One Kill Achieved

Thud.

As the last City Guard collapsed to the ground, a neurotic smile appeared on Marco's face. "Humans really are fragile~"

Eternal life was the truth!

He glanced at the blood staining his hands, shook them in disgust, then casually found a City Guard's corpse and wiped them clean.

"Damn it, you're impersonating me?"

"Oh?"

Marco looked a little surprised. "You got here fast."

The newcomer also had a red ponytail, and he glared at him with a dark, vicious expression, grinding his teeth as he said, "Thousand-Face, Claire!"

"That's me." The "Marco" holding the short sword tilted his head and laughed. "But I have to say, your appearance is pretty useful."

As he spoke, his body melted like a candle.

When he looked again, the Marco holding the short sword had already turned into a woman dressed in tight black leather.

And she was a very beautiful, sexy woman.

She was tall and slender, with sensual, alluring curves. Her long black hair fell naturally, and her skin was as fair as snow.

Her eyes shone like stars, and a hint of charm showed on her flawlessly delicate face.

She looked at the furious Marco and curved her lips into a seductive smile. "How about you hand your body over to me? I can grant you eternal life..."

"Grant your damn uncle!"

Marco brandished the staff in his hand. "Litong, Nasophia!" (Storm Blade!)

A tornado shot into the sky, swirling around him. As his staff pointed, it swept up everything around him—bricks, stones, and light weapons—and sent them stabbing toward Claire like sharp swords.

"If you won't give it, then you won't give it. Why get angry~"

Claire still did not dodge, letting the gale tear past her. Wind blades sliced open her skin, ground away her flesh, and even those stark white bones were reduced to dregs beneath the blades.

"Handsome little brother, I'll leave this place to you. See you next time~"

It was still that languid, soft voice, carrying a lingering seductive echo as it reverberated all around.

"Bastard." Marco's staff paused. "She still got away!"

The storm abruptly scattered, and the sharp gale swept in all directions.

It also blew away the frenzy in his heart, and his expression slowly calmed.

Marco looked at the corpses of the City Guards on the ground, especially Giuseppe, whose eyes were still open, filled with shock and unwillingness, and sighed. "Looks like I can only buy you a drink another time..."

"Captain, what are you planning to do next?"

Wei En thought about what he had encountered today. First the Despair Cult, then the Eternal Life Society, plus the Bone-Eroding Mother Insect and the power of the Nightmare Realm still hidden in the dark...

The entire slum was about to turn into a sieve.

"Report it first and see what the people above say."

Lacy tossed away her cigarette butt and stepped on it. "Wei En, remember this: our Logistics Department isn't omnipotent. There are many things we can't just handle because we want to."

"Like the slums?"

"You could say that."

Wei En vaguely understood something.

It seemed the upper levels of the Secret Investigation Bureau—or rather, the upper levels of the city-state—were aware of the situation in the slums.

Perhaps even if everything that had happened today was reported, no one would come to resolve it.

Lacy turned her head to look at him. "After seeing that scene just now, what do you think?"

"What do I think? I'm a little afraid, and also very shocked."

Wei En thought for a moment and said, "Although I was mentally prepared for this long ago, I still find it hard to accept that someone could do something like that..."

"Afraid and shocked?" The corners of Lacy's mouth lifted. "Wei En, you really are adorably innocent."

Adorably innocent?

Wei En gave a bitter smile. "...Does thinking that make me look stupid?"

"Not at all. Your reaction is the normal one."

Lacy shook her head and laughed softly. "People like me and Ariana, when we see something like that, all we feel is numbness, and anger toward the people who committed such crimes!"

"But it's precisely because beings like the Despair Cult and the Eternal Life Society exist that people like us have a goal and a purpose, isn't it?"

"Mm."

A goal and a purpose... huh?

A flicker of confusion crossed Wei En's face.

After coming to this world, everything he had seen was tragedy, scenes of people struggling to survive in a deformed world.

In an environment like this, his mind had been filled with only one thing: gaining enough strength to survive.

Perhaps such a goal was not as great as Lacy and the others', and could even be called insignificant, but it was all he was currently capable of doing...

Smack.

Lacy patted his shoulder and said with a brilliant smile, "Wei En, don't take these things to heart, or you'll end up like Rogeret..."

"If you lose control and turn into a Deformed Species, I won't go easy on you. I'll make sure to chop you to pieces."

"Hiss!"

Wei En clutched his shoulder and bared his teeth. "I-I understand, Captain."

That slap not only scattered his brooding thoughts, but also made his shoulder ache.

He finally understood why Ariana and Marco were so afraid of Lacy.

With strength like that, she was absolutely no ordinary person.

"Lacy, Officer Lacy!"

At that moment, Marco came sprinting over, drenched in sweat, the Lantern Staff in his hand bobbing wildly up and down.

"Mm?" Lacy frowned at him. "What is it, Marco?"

Marco ran up to them, braced both hands on his knees, and panted, "It's, it's Claire. She, she..."

Wei En had just been about to tell him to catch his breath when a notification flashed rapidly across the panel in his mind.

Not only was it dark red, it kept flashing with red light, as if warning him.

[You have been locked onto by Claire Yuli Biondini's killing intent. Evaluation: Run if you can, weakling. Reward: Survival Points +2.]

When Wei En saw the contents of that message, he stared at Marco before him and cried out, "Sister Lacy, be careful!"

The moment the words left his mouth, a cold gleam flashed past.

Whoosh!

Lacy reacted quickly, dodging aside in a flash and placing herself between Marco, Wei En, and Tina. "Thousand-Face Claire?"

Claire slowly rose, tilting her head as she sized up Wei En. "How did you discover me?"

Click.

Wei En did not answer. He reached back, drew the firearm from his waist, quickly loaded the gunpowder, and aimed at him with both hands.

Fuck, how I discovered you isn't something I can tell you, is it?

If not for the panel's warning, if not for Lacy being beside him... he would have been done for!

"What did you do to Marco?" Lacy asked, her expression icy.

Claire stiffly turned her head to look at her and smiled eerily. "Guess~"

"Guess?"

Lacy charged straight at him, and in the rise and fall of her movement, that two-handed axe appeared in her hands. "Alade!" (Sigil: Shatter!)

Boom.

Claire jumped back to dodge, her figure instantly transforming into that seductive woman. "Madam, you truly are not elegant~"

Elegant?

With a cold face, Lacy charged over again, swinging the two-handed axe down in a cleaving strike. "Asriel!" (Sigil: Blade of Gale!)

Claire lightly flipped backward, dodging that wind blade once more, and chuckled. "Madam, you... mm?"

Bang!

A gunshot rang out.

Claire slowly lowered her head. When she saw the huge hole blasted through her chest and the spraying scraps of flesh and blood, she could not help but freeze.

She turned to look at Wei En off to the other side, the smile vanishing from her face as she asked coldly, "Do you not know that when an elegant lady is speaking, she must not be interrupted?"

Wei En's hand trembled slightly around the firearm. "How about... we do it again?"

He had fired.

And hit.

Looking at the hole in Claire's chest, an injury like that was obviously unsurvivable.

In other words, he had killed someone!

Even though Wei En had lived two lives, this was still his first time killing a person. It was truly... too nerve-racking!

"Do it again..."

The coldness on Claire's face faded, and once again she revealed an alluring smile. "Little friend, I'll let it go this time. Next time, let's have a proper game. I guarantee~ you'll like it~"

Thud.

With that, the smile on her face stiffened, and she fell onto her back on the ground.

Lacy put away her double-handed axe and curled her lip. "Tough as expected."

"Captain,"

Wei En looked at "Claire" on the ground and gave a dry laugh. "Do you think what she said just now was true?"

Someone that terrifying couldn't really be so bored that she had set her sights on him, could she?

"What, scared?" Lacy raised an eyebrow. "You looked pretty brave when you were firing just now, didn't you?"

"Scared? What's there to be scared of? Haha, not scared!"

Not scared, my ass...

Wei En had now fully come to his senses. Goals and meaning could wait. Staying alive came first.

"That's more like it. She's just a woman who hides her head and shows her tail, nothing more."

Lacy patted his shoulder, then turned her head and cursed, "Ariana, is it fun hiding up there and watching the show?"

"Coming."

Ariana came running down in a flash and said with an awkward grin, "Lacy, your strength has improved again. That power, that presence, that sigil's might..."

Bang!

Lacy slammed a punch onto his head. "Get to work already. See if you can catch that bitch's aura!"

"Ah, going, going right now."

Ariana clutched his aching head, opened the case he carried with him, took out a glass bottle, and poured the potion inside over Claire.

Amid a series of sizzling sounds, Claire's body turned into a puddle of foul-smelling yellow liquid.

Wei En watched what he was doing. "Captain Ariana, what number potion is this?"

Ariana carefully searched around, then collected some of the liquid with the bottle. "A special potion, specifically used to track Transcendents like clones and puppets."

"Oh."

So it wasn't among those standard potions.

Wait.

Wei En suddenly remembered that when he had faced those powers of despair earlier, he had used a Number Five potion.

"Then, how do we replenish potions that get used up?"

"After we go back, just write an application." Lacy casually made the arrangement. "It just so happens we'll need an investigation report for the case too. I'll leave them both to you."

"Me?"

"That's right. Rogeret used to be in charge of it... Don't say I didn't look after you. Writing the report earns you one percent of the investigation proceeds."

Investigation proceeds?

The moment Wei En heard there was money to be made, he hurriedly agreed. "No problem. Writing and whatnot is my specialty."

One percent. That was nearly one gold pound in earnings.

If it were the Specter School intelligence officer job, he would have to update daily for more than a month to earn that much money.

"Officer Lacy, Captain Ariana,"

Just then, Marco came running lightly from the distance, his face ashen as he shouted, "Claire from the Eternal Life Society killed all the City Guard!"

"Mm."

Lacy nodded calmly. "Pack up the sacrifices inside. We're going back."

"Huh?" Marco froze for a moment. "Claire, she..."

Ariana put away the bottle and stood up. "Marco, Claire came here just now too, and she even turned into your appearance."

"Ah?" Marco looked at Wei En. "Is that true?"

Wei En nodded. "Yes. Luckily, the captain discovered it in time."

"...Damn it, she really does have designs on my body!"

"Hm?"

Ariana and Wei En both turned to look at him. Body? Designs? Go on?

Marco: "...I'll go upstairs and bring those sacrifices down."

After he had smashed and packed up all those dried corpses, everyone returned to where the City Guard were.

Or rather, the corpses of the City Guard.

Lacy stood calmly before the corpses of the City Guard and instructed Marco to find other City Guard to collect them.

Ariana, meanwhile, counted the dried-corpse fragments off to the side, muttering that doing it this way would lose them twenty percent of the gold pounds.

Marco wore a sorrowful expression as he held Giuseppe's corpse, howling dryly that he would have one less like-minded drinking buddy from now on.

Only Tina remained the same as before, holding Wei En's arm as if they were joined at the hip.

Wei En had not been idle either. He was checking the gains on his panel.

He had not expected that the shot he fired, just as he had guessed before, really could earn him an extra reward.

And it was even a skill reward—

[You pulled the trigger of a flintlock and killed Claire Yuli Biondini's puppet. Evaluation: Congratulations, you have achieved your first kill. Special reward: Toughness level +1, Spirit level +1.]

[You used a flintlock to hit an enemy (creature), unlocking a new skill—Introduction to Marksmanship. When using firearm weapons, accuracy is increased.]

[Note: Unfortunately, this is not a game, so your accuracy cannot be expressed with numbers, much less adjusted by hit modifiers. To put it more vividly, beginner-level marksmanship is equivalent to you having undergone 1,000 shooting drills.]

Wei En looked at Introduction to Marksmanship, as well as the option to add points behind it, and was speechless for a long while.

He was a wizard of the Specter School, damn it.

Were they really going to make him carry a staff in his left hand and a flintlock in his right from now on when he went to fight people?

No matter how he pictured it, the image looked awkward as hell...

After thinking it over for a long time, he still could not make up his mind to upgrade the marksmanship skill. He would wait until he went back tonight and studied it before deciding.

"Let's go."

After Lacy finished handing things over to the City Guard captain who had rushed over, she led the others back to the Secret Investigation Bureau.

Only, compared to the relaxed mood they had come with, everyone was rather silent on the way back.

Even Marco, who had always been optimistic and cheerful, did not say a word, making the atmosphere among them seem somewhat heavy.

"Lacy, I'm going to investigate another case first. As for the earnings, I'll come find you after I get back."

They had just passed through Golden Street when Ariana spoke up to take his leave.

Lacy said mildly, "Go straight to Yegor. I'll hand your share over to him together with the division's."

"That works too." Ariana nodded. "I'm off. Good luck to you all."

"You too."

Before long, the group returned to the Secret Investigation Bureau. Lacy went straight up and shoved open Yegor's door. "Bastard!"

When Marco and Wei En heard her furious roar, they were so startled that they hurriedly closed the door and took Tina back to Investigation Division One's office.

"Has she always been this..." Wei En dug at his ear. That roar just now had almost shattered his eardrums.

"Don't be fooled by how calm she looked earlier. In truth, the moment she saw those dried corpses, she was already furious."

Marco tossed aside the bundle in his hand and sighed. "You'll get used to it."

"So that's how it is..."

So when Lacy had spoken of numbness, it had been that kind of calm.

And anger... was real anger.

P.S. Thanks to Nan Ke Du Meng, Book Friend 20180205222205434, Mo Yuan, Fengliu Kuaile Shaonianlang, Ai Laohu Zouzou, and Xinbuliao Niu for the tips. Thank you very much for your support, big shots.

Recommending a friend's book: Longevity: Starting from Visualizing Benbo'erba

"The path to longevity was always an act of defying heaven. So what if I visualize the Three Pure Ones?"

Thank you, big shot, for the recommendation. I'm also a loyal fan of yours. Wishing your results get better and better!