Hesitation

As she walked out of Dunn Smith's office, Angel felt utterly dazed.

Although she had stayed up late the night before to finish Storm Convergence and exhausted her spirituality, she did not think that was the main reason.

Captain Dunn's probing had left her with a trace of doubt.

Putting herself in the Nighthawks' position, it was simply unimaginable for a mysterious independent Beyonder like her to earn their trust in less than two weeks.

Of course, an "Assassin" who had obtained a Potion from Mrs. Sharon of the Demoness Sect, then betrayed Mrs. Sharon and reported her to the official Beyonders, had thoroughly offended the Demoness Sect and had nowhere else to go. Joining the Nighthawks for self-preservation was perfectly reasonable.

But then again, what if this was a scheme by the Demoness Sect? A scheme to drive a wedge into the Church of the Evernight Goddess?

That said, sacrificing a Sequence 6 powerhouse for such a scheme seemed far too costly...

But the key was how the Nighthawks—how the Church of the Evernight Goddess—viewed the matter.

Her thoughts swirling, Angel wandered into the reception room in a daze. Rozanne was off duty today, and Bredt was filling in at the reception desk. Unlike Miss Rozanne, who liked to brew a pot of coffee and read the newspaper, Bredt was someone who could never sit still. Whenever he was on duty, he diligently cleaned the reception room until it was spotless. He also spoke more formally to the other Nighthawks. Rather than a clerical worker for the Nighthawks, he seemed more like a butler.

"Good morning, Miss Granger. The weather is rather nice today."

Seeing Angel emerge from behind the partition, he set down his broom and greeted her with a smile.

"Today's newspaper is on the coffee table. The coffee will take a little while longer."

"Good morning, Mr. Bredt."

Angel returned the greeting to the middle-aged man with the thick beard, her gaze sweeping across the reception room. There was no one else there.

"Mr. Klein Moretti is off duty today." Bredt assumed he had guessed whom Angel was looking for and spoke before she could.

"No... I wasn't..."

Angel shook her head, then laughed at herself. Her routine had been rather fixed these past few days; every morning, she went to the shooting club with Klein to practice. Had that made the others misunderstand something?

"The captain is in his office. I presume you already know that. Mrs. Orianna went to the bank and will not be back until noon." Seeing Angel deny it, Bredt proceeded to list the whereabouts of the others. "Kenley and Frye went to patrol the West Borough. Miss Royale is on duty at Chanis Gate today, and Mr. Neil is still at his usual place."

"Thank you. I understand."

Angel herself did not even know what she "understood." Her mind was heavy with worries, and she had merely answered out of habit.

When she came back to her senses, she had already returned behind the partition and walked down the corridor to the room at its end. There was only a staircase leading to the basement. The morning sun had risen outside the window, shining in and dyeing the room golden.

Since she was already here, she simply went down the stairs to the basement, intending to collect some training ammunition from Old Neil. This had practically become part of her daily routine.

The gas lamps in the underground passage burned day and night, scattering their light in all directions. The flickering flames made the holy emblem of the Evernight Goddess on the walls seem to sway as though it were alive. Angel walked forward slowly, with only the echo of her own footsteps in the silent passage.

How many times had she come to the basement now?

She recalled the first time Rozanne had brought her down here. She had gone to find Old Neil at the armory then as well. In just one week, had she really become this familiar with Blackthorn Security Company?

Dunn Smith's deep voice still echoed in her ears: "Are you willing to formally join the Tingen City Nighthawks Squad?"

Yes, was she willing?

She had considered this question on the night she killed Mrs. Sharon, when Dunn had invited her. But her experiences as an unofficial member during this period had given her some new thoughts.

When she reached the crossroads in the underground passage, Angel did not turn right toward the armory. Instead, she stopped at the intersection.

Using the dim corridor leading to Chanis Gate as a backdrop, she sketched a simple table in her mind. On the left were the disadvantages of formally joining the Nighthawks, and on the right were the advantages, separated by a dotted line down the middle. This was a method of thinking she habitually used when facing difficult problems. It would have been better to write it on paper, but without pen or paper at hand, Angel simply did it in her mind.

First was the loss of freedom. She entered the first word on the left side of the table.

According to Dunn Smith, formal Nighthawks members could not leave Tingen City without permission. In other words, they could only operate within their own jurisdiction. Obtaining approval would presumably be extremely difficult, and most of her time could only be spent within this fixed area.

It was not just freedom of movement, but freedom of time and mind as well. Unless one, like Old Neil, reached old age, lost most of one's combat ability, and became a clerical member, formal Nighthawks were practically members for life. Unlike clerical workers like Rozanne, once they joined, there was no turning back.

Otherwise, it would be "desertion."

Then there was "surveillance." She entered the second word.

Although she could already sense Dunn Smith's wariness toward her, perhaps it was simply habitual behavior. At the very least, aside from a few looks and probing remarks, Dunn had acted like a captain looking forward to a new member joining.

But after becoming a formal member, she might face scrutiny and surveillance from the entire Church of the Evernight Goddess, including the mysterious Holy Cathedral. Could her crudely fabricated identity truly withstand the Church's exhaustive investigation?

She did not believe that the Church's Beyonder force, the Nighthawks, was an organization that was strict about entry but lax afterward. Whether to prevent Beyonders from losing control or to prevent members from deserting, internal scrutiny and surveillance would only be stricter than the process of joining.

If anything abnormal was discovered after she became a formal member, the consequences awaiting her would not be as simple as dismissal.

Angel recalled an internal Church wanted notice she had seen a few days ago. A bishop who had deserted three years ago had also taken an important Sealed Artifact from the Church. His name seemed to have been Zanger something?

But that person had been a high-ranking bishop. A small fry like her would probably be dealt with at once, without even qualifying for a Church wanted notice.

Stopping her wandering thoughts, Angel added a third word to the table in her mind: danger.

Dunn Smith had explicitly mentioned this as well. As a formal Nighthawks member—and an expert in close combat like an "Assassin"—she would inevitably have to participate in confrontations with Beyonder criminals and all manner of mystical incidents. She would most likely be fighting on the front lines.

The risks were obvious. Ordinary criminal cases would be handled by the Tingen City Police Department. Only serious cases or those involving Beyonder factors would be passed on to Church forces such as the Nighthawks. In other words, the low-difficulty assignments had already been filtered out, and she would face only high-difficulty, high-risk missions. And as long as a case involved Beyonders, the lowest level would be Sequence 9—the level she herself was at.

Thinking of the Sequence 9 Assassin she had encountered during last week's "ordinary commission," if she formally joined the Nighthawks, she would likely often meet opponents like that, perhaps even Sequence 6 powerhouses like Mrs. Sharon, who required several Nighthawks working together for any chance of victory.

If she made one mistake, her life was no tougher than an ordinary person's. A single bullet or dagger could end it in an instant.

Dunn, Leonard, and the others might seem to clock in and out every day like civil servants, but Angel had learned from Rozanne that among the official Beyonders of the Three Great Churches in Tingen City alone, people were sacrificed or lost control nearly every year. Rozanne's father, a formal Nighthawk, had died in the line of duty five years ago.

Considering that the Nighthawks had only six formal members in Tingen City, and that the Mandated Punishers and Machinery Hivemind had about the same number, this mortality rate was already astonishing.

Ah, right, there was also loss of control...

Angel added another entry to the left side of the table.

This was not a risk unique to joining the Nighthawks. Any Beyonder, whether while consuming a Potion to advance, during ordinary combat, or even through casually coming into contact with a mysterious item or suffering some kind of stimulation, could lose control at any time and become a monster whose mind had died and body had collapsed.

According to Dunn Smith, one-quarter of the Beyonder incidents handled in Tingen City each year involved Beyonders losing control.

After thinking it over, Angel still crossed out that entry. Even if she did not formally join the Nighthawks, the possibility of losing control would always accompany her as a Beyonder. It was not fair to count it as a risk of joining the Nighthawks.

Cole Granger, Angel's "predecessor," had lost control and died while consuming the Sequence 7 "Witch" Potion. Unlike the horrifying cases of loss of control recorded within the Nighthawks, she had merely expelled part of her characteristics and returned to being a Sequence 9 "Assassin," rather than becoming a corpse. That alone could be called a miracle.

Thinking of her Potion sequence, Angel filled in the final item on the table: "Restrictions on improving her strength."

The Church of the Evernight Goddess possessed a complete Potion pathway from Sequence 9 to Sequence 1, beginning with "Sleepless"—the pathway Dunn Smith, Leonard Mitchell, and the others followed. Most Nighthawks chose this sequence for a simple reason: as long as they steadily completed missions and contributed to the Church, they would not need to worry about subsequent Potions.

The Church also possessed several incomplete sequences, such as Frye's "Corpse Collector" and Klein's "Seer," but it did not have the subsequent Potion formulas for the "Assassin" pathway. Since she had already become a Beyonder, consuming a Potion from another sequence, regardless of its Sequence, would inevitably cause her to lose control. It was practically a dead end.

Of course, because she had inherited Cole Granger's memories, she already knew the Potion formulas for Sequence 8 "Instigator" and Sequence 7 "Witch." As long as the timing was right and she had fully mastered and digested the Assassin Potion's power, she could consider advancing.

But the premise for all that was how she would explain where she had obtained the subsequent Potion formulas.

If she were an independent Beyonder with no one else to answer to, she could patiently gather Potion ingredients and advance when the time was right. But once she joined the Nighthawks, her teammates, who spent every day with her, could not possibly fail to notice changes in her strength. She could either remain at Sequence 9 forever or continue advancing while risking exposure. Neither was a low-risk option.

Looking at that row of disadvantages of joining the Nighthawks on the left side of her "table," Angel nearly wanted to return to Dunn Smith's office at once and refuse him.

She should keep looking at the "advantages"...

Angel suppressed the impulse and turned her attention to the right side.