old dream

Chapter 96 Mask
"He lives in this building."

Benedict went on to say:
"Probably on the third or fourth floor. Sometimes I will see him in the corridor."

The room Benedict rented was located near the landing on the first floor, so he may often meet people who come down from upstairs.

After some hesitation, Benedict added:

"It's just that there may be other people living in his suite."

"Oh? How did you see it?"

Colin's heart was a little tight, maybe there was another wizard living there.

"He often comes back with food for two, and clothes to the laundry room for two."

At this point in the conversation, Benny no longer has any doubts about Colin's identity.Or that he doesn't need to hide anything anymore.

To put it bluntly, even if Ke Lin is really a police detective, since he can find this place, it means that the other party has already figured out his details.

Benedict put the semi-finished shoes between his legs on the workbench and recalled intently:

"But, I've never seen the other person in that room... Maybe we've met somewhere in this building, but I just don't know him."

While talking, people kept passing by the door of Benedict's room, because the walls were just thin partitions, so the footsteps and conversations of those people could be clearly heard.

I don't know how many tenants are crowded in this residential building.The doors are almost stuck together, and some doors are left open straight.But it was not someone's room inside, but another corridor like a deep alley.

There are often more doors on both sides of it, like a labyrinth layered on top of each other.

Behind those doors, there are probably rooms similar to this one, with an indeterminate number of people enclosed like pigeon cages, and the occupants range from bachelors to families.

This kind of place is almost like a giant hotel, with a large number of people, and people are moving in and out every day.

"Can you describe more precisely where he might live?"

After Colin asked this sentence, he felt that it was probably futile, so he immediately changed the direction:
"Or take me to ask the concierge, the landlord or something."

Colin even doubted that the landlord himself could figure out who lived in which rooms.

It is estimated that there are hundreds of rooms on the first floor here. If you ask them one by one, it will only be a trivial matter to waste some time. The key is to let too many people see your face.

"You don't need to bother the landlord." Benedict pointed his head and said:
"The location of most people's rooms in the half building here has been recorded here."

"Ok?"

Because he exaggerated, Colin thought for a moment that he had heard it wrong.

"Are they moving in and out all the time, like an ever-changing puzzle? That's just right to pass the time while I'm sewing shoes and guessing where they might live as I work. It's accurate to less than three, and I'll go upstairs with them to see if I guess right."

"But you said just now that he was 'about the third or fourth floor'?"

Colin said suspiciously: "It seems that your memory is not so reliable."

Even without considering the loopholes in the preamble, can you infer the room location of most people in this building only based on the flow of people passing by the door?
This is too exaggerated.

It's not just memory, after all, the composition of these inhabitants changes from month to month and even from day to day.It's not enough to just stare at one person, you need to compare the results from the movements of everyone.

The specific approach may be to pay attention to who is missing and who is more in a few days.Who is walking from which direction, and through the details of clothing, guess what size room he will rent and so on.It doesn't sound difficult, but when it comes to groups of hundreds of people, the level of complexity becomes unimaginable.

To make a metaphor that is not necessarily appropriate, it feels like it is like trying to deduce the road changes of the entire city from a single traffic flow.

"Because this Mr. Horst happens to be my client, it is inconvenient for me to follow him to confirm the answer. You know the reason."

Benedict poked the forged "entry certificate" on the table with a thick leather needle in his hand:
"Although I don't care about the professional ethics of keeping clients secret, they are all dangerous people with some problems about them."

"I occasionally saw 'Horst' come back with two servings of food, and I vaguely guessed the possible locations of his room. But other than that, I stopped peeping down. Because this jigsaw puzzle is just I don't want to get into trouble for such a boring thing."

More than getting into trouble.Colin thought: Maybe you saved your life because of this.

"So there are still more than a dozen rooms left in this half of the building, which is a blind spot I reserved for speculation: I have also guessed which residents they correspond to, but I have never confirmed it. This 'Horst' is one of them One. The puzzle is always missing a piece, but I have no problem with it. Because I am neither obsessive-compulsive disorder nor superfluous curiosity. Sometimes it even feels good, after all, it can save a little bit for my game. Difficulty and excitement."

"But since you need it, I'll take you there to have a look."

Benedict stood up in front of his chair, untied his cobbler's apron and hung it on the wall.His stature is a little short, and his neutral and feminine voice is like a half-old child who has not yet developed:
"There are only two possible locations for the 'Horst' room, one on the third floor and one on the fourth floor. So I said 'probably between the third and fourth floors', which is not wrong."

He shook the door key casually, and said to Colin with a relaxed face:
"Just don't say I gave you the clue."

……

……

After pointing out the location for Colin, Benedict just waited idly on the stairs, not planning to show up.

Colin even hesitated to put pheromone in his eyes, because Benedict guessed that the wizard lived with them.Then the other person might also be a wizard, and at this time had already learned of the death of "Horst".

Although this is only a possibility.

After thinking about it, Colin thought it was unnecessary, because even if the other party was really a wizard and he was really a wizard, he would be apprehensive about shooting in such a crowded place. After all, there were too many witnesses, and they might all be acquainted with him.

This is enough to escape to safety on your own.

The first thing that needs to be investigated is the room on the third floor. Because the door lock is too simple, it took only ten seconds for Colin to pry the door and enter.

It turned out to be just an empty room.

Then he went to the fourth floor with Benedict.Colin pried open the room pointed out by Benny again, and as soon as he opened the door, Colin smelled a slight rancid smell.

He immediately pulled out the revolver from his belt and dived against the wall.

It is much wider than Benedict's room, and there are even three compartments with different functions.

Colin carefully pushed open the first two doors to check. There was no sign of people in the toilet or the small bedroom, because the area was too small and there was no place for people to hide.

The result was the last door left.If anyone is still here, it's probably in that room.

Colin carefully opened the last door with his gun.The door was pushed open with a sour squeak, but there was no response inside.

Colin took a deep breath, put on a stance ready to shoot at any time, and quickly rushed in.

It was another bedroom. At first glance, Colin saw a man lying on his back on the bed. The complicated smell he had smelled since he picked the door lock was obviously wafting from him.

Colin aimed his crosshair at his body from a distance, ready to shoot.After all, the other party may be a sorcerer, no matter how cautious it is.

But after seeing the other person's face clearly, Colin was stunned, because there was not a single inch of skin on that face intact.Accompanied by the faint smell of decay, for a moment he thought he was seeing a festering corpse.

But in this summer, if there is a human body rotting indoors, the rancid smell should have spread to the whole building long ago.

Although there is a distance, but after a careful look, you can still find that it is a severely burned face.

At this time, although the bedrider's chest was still slightly heaving, it was already full of air, with more air in and out less.Clearly on the verge of death.

Colin raised his gun and took a few steps closer.The other party did not respond, and seemed to have completely lost consciousness.

His face looked extremely hideous, and his age was no longer recognizable.There was only a dark hole left in the left eye, and a thin blanket was covering his body. The exposed hands and feet were also covered with distorted scars. It looked like he had suffered extensive burns all over his body. .

Those scars should have healed over the years, but the epidermis looks like a thin membrane around the flesh because most of the skin tissue has been irreversibly destroyed.

And on this, there are obvious traces of festering and then recovering.

Judging from the scars left by the festering, his body should have experienced an extremely serious infection.Considering the hygienic conditions of this era, he was extremely lucky not to die from that infection.However, it is estimated that sequelae will inevitably be left, and he will have to live in bed for a long time from then on.

Colin looked at some black-and-white photos hanging by the head of his bed, which were not very good and were old and yellow.It is probably a backward technology from ten years ago.The figures above were blurred, but the silhouette of a soldier could still be vaguely seen, and the background seemed to be the scene of the retirement ceremony.

Judging from the military uniform, it should be a soldier of the Union.

Nine out of ten Confederate veterans living in Stade have participated in the war in Senna, the enemy they have met on the battlefield.

Because of the existence of a large number of fortifications such as bastions and trenches in the Kingdom of Sinar, flamethrowers have been widely used.After each battle, it is not uncommon for soldiers to be severely burned all over their bodies, but the vast majority of them did not survive.The few who are lucky enough to survive have to live the rest of their lives with terrifying scars and sequelae
A haze slipped through Colin's heart.

Because the wizard has not returned for nearly three days, the veteran has developed severe symptoms of dehydration.In shock for a long time, multiple organ failure.His body was already extremely fragile, and at this time it had reached the point where it was irreparable.

Based on Colin's understanding of medicine in this era, it is impossible for him to be cured again.Perhaps it would be a better choice for him to be freed easily in advance.

However, because a person with five hands cannot handle a corpse, if he kills him himself, then the cause of his death and the traces on the corpse will reveal that he has been here.

Colin hesitated for a moment.The patient also seemed to vaguely sense the arrival of someone, and began to groan in pain unconsciously.

As if he was already intolerable to the torture, even in a coma and unconscious, he was still making out-of-tune voices vaguely.

He was already extremely weak, but he repeated ravingly in his dry throat:

"kill me."

"..."

It was him who killed the wizard that brought him to this point.But for this matter, Colin felt no guilt in his heart.Because at that time, only one of the two people in the underground bar could survive, and it was life and death, and no one had a choice.

I have no obligation to let this veteran go to liberation at all, after all, there is a risk of exposing myself.

So what if he just let him struggle to the death?Hanging on the bed with a sigh of relief, the organs of the whole body are exhausted, but because most of the skin cannot secrete sweat so as not to lose the water too quickly, it may take another day to completely die.

It's just the pain of dying for a day, it's all about dying anyway, what's the difference?

What's more, he is still a person who has nothing to do with himself.

But for some reason, Ke Lin couldn't turn around even though he had already made up his mind.

Below the side of the black-and-white photo, there is also a mask that these burned soldiers used to cover their ugly faces.

Over the years, they have gradually started to close their doors, but they are still often seen on the streets of Stade.

Colin took the mask. I don't know what kind of wood it was made of.The hand is slightly heavy, mass-produced, and the carving is extremely blunt, barely having the outline of the facial features.

The face was originally painted with paint, but because of the poor workmanship, it only added a bit of horror.

As if to express his anger, the mask was painted blood red by his master, covering the specious face.On the back is engraved his own name: Heinrich.

At this time, Heinrich's throat made a low and painful sound, as if he was urging, complaining, and resenting.

Colin silently stared at his disfigured face, and finally gave up something.

He reached out and pulled Heinrich's blanket up a little, covering his mouth and nose.

(End of this chapter)