Mystery: Start with the Reader

Abner picked up the notebook, and relying on the powerful analysis ability of the "Pure White Eye", he only flipped through a few pages, and he knew it in his mind.

"This notebook is written in ciphertext," he said affirmatively.

"Ciphertext?" Miss Fanny repeated in bewilderment.

"The letters that make up the words in this notebook are very crude. They don't look like mature characters that have undergone evolution, but more like some kind of well-designed symbols... I counted them just now, and the types of these symbols are similar to those of Gufusac. The number of words in Chinese is roughly the same." Abner pointed to the words on one of the pages and explained with a smile.

After hearing this, Miss Fanny moved to Abner's side, looked at the direction of the other's finger, and then said thoughtfully: "That is to say... each symbol represents one or several Gufusa Croatian letters?"

"That's right!" Abner nodded, but glanced at Emma on the other side, only to find that the young lady was not surprised, and obviously knew that the words on the note belonged to ciphertext.

That's right, how could the "cryptographer" fail to see such a simple trick? She didn't say it before, but also to help Miss Fanny check?

While thinking this way in his heart, Abner quickly deciphered the letters represented by some symbols by using the "exhaustive method".

Immediately afterwards, he frowned.

Because the words formed by deciphered letters are surprisingly groups of numbers!

Is this a second layer of encryption? What kind of extraordinary content is recorded in the notebook...need to keep it secret to such an extent?

However, since it is a number group, I am afraid that the corresponding "code book" is needed to complete the translation... I don't know which book the baron used as the "code book".

Thinking of this, Abner sighed, and then showed his achievements to the two ladies beside him.

Seeing this, Fanny said in an exaggerated tone: "Detective Bryan, you are amazing! You actually solved it in just this little time." Her face was full of admiration.

Miss Emma felt a little complicated in her heart. She asked herself that she couldn't decipher the meaning of the ciphertext in such a short period of time, so in addition to being frustrated, she sincerely sighed: "As expected of Backlund's famous 'hero' detective'!"

After sighing, she also thought of the question that Abner had thought about before, and said after deliberation: "Abner, these combinations of numbers probably represent the words in the corresponding positions in a certain book?"

"Yes,

Maybe it was one of the books in the study above. Abner nodded slightly, agreeing with Emma's words.

"Abner..." Miss Fanny murmured softly, then took out her pocket watch to look, and found that it was already four o'clock, so she reminded: "It's almost dawn, we have to go back to the town hotel as soon as possible, we don't have time to go back Identify which book those numbers correspond to."

"Then pretend to leave together, and search slowly when we get back." Emma said with a smile.

"How do you pretend?" Abner asked in surprise.

Although he didn't count them carefully, there are at least twenty or thirty books in the bookcase in the study, which is not so easy to pretend to take away. Even if he wears the "hand of wisdom", he can have the same strength as the curly-haired baboon.

"Leave it to me." Fanny puffed up her chest at this moment, very confidently.

Seeing that she seemed to be quite sure, Abner stopped talking. After carefully searching the basement with the two ladies, he returned to the study room on the upper floor along the stairs.

Then he knew the reason for Miss Fanny's confidence:

Books were put into the backpack by Fanny, as if they were put into a bottomless pit, without any sign of being filled.

Is this backpack a wonder item? The ability of the mystic to create space pockets?

Hmm...probably not, if you use a demigod-level item at a low-sequence level, I'm afraid the negative effect will be astonishingly large...and an item of this level in the hands of a Sequence 9 will only bring trouble to her.

But even so, it must be a priceless treasure... Are they so relieved of me? Aren't you afraid that I will have evil intentions?

That's all for Miss Fanny... But looking at Miss Emma's appearance, she seems to have gotten used to it? Don't they realize the true value of this item?

Just when Abner was full of doubts, Fanny had already packed all the books into her backpack, turned her head and said with a smile, "Okay, let's go back to the hotel first."

Abner nodded, but still half sighed and half reminded: "This is the first time I have seen a magical item with 'space'."

However, Fanny obviously understood the meaning of Abner's words, her brows and eyes softened a lot, and she said with a smile: "Thank you for your reminder, Detective Bryan. But I believe in your character."

Believe me so easily? Girl, is it too easy to gain your trust?

Abner slandered, and saw that she seemed to know how to measure, so he stopped persuading her.

...

The three returned to the "Old John" Hotel all the way, and Fanny and Emma returned to their guest rooms.

After sealing the room with spirituality, Fanny took off her shirt and trousers, walked into the bathroom, soaked in the bathtub, and washed off the dust all over her body. Then she said to her friend with some fear:

"This expedition is really dangerous. If I hadn't met Detective Blaine, I might have died..."

Emma also nodded solemnly, and said: "The 'bribery' effect in the ruins is really terrible. Both of us picked up that notebook, and our minds should have been lowered at that time...and yours was especially severely reduced. … At that moment, I even forgot the hole cards in my hand, and I was really waiting to die with my eyes closed.”

At this time, Fanny had already recovered from the comfort of the bath. While rubbing the dirt on her body with a towel, she smiled and said, "However, we are lucky to be able to get to know Detective Blaine."

"What? Did you really fall in love with him at first sight?" Emma lay on the side of the bathtub, narrowing her eyes and teasingly.

"It's not like falling in love at first sight, but I have a good impression. It is true that I am willing to develop a friendship with him... Don't you think he is very powerful in terms of frontal combat ability, knowledge, and reasoning ability? We need such a powerful companion on our extraordinary road !" Fanny said solemnly, opening Emma's mischievous hand.

"That's why...you use the 'backpack' to test his character?" Emma asked with a smile.

"Isn't that the plan you made a long time ago?" Fanny glanced at her friend and imitated her voice, "When you meet a suitable companion, use this as a test. If the person being tested is malicious, then It is inevitable that you will suffer the consequences and be swallowed by the 'backpack'."

"It's indeed what I said... It's just that your performance is too deliberate, I think Abner has seen through it..." Emma sighed.

"I wanted to ask before, why did you call him Abner? What did you talk about in the basement?" Fanny asked suspiciously.

"'Abner' is what the 'Heroic Detective' licensed me to call." Emma said triumphantly "showing off".

And what responded to her was a handful of water thrown by Fanny...

...

Abner, who returned to the guest room, didn't know that he had become the talk of the two girls when they were laughing.

Because the sky was about to dawn, he did not rest, but opened an obviously old book, and began to compare the number combinations remembered in his mind, trying to decipher the meaning of the second layer of ciphertext.

As for the books, they were specially ordered by him before he separated from the two ladies.

However, Abner did not find the correct "code book" until he had compared all the five books at hand.

"When I was picking out the books from Fanny's backpack just now, I deliberately chose the five most likely ones...but none of them are...

"Then, will the 'Codebook' really be hidden in the rest of the books held by those two young ladies?"

Abner, who was suspicious, wandered around the room subconsciously. Suddenly, his eyes swept over the Hermes text relief decoration on the wall of the hotel, and he couldn't help but feel a move, and suddenly had a new inspiration:

"Before the baron sealed himself, he was obviously building a house according to a ritual layout... or a mausoleum!

"What he recorded in his notes through two layers of encryption is likely to be related to this matter...

"And that ritual is recorded in the Necronomicon!

"Could it be... Could the real 'Codebook' be the Necronomicon?"

Thinking of this, he randomly flipped through a page of his notes, and compared the set of numbers on the first line with the "Necronomicon" in his memory.

Soon, he deciphered the content recorded on this page of notes:

"On September 12, I accidentally found an abandoned castle in the middle of the Delaire Forest. Because the situation was unknown, I didn't approach it. I planned to enter and explore after preparing.

"On September 14, after my observation, there seemed to be a vampire guarding the abandoned castle, but that was only a Sequence 7, and it was very easy to get into the castle without him.

"I decided to go in and investigate with Austin as soon as Austin arrived."

Looking at the text he deciphered, Abner recalled the appearance of the baron's corpse covered in black spots in the "backtracking" scene, and felt his scalp tingling.

Because he, who has read the original book, knows how terrifying the old castle in the middle of the Dreyer forest is!