Chapter 290 Locked

Sitivian, coal ash district.

In the afternoon, the Coal Ash District, which had been hit by dust, had finally returned to calm, and the hustle and bustle on the streets continued. In the teahouse outside the Coal Ash District police station, Adele and Ed were still sitting face to face, staring at the police station building in the distance outside the window.

Together, they used the small corpse dolls placed in the police station to continuously monitor the actual situation and desire activities in the police station, trying to find out some useful information. However, the spy they found, after being stimulated by Adele, took the initiative to contact the mastermind named Alex, and was reprimanded. Since then, he has not taken any action since then. In order not to arouse suspicion, Adele did not stimulate the desire of the spy again.

Then, Adele and Ed decided to continue observing for a while to see if any strange desires would emerge again somewhere in the police station. However, Adele seemed to be not very used to the feeling of using her ability to observe multiple perspectives at the same time, and her face was solemn with a slight frown. After Dorothy saw Adele's performance, she asked Ed to remind her directly.

"If you feel a little uncomfortable, you can pray to that being again and ask to interrupt the connection. It is not a solution to monitor you all the time. We should adopt some other plans."

Ed said this to Adele. Listening to Ed's words, Adele paused for a moment, closed her eyes and prayed again. Then the images that appeared in her mind at the same time disappeared instantly. After returning to normal, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, and then rubbed her temples and said.

"Huh... What a rare experience... Seeing so many things at the same time, hearing so many sounds at the same time. Although I have used flesh puppets before, this is the first time I have been exposed to so many senses at once, hehe... Detective, you really can always come up with something surprising."

Adele said this. Dorothy had arranged about seven small corpse dolls in the police station, which was equivalent to providing Adele with seven sets of sensory information in different positions at once, which made her a little uncomfortable for a while.

"The Beyonder who can control so many flesh puppets at the same time and with such precision, and the divine being that can let those who pray share senses, I have heard of before. Although I don't know the origin of this Rosicrucian, it seems that this association has a deep relationship with 'Enlightenment'..."

Rubbing her temples, Adele was thinking in her mind, but after relaxing herself a little, she got back to the point.

"The director's spy became more cautious after being reprimanded. I feel like long-term surveillance won't yield any results for a while..."

"Yeah, so now we should try other methods to find someone."

Ed responded to Adele's words softly. Hearing Ed's words, Adele raised her eyebrows and then spoke curiously.

"From your tone, Mr. Detective, I think you have some ideas now."

"Of course... but we need to try whether it works or not." Ed said this, and then took out a folded paper from his clothes. After cleaning the table a little, he unfolded the paper and put it on the table. Adele recognized what the paper was at a glance. It was a city map of the Coal Ash District. They had used this map to locate the crime scene and thus locked onto the trap point of Tanmu intersection. Now there were still many black dots marked on the map.

"It's this map again... Are you still planning to use the map to look for people? We suffered a loss last time." Looking at the map in front of her, Adele said with a little confusion, while Ed answered directly.

"No, no, no... Miss Adele, although the incident at Tanmu Crossing was thrilling, I don't think we suffered any loss. Although we faced a crisis, we also obtained a key piece of intelligence."

Ed said this, and then continued to take out more tools from his clothes, including a compass. Listening to Ed's words, Adele spoke in confusion.

"Key intelligence?"

"It's at the Tanmu intersection. The mastermind behind the scene has arranged meat puppets there." Ed said, then took out a compass and broke it open, adjusting it according to the scale on the map. Listening to his words, Adele's eyes became more confused.

"It's obvious that he has meat puppets monitoring him there... Can this also be considered key intelligence?"

"Of course it counts. Miss Adele, you don't know much about meat puppets. Generally, the extraordinary props that control meat puppets cannot control them within a radius of more than three kilometers. So the location of that guy is within a three-kilometer radius with the Tanmu intersection as the origin."

Ed said, then picked up the compass adjusted to the scale and drew a large circle with a diameter of three kilometers on the map with the Tanmu intersection as the center. The large area encircled by this circle was the hiding place of the mastermind behind the scenes.

In this world, except for Dorothy, the simulated puppeteer, who can control the corpse puppet up to a radius of ten kilometers, the control distances of the other corpse puppet props are the same three kilometers. This is the case for Dorothy's corpse puppet ring and Byron's corpse puppet button.

"The maximum range of the meat puppet item is three kilometers? This is the first time I know it in such detail..." Adele nodded thoughtfully, then turned to look at the map in front of her.

"But even if we know where that guy is hiding through the maximum distance of the meat puppet prop, it's still not easy to find him. You see, the area you marked is so large, it will be very difficult to find him..."

Adele continued to speak, and what she said was right. The area enclosed by a circle with a radius of three kilometers is not small. The difficulty of finding someone in such a large urban area has not been reduced much.

"Yes, three kilometers is a bit long, and this circle is a bit big... But Miss Adele, don't forget that we are looking for more than one circle. Just now at the police station, the spy contacted the mastermind through the meat puppet. This proves that in addition to the charcoal intersection, the police station in the coal ash district is also within the control of that guy, so we can draw another circle."

Ed said this, then picked up a compass, found the Coal Ash District Police Station on the map, and drew a large circle with a radius of three kilometers with it as the center. Now two circles appeared on the map at once, and Adele's eyes lit up when she saw the circle being drawn.

"Yes... There is also a meat puppet of that guy in the police station, which means that the guy must be in a position where he can control the puppets at both the Tanmu intersection and the police station at the same time. The distance between the police station and the Tanmu intersection is not too close, so the place where he can control these two points at the same time is much smaller than the place where he can only control one place."

Adele said knowingly, and Ed smiled and nodded in response.

"Yes, to be precise... he is in this area." Ed pointed to the map, where the circle centered on the intersection and the circle centered on the police station intersected. Only by drawing a three-kilometer circle from the points in the intersection of these two circles can both the intersection and the police station be included. In other words, the guy's hiding place must be in this area.

Listening to Ed's words, Adele's eyes also focused on the area where the two circles intersected on the map. With a gleam in her eyes, she spoke.

"Indeed... This trap was designed by that guy from the beginning, so he must have found the best hiding spot from the beginning, slowly waiting for us to take the bait, and it is unlikely that we will run around.

"This area is much smaller than the simple circle before, but it's not much smaller either. Mr. Detective, if we want to find that guy in this area, I'm afraid it will take some effort."

"Yes, it's smaller, but not small enough. In this case, maybe we can think of a way to reduce the range further."

Ed responded like this, and Adele responded immediately after hearing his words.

"Can you narrow the scope further? How do you plan to do it?"

"It's very simple. As long as we can determine the location of one of that guy's meat puppets, we can draw another circle on this map. Then the location of that guy will be the intersection of the three circles, and we can expand the search range a little bit."

Shrugging, Ed continued to speak, and Adele immediately asked back.

"Oh... then Mr. Detective, how are you going to find the location of his meat puppet?"

"It's very simple. We can put ourselves in that guy's shoes. Miss Adele, if you were that guy, how would you use the meat puppet in your hand under the current circumstances?"

Ed asked Adele a question. Adele frowned when she heard it, then put her hands on the table, crossed her fingers, and began to think while trying to answer Ed's question.