After settling his final affairs, the detective lying on the bed slowly closed his eyes. Shido pressed his lips together and waited for a while before freeing his hand. He cautiously checked the man's breathing and pulse.
"…He's dead?"
He could hardly believe it had ended so easily—and that it really had been almost exactly ten minutes.
Before he could react further, a streak of black light suddenly flashed across the corpse's face. Shido's heart tightened for no reason at all, and an overwhelming sense of terror instantly swallowed him.
But when he snapped back to his senses, the black light had already scattered into the air and vanished.
As the light disappeared from the corpse, the emaciated body—thin as though it had starved to death—began to visibly fill out at a speed discernible to the naked eye, as if air were being pumped into it from within. It continued until it became the appearance of a normal corpse.
"How is this considered normal? What exactly is going on now?"
In the quiet of the room, Shido looked around uneasily. His unease did not come from being alone with a corpse, but from the unfamiliar surroundings. This was no longer the world he had known—he had already glimpsed a corner of a world steeped in mystery and danger.
The woman's voice echoed again in his mind, as if reminding him that it was not truly a "person":
[You have come into contact with 'Whispers'.]
"What kind of contact? What are Whispers? Can you explain in more detail?"
But the voice offered no answer.
[Whispers]was one of the "four mysterious elements" the detective had mentioned earlier. Clearly, the so-called [Relic] and [Whispers]were the truth behind his death.
Though the oppressive and unknown reality left Shido at a loss, he found that, unexpectedly, he felt little fear as he looked at the corpse on the bed.
"If this were all some kind of joke, that would be wonderful."
At this moment, he desperately wished it were all an act—but reason told him it couldn't be.
He stood by the bed in silence for a while, then quietly circled around the four-poster bed to the window. Carefully and calmly, he pulled open the heavy curtains. Immediately, the faint morning sunlight filtered in through the gray street fog and the glass panes.
The light seemed to temporarily dispel the unease in his heart.
"It's morning?"
The thick fabric curtains had made him think it was still night.
Bang, bang, bang—
A knock on the door suddenly sounded, startling Shido. He instinctively released the curtain, then immediately grabbed it again and pulled it fully open. Squinting, he looked outside. The window faced the street directly. There was no time to admire the strange steam-era scenery shrouded in fog—he first looked down to confirm that it was the corpse transporters. Upon seeing the horse-drawn carriage used for transporting bodies, he finally turned and went to open the door.
"So he really knew the exact time of his death. That's why the transporters arrived so precisely."
Thinking this, Shido pushed open the bedroom door.
Outside was the living room, its walls similarly lined with gas pipes reminiscent of a steam-era setting. Hand-polished solid wood furniture filled the space, along with stacks of books and documents written in alphabetic script scattered about.
A small blackboard hung on the wall. The formal tea table and fabric sofa arrangement made the place look unmistakably like a detective agency.
The living room curtains were open, allowing the dim morning light filtered through fog to shine inside, casting slanted beams across the floor at Shido's feet.
Within the light, dust motes drifted quietly, like eerie tiny creatures swimming through the air. The sense of realism made Shido's skin crawl.
He opened the cold metal latch and security chain on the front door. Directly ahead was a dark staircase spiraling downward. There was another door beside it—meaning there were two residences on this floor, resembling the apartments in Sherlock Holmes stories.
Unable to find a lamp, Shido descended through the dark, oppressive staircase. His heart trembled violently with each step. In the darkness, his overactive imagination made him feel as though something terrifying were watching him.
From the second floor to the first, the stairs led directly to the entry hall. One side of the hall connected to a passage that had been completely sealed off with wooden boards, like a nailed-shut coffin, leaving only the entry hall usable on the first floor.
This sight only deepened the already tense outsider's confusion.
"Why seal off the first floor? What exactly is going on here?"
Passing the shoe cabinet, he casually propped up a fallen umbrella and glanced at the gas lamp mounted on the wall above it. Carefully turning it on, the light steadied his nerves.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the front door.
A silent elderly man wearing a black coat stood outside. A badge shaped like overlapping leaves hung on his chest. Behind him lay a gloomy sky and choking fog. The old man raised his eyes to look at Shido, his voice low, like wet leaves scraping against cold ground.
"Shido Hamilton?"
The language he used was the same as that of the deceased detective—Delarian.
"Yes."
Shido nodded stiffly and gestured for the elderly man to follow him upstairs.
The old man then signaled to the dispirited middle-aged man behind him who was calming the horses. The man's expression was gloomy, much like the weather.
The three ascended the stairs together. Shido didn't know what to say, so he led them in silence to the bedroom on the second floor, marked with the doorplate "1".
Throughout the process, almost no one spoke. The elderly man and the middle-aged man carried the scent of corpses with them. They first put on gloves and confirmed that the detective on the bed was indeed dead. Then they handed Shido a document for his signature.
It was a confirmation form authorizing the city public cemetery administration to handle the body. It bore two official seals—one from the cemetery administration and one from the city funeral committee. At the very bottom was a prayer for the deceased, the translated meaning of which made the living Shido extremely uncomfortable.
While the two examined the corpse, Shido sat at the bedroom desk and picked up the cold steel pen.
His mind was in chaos, but he was aware that while he could understand and read, he couldn't truly write. Fortunately, the knowledge he had received earlier included writing ability as well. Translating his name phonetically into the Northern Human Common Language—Delarian—he prepared to sign.
The contents of the cold paper were unremarkable: confirmation of body transfer and that funeral expenses had already been settled.
"But judging from the additional signature belonging to the committee secretariat, names in this world resemble those of my previous Western world—three-part names, with a middle name required in formal documents. The given name is 'Shido', the surname can follow 'Hamilton', but the middle name…"
In his confusion and unease, Shido couldn't be sure whether the deceased Mr. Hamilton had given the body's original owner a middle name. But there was no time to search the house—he had to come up with something immediately.
[Suellen.]
The murmuring voice echoed again in his mind, startling Shido nearly into jumping. It provided a word that existed both in the woman's ancient language and in the Northern Kingdom's common tongue. Its meaning was [Silver Moon].
"I can use this as my middle name—but you owe me an explanation."
Shido tried to communicate again, his heart racing. The woman's voice truly responded:
[This is fate, outsider. The Silver Moon is your fate. When you gather the four elements, push open the door to the supernatural, and gaze upon this terrifying world, its meaning will reveal itself.]
Frowning, Shido suppressed his fear. After a moment's thought, he firmly signed his name:
Shido Suellen Hamilton
(Shade·Suellen·Hamilton)
The corpse transporters did not ask Shido for a death certificate or cause-of-death report, nor did they request a police examination. It was as though the detective's death were as ordinary as a stray dog dying by the roadside.
After retrieving the "Body Transfer Authorization Form" from Shido, they handed him a receipt listing the grave's location, then silently carried away Mr. Hamilton's body—still dressed in pajamas.
Shido escorted them to the downstairs entrance but did not step outside. He watched as the corpse was placed into the narrow coffin on the carriage, lined with brown cloth that looked faintly stained with blood.
The middle-aged man drove the carriage, carrying the coffin and the elderly man deep into the dense fog of the street.
"Well then… goodbye, Mr. Sparrow Hamilton."
Thinking this silently, Shido closed the door. He stood for a while in the dim light of the entry hall before climbing the frighteningly dark stairs again. His steps were heavy, yet with no one else around, his tension was mixed with a strange sense of relief.
"That was simpler than I expected. No one asked about Mr. Hamilton's cause of death. They didn't even care whether I really was Shido Hamilton. They didn't even ask for a tip. The detective really did arrange everything in advance."
The corpse departed with countless secrets, leaving Shido—the despicable outsider occupying another person's body—with endless mysteries. He still had many questions he wished he could ask Mr. Hamilton, countless doubts waiting for answers.
But the dead do not return to life. He had to accept the man's death and strive to establish himself in this world that felt profoundly wrong.
The only good news was that the second-floor residence once belonging to Mr. Sparrow Hamilton now belonged to Shido. In this alien world resembling the mid-nineteenth-century Victorian era, he had instantly become a homeowner.
The first floor was sealed with wooden boards. The neighboring room "2" on the second floor was locked from the outside. The staircase to the third floor was completely broken. Thus, in this empty building, Shido was now completely alone.
He returned to the second-floor room marked "1", carefully checking every corner of the darkened study, living room, washroom, and bedroom. Only after confirming that no one lurked in the shadows did he finally exhale and sit down on the living room sofa, tilting his head slightly as he gazed at the morning fog outside.
At last, Shido had time to organize his situation:
"I've transmigrated. I've inherited a detective agency. The body's original owner likely had something wrong with his head, trained by the former detective to help complete a seemingly simple task after his death. Sparrow Hamilton had secrets. This world contains supernatural power—his death and the voice in my head prove that. What I need to do is gather the four elements. His death has already made me come into contact with 'Whispers'."
Rubbing his face, Shido felt worried—but the situation wasn't terrible. Though Mr. Sparrow Hamilton died suddenly, at least Shido now had a foothold in this new world.
That was enough to support his survival, his investigation into this world's secrets, and perhaps—even the possibility of finding a way home.
Shido was not someone who simply accepted fate, but neither was he one to complain endlessly. Being torn from his homeland and cast here was certainly unfortunate. For now, all he could do was accept it, live well, and strive to live even better.
"And while I'm at it… I might as well see what this supernatural world is really like. A steam-age mystery filled with secret rites and spells—how could anyone be content with an ordinary life?"
He murmured softly. In his mind, the woman's laughter echoed, as pleasant as a breeze sweeping through a lavender field.
(End of Chapter)