Leveling Up by Executing Monsters

Chapter 80: Chapter 80: This Shouldn’t Be a Coincidence

Lloyd shot to his feet. He activated [Inspect] again and looked at the sobbing woman before him.

’Just as I thought. She’s already in a state of Mild Madness...’

Her four Attributes were a pathetic 1 point each, making her even weaker than an ordinary person. That was why her symptoms were far more severe than what he had seen with Weiya and Meditis.

Just as Lloyd was wondering whether to contact a mental hospital, a man dressed as a chef suddenly rushed in, grabbed his arm, and pulled him out the door.

After Lloyd followed him out, he heard the chef sigh and shake his head.

"Sigh... You’re her husband’s colleague, right?"

"Mm... I suppose so."

"Then please, for her husband’s sake, don’t visit her again. And don’t bring her any news. Just let her be. With help from us neighbors, she can still live a relatively normal life."

"But... what about their relatives and friends?"

"Sigh..."

The chef just sighed, not answering directly.

So Lloyd changed his question:

"Then shouldn’t we send her to a mental hospital?"

"We tried. But that’s where she lost their child..."

The chef said this with a helpless, bitter smile, then explained:

"Actually, her symptoms aren’t as severe as you might think. She learned the terrible news a long time ago. This is just... her way of surviving after losing everything. Look, she takes good care of herself, and she runs the flower shop very well."

Lloyd turned his head to look at Mrs. Anna in the flower shop. He saw she had stopped crying and had wiped away her tears. She was once again holding the swaddled bundle, softly singing a nursery rhyme, continuing her delusion, continuing her life.

"I understand. I won’t disturb her again."

Lloyd nodded firmly.

Then he went to a post office on the street corner, bought an envelope and a stamp, filled it out properly, and slipped the check inside.

’I should probably keep the letter and the Black Knight for myself...’

Lloyd then found a newsboy on the roadside, gave him a small tip, and watched as the boy delivered the letter into Mrs. Anna’s hands.

"Wow! Look, baby, Daddy sent money home! So, so much money! Daddy really hasn’t forgotten about us..."

Mrs. Anna spoke happily, a wide smile on her face.

Even if it was a lie, it was one she needed.

Only then did Lloyd silently depart.

When he walked out of the subway entrance in the Eighteenth District, he found that Weiya wasn’t waiting for him outside.

’I am half an hour later than usual, after all...’

Lloyd could understand, but an inexplicable feeling of emptiness still welled up inside him.

’How strange...’

But when he arrived at Tower Nine, he saw Weiya standing in front of her office, constantly looking toward the main entrance.

For some reason, Lloyd couldn’t help but smile again.

He quickly walked over, took out the little kitten, and placed it in Weiya’s hands.

But Weiya said, a little bluntly:

"I thought you weren’t coming in today. After carrying out such an important mission, you should have taken an extra day to rest."

Lloyd was still smiling as he said:

"If I were going to take a day off, I would have told you in advance... By the way, with my current rank, can I access personnel files from the Eighteenth District?"

"You can access some of them, as long as they aren’t above your rank. You have to go to the records management office over at Tower One..."

Weiya first answered in a business-like manner, but then she suddenly realized something. Her beautiful, wide eyes stared straight at Lloyd as she asked very seriously:

"You aren’t planning on doing anything dangerous, are you?"

"How could I? I’ve always been a patient, cautious, and steady young man."

As he spoke, Lloyd couldn’t help but look away, toward Weiya’s office.

As it happened, he saw that on her meticulously tidy desk, there was a new little toy disrupting the neatness—

A simple spring toy, in the shape of a stick-figure cartoon bear, simply and crudely made.

So Lloyd looked back into Weiya’s beautiful eyes and added, just as seriously:

"Don’t worry, I definitely won’t do anything reckless."

............

After parting with Weiya, Lloyd, as was his custom, first completed his regular duties.

He was late today, so all the keys for Floor -2 were gone. Only a single, lonely key for Floor -3 remained on the notice board.

Lloyd didn’t mind. He took it and left.

[Ding! Madness Value +300]

After he was done, he went to the records management office Weiya had mentioned, found the administrator, and requested to view the file of Executor Stilote.

To his surprise, he got it without any trouble.

He just wasn’t allowed to take it with him; he could only review it there.

But after reading through the few pages of the file, Lloyd didn’t find what he was looking for.

It only contained Stilote’s biography, along with a brief record of his completed missions and rank promotions.

The final entry stopped at his application for the Orbit materials to advance from Tier Three to Tier Four.

Then there was just a single, cold sentence:

"Subject designated as missing. Compensation issued to next of kin."

’Damn those Thought Demons!’

Lloyd gritted his teeth in his mind.

’Perhaps in this whole world, I’m the only one left who still remembers this respectable Executioner...’

Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly felt a strange sensation in his pocket.

He quickly left the records management office, hurried back to his own office, and reached in to pull out the Black Knight.

’Has the Spiritual Energy on it suddenly gotten a bit stronger than yesterday?’

Normally, Spiritual Energy should only grow weaker over time. A sudden increase was extremely rare.

This reminded Lloyd of his sister’s Hammerhead Shark Puppet.

Most of the time, it was just an ordinary puppet.

Only when Lloyd used [Medium Divination] would it emit a bit of Spiritual Energy.

’So... the Black Knight is actually a Medium for Divination? The ’lifeline’ Stilote wanted to leave for me wasn’t the chess piece itself, but the person performing the Divination behind the scenes?’

’But why didn’t Stilote just say so? Why leave a riddle instead?’

’And this person performing the Divination... if they were a friend or relative of Stilote, they could have just visited openly. Why resort to a clandestine method like Divination?’

’Even if this person thinks like me and wants to use Divination to keep tabs on someone, Stilote has been missing for a year. They must have reached a conclusion long ago. There’s no reason for it to happen to be today, right?’

’This is clearly not a coincidence...’

Lloyd had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but for the moment, he couldn’t grasp a concrete ’thread’ to pull on.

’In that case...’

Lloyd hurried to the library, found several books related to Mysticism, and focused on researching knowledge about Divination.

He remembered that Medium Divination could be used in a forward direction, but also in reverse to trace who was performing the Divination.

Relying on [High-Efficient Learning] and his high [Cognition] score, Lloyd first spent a few hours cramming the method for [Reverse Divination], acquiring a few corresponding skill fragments.

But he clearly hadn’t fully mastered it and didn’t have the knack for it. The corresponding [Divination] skill didn’t level up, so he stopped, seeming to only scratch the surface.

But this was precisely the state he wanted to be in.

Lloyd returned to his office, locked the door, and then respectfully took the Saint Statue out from the depths of his file cabinet, placing it in front of him on his desk.

Next, he took out the journal his butler had given him and reviewed the section on Divination.

As a high-level PvP player, his butler, Randolph, was naturally also proficient in Divination, and had used this skill to punish several criminals.

He had also summarized three principles for Safe Divination—

First, it must be conducted under the witness and Shelter of a Saint. This would, to the greatest extent, prevent one from divining those strange and inexplicable things.

Second, one must be patient and not rush. In the beginning, use the simplest, most basic Divination methods to ask simple, non-specific questions. After confirming there is no danger, one can probe deeper, and only lock onto a clear target at the very end.

This process takes at least a day. If one encounters a very cunning target who can guard against and counter Divination, it might be even slower, possibly taking several days.

Third, one must never be overconfident or try to force a result. If a Divination yields no answer or shows a dangerous Omen, one must immediately abandon the Divination and find another way.

Through these three principles, Lloyd could clearly sense his butler’s reverence and caution toward Divination.

That was why Lloyd deliberately didn’t finish learning [Reverse Divination], keeping it in a simple, basic state before beginning his attempt.

He placed the Black Knight in front of the Saint Statue. Then, following the knowledge taught in the book, he swung the old-fashioned pocket watch while repeatedly asking:

"Is this a Medium for Divination? Is this a Medium for Divination?"

If he got a result, the pocket watch would exhibit a physics-defying phenomenon, hovering diagonally to the left or right of the Black Knight to indicate ’yes’ or ’no’.

However, the pocket watch ultimately hovered in the middle, failing to rouse the forefathers of physics from their coffins.

This indicated that the Divination had yielded no result.

It could be that Lloyd’s skills were poor, or it could be for some other reason...

Although he was a bit reluctant, Lloyd still chose to heed his butler’s ’advice’ and gave up.

His butler had been so spirited and arrogant in his youth, yet he treated Divination with such care and caution. Lloyd, of course, would not be reckless either.

’I just don’t know what the person on the other side can find out through Divination...’

Out of consideration for safety and privacy, and to prevent himself from being inexplicably doxxed, Lloyd made the most cautious choice—

He wrote an anonymous letter, briefly explaining that someone was using this object to monitor an Executioner from the Holy Judgment Court. Then, he sent it, along with the Black Knight, to the Saint’s Grace Court.

’This way, no matter who is performing the Divination, it won’t have anything to do with me. That should put a complete end to this matter, right?’

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