The Failed Capture

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

To avoid being spotted by Tris 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 coachman's occasional shouts from outside the window, Dunn Smith, captain of the Tingen City Nighthawks, looked toward Leonard Mitchell, seated across from him.

Leonard was carefully arranging his equipment. He checked the holster beneath his arm, the revolver inside it, and the spare bullets in the pockets of his trench coat and trousers one by one before returning everything to its proper place.

Since their target was merely a Sequence 8 Beyonder, they had not brought out 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 was not checking his firearm. In truth, he rarely used a pistol in battle these days; he carried one more often as Intimidation against ordinary people. After advancing to Sequence 7, "Nightmare," his fighting style had become closer to that of a true Beyonder, relying on the Beyonder Abilities granted by his Potion rather than fists and weapons.

Leonard shoved the last set of spare bullets into a speed loader and slipped it into the left pocket of his trench coat for easy access. Only after finishing everything did he look up at Dunn, seemingly somewhat puzzled.

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

"Conversely, Tris has seen her as well. Someone who rejected an invitation just yesterday suddenly changing her mind and approaching you today—wouldn't you be wary?"

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

"That isn't a reason." Leonard's expression turned serious. "She could have acted as a lookout in the shadows, or even stayed directly in the Evil Dragon Bar's hall and watched the entrance. She wouldn't need to approach him at all. The moment Tris showed himself, we could make our move."

"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 only recently became an 'Assassin' reported the Beyonder mentor who had led her onto this path. That person even inexplicably charged into the Nighthawks' base and died without anyone knowing why."

"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, attempting through various clues to direct our attention toward the Gnostic Society. Is it truly a coincidence, or does she have an ulterior motive?"

Leonard tilted his head slightly as if listening closely, but his gaze was angled away rather than fixed on Dunn across from him. After a while, he frowned and replied, "Beyonders from the same pathway are prone to encountering each other. That isn't unusual, and it isn't grounds for suspecting her... Besides, the battle with Sharon Khoy was extremely dangerous. Even if I fought the same battle again under the same circumstances, I wouldn't be confident of winning, much less emerging unscathed."

"If she had approached us with an agenda and 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 when she encountered Tris at the Evil Dragon Bar this time, we would never have known if she had not told us. Under ordinary wanted procedures, it would be nearly impossible to capture a Beyonder of the 'Assassin' pathway who excelled at hiding. Just like the other 'Instigator' we're after, Cole Granger—nearly two weeks have passed without the slightest lead, and even divination targeting 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, seemingly unwilling to let the coachman on the other side of the door hear. "What I suspect isn't her herself, but the strange attitude from above."

"Do you know, only yesterday did I send Miss Granger's background investigation and the details of her battle with Sharon Khoy to the Holy Cathedral by telegram, along with an application to make her a full member."

Leonard leaned forward as well, moving closer to his captain. The two 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 records or considered 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 only just become a Beyonder then, and his first mission had been following Dunn to capture cultists secretly carrying out an evil ritual. Still unfamiliar with Beyonder powers, he had not only lost track of the target but nearly fallen into a river, causing his evaluation to plummet. The Holy Cathedral had dragged things out for a full month before approving his application to become a full member.

Though he had deliberately concealed his abilities, it was clear how strict the Holy Cathedral's review of Nighthawk recruits was. Even the authority to distribute Sequence 9 Potions could be delegated to the captain level, while 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 and asked in surprise.

Dunn nodded.

"Klein Moretti, who joined alongside her, is still not a full member. He must wait for the Backlund Diocese to send Sealed Artifact 2-049 and find the Antigonus Family notebook before his contributions can be considered sufficient for him to become a full member."

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

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

Seeing this, Leonard took the initiative to finish for him. "As if they had been waiting for you to send that application by telegram?"

"Mm..." Dunn opened his mouth, intending to phrase it in his own words, but ultimately repeated Leonard's. "That's right. As if they had been waiting for me to send them a telegram."

"But what does that have to do with not letting her participate in the capture?" Since his captain did not suspect Angel herself, Leonard asked curiously, "Don't tell me it's something like wanting to protect her?"

"Didn't I say it already? Her appearance could alert Tris and make him flee in advance."

Dunn Smith's gray eyes carried a smile, as though their hushed conversation just now had occurred in a dream rather than reality.

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

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

As the two stared at each other, the coachman suddenly cried, "Whoa—" and the carriage slowly came to a stop.

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

Seeing the two men wearing trench coats in the heat and whispering suspiciously inside the carriage, he assumed they were no decent people and did not want the police to catch them in his carriage. Out of professional ethics, he asked in advance.

"What? It's blocked off?"

Leonard was startled. Ignoring the coachman, he shoved open the carriage door and rushed out. Dunn followed close behind. The two rounded the carriage and looked toward the Evil Dragon Bar.

The bar entrance, usually not particularly lively during the day, was now packed with people. More people kept emerging from the doorway, only being allowed through after two armed men stationed to either side of the entrance checked their faces.

Most of those crowding the entrance appeared to be traders driven out of the Underground Trading Market. Though dissatisfied, they obediently followed orders under the "guidance" of guns. Moreover, several burly men stood at elevated positions, wearing standard uniforms and carrying grayish-white mechanical cases on their backs. Tubes extending from the cases connected to strange, complicated rifles in their hands. The gunmen occupied the high ground, their hawklike gazes sweeping across the surroundings. The gun barrels occasionally aimed at the crowd effectively increased their obedience.

"High-Pressure Steam Rifles?" Leonard muttered. "Damn it. With such a huge operation, Tris must have escaped."

Ignoring the crowd at the bar entrance that had already been screened, he surveyed his surroundings, trying to locate the target hidden among them.

But Leonard knew it was futile. If he were Tris and had luckily escaped the Evil Dragon Bar, breaking free from those hulking men's encirclement, he would naturally run as far away as possible. How could he dare linger here?

Dunn Smith seemed calmer than Leonard. He glanced toward the bar entrance and spotted someone he knew. With both hands in his trench coat pockets, he strolled over, though his tightly furrowed brows showed that he was nowhere near as composed as he appeared.

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

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

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

The Nighthawk captain, who also had brown hair, nodded in greeting before asking again, "What happened? Did the attempt to capture that 'Instigator' fail?"

After thinking it over, he could only come up with this one reason for the entire Underground Trading Market to descend into chaos, even prompting the Machinery Hivemind's High-Pressure Steam Riflemen to deploy.

Dunn's words seemed to ignite the frustration Svein had been holding in all along. The old man viciously cursed a few times before answering, "It's all those steamheads' fault. An informant from the Machinery Hivemind spotted that 'Instigator' swaggering around my market, purchasing goods and haggling with people. Instead of notifying my men, he hurried off to find his handler, probably for that hefty reward."

"As a result, Tris noticed something was wrong. The informant must have kept staring at him before leaving, drawing his attention. Before the main force arrived, that bastard had vanished without a trace."

The old man spat and stared at the crowd outside the bar, as though the informant he was cursing might be among them. "If he had notified me directly, or notified the Mandated Punishers, someone could have kept an eye on him. It wouldn't have turned into this. What's the use of them screening ordinary civilians one by one now? Tris is probably not even in the Docklands anymore."

Perhaps because of their differing positions, Svein, the owner of the Evil Dragon Bar, could vent his emotions here. As a Nighthawk, Dunn needed to focus on the case itself. After considering it for a moment, he asked, "Tris was still haggling before he fled? Did you question the people he traded with?"

"I worked this line before I retired, didn't I? I questioned them long ago!" Svein shook his head. "There were no useful leads. He was merely looking to buy Shadow Lizard Scales and Golden Mandala Flowers. Their juice would do as well."

None of them were Beyonder Items... Dunn pondered inwardly. Perhaps Tris was gathering materials for some ritual. Had he committed the Alfalfa Tragedy and then hurried to Tingen City to continue his crimes?

Or perhaps...

Dunn thought of the "Instigator's" abilities and came up with an even bolder speculation:

Tris had already fulfilled certain requirements for advancement by inciting the passengers aboard the Alfalfa to slaughter one another, and was preparing the Potion for his next Sequence?