Above the boundless ocean, the sky was grey, the sea wind howled, and amidst the surging waves, a white passenger ship was sailing, leaving a long wake.
On the deck of the passenger ship, many passengers were gathered at this moment. Based on the estimated time, the ship should arrive at its destination very soon, and they had come specifically to witness the end of this journey.
A tall woman with dark skin, wearing a light-colored trench coat, a windproof cotton hat, and long boots, was one of them. Naifnis leaned against the railing on the ship's foredeck, gazing at the vast sea ahead, a hint of melancholy in her expression.
"Around this time last year, I seemed to be traveling by ship as well… If I remember correctly, it seemed to be the same route, crossing the same sea… A year has just passed like this, it feels so fast…"
While the sea wind blew, Naifnis whispered with a slight sigh of emotion. Recalling the study tour she experienced last year, it seemed to have started at the beginning of the year. At that time, she also departed from Tivian and hurried to Faloro, taking this very route. Now, a year had passed without her realizing it. Thinking back on the various things she had experienced over the past period, she couldn't help but feel a lot of emotion for a moment.
'Last year… the first half of the year plus the summer vacation was mainly spent traveling around the world with Miss Dorothy, experiencing many things… It felt like time passed very slowly. After that, normal school days passed peacefully, and a semester was gone in the blink of an eye. Although the life in the first half of the year was very fulfilling, in the end, I'm still more suited to living a normal life…'
Naifnis thought this in her heart. The half-year of stable life had completely relaxed her nerves, which had been tense from years of being involved in the occult. Her university life, which she had originally found boring and tedious, had become exceptionally peaceful. If possible, she hoped this peace could last longer, but reality was that her peaceful days seemed to be coming to an end.
'Inviting me to travel to Faloro… Miss Dorothy puts it nicely, but she probably needs me again for something related to the occult. Ugh… It's a pity, I originally wanted to go somewhere else during my remaining vacation, but since Miss Dorothy said so, there's nothing I can do…'
'But I've already rested at Miss Dorothy's place for several months, so now it's time to…'
Naifnis thought with a hint of distress in her heart. Although she also liked ordinary life away from the occult, she knew that given her family's situation, staying away from the occult was almost impossible. Only Dorothy could win a glimmer of hope for herself and her family amidst the cruel family destiny. Therefore, if Dorothy asked her to do something, she wouldn't refuse, after all, Dorothy was, to some extent, the support she needed to go further on the path of the extraordinary.
'Hopefully, this time it's nothing too dangerous…' Looking at the distant sea, Neff thought hopefully in her heart. As time passed, the tip of a lighthouse began to appear on the horizon ahead, followed by the gradual emergence of the scattered coastline. Her not-too-long journey was about to end.
...
After the ship docked at the port city of Basse in Faloro, Naifnis immediately disembarked. She then began strolling through the city she had visited before, carrying her luggage, looking around and admiring the surrounding scenery. After leaving the dock area and arriving at a crossroads at the agreed location, Neff saw a black carriage parked by the roadside at the busy intersection. The coachman was a familiar figure.
Upon seeing the carriage, Neff quickened her steps and walked to its side. The coachman on the driver's seat saw Neff approaching and smiled as he dismounted. After a slight bow, he opened the carriage door. Seeing this, Neff nodded in greeting, then boarded the carriage and sat on a seat to one side. Then, she saw an even more familiar figure sitting opposite her.
"Good afternoon, Miss Dorothy." Looking at the white-haired girl sitting upright before her, wearing a black and white dress and a lady's hat, Neff said with a smile. After the Corpse Puppet coachman closed the door and returned to his seat, Dorothy also nodded in greeting and spoke.
"The journey was tough, Senior Nefelnis. How was it? Did you have a good winter break?" Dorothy said, while having the Corpse Puppet coachman drive forward. Neff immediately replied.
"It was quite good, but the start of the school term is getting closer, so I wanted to prepare for my studies. I didn't expect Miss Dorothy to suddenly invite me to travel to Faloro. Um… I wanted to say, this trip of ours shouldn't last too long, right? I still have quite a few things I prepared that aren't finished yet." Clasping her hands together, Neff said to Dorothy, and Dorothy responded by waving her hand.
"About that… it probably won't end anytime soon. It might take one or two weeks. But don't worry, if your studies are really troublesome, I'll help you deal with them when we get back. For now, just focus on our 'travel'." Dorothy said this to Neff. Hearing her words, Neff couldn't help but purse her lips, and then spoke again.
"Then… where is the destination of our 'travel'? Are we going to Flotz? I remember that's the capital of Faloro."
"Of course we're going to Flotz, but Faloro is so big, it would be too much of a shame to go straight to Flotz. Anyway, we're not in a hurry this time, so we can visit other places first."
Dorothy replied to Neff in this way. As she spoke, she also took out a stack of items from her clothes and unfolded them in her hand. Neff looked closely and found that they were envelopes, each sealed with red sealing wax. On the sealing wax, there was a letter "K" imprinted.
Looking at these letters, Neff couldn't help but shiver all over.
...
A few days later, northern Faloro, Flotz.
During the daytime in Flotz, the sky was clear, the sun shone brightly. The late winter, early spring sunlight illuminated the vast city. Citizens bustled through the streets and alleys, politicians shouted at intersections, commoners hurried for a living, and the upper class reminisced about last night's ball in various high-end venues. Everything was as usual.
On a certain bustling street, people came and went, and traffic flowed like water. A barefoot newsboy held a newspaper high, running along the sidewalk and shouting loudly.
"Strike! Thief K strikes again! The Albuk Museum was robbed! A large number of police forces across the city were on high alert, yet still in vain! The phantom thief who never fails has once again fulfilled his promise!"
Holding the newspaper in his hand, the newsboy ran and shouted. Pedestrians on the street, upon hearing the newsboy's shouts, stopped him one after another, took out copper coins, and bought a newspaper. The countless newspapers the newsboy was holding were quickly consumed amidst this hot news topic, and before long, all the newspapers were sold out.
After selling all the newspapers, the barefoot little newsboy stood under a street light by the roadside. Touching the slightly heavy coins in his pocket, he couldn't help but smile. After wiping his dirty little face, he looked at a restaurant not far away. Seeing the countless food pictures hanging in the restaurant, he couldn't help but swallow and walked towards the inside of the restaurant.
But as soon as the newsboy entered the door, he was almost angrily thrown out by the doorman because of his improper attire. Just as the newsboy was frantically preparing to dodge, the doorman suddenly calmed down, became amiable, and allowed the newsboy to enter the restaurant. So, with a nervous expression, the newsboy entered the restaurant, ordered a plate of fried noodles at the counter, and ate happily. During this process, he saw many other customers in the restaurant reading newspapers, while some guests who were not reading newspapers seemed to be heatedly discussing the content.
"Did you see that… that Thief K stole something again."
"Yeah… This is the third incident this month, right? And it's in the third city, and it's still an artifact. He even sent out an advance notice. It's incredible that he still succeeded." Two ordinary commoners discussed this while dining at a table.
"I just don't understand. Once or twice is fine, maybe they didn't believe the legend of Thief K and were careless, so things were lost. But what about this third time? He announced beforehand that he was going to steal something, and the owner still couldn't keep it safe? What kind of food are the police eating? What kind of useless people are we taxpayers' money feeding! If all the police in the country are like this, the nation of Faloro will cease to be a nation! No! The parliament must take action! Our police system needs a thorough review!" A political commentator in a suit and leather shoes, surrounded by a group of people, roared red-faced, holding a newspaper in her hand, while her audience raised their hands high and cheered in agreement.
"Ah… I never expected the story of the phantom thief lady to be real. I thought it was a distant foreign legend. Issuing an advance notice and then ignoring all obstacles to steal the target treasure, powerful, confident, elegant… Ah… what a romantic image suitable for poetry." A young man wearing glasses and exuding an artistic aura commented this while looking at the newspaper. At the table in front of him, a young woman with a similar temperament refuted him.
"Phantom thief lady? Master K's gender is completely unclear so far. No one has ever found out his true identity. What makes you think he is female!?"
"Haven't you read it? In Mr. Clement's poem 'Deep Blue Dance Steps', K is directly praised as a beautiful woman with a graceful figure, elegant movements, astonishing speed, able to pass through crises as freely as the wind without being touched by hundreds of security guards chasing and intercepting her, and finally able to fly away with the sea wind. He once personally witnessed K's appearance at the shining white pearl exhibition. That was the phantom thief lady's first appearance, and Mr. Clement was one of the first witnesses. Do you not believe Mr. Clement?"
"Mr. Clement's poem did describe Master K appearing in a female form, but that doesn't mean she is female. The mainstream opinion now is that Master K is skilled in disguise and changing clothes, able to easily transform into a thousand different appearances, and can present himself to the world in various guises at will."
"For example, like this time, didn't the newspaper say? The reason why the Albuk Museum was stolen under strict police guard at the very end was because Master K disguised himself as a guarding police officer and mixed in with them. There are generally no women in the police force, right! So, Master K's gender is completely uncertain, he might even be a handsome and dashing man!"
"Oh dear… That's impossible. Mr. Clement has already said K is a lady. How could he suddenly become a man now?"
"You can't fully believe everything Clement says! Look at his previous poems, there are so many wishful descriptions. I really don't understand how you regard such a guy's poems as treasures. Perhaps you should read Madam Yvonne's short story 'Underneath the Cover' about Master K. It shows Master K's characteristic of being constantly changing. Beneath the multiple masks is a lonely and conflicted heart. At the end of the novel, Master K is depicted as a man. This is the first novel that depicts Master K as male. At first, it wasn't accepted and was mindlessly criticized, but now more and more people are starting to accept her viewpoint, forming a large circle…"
...
In the restaurant, people of various identities were heatedly discussing the news that had occurred in the past few days, collectively discussing the key figure Thief K. Depending on their identity, their topics involved politics, conspiracy theories, literature, and economics.
Among them, the only one who didn't care much about Thief K's identity was the newsboy sitting in front of the counter, eating fried noodles heartily. He didn't care who Thief K was, but he still had to thank him, because Thief K's appearance had made his newspapers sell much better recently, so much so that he now rarely had some spare money to enjoy a meal in this slightly upscale restaurant, fulfilling his dream of the past few months.
Somewhere in the restaurant, at a window seat, Adele, dressed in casual clothes, was sitting there. After glancing at the little newsboy successfully eating at the counter not far away, she turned her gaze back to look at Dorothy, who was leisurely sipping tea at the table opposite her.
"I heard rumors about Thief K a long time ago, but I really didn't expect such a figure to be your subordinate. As expected… such a romantic character needs a sufficiently mysterious extraordinary background to match." Adele whispered to Dorothy in this way, and Dorothy then spoke with a smile.
"Actually, saying'subordinate' isn't quite right. This time, I just asked him for a favor. Before I was promoted to Scarlet, our statuses were actually quite similar."
Dorothy replied to Adele in this way, and the other party also continued to speak with a flash in her eyes.
"So… Thief K is the bait you prepared? Can this really make the Dark Gold Society members take the bait?"
"Yes, what the Dark Gold Society members fear is nothing more than a trap specifically prepared for them. If the bait is too obvious, they won't bite. But from another perspective, if the Dark Gold Society members think they are not fish, but hunters hiding in the dark, will their vigilance still be as strong as it is under normal circumstances?"
Dorothy said this with a smile, and Adele nodded thoughtfully in response.
"Make them think they are predators in the dark? I see… So, when do you plan to arrange their predatory action?"
"Soon. Now that the appetizers are finished, it's time for the main course."
Dorothy said this. Then, she placed the teacup in her hand onto the table, took out a piece of letter paper from the side of the table, and looked at the series of flowery script that was already written on it.
"Notice to the guards of the City of Flower Dance. The rare treasure from the ancient dynasty is imprisoned underground in the palace forged by feast wine. I will officially visit the Shangshou Palace tonight to bring liberation to those ancient memories.
"—Thief K"