Identity Secured

When the midnight bells of Saint Selena Cathedral rang, Hagg reappeared at Wild Heart. He held a thin sheet of paper and handed it to Angel, who had already lost a full 2 pounds at Dog Catches Mouse.

"This identification should be enough to deal with the Tingen police for now, but the Central Archives Bureau in Backlund does not have your records yet, so it won't hold up under verification by letter. If you get into trouble in Tingen City and the police telegraph Backlund to check your identity, it'll be exposed immediately. I suggest waiting about a week. Once the forged identity has been filed, you'll be able to go out openly."

Angel nodded to show that she understood.

She lowered her head and carefully examined the identification in her hand under the bar's dim lighting.

Name: Angel Granger; Gender: Female; Date of Birth: June 28, 1331...

That was right. She shared the Granger surname. According to the false information she had submitted, she was a distant cousin of Cole Granger and Lily Granger, from remote Sivellas County, whose parents had died in a border conflict between the Loen Kingdom and Intis.

She had already thought up her reason for coming from Sivellas County to Tingen City: after losing her parents, Angel Granger had decided to bring all her savings to seek refuge with distant relatives living in Tingen City. Cole Granger had taken her in and let her live on Daffodil Street.

Angel's decision to tie her new identity to the Granger family had also been carefully considered.

First, she could legally live in Cole Granger's house. Property on Daffodil Street was not cheap; buying a house required nearly a thousand gold pounds, and even renting one cost dozens of pounds a year. With a ready-made place to live, there was no need to seek out another house. Whether she rented or bought, housing costs alone would be an enormous expense.

Second, her connection to locals made her identity more convincing. Compared with a stranger whose background was completely blank, a "distant relative" of local residents was obviously more easily accepted.

Finally, as a relative who had been in contact with Cole Granger for some time, Angel also had a chance to expose the crimes he had committed and obtain justice for the dead.

As Cole Granger's "successor," this was the last thing she could do for him—atonement.

After carefully putting away the identification that had cost forty pounds, Angel Granger left the still-boisterous Wild Heart bar.

The street outside was no longer as crowded as before. Though Tingen City had no curfew, most residents of Iron Cross Street were common folk at the bottom of society, people who only ate if they worked for the day. To them, staying up late was a bad habit.

Especially in an era when nighttime lighting was rather expensive.

Looking around, Angel saw that the burly doorman had long since dozed off atop an empty beer barrel, seemingly unaware of her departure. The lookout on the second floor across the street, however, was still dutifully keeping watch through an open window.

Angel tightened her hood and started back the way she had come.

The street's gas lamps had long been extinguished, and the residents on both sides had also put out their lights to rest. The quiet street was illuminated only by the Crimson Moon overhead, its light made exceedingly dim by drifting clouds.

Even with no one around, Angel, who possessed Dark Vision, honestly played the part of an ordinary person without Beyonder Abilities. By moonlight, she walked slowly along the street, carefully avoiding puddles of filthy water and trash thrown carelessly everywhere.

She had not gone far before her sharp hearing detected someone following her from not too far behind.

This did not surprise her.

When Angel paid Hagg's "document fee" at the bar, she had noticed quite a few greedy gazes focused on her from the shadows. That was why she had avoided using large-denomination banknotes while shopping before, but a reward of forty gold pounds would draw attention no matter what.

Besides, even if no one else had targeted her, an information broker like Hagg might not necessarily let prey already in his grasp go. Mr. Hanged Man had saved Hagg's life, but his friends had not.

The footsteps behind her were weak and unsteady, with no intention of concealment. They most likely belonged to an ordinary person who had quite a bit to drink. Yet even if he was not one of the Beyonders, an ordinary thug wielding a firearm could still pose a threat to her, and Angel had no intention of taking that risk.

Using Dark Vision to avoid obstacles in the road, she quickened her pace. As long as she left Lower Street and reached the intersection with Iron Cross Street, she could easily shake the follower using the crisscrossing roads. There was no need to risk her life against a drunken miser like this.

The follower's footsteps paused, then also picked up the pace, but the dim environment caused him quite a bit of trouble, and the chaotic sounds of trash being kicked aside and stagnant water being stepped in constantly echoed behind Angel.

Just then, the clip-clop of hooves approached. Angel looked back to see a four-wheeled carriage coming toward her. Under the light of its hanging oil lamp, the emblem painted on the side of its black body—"crossed swords surrounding a crown"—shone brightly. It was the symbol used by the police throughout the Loen Kingdom. The driver wore a tall hat and suit, calmly guiding the carriage through the filthy street.

The follower had already fallen far behind. As the carriage passed Angel, he caught sight of the police emblem, shuddered all over, and immediately slipped into the gap between two apartment buildings by the roadside.

As an undocumented resident, Angel instinctively wanted to lower her head and hide. But then she remembered that this era had no advanced technology like facial recognition. Even if she walked straight toward the police face-to-face, as long as she did not commit a crime on the spot, there was no need to worry.

Pretending to hide would instead be more likely to arouse their suspicion.

With that in mind, she raised her head again, turned sideways, and edged toward the side of the street to clear the middle for the carriage. At the same time, relying on the nimble body of an Assassin, she avoided the filthy water splashed up by its wheels.

Just as an ordinary passerby should when encountering a speeding carriage.

Sure enough, the Police Carriage passed by her without slowing down.

As they brushed past each other, she saw two people seated opposite one another inside through the window. One wore black clothes and a tall hat, with a police star on his shoulder. He had short light-brown hair and gray eyes fixed ahead, speaking with a stern expression. The other was clearly much younger, with black hair and brown eyes, wearing a linen shirt and looking indifferent.

Could this be some official's spoiled son using a government carriage for private business in the middle of the night? Angel inwardly grumbled.

Before she could think further, the four-wheeled carriage sped away. The faint light cast by the oil lamp hanging from its compartment vanished, and the street once more fell beneath the dim moonlight.

Footsteps sounded behind her again. To her surprise, the follower had not given up. Taking advantage of Angel's brief distraction, he quickened his pace and closed in once more.

A strong stench of cheap liquor drifted over, and the footsteps stopped a meter away, followed by the sound of rustling clothing.

Angel knew that a conflict was unavoidable, so she decisively turned around and swiftly assessed the situation with Dark Vision.

The follower was a middle-aged man wearing coarse trousers and a short-sleeved shirt. His untrimmed beard and hair clumped together with grease both indicated that he was not doing well financially. He had most likely recently lost his job and was using cheap liquor in the bar to escape reality.

Seeing him pull something from his trouser pocket, Angel stepped forward first, lifting her right foot and kicking sideways into his left knee joint. The man, whose sense of balance had deteriorated from consuming too much alcohol, felt a pain in his knee and collapsed onto the filthy street.

Only then did his right hand pull a small, oddly shaped pistol from his trousers. Before he could raise it and aim, Angel reached out, caught the hammer, twisted the gun in her grip, and seized his weapon amid his pained cry.

"Ah... my finger, my finger..." Ignoring the pistol that had been taken from him, the man knelt on the ground, clutching his right hand with his left. His index finger joint was hyperextended and clearly dislocated.

"Just a sprain. Go find a doctor to look at it; you should count yourself lucky that only your finger got hurt." Having subdued the stalker in two moves, Angel held the confiscated pistol and spoke unhurriedly. This compact revolver should have been a women's model, holding only four rounds. Its caliber was also smaller than standard pistol bullets, and a lack of maintenance had caused the grease seeping from the receiver to cake, leaving the gun body mottled and scarred. Angel even suspected that the primers of the cartridges had grown damp and would fail to fire altogether.

Pointing the gun at the man, Angel asked, "Now, I ask and you answer. Where did you pick up this gun?"

"Outside the city... at the docks outside the city. I found it at the docks. I used to unload cargo for those people there. Maybe someone dropped it. There were only three bullets in it, and I never dared use them. I kept it hidden under my bed. Now I've lost my job and my money, so... I'm sorry, I won't do it again. Don't kill me!"

With the gun pointed at him, the man wore a terrified expression and didn't dare hide anything, spilling the origins of the pistol to Angel like beans tumbling from a bamboo tube.

"Did someone put you up to this?"

"W-What? No, no! I just saw that you threw money around and gave a huge sum to that Hagg, so I wanted to make a quick buck—it's all because of that rye beer!"

The man raised his head in panic. Seeing the black muzzle still aimed at him, he quickly lowered it again and repeatedly denied it.

Seeing how flustered the follower became after being disarmed, Angel felt he probably had been tempted by money and had decided on the spur of the moment, under the influence of alcohol, to follow her. He was not some advance pawn sent by Hagg or someone else to test her.

Of course, perhaps the other side had hidden things more deeply, and even this discarded pawn did not know.

Angel looked toward Wild Heart bar but found no trace of anyone else.

"All right, you're lucky today. I don't want to kill anyone yet. Find some honest work in the future. I'm confiscating this gun." No longer paying attention to the kneeling, begging man, Angel backed away several steps with the pistol in hand. Only when he still did not dare raise his head did she turn and quickly leave the scene.

The streets of Tingen City were empty after midnight, as though the liveliness of the first half of the night had been an illusion. Angel did not idle on her way home. She dismantled the pistol and threw its cylinder and frame into separate sewer drains, while tossing the few bullets into a garbage heap at a street corner.

She had no intention of keeping this lady's pistol for herself. Leaving aside how difficult it would be to buy its specially made small-caliber ammunition, its poorly maintained appearance alone had extinguished any interest she had in using it.

All the way back to Daffodil Street, Angel entered through the front door this time. She inserted the key, turned the lock, and caught the note that slid down through the crack in the door. She did not relax just yet. Instead, she carefully inspected the entire living room with Dark Vision, comparing it to her memories from before she had left, before finally entering the house.

After locking the door and taking off her cloak to hang it aside, her tense body finally relaxed completely. From this moment onward, she had truly gained a foothold in this world.

Obtaining her own identification was only the first step. She already had a rough idea of how to use this identity to settle down in Tingen, and how to fabricate a suitable reason for living in Cole's house. But to form a detailed plan, there were still many loopholes to fill.

After changing into loose, comfortable clothes, Angel entered the study once more, dipped her pen in ink, and spread open her notebook. This would be another sleepless night.