coal Ash District on the west side of the map.
A west wind is a wind that blows from west to east, so if a large amount of coal ash from the Coal Ash District was blown by the wind, it would drift eastward, and in this process, it was indeed possible for it to fall onto the South District.
Dorothy took out a ruler and pencil and drew two lines eastward from the Coal Ash District, outlining an area. This represented the direction the coal ash from the Coal Ash District would drift and the range it would fall within if blown by the west wind. The area where this range overlapped with the South District could be the location of Davik's base.
Soon, Dorothy successfully circled the area. It was a not-too-large area in the northern part of the South District.
Looking at the circled area on the map, Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief. Finally... she had narrowed the target area down to a sufficiently small range.
"Hoo... It looks like I need to visit this place in person tomorrow..."
Looking at the area she had circled on the map, Dorothy rubbed her chin and murmured.
...
The South District, this is where Tivian's largest slum is located, with some of the most chaotic living conditions in Tivian.
As Tivian's industrial area is mainly located in the South Suburb, the southern end of the South District gathers a large number of industrial workers and also has more severe pollution than the Coal Ash District.
To the north of the South District, slightly closer to the triangular area of the Moonflow River and the Royal City, the situation in the area known as Basket Street is slightly better, but the residents here also have their troubles. The coal ash often blown from the Sitivian Coal Ash District from the west significantly reduces the living environment here.
In the morning, on a certain street in the Basket Street area of the South District, Tivian, an ordinary gray carriage stopped here. Inside the carriage, Dorothy opened the window wanting to look outside, and then a gust of wind blew in, and the coal ash within choked her.
"Cough... Cough, cough, cough... Yes, this is it..."
...