"What is he doing?"
May covered Peter's eyes.
For some reason, the clerk threw away a gun and began rolling around on the floor.
The frightening sight was utterly bizarre.
"There's a strange creature called a Boggart. It can reveal what a person fears most deep down."
Simply put, it was an illusion.
John blinked, and the black in his pupils returned to normal.
As the Wizard King, he naturally had a few special tricks.
He had learned this method from a Boggart, and it was extremely useful for interrogation and punishment.
At one point in history, Wizards had been considered evil, after all.
The clerk gradually stopped moving, and John picked up a piece of fried chicken and took a bite.
He nodded, appraising it like a food critic. "For a bomber, you have excellent control over the heat."
May couldn't even begin to understand what kind of person John was. How could he still eat?
To May, the man before her was shrouded in mystery.
"Is he dead?" May asked uncertainly.
"No, he passed out from extreme fear."
Holding a drumstick in one hand, John said in a tempting tone, "That million dollars has no owner now. Interested?"
He habitually used money as bait to test people.
A million dollars?
Only then did May remember that she was sitting on a million dollars.
Given her family's current finances, a million dollars could give them a better life.
But May wasn't tempted. Instead, she said as though it were obvious, "We need to have the police arrest him."
"I've noticed you're a truly kind person." John set down his drumstick and smiled. "Then let's fill our stomachs and get ready for our next stop."
"I think little Peter is hungry, too."
Peter's gaze had already been drawn to the fried chicken, so May could only let him eat his fill.
As they ate, they talked about Hell's Kitchen.
May was effectively serving as John's guide to New York.
She helped him quickly get up to speed on a place he hadn't visited in ten years away from the Muggle world.
Hell's Kitchen, which the clerk had mentioned, was the most chaotic part of New York.
Even the police wouldn't go to Hell's Kitchen after dark.
It was a paradise for criminals, junkies, and gangs.
Every kind of crime could be found there.
Within the bustling city of New York lay the squalor of Hell's Kitchen.
Those contrasts were also part of what made New York so diverse.
May thought about the Simon the clerk had mentioned. She seemed to have heard the name before.
"He's someone you don't want to mess with. That's what I've heard, anyway." May wasn't a gang member, much less a resident of Hell's Kitchen.
Her home was in Queens, a long way from that place.
John nodded as well. He had essentially stopped eating after taking one bite of his drumstick.
The fried chicken and nuggets disappeared quickly. May and Peter really were hungry.
Strangely enough, the place should have been bustling at this hour.
Yet from the moment they entered until now, not a single other customer had appeared.
John had cast a Muggle-Repelling Charm.
Anyone approaching would suddenly remember something they needed to do and leave, or simply fail to notice the place at all.
They enjoyed their fried chicken in peace.
John had also gathered enough information.
There wouldn't be enough leads in Hell's Kitchen during the day, so he planned to go at night.
As for now...
He would let the two of them eat their fill, take them home, then cast Obliviate.
Nothing would have happened today.
Done.
John had planned everything well.
But sometimes, plans couldn't keep up with changes.
He had no intention of dealing with the clerk any further. He left the fried chicken shop with the two of them, casually hailed a taxi, and took them home.
Just as he dropped them off outside their building, police sirens sounded.
John was taken to the Police Station.
He looked at the people across from him.
"My car was blown up," he said helplessly. "Instead of arresting the person who blew it up, you brought me here."
"We need you to assist with our investigation."
The FBI Agent looked perfectly serious, but as John surveyed the interrogation room, this hardly seemed like assisting an investigation.
It felt rather more like interrogating a criminal.
"Can you explain why you didn't call the police after the car exploded?"
The Agent dutifully questioned him, though the question seemed designed to give him a hard time.
John leaned back in his chair and said mildly, "I was hungry."
The Agent froze. What did that have to do with not calling the police?
"I was hungry, so I went to eat fried chicken," John said innocently. "Is that strange?"
A sports car worth a million dollars blew up, and your first reaction was to eat fried chicken?
Somehow, it sounded reasonable.
Damn rich people.
The Agent frowned and tapped the table with his finger. "Take this seriously!"
"I also need you to answer another question." The Agent stared at John. "According to our information, this car isn't registered in your name."
"It belongs to my father." John's tone was relaxed. He had known these people hadn't come looking for him for no reason.
"Watson Wick is your father?" The Agent furrowed his brow, his tone growing serious. He recalled that the files did indeed mention a son in the Wick family.
But that son's presence was so faint that it raised suspicions.
Yet all of John's identification documents were in order, leaving the Agent deep in thought.
Watson was their primary surveillance target, so they had quickly assembled a team upon receiving news of the car bombing.
They hadn't expected to find a son instead of Watson Wick.
Most importantly, they knew nothing about John.
There was a subtle change in the way the Agent looked at him.
The chief, who had remained silent until now, spoke up. "I imagine that, as his son, you should know your father's whereabouts."
"I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. My father didn't tell me his itinerary."
John knew his father's car had drawn these people out, but he had no use for them at the moment.
His answer left them deeply dissatisfied.
The Agent wanted to say more, but John didn't want to linger.
"I don't intend to call my lawyer, so may I leave now?" John's attitude was exactly like that of a spoiled rich kid.
But the FBI really had no grounds to hold John. Lawyers in the United States were harder to deal with than those elsewhere.
They could only watch him leave.
"Keep a close eye on him. Those people won't leave him alone," the chief told his subordinate.
After leaving the Police Station, John changed his mind about going to erase their memories.
He took a taxi and headed somewhere else instead.
The taxi drove into Manhattan.
John got out in front of a lavish hotel.
He walked toward the hotel.
The guests here were strange. Most of them favored black.
Dressed in suits, they looked less like vacationers and more like people coming to work.
John approached the front desk.
The receptionist also had dark skin and a bald head, but his bearing was completely different from that thug's.
He wore an immaculate suit and gold-rimmed glasses, giving an impression of meticulous propriety.
"Hello. How may I help you?"
The receptionist smiled without showing his teeth.
John took a gold coin from his pocket and slid it toward him.
"I need some information."
The receptionist saw the coin and slowly pushed it back. "The bar would be a good place," he said with a smile.
John picked up the coin, entered the elevator, and rode down.
He walked into the bar. It wasn't the kind of place for rowdy binge drinking, but a quiet spot suited to a gentle buzz or drinking away one's sorrows.
Behind the counter, a woman shook a cocktail shaker.
"I'd like information on Simon."
The woman poured a drink from the shaker and handed it to John.
John picked it up and took a sip. "In detail."
"You're a new face," the bartender said, raising an eyebrow. "We don't do business with strangers."
"How about this?"
John took two gold coins from his pocket and pushed them over. "I'm offering plenty of good faith."
"I can consider it." The bartender accepted the coins. "Wait a moment."
She wrote Simon's name on a slip of paper, put it into a capsule, and inserted it into a tube.
A little while later, a new capsule dropped out of the tube.
She took it out and opened it. Inside was information about Simon.
Handing it to John, the bartender looked at his young face and offered a warning. "You'd better not mess with him."
"You're the second person to tell me that." John took the information, stood up, and left.
He opened it in the elevator. Looking at the address, he shook his head. "Dad's operation really knows how to make money."
This was his father's hotel chain.
Where there was a light side to the world, there had to be a dark side.
The light had order. To control the lawless darkness, it needed someone within that darkness who could establish rules.
John's father was just such a person.
He had laid down plenty of rules and restrictions, bringing stability to that darkness.
This was John's first time experiencing the hotel's services. If the FBI hadn't come knocking, he might have forgotten that his father had resources he could use.
He had found those gold coins at home. Sometimes, his father was hopeless at hiding things.
Leaving the hotel, John saw the sky growing dark and prepared to pay Hell's Kitchen a visit.
Unless something unexpected happened, Simon should have ties to the Ten Rings.
A gang leader mixed up with terrorists.
The peculiar combination made John wonder why they had targeted his father.
He would have his answer tonight.
Under cover of night, John hailed a taxi.
Upon hearing that John wanted to go to Hell's Kitchen, the driver with an Indian accent was so frightened that he begged him to find another cab.
John tried five taxis in succession. Not a single driver would accept a fare to Hell's Kitchen.
If he hadn't been worried that some clueless person might spot him riding a broomstick, John would have flown there.
With no other choice, John had to find another way to travel.
The bald man John had stabbed with a pencil sat in his car, recalling the miserable ordeal he had suffered that day.
As a New York thug with lofty ambitions, he had actually been frightened so badly that he nearly wet himself.
For someone who had the highest level of education in his entire village-a high school dropout-this was a tremendous blow.
It even made him question whether he was a sissy rather than a man.
Whenever he remembered his pathetic state, he couldn't help pounding the steering wheel and spewing curses.
There's no way I'm a sissy. Real men should take on other men!
"You really do have a filthy mouth."
The agitated bald man was about to snap at the speaker, but as the words reached his lips, he realized the voice sounded familiar.
Turning his head, he saw the face that haunted him like a nightmare outside his car window.
John smiled and waved. "Would you mind giving me a ride to Hell's Kitchen?"
"Mainly because I don't know the way."
That familiar smiling face made the bald man's legs go weak.
He desperately wanted to run, but he couldn't escape.
Before you continue