Chapter 98: Chapter 64 The Funeral Forensic Doctor
Translator: 549690339
The moon had disappeared.
The body had been dealt with as well.
The Captain gave a shout, “Let’s go, get in the car and head back.”
Leonard Churchill and his fellow Corpse Collector colleagues closed the car doors and drove away from the Gunpowder Factory.
The sudden appearance and disappearance of the moon in the sky probably only served as a conversation starter for common folk after a meal.
Such phenomena that are beyond comprehension, if you cannot see the essence behind the occurrence, then it’s merely a source of ordinary illumination.
Just like “Enlightenment”, if you are unable to understand something, it might not even exist in your realm of awareness.
As Leonard guessed, an emergent “moon” in the sky—such phenomenon could not possibly be overlooked.
Ordinary people might have not heard what the moon is, but certain high-tier Curse Card Masters did.
It was a symbol etched in certain mythological tales.
At No. 117, Candy Street, West City District, stood a heavily guarded building.
It was the headquarters of the Golden Oak Security Company.
At the topmost of the structure, several men clad in suits and robed in black stood before a sizeable glass window, their faces gloomy as they gazed at the silver moon in the sky.
“Those lunatics from the Silver Moon Sect are becoming increasingly audacious, daring to overtly contaminate the faith of the entire city… They’re courting death!”
“These guys still lurk in the shadows, they are hard to locate…”
“Indeed. That ancient relic that ‘Lone Wolf’ Baron brought back from the Demon Cross of the Silver Moon Altar has given them too much assistance. If they manage to resurrect the being the Silver Moon directs to, big trouble will befall us…”
“Did we figure out what happened on Tailor Street last time?”
“We have not located them yet, but there are some leads to that guy’s tactics. Judging from his method of skinning others, it should be the upgraded occupation of Diamonds 3-Plague Doctor, the Funeral Doctor. We have people investigating…”
“Be extra careful recently. I received news that people from Dragon City have been dispatched to investigate. They must have sensed something.”
“Hmm…”
Under the moonlight, a strange dark fog started to rise from their bodies.
Before long, the Corpse Collector squad returned to No. 117 East City Street.
After stuffing the new clients into the metal cabinet, the vast morgue was left with only Leonard himself.
The first thing he did was to take out a map of Sinless City that he had bought earlier in the market and laid it out on the ground.
Next, he took out a thin sheet of white paper and began to draw intently.
Leonard recalled the layout of the secret room in the Grand Cemetery Labyrinth.
While solving the labyrinth before, he had carefully observed the position of almost every brick in there; he clearly remembers the exact locations of the four sacrificial stone pillars.
They formed somewhat an irregular rhombus.
“The distance between the upper and lower pillars is 18.5 meters, the left and right pillars are 13.2 meters apart, and the lengths of the four sides are…”
Leonard recalled while drawing the rhombus proportionally smaller.
Then, using a ruler, he drew the rhombus on the paper.
Recalling the position of the moon symbol on the ceiling, he marked a dot in the center of the rhombus.
Because his memory was impeccable, the scale was highly accurate.
As Leonard thought about the moon he saw previously, he mused, “The spot directly below the moon that appeared earlier should be near King Street in Midtown.”
Merely relying on visual estimation, the exact location of the moon could not be pinpointed accurately.
He could only mark the approximate position of the moon’s appearance on the map of Sinless City.
Leonard fetched the light source again and shone it onto the map, with the drawn picture on the white paper in between.
The light passed through the paper, projecting the black lines of the rhombus onto the map.
Leonard aligned the black dot in the center of the rhombus with King Street, then slowly moved the paper upward. The rhombus on the map got bigger and bigger.
He adjusted the angle of the rhombus slightly again.
And overlapped one corner of it with the cellar’s location in Tailor Street in East City on the map.
Then, he marked the other three corners of the rhombus on the map.
At a glance, the locations of the “Four Pillars” were clear as day.
“In this case, the closest point to me should roughly fall in the vicinity of Redwood District in North City…”
Leonard looked at the conclusion he drew and did some mental computations.
Upon finding no errors, he put away the map.
The map wasn’t that accurate, and this calculation method could only estimate a rough area.
Moreover, he was not completely certain whether those guys had repositioned the “Four Pillars” after they were exposed on Tailor Street.
In any case,
Leonard still planned to check it out first.
A few minutes later, Leonard, now in a fresh outfit, appeared in the dark alley behind the Corpse Collectors’ building.
He pulled open a rain shield to reveal a steam motorcycle that was in relatively good condition.
This steam motorcycle was worth about ten thousand coins, which he couldn’t afford in the past.
He bought one for himself for ease of travel after coming out of the labyrinth last time with the money he had earned.
Once the vehicle was ignited, the roar of its engine sounded, and Leonard zoomed along the streets on his motorcycle.
Having a motorbike definitely increased Leonard Churchill’s efficiency in getting around. He no longer needed to wait at each stop for the Inter-city Train, which was a notorious time-waster. In less than half an hour, Leonard had already arrived at the Redwood District in North City.
This area too was part of the Commoner’s Quarter in Sinless City.
There were several large factories nearby. The population was large and the demographic was complex.
Leonard parked his motorcycle in a deserted alleyway and swapped his attire for a set of grease-stained mechanic’s overalls. His clown mask transformed into the face of a sallow middle-aged man, effortlessly disguising him as a weary factory worker.
Foreigners were more likely to be noticed in these commoner’s quarters.
Regardless of whether his assumptions were correct, he needed to be prepared.
Leonard walked down the streets.
Without a municipal department, the Commoner’s Quarters of Sinless City were usually very messy. Flies swarmed over piles of garbage, and rats bathed in the dirty water…
There were many pedestrians on the streets, children chasing each other.
The most commonly discussed words among people were salary, strikes, and new factories…
Leonard did not exhibit any behavior out of the ordinary for this neighborhood and thus avoided drawing attention.
He walked and listened as he went.
Yet, he did not come across anything abnormal.
This was just an ordinary Commoner’s Quarters.
After an hour of walking, he had no leads.
However, Leonard had a hunch that he was in the right place.
The cellar on Tailor Street had given him the same feeling.
The normalcy of the Commoner’s Quarters was a form of environmental camouflage, concealing a demon lurking in the shadows.
But it was challenging to find.
Most of the structures in Sinless City were ancient ruins. Their structures were complicated and in disrepair, with numerous slums built on top.
There was no knowing how many people lived in them.
Leonard wasn’t even sure what he was looking for.
A cellar?
No way.
He couldn’t possibly investigate the residences of tens of thousands of people by himself.
Leonard tried his luck, looking for potential clues—any “suspicious devotees,” “secret gathering places,” “mysterious symbols,” or unique “religious behaviors.”
He reasoned that the Ancient God Sect was an organization. If there really was a hideout nearby, there had to be some giveaways.
But as he walked by, all the residents seemed perfectly normal.
He did note a few potentially suspicious places along the way.
But upon closer inspection, they turned out to be merely gang run alchemic workshops manufacturing hallucinogenic drugs, a brothel that only did business with regulars, or a family-run firearms workshop.
He also came across dilapidated buildings with suspicious-looking sentries. Likely hiding places for bandits or assassins.
Leonard didn’t meddle and continued his search for clues.
He changed his attire and face and wandered around for nearly another hour.
Because the estimated location was merely a general one, any of the neighboring blocks could potentially be within the margin of error. Therefore, he was still left empty-handed.
Just when Leonard was beginning to question if he guessed incorrectly or if the sect had moved, things took a turn.
It happened very fortuitously.
No matter the world, the profession of a doctor is essential within human civilization.
The Redwood District had several clinics too.
Leonard was walking down the street when he suddenly saw a whitewashed building with the sign “Border Clinic.”
He was just passing by ordinarily when he glanced over.
But the moment Leonard recognized the doctor inside, he couldn’t help but exclaim inwardly, “It’s this guy!”
The clinician was a man in his forties, somewhat thin.
Dressed in a white lab coat, he looked like an ordinary community doctor.
But it was this doctor who made Leonard realize he was in the right place.
After the incident on Tailor Street, a mysterious figure in a cloak had visited the Corpse Collector’s hostel in Eastern District 5.
The figure had been wearing a cloak then, and Leonard couldn’t see his face.
Despite this, he recognized him right away.
Approximately forty years old, around 1.75 meters tall, sporting a pair of Mengke Shoes from the “Mole Leather Factory,” rather thin… and holding a respectable job.
The figure’s features matched Leonard’s past assumptions perfectly!
Another thing was when Leonard saw the bodies in the cellar, he noticed that the man who skinned them was highly skillful. This person must have been well-versed in anatomy.
At that time, he speculated that the Ancient God disciple might have a profession like a forensic doctor, butcher, or leather craftsman.
Therefore, he paid special attention to such places as he moved along.
He was relieved that his luck held up..
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