In the library of Royal Saint Crown University in the Tivian North Suburb, Dorothy sat in her usual spot, controlling numerous Corpse Puppets scattered throughout the campus to search for information about Duke Barret's academic collaborator.
After confirming that the person was likely a Professor at Crown University and interested in the hidden history of the Wind King Rebellion period, finding them became much easier. By simply examining all the research these Professors had done, all the papers they had published, and all the books they had borrowed, it was easy to determine their research interests and directions, and to infer their "academic personality." Based on this, it could be determined whether they would be interested in historical events like the Wind King Rebellion.
After collecting a large amount of information and conducting a comprehensive analysis, Dorothy continuously filtered the list of Professors in her mind, until only one person remained: Professor John. Machison from the Archaeology Department. He had written several papers on the history before and after the Wind King Rebellion, and the historical materials he borrowed also tended to be from that period.
In his papers, although he outwardly claimed to respect the existing historical records, in some paragraphs, he subtly hinted at his distrust and dissatisfaction with the current historical records through veiled language. It could be said that among all the Crown University Professors, he was the most suspicious and most likely to be Duke Barret's academic collaborator.
"John. Machison? Heh... interesting. I didn't expect it to be someone I know..." Sitting in a corner of the library, Dorothy looked at the Professor's archived data sent back by the Corpse Puppet in the distant archives in her mind, and couldn't help but murmur softly. This name, Professor John, was not the first time she had heard it. Dorothy herself had even met him. John. Machison was Neff's teacher, one of the Professors in the Archaeology Department at Crown University. It was Professor John who led Neff and the others on their study tour. Dorothy had a brief encounter with him on the cruise ship.
'I didn't expect it... The secrets hidden within Crown University are not limited to just the Secret Knowledge Society. Thinking about it, the entire campus is located on the double hidden ruins of the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society) and the Mirror Moon Church. One of the school's major directors is a prominent figure in the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild, and many members of Prit's official secret system graduated from here. It's only natural that there are a few more secrets hidden here...'
Dorothy thought to herself. After roughly confirming that Barret's research collaborator was Neff's teacher, she immediately began calculating the time. After calculating, she found that the Archaeology Department's study tour team would return to Tivian in two days. Their ship would dock at the port in the East District at that time, ending the study tour that had lasted for more than half a year.
'Two days? In that case, I'll prepare some gifts and pay a good visit to that Professor in two days.'
Dorothy thought to herself. After finding the person, her mood was much lighter. She immediately began controlling the Corpse Puppets spread throughout the campus to clean up the traces of her investigation and slowly retrieve them. She planned to retrieve all the Corpse Puppets, then enjoy some afternoon tea, go home to clean the dusty house and rest for two days, and then set off to have a good talk with the Professors who had returned from their trip.
Just as Dorothy was manipulating the Corpse Puppet in the distant archives to tidy up the searched materials and re-file all the documents, she discovered a slight problem.
For the convenience of retrieval and searching, the archiving of various archives has its own rules. Archives of different categories are grouped into a large category, and different large categories are divided into countless small categories. From large archive shelves to specific filing cabinets, there are rules in place. Even within a single file folder, archives of the same type will be placed in order according to rules such as date, allowing people to accurately retrieve the desired archives according to the rules when searching.
When Dorothy was reviewing these numerous archives, she also slowly searched according to the rules after figuring out the archiving rules in this archive. Therefore, when she controlled the Corpse Puppet to re-organize these archives, she also organized them according to the rules. However, during this organization process, she noticed a point.
This point was in the experimental conclusion of one of the chemistry Professor's file folders at Crown University. After quickly reading the content of this report, when she re-organized and filed it, Dorothy suddenly frowned slightly, finding that the content of the experimental report she had organized seemed to contradict the content she had seen the first time she saw this report. After recalling, she realized that the first time she saw this report, the order of two of the pages was actually reversed from the order she was now organizing.
This experimental report was written on several loose sheets of paper. When archiving, it was not bound, but was placed together with all of this Professor's experimental reports. Therefore, the order of the documents inside was at risk of being disrupted if not careful. The problem now was that Dorothy's memory of the first time she saw this experimental report did not match her memory after archiving and re-organizing it. Therefore, there must have been a problem in some step.
Since this experimental report was written on a few pages of paper by the Professor himself, there were no page numbers specifically marked. Therefore, when Dorothy re-organized it, she specifically read the entire report to sort out the order of the report based on the logical relationship between the content on these few pages. However, after sorting it out, she felt that something was wrong. After careful recollection, she found that the order of the report when she took it out was different from the order she had sorted, and it was wrong.
In other words, if Dorothy were to organize this experimental report according to her memory, the logical sequence of this report would be completely illogical, making it an unreadable report. However, if she organized this report based on the content in logical order, the result of the organization would not match her memory. Since Dorothy's memory as an "enlightenment" Extraordinary is not wrong, the order of the pages in this report was already messed up when Dorothy took it out.
'So... did that Professor accidentally mix up the order of his report pages when submitting it?'
For a moment, this thought surfaced in Dorothy's mind. If someone else encountered such a problem, they would definitely attribute the cause to the above possibility and not think about it further. However, Dorothy was different. To put it harshly, she was a neurotic detail fanatic. To put it nicely, her thinking was too active, and her brain had too much energy compared to ordinary people to think about a lot of trivial things, and she could multitask without delaying her main tasks.
After noticing the detailed problem in this experimental report, Dorothy immediately compiled a list of this chemistry Professor's other papers or reports. After going through them comprehensively, she found that this Professor was a very meticulous person. His experimental designs and papers were logically rigorous, his ideas were clear, and his reports were written meticulously. In dozens or even hundreds of pages of handwritten papers, the handwriting was neat, the pages were clean, there were no spelling errors, and there were only one or two places where there were corrections. It could be seen that he was a very meticulous and serious person. There were no low-level errors such as misplaced pages in any text other than this report.
'This Professor... doesn't seem like someone who would submit a report with misplaced pages... The misplaced pages in this report should not have been caused by him, but by someone who subsequently archived or searched the files. However, this report was submitted as a whole, and the person who archived it only needed to look at the first page with the title and didn't need to read it, so the possibility is small. It is more likely to be caused by someone who subsequently searched the files. So... someone came here to search these archives before me?'
After this doubt arose, Dorothy continued to organize the archives while having the Corpse Puppet observe the surroundings of the archives more carefully. She also retrieved all her memories since entering the archives and began a detailed observation, eventually discovering more things.
Since it was currently the summer vacation at Crown University, there were not many people staying on campus. The archives, which did not have many visitors in the first place, had almost no visitor records in the past month or so, so a thin layer of dust should have accumulated throughout the large archives. However, when Dorothy recalled when her Corpse Puppet first entered the archives, there was almost no dust on the ground and obvious desk and cabinet surfaces, as if it had been specifically cleaned recently, while dust was particularly heavy in some inconspicuous corners.
Based on the current dust situation, this archive had been simply cleaned at least two or three days ago. However, during the long holiday, there were no sanitation workers in charge of the main body of the entire school. Places like archives, where there were not many people, were usually cleaned less often. Who would clean here during the summer vacation? In addition, Dorothy also found that most of the file folders in the archives had a layer of fine dust, but the file folders about the Crown University Professors that Dorothy had reviewed did not have such traces.
A Professor's experimental report was messed up... The dust in the archives was abnormal... These various abnormal phenomena surfaced in Dorothy's mind, and not surprisingly, she came to a conclusion: someone had been to this archive not long before her and had looked through the Professor's files.
Moreover... these people were not looking through the files openly. They also wanted to hide their traces, because the archives were uninhabited for a long time, and there was obvious dust on the ground. After they came in, they would leave obvious footprints on the ground, so when they left, in order not to expose their footprints, they simply cleaned the ground.
And when they were looking through those Professor's files, they accidentally scattered the chemistry Professor's experimental report. When they re-filed that experimental report, they got the order of the pages wrong, and then I noticed it.
These guys were already quite meticulous when organizing the documents they had reviewed, and there were no errors except for that experimental report. The reason for the error in the experimental report was the nature of the report itself. It was written on a few loose sheets of paper by a Professor, without page numbers marked on it, and the content was very professional, with professional terms and formulas throughout. If one's cultural level was not high enough, it would look like reading a celestial book, completely incomprehensible.
And since they didn't know what was being said, they naturally couldn't organize it by reading the article and following the logical order. They could only organize it randomly. On the other hand, due to Dorothy's inherent knowledgeable characteristic as an "enlightenment" Extraordinary, she could read the content of that experimental report at a glance and see the problem on it.
'It seems... besides me, someone else is also interested in the archives here...'
Dorothy thought to herself. Then, after a slight pause for a second, she took out an ordinary coin from her body and held it in her hand.
'Before me, the purpose of the people who came to the archives at Crown University to search for information was to find someone?'
Dorothy murmured to herself. Then she consumed 1 point of "Light" and 1 point of "enlightenment" and tossed the coin in her hand into the air. The coin spun in the air for a while and then fell, but when it landed on Dorothy's hand, it unexpectedly bounced off and fell to the ground with a clinking sound, indicating the failure of this divination.
This failure also meant that Dorothy's divination had touched upon some anti-divination measure, and it also meant that the group of people who came to the Crown University archives before Dorothy had a hidden Extraordinary background.
And at this time, who would be interested in these archives, it goes without saying.
'It looks like... the people from the Eight-Pointed Nest are not completely ignorant about the issue of Barret's collaborator...'
Silently picking up the coin on the ground, Dorothy thought to herself. It was obvious that, like herself, the people from the Eight-Pointed Nest had also realized the existence of Barret's research collaborator.
Thinking about it, all of Barret's research materials fell into the hands of the Eight-Pointed Nest. Dorothy only recorded a small part of them. The people from the Eight-Pointed Nest knew more about Barret's research status than Dorothy and Misha. If Barret and John were indeed collaborating on research, it was likely that they exchanged letters, or Barret mentioned the existence of a collaborator in his other research notes. In that case, the Eight-Pointed Nest would be alerted, and with their nature, they would definitely find that research collaborator and eliminate future troubles.
Looking at their actions now, they should have learned from Duke Barret's Legacy that this collaborator was related to Crown University. However, after Duke Barret's assassination, the official Prit and the Church launched a joint large-scale search and arrest operation against the Eight-Pointed Nest, making the entire Tivian extremely unsafe. The forces of the Eight-Pointed Nest had to withdraw from Tivian completely, so even if they knew that there might be Barret's collaborator at Crown University, they did not have the capacity to return and investigate.
It should be known that the Eight-Pointed Nest had caused trouble at Crown University. Thanks to Dorothy, the ritual of the Eight-Pointed Nest at Crown University was destroyed, and their infiltration and control of Crown University students were known to the An Yin Bureau at that time. At that time, they were officially put on the An-Yin Main Bureau's list.
And after Misha took charge of the matters of the Eight-Pointed Nest, in order to prevent Crown University from being infiltrated by the Eight-Pointed Nest again, she greatly strengthened the hidden defenses here. This defense was further elevated after Duke Barret's assassination, making it difficult for the Eight-Pointed Nest to return to Crown University to cause trouble for a considerable period of time, and thus unable to investigate the matter of the so-called collaborator.
All of this... until recently, the An-Yin Main Bureau announced the end of the high-pressure state during the large-scale search and arrest, and the defense level against the Eight-Pointed Nest was lowered. Among the entire An Yin Bureau Main Bureau, Misha, who was most targeted at the Eight-Pointed Nest, died in an "accident," and the security measures arranged by Misha at Crown University were all withdrawn shortly after her "death." This finally gave the people of the Eight-Pointed Nest an opportunity to return to Crown University, and they finally had the opportunity to investigate the possible collaborator of Barret who was hiding in Crown University.
As of now, Dorothy is not sure how much specific information about John the Eight-Pointed Nest has, but given that they have narrowed down the target range to the Professors of Crown University, Dorothy can no longer ignore it.
It's also fortunate that those spider guys have poor cultural level and can't understand the Professor's experimental report, messing it up and leaving clues for Dorothy later. The overall educational quality of the Eight-Pointed Nest needs to be improved.
"It seems I also need to make some preparations for how to welcome Professor John..." Looking at the seemingly ordinary coin in her hand, Dorothy murmured softly.