Glen City East District, Workers’ Dock, Golden Belt Tavern.
Though it was broad daylight, the tavern was already crowded with people.
They were a motley crew—unemployed workers drowning their sorrows, sailors long away from shore, and bold, sultry dancers.
In the center of the tavern, inside a space enclosed by waist-high iron wire mesh, two large dogs were locked in a fierce fight, biting and tearing at each other, surrounded by gamblers clutching rough betting slips.
Cheers, curses, and a mix of vulgar words, all tinged with the stench of alcohol and smoke, filled the air.
“Damn it, bite it! Bite it!”
“Get up! Get up! Fuck it, ride on its back and smash its asshole! Show it who’s the number one fighting dog of the Golden Belt!”
Near the edge of the enclosure, a man with curly brown hair and green eyes took a hard gulp of cheap beer.
Rubbing the ample curves of the woman beside him, he panted as he shouted:
“You bastard, you motherfucking bitch, get up and bite it! I just bet five solangs on you!”
“Jeff.”
His shoulder was shoved, and still hot with anger, Jeff glared fiercely at the person spoiling his mood.
It was Arger, the ‘Smoker’ whom Jeff had commissioned the day before to investigate.
Thinking of Arger’s influence here at the Golden Belt Tavern, Jeff’s murky eyes cleared a bit.
He adopted a slightly conciliatory tone: “Arger, it’s you. Want a drink? My treat. Hic~”
A pungent, unpleasant smell of alcohol hit Jeff’s face, mixed with a sour, seafood-like stench, but Arger didn’t care in the slightest.
He leaned closer to Jeff, his deep blue eyes lowering as he spoke in a low voice:
“I have the results from the investigation you asked for.”
That sobered Jeff up completely.
He glanced left and right, his brow furrowing, and lowered his voice as well:
“Not safe to talk here.”
Arger straightened up, raised an arm, and thumbed backward.
“Let’s go to the inn next door, where I usually stay.”
“Alright, alright.”
Jeff nodded twice, about to leave, when a hand grabbed his sleeve.
Turning around, the woman Jeff had just enticed with a drink now used her other hand to pull open her collar, revealing sun-kissed skin and the softness wrapped in a black bra.
With a seductive expression and a sultry tone, she said, “For the sake of this drink, if you want to go further later, I can show you the special treatment only regulars get.”
As she spoke, she parted her lips, her scarlet tongue curling like a water snake inside her mouth.
Jeff bent a finger in mid-air, then reached out to smack the woman’s ass.
“Wait for me, baby!”
With that, humming a tune, Jeff and the ‘Smoker’ Arger left the tavern one after another.
The inn next door was roughly furnished.
A woman in her forties, waist as thick as a barrel, was tending the front desk.
She opened her narrow eyes slightly and glanced at the visitors.
Seeing it was regular Arger, she said nothing and continued cracking sunflower seeds.
The floor was littered with shells and nobody bothered to clean up.
Before reaching the room, Jeff grew impatient and asked:
“Arger, only one day.”
“You already figured out the places Hanna Carter’s been frequenting these past few months?”
As the local intelligence boss of the docks, the ‘Smoker’ Arger sneered.
“What, you don’t trust me?”
Jeff instinctively placed a hand on the pocket of his left side and chuckled awkwardly:
“No way. Who doesn’t know the ‘Smoker’ Arger from Old Boots Alley?”
Arger pulled out a key and opened the door, entering first.
He sat on the bed by the window, pulling a cigarette from a pack on the bedside table.
Lighting it, he pushed the pack toward Jeff standing by the door.
“Want one?”
“Sure.”
Jeff fully relaxed and walked toward Arger.
Only when he got close did he notice Arger’s hand holding the pack was trembling slightly.
What could make a dockside boss like the ‘Smoker’ so afraid?
Crack—
A loud noise came from behind.
The wooden panel of the wardrobe was flung open, and a figure dressed in a black hooded cloak burst out.
Two daggers glinted coldly under the sunlight.
Swish.
The air was sliced with a sharp sound as the attacker struck.
But the familiar sensation of flesh was absent from Jeff’s hands, as if he had eyes on his back.
He dodged just in time, dropping into a low stance and delivering a sweeping leg kick.
The cigarette dropped from Arger’s mouth.
He had no time to care, immediately running toward the window.
A flash of white light, a dagger pierced the neck of the dock boss ‘Smoker’ without missing, splattering hot crimson on the wall.
The hooded assassin had not finished his throwing motion when a gunshot rang out.
A pale yellow bullet grazed the assassin’s slightly leaning head, leaving a bloody scratch on his cheek.
The hood was ripped back, revealing a pale face.
He had the common golden hair and blue eyes of the Soth Kingdom, with unremarkable features, looking to be around thirty years old.
The gunshot stirred some commotion, but nothing too intense.
In a place like this, shootings didn’t happen every day, but once or twice a month was common enough.
The footsteps near his ears and blood dripping on his cheek didn’t disturb the assassin’s calm.
He closed his eyes, then reopened them to reveal a faint tint of crimson in his pupils.
Jeff’s appearance had also changed in his eyes.
The man was now enveloped in a pale white aura.
His upper body shimmered with yellow, orange, green, and purple.
His lower body was engulfed in a mass of red, while his head and throat glowed with a uniform blue.
Among the complex colors, slender black lines spread over Jeff’s body.
Those were his spiritual threads, his most vulnerable points where spirit and flesh were thinnest.
“Which organization are you from?”
“Withered Light Order?”
“Life Mystery Cult?”
The assassin was answered with an icy dagger honed with murderous intent.
His movements were incredibly swift and flawless, every strike aimed not at obvious targets like the heart or brain, but at the crucial points where Jeff’s spirit flowed.
Unafraid of pain, agile, cold, and lethal in his attacks, the assassin reminded Jeff of a certain organization’s members.
Landing on the bed, Jeff kicked a pillow toward the attacker.
Swish—
The pillow was sliced in two, the mix of rice husks and cotton fluttering like snow in the air.
“Blood Rose, huh?”
The assassin stiffened barely noticeably.
In that instant, the man in his sight disappeared.
Instead, a familiar sound came from beside his ear—the tearing sound of blade cutting through flesh and bone.
Pfft.
A head flew off, blood gushing forth, the ‘snowfall’ flecked with ‘plum’ red marking the close of this late winter’s scene.
The man above the assassin fell to the ground with the severed head.
A slight smirk tugged at his lips, laden with mockery.
“Just fishing for information, and you actually came at me?”
He brought a hand to his cheek and lightly tore.
Black hair, brown eyes, gentle features—the man was Herman Hughes.