MM Racing Chapter 27 Fate!
Chapter 27 Fate!
No, no!
Where did the laptop go?
Lorne frantically rummaged through his bag; if he weren't still on the street, he would have dumped everything out of it.
Fate! Why are you doing this to me?
"I can't be impatient, I need to stay calm."
"You should call the police at this point."
"Wait... I'm a transmigrator!" Lorne was a little annoyed. In his mind, transmigrators and the government were enemies.
Although the police might not be able to tell that he is a time traveler, he is still an extraordinary person, and if they do find out, he will be in big trouble.
Moreover, that notebook is definitely related to the extraordinary. If the police discover any clues, and I am also an extraordinary person, then I will be completely unable to explain myself.
Could it be that fortune teller who pretended to be asleep to distract me, and then used some unknown ability to steal my notes?
After all, Sequence 7 of the Diviner's Path is called the Magician. It would be quite reasonable for him to know some kind of illusion.
"That's not right. When I left, I specifically felt around in my bag and found the notebook."
and many more!
Fortune teller... clown... magician...
It seems like that circus has them all.
Lorne felt as if he had discovered some secret.
"Could it be that the entire circus is full of extraordinary individuals?"
"And they're all from the perspective of fortune tellers."
"So it was a gang operation?" Lorne asked, his head down, his face looking rather grim.
"No, that's just speculation, and if we're going to say that, every circus is suspicious."
"It's unlikely to be that much of a coincidence."
"Let's first retrace the route we came from."
An hour and a half later, Lorne sat dejectedly by the roadside. He had retraced his steps, even going back to the circus, but still found nothing.
The circus staff seemed perfectly normal, and there was no indication that they were acting guilty.
The trail has now gone cold. The only certainty is that the notebook mysteriously disappeared after I left the circus.
However, his satchel was intact, without any holes or other damage, so the notebook was definitely not simply lost.
"Could it be a pickpocket? After all, given the crowds around the circus, it's not impossible that a few thieves are mixed in."
"Luckily, I put all my money in the inside pocket of my clothes, otherwise I probably wouldn't even have enough for the fare." Thinking of this, he felt inexplicably fortunate.
He got up somewhat dejectedly, intending to return to the Azure Hotel first to see if he could use divination to confirm the whereabouts of the notebook.
Lorne took out a few coins from his pocket, intending to find a public carriage, but after taking only two steps, he suddenly realized something was amiss.
"The 'monster's' intuition is incredibly sharp; it's impossible for a thief to steal anything from my bag, yet I didn't sense it at all!"
As Lorne delved deeper into his thoughts, he noticed many things were amiss.
"I'm usually so careful, how could I possibly go to a circus with such a large crowd while carrying something so precious?"
"Even if it's for relaxation, even if you've never seen a circus before, you shouldn't do this!"
"Isn't it nice to just lie around on a hotel bed and relax?"
"But I didn't. Am I out of my mind?" For a moment, Lorne fell into self-doubt.
"No, it's definitely not as simple as just being careless." Lorne shook his head, denying that idea; he wasn't that confused.
"Whatever the reason, everything that happened today is too coincidental and too illogical."
……
In the city of Tingen, a mediocre writer suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
……
Having searched the streets without success, Lorne had no choice but to return to the Azure Hotel.
"Meow~" Laki, who was lying on the bed, meowed happily when she saw him come back.
But it seemed to sense the negative emotions that were about to overflow from Lorne, so it chose to shut up and continue sleeping with its eyes closed.
Lorne went to the desk, took off the pendulum from his wrist, and prepared to perform divination.
There was no other way; he had searched everywhere he could, and now divination was the only option left.
"My notebook is still in this city."
A pendulum spinning slightly clockwise signifies affirmation.
Lorne was not surprised by the result.
"That notebook was stolen."
The pendulum didn't react much at this point; it just twitched slightly and then stopped moving.
Lorne knew that this situation was likely due to insufficient information for divination.
In other words, the divination failed.
"Could it really be an accident?"
……
The next morning.
The morning mist, shrouded in coal dust, condensed into a gray veil in the alley, and old Tom's square-toed leather boots rolled over the broken glass in the cracks of the stone slabs.
As an antique dealer with some money, he wouldn't walk in this dirty alley unless he was in a hurry to meet a business meeting.
He wrapped his woolen overcoat tighter and quickened his pace.
"Turning this corner will take you away from the stench of the dock area."
His boots suddenly slipped, and he staggered, grabbing onto the damp brick wall for support.
"What!" The sudden situation startled him.
Blood and a dark red, viscous liquid flowed from the base of the wall down to the middle of the road. A bizarre corpse lay in the middle of the alley.
But he wasn't panicked. He had traveled all over the country for many years and had seen a lot.
He picked up his silver-plated cane and tapped the tip of the cane against the corpse's ribs, while also examining the body before him.
"Ragged burlap clothes, a brass ring on a severed finger—he really is a pickpocket kid from the docks who won't live past twenty. What bad luck!"
The death of such a minor character was commonplace in this era, and Old Tom had no intention of going to the trouble of calling the police.
He rubbed the tip of his cane against the brick wall and was about to leave when he suddenly noticed something next to the corpse. Like an old dog sniffing rotting flesh, his nostrils twitched. He stopped and leaned closer to examine it.
It was a black-covered book that looked very old. The antique dealer's intuition made him stop.
He swallowed subconsciously, his Adam's apple bobbing.
Parchment? No, this tanning technique... this must be from the Quaternary period, at least several hundred years old. Damn it, where did this kid get it from...?
A scraping sound came from the alley, and old Tom tore off the book and stuffed it into his pocket with even more swiftness than when he stole a widow's silver cutlery in his youth.
As he stood up, he noticed something was wrong with the sensation under his feet and suddenly realized that he was stepping on the severed neck of a corpse.
With the scraping sound of his boots against the brick wall, old Tom quickly left the alley without looking back.
……
……
"Young Master Welch, what do you think? This is a genuine ancient book, passed down from the Quaternary period."
"I went to great lengths to get it," old Tom said excitedly, introducing the ancient book he had just found to the young man in front of him.
He even made up a story about a treasure, leaving the person opposite him completely bewildered.
Seeing the young man named Welch across from him pay so readily, he smiled so broadly that the wrinkles on his face seemed to split open.
"A wise choice, you will definitely not be disappointed."
……
……
"How can I find my notebook?" Lorne asked, looking at the box of solutions in front of him.
A few seconds later, a note appeared out of thin air in the box, which read:
"Ten days later, head to the Iron Cross Street in Tingen."