Chapter 104: Professor Manning

It has now been three days since the Lake View Manor incident. Miss Louisa recovered very quickly. When walking on the tree-lined path with Xia De, one could not see at all that she had been kept alive by 【False Immortality】 three days ago.

Probably all beautiful girls like cute cats. Miss Louisa was very interested in Mia and thought this was a pet Xia De had adopted. But even after explaining that this was fostered at his own home, the blonde young lady still wanted to hug the small orange cat, but Mia refused to leave Xia De.

"Detective, you are really good at raising cats."

"Speaking of which, can I bring the cat with me? Do I need to send Mia back first?"

Xia De asked again. He actually liked to "see the world" with high-level Ring Mages.

"No need, this trip is very safe. You can treat this as gaining experience. Detective, sooner or later you will also go to recover 【Relics】 alone."

Miss Louisa said easily, and then guided Xia De to turn into Tion College Street on the right at the next intersection with her.

Just as Xia De guessed, Miss Louisa's trip was to recover a Relic. The cause of the matter was that two months ago, an old writer who was familiar with Miss Louisa passed away. When people familiar with the old man helped him organize his belongings, Miss Louisa discovered from his diary that the writer possessed a very magical fountain pen.

"Can it automatically write papers, or automatically write reports?"

Xia De guessed, looking at half of the houses on this street, which were actually gray stone houses, with extremely similar styles, all three stories high. Stepping into here, it was as if he had returned from the steam age to the medieval civilization. But the steam pipes clinging to the stone walls, the clothing of pedestrians walking on the street, and the ubiquitous hawking all reminded him at all times that this was the steam age.

Tion College Street should be an old street district in Tobesk.

"Detective, how could there be such a good thing, and 【Relics】 cannot be used casually."

Miss Louisa said, walking side by side with Xia De. Xia De noticed that today Miss Louisa did not show the small action of frequently touching her earlobes.

"I privately took the diary away and discovered that if that fountain pen uses the writer's blood as ink, and depicts any human image with letters on paper, then that depicted image can enter the writer's dream, and then..."

She looked at Xia De. Xia De blinked his eyes:

"Why did you stop talking?"

Hearing the laughter of the woman in his head, he suddenly realized that he had not thought in this direction at all:

"No, no, no need to explain, I understand. But how could there still be this kind of Relic?"

After passing through Tion College Street, the two continued to walk east. After passing the private Tion Mechanical Vocational School, they turned into Cat Tail Alley where the destination was located.

"This doesn't count as the strangest Relic; I have seen stranger ones. But this Relic cannot be considered weak. I checked the information from the academy's library. 【Joyful Dream Pen】, according to the classification, should be Document-level (Level 4). This pen will actively seduce the user in a dream to use it in the correct way. Ordinary people, after being influenced, will try to write words with their own blood out of what they consider normal curiosity, thus leading to tragedy. I suspect the death of its original owner had something to do with it."

Xia De nodded, pondering the possible uses of this pen for Ring Mages. And then he discovered that, at least this pen was of no use to himself. The dream pen absorbs the user's blood, not the enemy's blood, so it cannot constitute the condition for absorbing the god's power.

Miss Louisa was still continuing to speak:

"After that old writer died, the fountain pen disappeared inexplicably. I tracked it for two months before discovering that before the writer died, he sold this fountain pen to an old professor named Tiris Manning who lived nearby. Professor Manning is considered a collector, and I am visiting him today."

Professor Manning lived in an apartment at No. 17 Cat Tail Alley. When they were looking for the house number, the little flower-selling girl in the alley came to meet them.

Probably misunderstanding the relationship between Xia De and Miss Louisa, the little flower-selling girl took the initiative to come up to hawk her goods. After being politely refused by Xia De, the flowers in the flower basket were almost bitten by the cat Xia De was holding.

Seeing that the little girl's clothes were patched and the shoes on her feet were clearly not fitting. Although he did not buy flowers, Xia De still gave her three pennies as compensation for her being frightened by Mia.

"I didn't expect you to have this kind of kindness."

After the little flower-selling girl left, Miss Louisa teased. She knew that Xia De's economic situation was not very good either.

"They are all poor people. Although I cannot help everyone, I am very happy to help the people in front of me without affecting myself. Mia, three pennies will be deducted from your dinner; you cannot eat things indiscriminately."

Xia De said while touching the cat's head. The orange cat squirmed unhappily.

Miss Louisa smiled gently:

"You are really a good person. If the poor girl in the fairy tale could meet you, there wouldn't be so many tragedies."

No. 17 Cat Tail Alley is a three-story apartment building with an attic, with dark yellow outer walls. The wall along the bottom of the street is covered with moss. From Miss Louisa's preliminary investigation, the whole building belongs to Professor Manning.

Because they had made an appointment to meet in advance, after knocking on the door, the fat maid confirmed the identity of the visitors and invited the two in. Miss Louisa was the buyer this time, while Xia De was the attendant hired by Miss Louisa, responsible for protecting the weak lady carrying a large amount of cash.

No. 17 Cat Tail Alley is divided into left and right sides, one side is rented out, and Professor Manning lives in the right building. Led by the fat maid, walking up the slightly narrow stairs to the second floor, the professor entertained the two in the crowded study on the second floor piled with books.

The walls of the study were covered with photos of Professor Manning in various parts of the Old Continent. He seemed to be a professor of archaeology, having investigated various parts of the Old Continent when he was young. Even the books piled up in the study were mostly history books. The price of professional books in this era was still very expensive, so the professor should be quite wealthy.

Professor Manning was a tall, thin old man wearing round-framed glasses and somewhat bald. Probably because he had been teaching for too long, his tone was also like giving a lecture when greeting Miss Louisa and Xia De. But the old professor was still kind and entertained them with quite good black tea.

He also raised a pet cat at home, so he did not express blame for the detective bringing a cat to the door. It's just that the jet-black cat looked like it was already an adult and was very interested in Mia, hiding behind the desk, poking its head out to look at the orange cat held by Xia De.

But Mia seemed not to see it at all; it looked like it didn't want to play with it. ===== CHAPTER 105 =====