Lord of Mysteries:The Good Witch

Angel arrived at the dock district by carriage. Although called a "district," much of the area was actually in the suburbs of Tingen City. The Tassok and Hoy rivers converged outside the city before flowing towards Backlund, with numerous passenger and cargo ships sailing downstream, leading to the rapid development of the suburban docks, which were trending towards merging with the urban area.

Just before boarding, Klein made one last effort:

"Are you sure you don't need me to come along?"

At the time, Angel was standing at the carriage stop on Zotland Street, waiting for the trolley to arrive. Beside her was Klein, holding a gentleman's cane. He planned to walk back to Iron Cross Street after Angel boarded, completing his daily afternoon task: searching for his lost notebook along the way.

"Didn't we already discuss this?" Angel shook her head, seeing Klein still eager to join.

"It's just going to steal—ahem, retrieve Mrs. Green's lost ring. Having more people would actually be inconvenient."

Although they had discussed at length how to "steal back the ring," Angel still felt somewhat ashamed to say the word in public. She could only blame the Tingen City police for their laziness, causing even citizens to distrust them and seek private detectives or security companies to solve such problems. Angel found a good excuse for her actions.

"What if the ring isn't in the safe, or if there's no safe at all?" Klein seemed to hesitate. "If I go to the scene and perform divination, we'd have a better chance of finding the ring."

"Even if we don't find the ring, we can always go back another time. This trip can be considered a reconnaissance. But if both of us are caught, there might not be a next time."

Angel firmly rejected the request of the "Seer" without combat abilities to join the team. The probability of being discovered while operating alone was very small, but bringing along a clumsy Seer would greatly increase the difficulty.

Bringing her thoughts back to the present, Angel walked towards the warehouse cluster in the dock district, following the direction she remembered.

It was now about 3 PM, the busiest time in the dock district. Sailboats and steamships were moored along the riverbank, with crude cranes tirelessly loading and unloading crates. Porters carrying heavy loads or pushing wheelbarrows scurried like ants along the narrow but interconnected paths. The hastily laid wooden plank roads had been trampled into a bumpy mess, with stagnant water and garbage mixed together, emitting a stench that made it difficult to breathe even in the open air.

This was the area where Tingen City's poor congregated, offering jobs that only required physical labor and cheap housing. Countless people who couldn't make it in the city center came here to make a living.

It was also the area where the Tingen City police were least willing to go. They would rather deploy an entire squad to protect the mayor's ball, lining up in front of dignitaries, than patrol the muddy alleys of the docks for even fifteen minutes.

Where light doesn't reach, darkness prevails. The emergence of gangs in such areas was inevitable.

In fact, the initial purpose of establishing the "Dock District Labor Mutual Aid Society" was to counter the exploitation of workers by other gangs. A group of dock workers united to escape protection fees and forced labor, using violence to drive out other gangs that exploited workers from this area.

Then came the inevitable corruption and degradation, becoming the next exploiter...

Of course, they were essentially doing the same old things as the previous gangs: monopolizing work, collecting protection fees, selling some contraband. They didn't have many malicious actions towards their "members."

It wasn't because they had a change of heart, but because there was little to squeeze from the bottom-rung laborers... The weekly wage of dock workers was generally only 10 soli, and the work was unstable. This meager salary barely covered rent and daily living expenses, leaving almost nothing else. After the repeal of the Corn Laws, although the cost of living would decrease slightly, more farming populations would flood into the cities, competing for the already scarce job opportunities. Their wages would only further decrease due to vicious competition.

From this perspective, the Labor Mutual Aid Society, which monopolized most of the dock work, actually benefited the workers in terms of bargaining power, avoiding the devaluation of labor caused by bottomless undercutting.

At least from the busy scene before her eyes, Angel couldn't see many traces of "gang rampancy."

Following the road along the riverbank, avoiding the crowded crowds, and turning a few corners, she arrived at a cluster of warehouses.

This area was originally a patch of wooden structures, but after being burned to the ground in a big fire a few years ago, the new buildings were all built with bricks and concrete, forming a stark contrast with the low wooden buildings in other suburban areas.

Angel's target this time was a three-story warehouse, but the interior was only divided into two floors. The front had a row of double-arched doors, behind which were different small compartments separated by brick walls. The first floor was for storing goods, while the second floor was the office area.

In Kohl's memory, he had been to this warehouse twice before and had some impression of the internal structure.

At this time, most of the workers should have gone to the docks to handle cargo, and they wouldn't return to store items in the warehouse until nightfall. However, the main entrance of the warehouse was now bustling with noise. Hundreds of men dressed in various worker uniforms crowded at the door, surrounding a makeshift podium made of boxes.

"Quiet, everyone, quiet!" A middle-aged man, also dressed in worker's uniform, shouted through a tin megaphone on the stage.

"I've received everyone's demands, but the chairman won't be back for two days. Until then, please continue working calmly and don't delay our progress. As soon as the chairman returns to Tingen City, a representatives' meeting will be convened immediately."

"Don't even think about it! You said the same thing last time, two days later and then another two days!"

"Get off the stage, you lackey!"

"We want to see the chairman!"

Several workers who were clearly taking the lead role stirred up the surrounding crowd, and the effect was quite good. The shouts of hundreds of people immediately drowned out the calls for maintaining order.

Seeing the man on the high platform sweating profusely, trying to pacify the surrounding workers, with several burly men surrounding the platform repeatedly pushing back workers who rushed forward, seemingly protecting the shouting man, Angel had an idea.

The commotion before her eyes wouldn't end anytime soon, and everyone in the warehouse had been drawn to the main entrance. Perhaps now was the best opportunity to retrieve the ring?

Bypassing the noisy front door area, Angel came to the back of the warehouse.

The surface of the building, constructed just a few years ago, was already covered with traces of peeling paint, revealing the brick structure underneath. It was evident that the owner of the building didn't care about these "face-saving projects." Along the wall, there was only a row of narrow windows about five meters high, and the only available foothold was a row of beams protruding from the wall slightly below the windows.

Even with an "assassin's" agility, it would be impossible to climb a vertical five-meter wall without tools. Fortunately, the second floor of the warehouse was the office area, and several gas and water pipes ran vertically along the corner of the wall, entering the wall at a position slightly lower than the windows.

Thanks to the man on the podium at the warehouse entrance shouting himself hoarse, and the workers' various curses, all the people near the warehouse were concentrated at the main entrance.

Seeing no one around, Angel hesitated no longer. She walked to the corner of the wall, tested the strength of the pipes with her hand, found they could easily support a person's weight, and immediately started climbing.

Using both hands and feet, the physical qualities and exceptional agility provided by the Assassin potion allowed her to quickly climb to the height of the second floor. Then, using the horizontal pipe that entered the wall, she leaped up and jumped onto the beam below the second-floor window. As she jumped, the fixing screws at the connection point between the pipe and the wall made a sound of being overloaded, causing Angel's heart to tighten. After steadying herself, she looked around and saw that the area behind the warehouse was empty, and workers further away wouldn't notice the small disturbance here.

However, now that she was at a high position, if anyone looked over from afar, they could easily spot a figure clinging to the outer wall. Angel dared not linger. She pulled on the nearest window, found it wasn't locked from the inside, and gently opened one side. After quickly glancing inside the room, she pressed her hands on the windowsill, exerted force, and flipped into the room through the window.

This was a small file room, with wooden shelves along the walls filled with file folders, ranging from newer quality kraft paper to paper bags with worn edges. Stacks of paper documents were neatly arranged.

Near the door was a set of desk and chair, with an open ledger on top, and a cup of coffee beside it, steam rising from the cup.

Perhaps out of concern for fire, this room wasn't equipped with gas lamps, instead relying on two windows for natural light.

After quickly scanning the room with her eyes, Angel didn't find anything that looked like a safe. She randomly pulled out a stack of documents from the shelf, found it was a warehouse inventory record, and stuffed it back.

Gently pushing open the door, she found a long corridor outside, which should run through the center of the second floor based on its position. Several gas lamps hung on the walls, and although it was daytime, the main light source still came from the gas lamps as the corridor only had windows at both ends. On both sides of the corridor, there were identical doors at intervals of several meters, some open and some closed. The door she had just come out of had a sign that read "Archives Room."

At this moment, the entire second floor was quiet, with only faint voices coming from the front of the warehouse, where the emotionally charged crowd was arguing with the warehouse manager and his bodyguards.

It seemed she needed to hurry. Regardless of which side won the dispute, they might come to the second floor of the warehouse. She had to find the safe and "take" the ring before that happened.

Angel quickly moved through the corridor, checking the door signs. For unlocked doors, she would open them and peek inside, while for locked ones, she would knock lightly twice to check if anyone was inside.

After passing through rooms labeled "Tea Room," "Break Room," "Assistant's Office," and others, Angel didn't encounter anyone except for a large man snoring on a couch in the break room.

Crossing the staircase in the middle of the corridor to the other side, she searched a few more rooms before finally finding a door with a sign that read "Chairman's Office."

Lightly pressing on the brass doorknob, she felt resistance. The knob didn't budge.

Angel's heart leaped with excitement. It seemed this was the room.