Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

On a snowy day, the smell of horse manure becomes even more pungent. In Noel Street, a district where lower-middle-class people live, the security and sanitation are on the same level. When Shard turned into this neighborhood, the winter street scene near Regent's Park instantly disappeared. Before him seemed like a wintery swamp in a stinky gutter, but that was the current living condition for ordinary city folks.

The houses on Noel Street are closely packed, with pipes like long snakes entwining the peeling walls. The population density here is exceptionally high. On a Wednesday during the daytime, even though most men are out working, children running around, or women carrying infants, holding the hands of a second son, and walking with a firstborn, still fill the area with a bustling life.

Generally, it's best to inquire about something at a nearby tavern. But Shard was still considering the possibility of this being an MI6 trap, so he didn't directly probe but instead circled around Noel Street to get a grasp of the nearby terrain and alley junctions.

At 10:20 in the morning, as Shard was walking down the street, his wallet suddenly fell into a snow pile on the ground. He immediately picked it up, pinching the scattered coins from the snow and putting them back in the wallet before continuing forward and turning into an unnamed Trash Alley a short distance away.

After Shard entered the alley, two young men squatting by the street, wearing gray flat caps and seemingly unwashed for days, exchanged a glance and followed into the alley with a smile.

Even though the heavy snow covered the filth in the alley, the stench of fermented garbage still made the air particularly unbearable. The steam pipes along the low walls were hissing, emitting white steam that blew against a half-torn wanted poster on the wall. The warm, moist air and the stench of the alley combined, making even exposed skin feel uncomfortable.

The two young men walked several dozen steps into the alley but didn't see Shard, who had entered earlier. As they exchanged a glance, intending to continue forward, Shard, holding a revolver, emerged from behind a pile of garbage not far ahead.

Sunlight flooded the alley, not enough to melt the snow, but at least enough for the two to see the gun in Shard's hand:

"I just want to ask a few questions."

Shard said, then added:

"Anyone who tries to leave, I'll shoot."

He didn't actually intend to shoot.

The two young men instinctively raised their hands:

"Sir, please ask."

Youths with idle lifestyles weren't uncommon in this era. Those who didn't enter factories to provide their flesh and blood as wealth for factory owners would most likely join vibrant local social groups.

Shard needed them:

"Do you live around here?"

"Yes."

The slightly taller young man said, desperately trying to lean behind his companion:

"We've lived around here since we were kids."

"You don't need to be afraid of me. I'm actually a private detective, yes, the kind with a firearm license. I'm looking for a woman."

Shard examined the two young men he was pointing at one by one, noting their gestures and expressions weren't fake. These indeed were locals:

"She's around thirty years old, about your height."

He pointed to the shorter man:

"With flaxen hair, curly, and doesn't wear glasses. She moved here between 1851 and 1853."

The reason for setting a timeframe within two years was that Shard didn't believe MI6 wouldn't have noticed if she'd returned to Tobesk for many years:

"She doesn't have particularly typical Carsonrickian features. She lived in Carsonrick for a while but is also fluent in Tobeskian."

The Carsonrick Royalty wouldn't hire someone with an obviously Northerner appearance as a maid.

"She once wore a brown button-up woman's coat that didn't look particularly old."

This was what Princess Margaret saw when she spotted someone resembling Miss Maid.

The taller young man and the shorter one exchanged a glance, and finally, the taller one spoke up:

"The person you mentioned could be Mrs. Lagerson, Miss Brown, Mrs. Wood, or Lady Lena."

He blurted out four names and then hesitantly offered two more.

Given the many residents here, even in an era when neighborly relations were closer than those of outlanders, Shard couldn't expect to get an immediate answer from two idle youth.

But the six names and information he obtained were clues. These six ladies all lived on this street. Shard planned to verify them one by one before lunchtime and, if unsuccessful, head to Miss Galina's manor for lunch.

He first found Mrs. Lagerson. Although only thirty this year, she was already a mother of five.

Mr. Lagerson was a miner in the western city mines, rarely home. When Shard met Mrs. Lagerson, she was doing laundry for people. She assumed Shard was also coming to hire her for laundry and, while shaking the cradle of the infant beside the washbasin, warmly asked if Shard was a neighbor.

This lady wasn't Shard's target.

The second person Shard found was Lady Lena. This lady had a rather unfortunate marriage and, after divorce, lived with her female friend in the area. Together, they opened an accounting firm on the street, helping nearby poor residents with tax calculations or assisting small shop owners with annual accounts.

Of course, this lady wasn't Shard's target either.

The third person Shard planned to seek was Miss Bella Brown, who rented a place at 15 Noel Street, above the Brown Bookstore. The bookstore owner was her uncle, Old Mr. Brown, and although the lady was unmarried, she was already engaged and might soon move away from this street.

Having a bookstore on a street like Noel Street, inhabited by the lower middle-class poor, is not surprising at all. Detective Sparrow's map marked this old bookstore, indicating that using a special password, one could buy illegally assembled firearms from the bookstore owner, Mr. Brown.

Detective Sparrow's map only marked the gun black market, which is normal for a private detective to know such places. But Shard speculated as he stepped into the bookstore that perhaps more than firearms were being sold here.

The second-hand bookstore was packed with shelves, and the counter was at the door, ensuring no one would steal any book. The shop was warm, but probably due to the winter's infrequent ventilation, the smell of paper decay filled the spaces between the shelves.

Miss Bella Brown was not in the store at the moment; it was the white-haired Mr. Brown himself watching over it. But Shard had inquired while buying a scarf at the neighboring hat shop, and learned that Miss Brown had just gone out to fetch books borrowed by others and would be back in at most twenty minutes, so he decided to wait in the old bookstore.

Just like he bought a scarf that looked very nice, he thought he might purchase some books from the old bookstore to fill his bookshelf.

When Shard entered, Mr. Brown glanced at his attire but did not ask any questions, allowing him to wander in the bookstore. Shard wove between rows of shelves, his eyes scanning spines and occasionally pulling a book to examine.

He quickly took a liking to a book titled "The Secrets of Tobesk," an illegally printed book about Tobesk's urban legends. But upon pulling it out and opening it, he found the illegal content unrelated to the cover—rather, it was one of those illegal color books.

This made Shard think for a moment that the bookstore had other commercial roles besides selling firearms. Fortunately, after pulling out several other books, their contents were all normal; it appeared he had just been unlucky choosing the wrong book.

Besides Shard, there were several other patrons in the old bookstore. Shard continued along the aisles between the shelves, pondering the Year-End Festival gifts he needed to prepare for friends.

Turning the corner of a shelf, he suddenly saw a familiar person; Shard could hardly believe he encountered Sir Lakin Prisia here.

This middle-aged noble from the Southern Nation, even indoors, wore a hat and gloves while perusing a yellowed old book between the shelves.

He heard footsteps, looked up, and saw Shard:

"Mr. Hamilton?"

The two had built good relations during book salons and Princess Margaret's visits to the Academy; meeting in the city unexpectedly, they exchanged pleasantries.

Shard was there on a detective mission, while Sir Prisia claimed he loved buying books in such old bookstores.

As for Miss Bella Brown whom Shard sought, Sir Prisia certainly hadn't met her, given he was only a distant relative of the Royal Family, so Shard wasn't concerned their purposes there were the same. The unexpected encounter sparked his interest in chatting with the knight:

"Sir, do you love books?"

"Of course, at my home in Velindale, I even knocked down the walls between the guestroom and study to build myself a very large library."

Sir Prisia shared with a smile, then glanced at surrounding old books:

"Knowledge is truly enchanting; even the dullest book, when opened to the first page, surely contains enjoyment."

"Yes, I also enjoy reading. Though reading doesn't teach me how to earn money, it at least reminds me how not to lose my savings."

Shard's message seemed coarser compared to the knight's "high-mindedness," but the knight nodded with a smile:

"Indeed, that's the case. That's why I've always advocated for people to read more. Knowledge is power, and wisdom is wealth. Reading more can change one's fate."

He spoke with some sentiment:

"Knight, I've heard your talks at the Lakeside Manor banquet about those views on education improving population quality, and I quite agree. Truly hope more people understand this, because, as humans, our greatest advantage is, isn't it?"

He tapped his head, then took the book he held to bid farewell to Shard and left the old bookstore.

"Seems like a decent person."

Shard mused, though he did not forget the demon's words about the knight's unbeknownst past.

"At least not like Daknis...Library Retrieval."

Using "the book Sir Lakin Prisia just read" as the retrieval subject, three books flew into Shard's hands. One was from a nearby shelf, the other two from slightly farther away.

The titles were respectively a collection of essays "Tobesk's Moon," an astronomy notebook with jargon Shard couldn't understand left by someone unknown, and a catalog-like "Tobesk Library Catalog."

"Is he also seeking the yellow moon mentioned by the Bard?"

Shard muttered, flipping through the three books, then discovered several pages had been torn out from each.

Missing pages are a common phenomenon in such old bookstores, but upon checking, Shard found the torn traces rather fresh, almost certainly occurring within the last few minutes:

"That's...not very good, is it?"

Shard frowned, looking toward the direction Sir Prisia departed:

"Though everyone has quirks..."

He returned the three books to their places, attempting to shape a new image of Sir Lakin Prisia in his mind:

"Still need to investigate further, humans are, after all, too complex."