Failed Capture

On the road to the Docklands, a hired carriage raced along.

To avoid being spotted by Triss the Instigator, the two Nighthawks had not taken a four-wheeled carriage bearing police insignia, instead hiring one at random from the street.

Listening to the driver's occasional shouts from outside the window, Dunn Smith, captain of the Tingen City Nighthawks, looked toward Leonard Mitchell, seated opposite him.

The latter was carefully arranging his equipment. He checked his underarm holster, the Revolver inside it, and the spare ammunition in his trench coat and trouser pockets one by one before putting everything back in place.

Since their target was only a Sequence 8 Beyonder, they had not deployed a Sealed Artifact as they had during the capture of Mrs. Sharon. They would rely solely on the abilities and ordinary weapons of several Nighthawks.

Unlike Leonard, Dunn did not inspect his sidearm. In truth, he rarely used a handgun in battle these days. More often than not, he carried one merely as Intimidation against ordinary people. After advancing to Sequence 7, Nightmare, his combat style had become closer to that of a true Beyonder, relying on the extraordinary abilities granted by his Potion rather than fists and weapons.

Leonard stuffed the last set of spare rounds into a speedloader and placed it in the left pocket of his trench coat for easy access. Only after finishing everything did he look up at Dunn, seeming somewhat puzzled.

"Captain," he hesitated for a moment before asking, "why didn't you bring Miss Granger? Although we have a portrait of Triss the Instigator, she has seen him in person. If Triss really dared to show up at the Underground Trading Market again, only she could quickly identify him."

"Conversely, Triss has seen her too. If someone who rejected his invitation yesterday suddenly changed her mind and approached him today, wouldn't he be on guard?"

Dunn asked with a smile. Angel had already told him the details of their encounter the previous night.

"That isn't a reason." Leonard's expression turned serious. "She could have kept watch from the shadows, or even stood directly in the Evil Dragon Bar's main hall and watched the entrance. She wouldn't need to approach him at all. The moment Triss showed himself, we could act."

"You still suspect her?"

"Don't you?" Dunn leaned back against his seat and shifted his legs into a more comfortable position. "A wild Beyonder who had only recently become an Assassin reported the Beyonder mentor who had led her into the field. That person even inexplicably charged into the Nighthawks' headquarters and died without any clear explanation."

"After joining the Nighthawks on the strength of that achievement, she then 'happened' to encounter two more Assassins and an Instigator from the same pathway, using all sorts of clues to steer our attention toward the Gnostic Society. Is that really coincidence, or is there some ulterior motive?"

Leonard tilted his head slightly as though listening closely, but his gaze was angled away, not looking at Dunn opposite him. After a while, he frowned and replied, "Beyonders of the same pathway are more likely to encounter one another. That is nothing unusual and doesn't justify suspecting her... Besides, the battle with Sharon Hoy was extremely dangerous. Even if I fought under the same circumstances again, I wouldn't be certain of winning, much less emerging unscathed."

"If she had approached us with an agenda, then if she had held back even slightly during that battle, what you would have seen upon returning to the company would have been the corpses of Ms. Daly and me."

"That's right." To Leonard's surprise, Dunn did not refute him, but nodded in agreement. "Daly also gave me a detailed account of the battle. She specifically emphasized that Miss Granger saved her twice. And this time, she encountered Triss at the Evil Dragon Bar. If she had not told us, we would never have known. Under normal wanted procedures, it would be almost impossible to catch a Beyonder of the Assassin pathway who excelled at hiding. Just like the other Instigator we are hunting, Cole Granger—nearly two weeks have passed without a single clue, and even divination against him has failed."

"At least when it comes to dealing with criminal Beyonders, she has been doing her utmost."

"Then why...?"

Leonard was even more confused now.

Dunn Smith lowered his voice, apparently unwilling to let the driver on the other side of the carriage door hear him. "What I suspect is not her herself, but the strange attitude from above."

"Do you know that only yesterday, I sent Miss Granger's background investigation and the details of her battle with Sharon Hoy to the Holy Cathedral by telegram, along with an application for her to become an official member?"

Leonard leaned forward as well, drawing closer to his captain. The two of them looked as though they were secretly plotting some conspiracy, whispering in the dim carriage.

"Under normal procedures, the Holy Cathedral would reply in about a week. If they needed to retrieve more information or deemed the contribution insufficient, it could take even longer. Do you remember how long you waited when you joined the Nighthawks?"

"Four weeks? Or five?"

Leonard looked somewhat embarrassed. That had been three years ago. He had just become a Beyonder, and his first assignment had been to follow Dunn in capturing cultists secretly conducting an evil ritual. Still unfamiliar with extraordinary powers, he had not only lost the target but nearly fallen into a river, causing his evaluation to plummet. As a result, the Holy Cathedral delayed for a full month before finally approving his application to become official.

Though he had deliberately concealed his capabilities, it still demonstrated how stringent the Holy Cathedral's review of those joining the Nighthawks was. Even the authority to distribute Sequence 9 Potions could be delegated down to the captain level, yet becoming an official Nighthawk required the Holy Cathedral's approval.

"But this time, the Holy Cathedral replied by telegram early this morning, less than twenty-four hours later," Dunn continued as though he had not noticed Leonard's thoughts.

"They approved it just like that?" Leonard raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Dunn nodded.

"Klein Moretti, who joined at the same time as her, is not yet an official member. He must wait for the Backlund Diocese to send Sealed Artifact 2-049 and locate the Antigonus Family notebook before his contribution will be considered sufficient for him to become official."

"The Holy Cathedral's treatment of the two new members is so obviously different. Even if Angel Granger assisted in killing Sharon Hoy, a confirmed Sequence 6 member of the Witch Sect, their response is still far too strange. It is as though..."

He tried to organize his thoughts, searching for words to describe the Holy Cathedral's overly swift decision.

Seeing this, Leonard took the initiative and said, "As though they had been waiting for you to send in the application?"

"Mm..." Dunn opened his mouth, wanting to phrase it in his own way, but ultimately merely repeated Leonard's words. "Yes, as though they had been waiting for me to send that telegram."

"But what does that have to do with not letting her participate in the capture?" Seeing that his captain did not suspect Angel herself, Leonard asked curiously. "Surely it isn't for some reason like protecting her?"

"Didn't I say it already? Her appearance could alert Triss and make him flee early."

Dunn Smith's gray eyes held a smile, as though their hushed discussion just now had happened in a dream rather than reality.

Then why did you go on about all that...?

Leonard stared at him dumbfounded, still feeling that his captain was hiding something from him.

As the two stared at one another, the carriage slowly came to a stop with the driver's drawn-out "Whoa—!"

The small window at the front of the carriage was pulled open, and the driver asked in a muffled voice, "Gentlemen, the road ahead has been blocked off. If you're going to the Evil Dragon Bar, you can only continue on foot. Or do you need to go somewhere else?"

Seeing the two men wearing trench coats in the heat and speaking furtively inside the carriage, he assumed they were not exactly respectable people and did not want to be trapped in the carriage by the police. Out of professional courtesy, he asked in advance.

"What? It's blocked off?"

Startled, Leonard ignored the driver, shoved open the carriage door, and rushed out. Dunn followed immediately after. The two went around to the front of the carriage and looked toward the Evil Dragon Bar.

The bar entrance, usually quiet during the day, was already packed with people. More people kept emerging from the doorway, only being allowed to leave after two armed men standing to either side of the entrance checked their faces.

Most of those crowded at the entrance appeared to be traders driven out of the Underground Trading Market. Though displeased, they obediently followed orders under the "guidance" of the guns. Several burly men stood at higher positions as well, wearing standard uniforms and carrying grayish-white mechanical cases on their backs. Tubes extending from the cases connected to strange, intricate rifles in their hands. The gunmen occupied the high ground, their hawk-like gazes sweeping the surroundings. Their muzzles occasionally aimed at the crowd, effectively making them more compliant.

"High-Pressure Steam Rifles?" Leonard muttered. "It's over. With such a huge operation, Triss must have escaped."

Ignoring the crowd gathered outside the bar that had already been screened, he looked around, trying to locate the target hiding among them.

But Leonard knew that was futile. If he were Triss and had luckily escaped the Evil Dragon Bar and slipped out of the encirclement of those burly men, he would naturally flee as far as possible. How could he dare linger here?

Dunn Smith appeared calmer than Leonard. He glanced toward the bar entrance, spotted someone he knew, and walked over with both hands in his trench coat pockets. However, his tightly furrowed brow showed that he was not as composed as he appeared.

"Svein, what happened?" he asked the leader among a group gathered at the bar entrance. The man wore a tattered naval officer's jacket and was quietly issuing instructions to the others. His messy brown hair looked as though it had not been washed in a long time, with the grease on it reflecting sunlight.

Hearing Dunn's question, the brown-haired old man turned around. His blue eyes looked at Dunn Smith, and only after several seconds did he recall who he was.

"It's you, Dunn Smith. Long time no see."

The Nighthawks captain, also brown-haired, nodded in greeting before asking again, "What happened? Did the attempt to capture that Instigator fail?"

After thinking it over, he could only imagine this one reason for the entire Underground Trading Market to be thrown into chaos, with even Heart of Machinery gunmen armed with High-Pressure Steam Rifles being deployed.

It was as though Dunn's words had ignited a fury Svein had been holding in. He cursed viciously several times before answering, "It's all those Steam bastards' fault. One of Heart of Machinery's informants spotted that Instigator swaggering around my market, buying things and haggling with people. Instead of notifying my people, he hurried off to find his handler, probably for that hefty reward."

"As a result, Triss noticed something was wrong. That informant must have kept staring at him before leaving, and Triss caught on. Before the main force arrived, the bastard had vanished without a trace."

The old man spat and stared at the crowd outside the bar, though it was unknown whether the informant he was cursing was among them. "If he had notified me directly, or notified the Punishers, someone could have kept watch on him. Then it would not have turned into this. What use is there in screening ordinary civilians one by one now? Triss is probably no longer even in the Docklands."

Perhaps because of their different statuses, Svein, the owner of the Evil Dragon Bar, could vent his frustration here. As a Nighthawk, Dunn had to focus on the case itself. He pondered for a moment before asking, "Triss was still haggling before he escaped? Did you question the people he traded with?"

"I worked in this line before retiring, didn't I? I asked them long ago!" Svein shook his head. "There were no useful clues. He was only seeking Shadow Lizard Scales and Golden Mandala Flower, though their sap would do as well."

Neither was an extraordinary item... Dunn pondered silently. Perhaps Triss was preparing materials for some ritual. Had he committed the Clover Incident and then hurried to Tingen City to continue committing crimes?

Or perhaps...

Dunn thought of the Instigator's abilities and made another, bolder guess:

Triss had already fulfilled some condition for advancement by inciting the passengers aboard the Clover to slaughter one another, and was now preparing the Potion for his next Sequence?