Chapter 301 - 297: The Noeman Family’s Tradition

Chapter 301: Chapter 297: The Noeman Family’s Tradition

While on the road, the two began to compile the detailed information. Peter, in the passenger seat, typed with flying fingers, his input speed even faster than on a computer.

He meticulously described every detail of the building they had observed that day, along with information on the owner and a brief history of the family. He also attached photos taken from multiple angles.

In the spots where the paint was thicker, he could vaguely tell by touch that there were likely wall carvings underneath—a common practice of the Association.

When the initial preliminary report was complete, he added an evaluation that the building was in good condition. After both Peter and Niso gave their verbal confirmation, he hit send.

...

Only after watching the two men leave did the three Noeman siblings begin to prepare their dinner.

Their sister, Mani, was the one cooking. A pot of onion and meat stew, a generous helping of roasted sausages, plus a vegetable salad and bread—it was a simple, cozy family meal.

It was winter, so of course they wouldn’t eat in the spacious main hall, though it was a very cool place to be in the summer.

In reality, the first and second floors of the building had been renovated to be quite comfortable. The dining room and kitchen were separated by just a single door.

She lifted the lid, and as she ladled the rich, fragrant beef stew into their bowls, steam and a hearty aroma instantly filled the room.

"Tsk, tsk. Mani, if it weren’t for that temper of yours, you’d have all the qualities of a perfect wife."

Carl teased, unable to resist taking a sip of the stew. A look of satisfaction spread across his face.

"Hmph. I only have a temper because certain people try my patience."

She sliced the roasted sausage, and grease oozed out with each cut of the knife. She speared a piece with her fork, dabbed it in sauce, and popped it into her mouth.

Frank wasn’t nearly as refined; he polished off half a sausage in a single bite.

Carl and Frank each cracked open a can of dark beer. They took hearty bites of sausage and bread, occasionally pausing for a sip of stew, followed by a swig of beer.

"By the way, that gesture your friends made when they left was pretty unusual. I’ve never seen a salute like that before."

Carl said, making small talk with Frank.

The latter took a drink of beer, swallowing the sausage he’d been chewing.

"They’ve been studying classical architecture for some time. Like they said when we were talking, they’ve traveled all over. It’s probably just a local custom from somewhere they visited. I thought it was pretty interesting, actually."

Their sister, Mani, chimed in playfully as she ate her stew and vegetable salad.

"It was interesting! It looked like a weird ’OK’ sign, but upside down over the heart with the fingers held together. Haha!"

Carl laughed at that. There were a lot of differences, but if you just looked at the shape, it did bear some resemblance.

But Frank, who had been enjoying his sausage and stew, couldn’t help but start thinking again. He had never seen that gesture before, yet he felt a strange sense of familiarity with it.

His memory told him he had definitely never seen it before. But then he thought about Peter, and it occurred to him that his memory might not be so reliable after all.

As a top biology student who had earned his spot at Munich University, Frank knew that human memory could be unreliable. The mind could even distort memories, making them uglier or more beautiful than reality.

That’s why humanity invented writing and record-keeping, after all!

He was having an academic debate with himself.

Wait!

Frank suddenly froze, his fork held mid-air. He didn’t even notice as the half-sausage on it slid off and fell onto his plate.

"Writing!!"

He knew where that sense of familiarity came from. It wasn’t from seeing the actual gesture, or a photo, or even a video. It was from a written description!

Frank dropped his fork and bolted upstairs. He raced from the first floor all the way up to the seventh-floor attic, where he rummaged through the clutter and found a thick, old book.

Many of its pages were worn and tattered from being read so often. It had been Frank’s favorite book as a child.

His grandmother had told him that after the terrible war ended, his grandfather returned from a POW camp completely demoralized. For a while, he had been obsessed with this book, crazily searching for some so-called "truth" within its pages.

By the time Frank was born, his grandfather was a silent, withdrawn old man, but at least he wasn’t mad anymore. He would often tell Frank the absurd stories from the book.

Once Frank learned to read, he realized those stories came from this family journal. Most of the tall tales he used to tell at school were based on his grandfather’s stories and this book, with his own embellishments, of course.

In reality, his schoolyard stories were quite different from what was actually in the book. The journal did reveal many inside details, but some parts were ambiguous, and the ancestor who wrote it had a very ambivalent attitude.

On one hand, he criticized "Dawn" and exposed its various shortcomings, but between the lines, there was a strange undercurrent of emotion.

The younger Frank didn’t understand it. It wasn’t until he matured that he recognized it for what it was: sour grapes, a mix of envy and resentment.

For instance, during his grandfather’s bout of madness, he had filled several pages of the journal himself, writing about his search for the truth.

He wiped a bit of stew from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. He wasn’t sure if the sweat on his brow was from nervousness or from the seven-story climb.

’Where is it? Where is it?! It should be somewhere in the middle...’

’Got it!’

He finally flipped to the page he was looking for.

’Press fingers to the fervent heart, three fingers for the light of hope...’

The Dawn Salute!!

’Could it be!’

A terrifying, yet faintly exciting, thought suddenly flashed through Frank’s mind.

’Don’t tell me... that massive organization of swindlers, long faded from history, is still "alive"?’

’Peter made contact with me a year ago... Did he approach me intentionally back then?’

’Oh, no! What the hell have I done?! Thank God he didn’t even go to class today...’

After a moment of frantic speculation, Frank suddenly shook his head.

’No, no way... I must be overthinking this. In this day and age, it’s highly unlikely they’d go out of their way to stir up trouble. No one’s paying attention to them, so why would they reveal themselves now?’

A little while later, Frank returned to the dining table and resumed eating as if nothing had happened.

"What were you doing just now?"

"Oh, nothing. I just remembered that Peter might have left something in the attic, but I couldn’t find it."

Mani looked skeptical, but Carl didn’t believe him for a second.

"I’m done. You two take your time."

He stood up. He was always the fastest eater to begin with, and Frank had just wasted about ten minutes. At this rate, Mani might not even finish before Frank.

Carl went into the hallway and silently made his way up to the attic. A quick glance at the fresh scuff marks was all it took to figure out what Frank had been up to. He, too, found the journal in the storage cabinet.

’This thing? Why would Frank suddenly come looking for this old book?’

Expressionless, he held the book spine-up, balanced it on its edge behind an old chair, and let go. The pages naturally fell open to either side, parting near the middle.

This meant that someone had been looking through this section recently. Carl casually flipped through a few pages around that spot, and then his gaze froze.

’The Dawn Salute...’

His eyes darted back and forth. He fought back the powerful urge to pull out his phone and make a call right then and there.

He breathed heavily through his nose, his knuckles cracking.

Twenty minutes later, Mani was in the kitchen washing dishes, while upstairs in Frank’s room, things were far from calm.

THUD!

Carl grabbed Frank’s collar and threw him onto the bed.

"Are you crazy, Carl? Or are you drunk on dark beer?"

"Me, crazy? Heh, heh heh. I’m crazy? Oh yes, of course!! It’s the Noeman Clan’s tradition!! Now another one has gone mad."

The powerfully built older brother let out a short, harsh laugh before pulling the book from his coat pocket.

"But it’s not me! It’s you, Frank! You want to follow in Grandfather’s footsteps? Or maybe you want to go all the way and be like that coward!"

At the sight of the book, Frank felt a pang of guilt.

"No! It’s not what you think!!"

"I know you’ve loved these stories since you were a kid, but you’re a top student at Munich University now! You should..."

"Stop! I told you I’m not crazy!!"

Fearing Carl would do something drastic, Frank quickly explained everything—all his suspicions—holding back only the part about how he’d been showing off at school.

Carl finally let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t an unreasonable person, and his younger brother’s thoughts were coherent and logical. He didn’t seem to be losing his mind.

After they both calmed down, they agreed that a single gesture didn’t really prove anything. It could just be a coincidence, or, who knows, maybe it was just some other lunatic having an ’episode’.

Spurred on by the incident, however, Carl went straight to the bank the next day and closed an account. Given his current financial situation, he no longer needed to accept the weekly payments from that coward.

A month of relative peace went by. As for Peter and Niso, their investigation no longer required them to visit the house after that first time.

Peter ran into Frank at the university a few times. Since both were intentionally trying to get closer to the other for their own reasons, they quickly became friends.

Frank found Peter to be a genuinely sunny and positive young man, though there was also an air of mystery about him. His brother’s warnings still echoed in his ears, but curiosity wasn’t something easily suppressed. He was getting a strange gut feeling more and more often.

As for Peter, he was already considering when to make an offer to buy the house. Acquiring it peacefully would be a good outcome.

After all, the Association already had a Magic Controller preparing to come over. They were going to establish a new branch in De Yi Country and weave a Secret Realm, and this house was undoubtedly an excellent choice for it.

But this peace was shattered for both parties by unexpected events.

At the Noeman’s house, Carl had just returned from another mission and had two days off. Since it was also the weekend, his brother and sister were both home.

That evening, however, an unexpected figure arrived.

He used a key to open the front door and, with a look of anxiety and apprehension, reappeared before the three siblings.

After a month of being unable to send his regular payments, and despite being terrified to return, Old Noeman had finally come home.

...

Meanwhile, as the Noeman family was having their contentious reunion, Niso was speeding down the highway from outside the city limits, racing toward the urban center. He wasn’t in a rush to get back, however; he was tracking a terrifying presence.