Chapter 5: The Real World

Of course, Xia De did not ultimately flee. The three-month task left by Mr. Hamilton was obviously suspicious to anyone, and since Xia De, already entangled in it, had not left before the man's death, he certainly would not leave now.

But investigating that task and uncovering Hamilton's secrets were matters for later. The immediate priority was to secure enough money to survive a week before making any other plans.

With the investigation report and map ready, he ensured not to forget the compass and pocket watch from the desk drawer. For safety, although no firearms had been found, his cane could serve as a weapon, and he naturally did not forget to take a fruit knife as well.

For clothing, he chose an unobtrusive black buttoned coat and trousers, which fit the dress habits of Tobesk City in early summer.

Room 1 on the second floor contained two bedrooms; in the other one, Xia De found clothes that fit his current body. Unfortunately, the room that seemingly belonged to the original Xia De held no diary or similar items, nor any small hints written by the original Xia De with his pitiful literacy; otherwise, life would have been simpler.

Having completed all this, the grandfather clock in the corner of the living room showed it was nearly eleven in the morning.

Xia De found the keys to the room door and the downstairs main gate in a bowl on the cabinet by the bedroom door. After carefully locking the door, he took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and plucked a hair from his head. Lying on the floor between the door and the stairs, he placed the hair in the gap beneath the door, squinting with his left eye to confirm the hair was aligned with the protruding corner on the left side of the bedroom door inside the room.

The stairwell window was closed, the first floor was sealed, and all internal room windows were shut, so there was no need to worry about the wind displacing the hair. As long as Xia De avoided stomping at the doorway upon his return and opened the ground-floor gate cautiously, the hair's position would indicate whether anyone had passed through or entered the room.

Wanting to stand up, he glanced instead at the locked door of Room "2" next door on the second floor. After a moment's thought, he endured the pain to pluck another hair, wedging it into the door crack parallel to the lock.

Since Mr. Hamilton had left behind so many secrets, it was always better to be cautious.

Spiraling down the stairs, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the quiet space made Xia De feel inexplicably tense once again.

There was no dust on the stair railings, and the decorative oil paintings on the walls appeared to be frequently wiped. The closer he got to the ground floor, the faster Xia De felt his heart beating.

He understood there was nothing to panic about, yet this was, after all, the first step of truly stepping into this world.

Standing before the door, he changed into his boots, then grabbed the black bowler hat from the standing coat rack and placed it on his head; only after a long while did he grasp the doorknob and push the door open.

His heartbeat accelerated the instant the door opened; the sensation of thoroughly entering a strange environment and accepting the fact of his transmigration was truly unpleasant.

He stepped over the threshold but did not immediately look outward; instead, he quickly walked out with his head down, then turned around to rotate the key and lock the door.

Closing his eyes, he slowly turned to face the street, leaning backward until his back rested against the door, his head pressing against the cold metal plate marked "No. 6."

"There's nothing to be nervous about; I've just stepped into another world, and chances are I can never return."

He said this to himself, striving to suppress the urge to gasp for air, then lifted his head, opened his eyes, leaned against the door, and gazed at everything before him—

Smoke lingered in the air, and the weather was even more overcast than in the morning. Yet the bustling square remained crowded: gentlemen in formal wear and top hats, ladies in dresses with powdered faces, porters carrying wooden crates, barefoot newsboys shouting loudly, shy flower girls soliciting customers, four-wheeled carriages rushing past, and plump housewives clutching paper bags and wearing lace caps...

A burnt smell hung in the air; people of all sorts mingled on the streets bordering the smoke-shrouded square, where hawking cries and clamor nearly overlapped completely. On the far side of the square, three-story buildings similar to the one behind him stood dense, their walls covered with intricate metal pipes like vines or spiderwebs, glinting in the weak midday sun.

In the center of the square stood a fountain featuring a statue of a maiden holding up a water jar; the fountain was not spraying water, and the statue had already yellowed somewhat. A patrolling officer wearing a police badge sat beside the fountain and looked curiously at Xia De; the middle-aged man asked with his eyes if help was needed, prompting Xia De to hastily avert his gaze.

As a newsboy passed before his eyes, the sound of his feet scraping against the gravel-covered ground made Xia De's hair stand on end; the jingling of horse bells from a four-wheeled carriage passing the entrance, combined with the inquisitive stares looking out from the carriage windows, together caused Xia De's heart to pump blood even faster.

Feeling his heart pound, he spread his hands and pressed them against the door behind him, instinctively leaning back, terrified by the reality before him. Blood pressure surged, heartbeat quickened, and a sudden bell toll from afar rang out almost like a bomb exploding inside his skull, nearly causing Xia De to faint.

So real, so incredible, so contrary to the common sense of his past twenty-plus years. This was another world; he had truly left his homeland and arrived in a completely unfamiliar realm.

"Don't panic! Don't panic!"

Xia De repeated this constantly in his mind, yet his body's instincts could not be suppressed so easily.

"It's fine; I will become familiar with all this, I will integrate myself here!"

He desperately kept telling himself this, but his body still involuntarily leaned back against the door, his back already soaked with sweat.

Suddenly, that woman's whispering voice sounded again; although this too was a sound from another world, it seemed to instantly pull Xia De back to reality, forcing him to face everything. The whispering voice declared, much like reciting a poem:

[You have obtained 'Enlightenment'.]

The speed of his heart's pounding decreased due to this voice, and his elevated blood pressure gradually returned to normal because of the whispering murmur echoing in his mind.

"What Enlightenment?"

He had not failed to hear clearly; he simply did not understand the meaning of the statement. [Enlightenment] likewise belonged to the mysterious four elements vaguely mentioned by the detective before his death, but Xia De required further explanation. He was now fully certain that what resided in his mind was absolutely not a system; that voice was most likely part of this world's mystical framework.

[You are me, and I am you. Stranger, you manipulate the course of destiny from the front stage, and destiny unfolds because of you; I contact the truth of the world from behind the scenes, and you become powerful because of me. Even if you are suspicious, we are one entity; there is no difference between us.]

The woman's voice answered irrelevantly, yet Xia De felt no anger; instead, he felt somewhat happy.

His guess was correct: within this world's occult system, the voice in his mind was most likely part of contacting and utilizing the mystical. This world's worldview seemed somewhat close to Cthulhu mythos and agnosticism; the supernatural and the mystical possessed power, and existence itself could affect mortals, thus necessitating another kind of power to help ordinary people contact those eerie and dangerous things.

"You are me, and I am you. Although you say so, you are definitely different from the ordinary situation."

He wished to verify his thoughts with the whispering voice in his mind, but received only the woman's light laughter in response.

Regardless, he had at least contacted the mystical elements of this world; even if he understood nothing, at least he stood here with his own objectives.

The panic from earlier gradually subsided, as if he had drawn closer to this steam era shrouded in mist. The feeling of being grounded made Xia De more steady; he told himself to gradually accept all this rather than indulge in useless panic:

"Earn money from a commission, investigate Hamilton's story, gather the four elements, research the voice in my head... Move forward, do not panic."

Repeating this constantly in his mind finally allowed him to leave the door. Abandoning the idea of returning to change clothes, Xia De carefully, very carefully, descended the three steps at the entrance, came to a stop on the street bordering the square, and amidst the crowd, widened his eyes and looked up at this world, letting the world reflect in his eyes:

"Regardless, move forward."

Speaking these words in his heart, he paused briefly, then, following the plan made inside the house, stepped out to walk along the circular street surrounding the square, heading toward the street entrance on the other side that led away from the square.