Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic
Chapter 955 - 955: A Rat in a Cage

The "Fish Training Ring" didn't fit on the white mouse's paw or head, so Shard caught the mouse with one hand and tied the ring to its long tail like a rope. As the relic's effects took hold, the dim-witted mouse gradually stopped struggling because intelligent wisdom was occupying the high ground of its mind.

It raised its head and looked at Shard. Shard stared back into the tiny black eyes of the mouse, clearly sensing the emergence of wisdom from the trembling of its fur and the "expression" in its eyes.

A moment later, the white mouse spoke:

"Oh, you **, damn it, are you going to ** me? I curse you **, really **, *****."

Its voice was not loud, and from the tone, it was a male mouse, an adult by age. It cursed Shard in heavily accented Casenric language, and Shard couldn't fully translate some of the words used:

"Last time in Midshire Fort, the owl I met also seemed proficient in cursing in Casenric."

He thought to himself, slightly increasing the grip of his right hand. The mouse squeaked but ceased its verbal abuse. Compared to the owl he encountered in Midshire Fort, this mouse from the Lower District was indeed quite rude.

"Do you really hate me that much?"

He asked with a smile, and the mouse in his hand replied indignantly:

"I can smell the cat scent on you through a closed door, and it's even worse than Old John's foot odor!"

"John" is a common name, so "Old John" here was certainly not the stingy pawnshop owner of Tobesk.

"Cat scent?"

Shard looked at himself and realized the mouse was referring to Mia:

"Are you very afraid of cats?"

"Aren't you afraid of beasts that eat people?"

The white mouse retorted, its tail tied to the ring swinging, and its tone showed it was quite angry:

"But I'm a brave mouse; bring out that cat, and I'll defeat it with my wisdom! Yes, now I have wisdom, and wisdom is my wealth and power!"

Shard suppressed his laughter. With Mia's intelligence, a cat could easily outsmart this overconfident white mouse:

"Back to business, I'll ask, and you answer. First, in the past one or two weeks, have any strange strangers come by?"

"You..."

"Apart from me."

"Fifteen moon cycles ago, there were strange people."

"How many people in total?"

"Two!"

"What did they inquire about?"

"Similar to what you just asked. If you give me some cheese, I would..."

"Hmm?"

"I mean, they asked similar questions, then made that unlucky guy faint."

The unlucky guy referred to was the owner of this white mouse.

"When those two humans left, they casually mentioned a location. Yes, the name was 39 Matilda Street!"

The mouse quickly said, as if really worried about being squeezed to death by Shard's hand. Actually, its worry was unnecessary; for any human and creatures with similar intelligence, Shard would cautiously consider whether to harm them.

This is respect for life.

"39 Matilda Street..."

Shard knew of this street but had only seen it on a map. Half a month ago, he hadn't even been to Huntington yet, and he couldn't confirm what those two people who had found Rust Alley before his Huntington operation began knew.

He fetched a piece of Mia's cat food from his pocket with his left hand and threw it on the table, then put down the mouse amid its pitiful pleas.

The white mouse didn't run away but sniffed at the expensive cat food. It didn't eat it immediately but said to Shard again:

"My hearing is much better than humans. After they went outside, I heard a few words. Voodoo Society, relic, sacrifice, wasting time, once-in-a-hundred-year opportunity."

The white mouse described, but some of the words were not pronounced accurately, clearly showing that it hadn't memorized them well.

"Voodoo Society? Were they from the Pantanal Voodoo Society again?"

Shard was quite surprised:

"They were that careless, discussing such topics right in the alley."

[Aren't you often discussing sensitive topics with friends on the street too?]

"She" asked with a smile. Shard touched his nose and pretended not to hear, then said to the mouse that began preparing to eat:

"Mr. Mouse, thank you very much for your help. I'm about to leave. Would you like to return to the cage, or would you like me to help you gain freedom?"

Shard would definitely take off the [Fish Training Ring], but he could let the mouse go free and leave some money for the owner here.

The white mouse stepped on the wooden texture of the counter, raised its head in horror, and said in a slang-laden accent:

"Please don't put me outside. Those wild cats and mice will eat me!"

"So, you would rather go back to the cage?"

"No doubt about it. Oh, you humans who have never lived in a cage just can't understand what a comfortable life it is to have a stable cage and regular food. Just like I can't understand why you always like to wander outside. For me, life in the cage is..."

Seeing that the mouse had tendencies of becoming a philosopher, Shard took off the ring. As the white mouse squeaked, he returned it to the cage and tossed over a piece of Mia's premium cat food.

"These animals are really interesting."

Shard thought to himself.

The City of Red Wine, Huntington City, is crisscrossed with waterways. Matilda Street directly leads to the city's second-largest river, "Tomson River." The street begins in the east at a Five-Forked Road and extends west straight to the riverside, not very long overall.

Shard believed the white mouse wasn't lying, but when he arrived at Matilda Street at three in the afternoon, he unexpectedly found that there was no number 39 at all.

The street numbers on Matilda Street are odd on the north side and even on the south side. The numbers one and two are a flower shop and a law office, respectively, adjacent to the Five-Forked Road. At the riverside's end, the last two numbers are 37 and 38, marking the end of Matilda Street.

To prevent any mistakes, Shard specifically inquired at a tavern on this street and confirmed that Matilda Street had never had a number 39, although the street had been rebuilt many times over the last decade, the number of street addresses remained unchanged.

There hasn't even been any rumors of "invisible shops" or "number 39 appearing at night," which means, whether from a normal person's perspective or from an urban legend's viewpoint, the number 39, as mentioned by the white mouse, does not exist on Matilda Street.

Shard did not rush back to Rust Alley to find the white mouse that didn't want to leave its cage to continue discussing philosophical topics. Instead, he took advantage of the afternoon fog that had emerged again to leave Matilda Street for Riverbank Street, which intersects with it.

In the afternoon, there were only a few women with headscarves washing clothes below the riverbank, and the thick fog above the river allowed only the outline of buildings on the opposite bank to be visible.

"This makes it easier to act."

Shard carefully descended the slope from Riverbank Street to the riverside. The City Hall certainly wouldn't waste manpower repairing the riverbank, which was overgrown with wild grass, and huge pipes continuously discharged sewage from unknown sources into the river. The riverbank was strewn with muck and trash, occasionally including items like tin cans and broken kerosene lamps that might cut through shoe soles.

It seemed possible that scavengers would regularly come here to sort through the trash, hence the footprints on the riverbank were remarkably chaotic.

Shard searched back and forth several times in the area directly opposite Matilda Street, and under "Her" guidance, he indeed found some traces.

There was a rough stone wall on one side of the riverbank, located just across from Matilda Street's odd-numbered side. The stone wall had faint traces of elements, which, through Shard's judgment, suggested an entrance covered up by rituals and arcane techniques.

Someone had definitely been here recently, convinced they wouldn't be discovered, so they hadn't bothered to clean up the footprints.

Shard touched the stone wall with his hand and roughly confirmed the concealed entrance. Then, he carefully observed the stone wall and found a small trace amidst its normal cracks and stains. Interpreting it as text, its meaning roughly was:

"The great Pantanal will eventually reclaim the lost territory."

"It's indeed the Voodoo Society."

Shard thought to himself, and then used the arcane technique [Echo of the Past] to try and find the voice of the people who came here to determine how to open the concealed entrance. But unfortunately, after many attempts, all he heard were urban noises from above the river, the only voices being children chasing each other and talking about fishing.

"Which means, this might be the base of 'Arrow's owner Halder Undiba from decades ago. The Circle Sorcerer who came to investigate fifteen days ago visited Rust Alley, and after finding no clues, came here again. But that was 48 hours ago, so I didn't hear any voices."

There were no signs of damage here, indicating that those who came before were likely already aware of how to open the entrance, and there is reason to believe those two were also members of the Voodoo Society.

[Then how will you open the entrance?]

"She" whispered softly in Shard's ear.

Shard glanced at the sun on the horizon at five o'clock in the afternoon and looked around to confirm there was no one nearby:

"That's simple enough. The opponent only concealed the entrance; they didn't hide the space itself. I don't believe they have that kind of ability. Since there's definitely space behind the stone wall, then..."

He pressed his right hand against the stone wall:

"Feliana's Witch Light!"

Golden glimmer radiated from his palm, and as Shard steadily pressed his hand against the stone wall, the golden light became like fire melting ice, allowing Shard's arm to pierce through the wall.

It was apparent that the Circle Sorcerer using this place as a base also considered that someone might use force to destroy the stone wall. Therefore, when Shard's wrist was entirely immersed in the stone wall, he felt something incredibly cold.

The chill and curse crept from his palm towards his heart, and Shard froze in place, then shuddered sharply:

"Oh, that's cold."

He complained inwardly, confirming that the lingering curse had been completely suppressed by divinity, and continued to reach into the stone wall. After encountering curses three times, his forearm was nearly a third of the way embedded in the stone wall. Finally, he felt his hand completely penetrate the stone and enter the space beyond.

He retracted his arm, slightly squatted, and peered into the dark space inside the hole:

"It's so thick; is this place being used as the Bank of the Carsonrick Kingdom's vault?"