Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 956: Section 627: Pursuit (3)

Chapter 956: Section 627: Pursuit (3)

·My employer is a very cautious person; he has me kill for many reasons, some want their victims silenced permanently, while others want them to speak.

·I belong to the former, tasked with ensuring they are silenced forever. As the Northerners say, I am also an unfortunate proletarian; everything I have is the product of the Guild, my equipment, my clothing, even myself.

·I need to recuperate for two days in Safe House No. 3, making sure not to lead the King’s hounds to the Guild.

·I hope the Goddess of Fortune is still watching over me this time.

·Maybe next week I’ll have time to go to the Phoenix Tower for some tenderloin, it’s been a while since I last tasted it.

Every time Malin passed a golden silhouette, he could hear its inner soliloquy.

Halfway through, Malin had to find a local Apprentice from the Church to translate parts of these soliloquies that he wasn’t clear about.

For instance, the Guild—they say in Copenhagen there are countless Guilds: Weavers have their Guild, blacksmiths too, and even farmers have an Agricultural Guild, which the Church of the Goddess of Harvest instigated, leading free farmers to contend with grain merchants. On one side is the Goddess of Harvest, on the other is the God of Commerce; they’re somewhat restrained towards each other, usually just arguing over grain prices once a year without the sight of the double-stick enforcers of the Church of the Goddess of Harvest arranging a street fight with the peers from the Church of the God of Commerce in the central avenue of Copenhagen.

But to speak of fights, Malin is not afraid at all—being the Church’s most vile and strongest High Priest clad in red, Malin would naturally stand at the vanguard.

This way, a fight will not break out.

Back to the Guilds, generally speaking, most of them do contribute to stabilizing the market, preventing both sides from going head to head viciously.

As for the Guild mentioned by this assassin, it’s likely one of the two: one is the Assassin’s Guild, and not the one from the novels Malin reads. This Assassin’s Guild has existed for a thousand years, even before the Lord of Justice arrived, a Dark Guild that worshipped the indigenous Evil God and was infamously ruthless—assassinating a King as if slaughtering a chicken, and snuffing out a clerical Bishop of the Church was even easier, a cinch.

Then they met the Lord of Justice and his original thirteen Grand Holy Knights.

The Evil God was bested in a divine war by the Lord of Justice, getting smothered to death in the Divine Realm; the once arrogant Assassin’s Guild was then deserted and turned into a secretive, small-scale organization, for any discovery would lead to the Church’s retaliation.

The other Guild is known as the Dark Guild—a Underground Guild that emerged after the Assassin’s Guild was crushed, infamous for its depravity. True to its name, from snatching candy away from children to murder and arson, this Guild’s tasks encompass almost every kind of wicked act, thus gaining favor with mercenaries and those who do not mind committing evil deeds.

And because the Guild only takes on mission distribution, it’s better to allow its existence than let some depravities uncontrollably seep into the obscure unknown; at least, the bottom dwellers of various organizations often bring information each organization most desires to know.

Malin did want to know the identity of this speaking figure, but the fellow seemed exceedingly vigilant, not even letting slip any sensitive information during his soliloquy.

What a cunning adversary.

Malin pondered for a moment and asked the Goddess before entering the alley. She said that due to Malin’s excessive insight, he could hear the soliloquy of the fellow during the tracking Spell Formation.

Malin initially thought these were his inner thoughts; thus, dealing with a muttering psychopathic assassin is quite troublesome.

When Malin saw the assassin push open the back door of the alley and enter, he carefully sent away the little Apprentice through a teleportation passage, then summoned Ragroof Dender and Todd Spencer to watch from the sky. If anyone escaped from the house, they would notify Malin of the direction through a Spell Formation.

They could also control the target through a Spell Formation.

After all, Malin does not engage in unprepared battles; if you cannot know your enemy and know yourself, at least you must strategize before acting.

With everything ready, transforming into an Earth Elemental form, Malin did not kick in the door, but instead plunged headfirst into the wall—his Elemental form allowing him to pass through the stone-brick building. Northerners always liked to position their kitchens and back doors at the end of the alley, and this time it was no different. Malin pulled out his Revolver, then broke through the door head on.

"Gentlemen, your target has finally arrived, let’s move! World Tree Sapling! It’s Malin!" There were several people in the hall, sitting or standing, and Malin could clearly sense at least two of them being half-step Legendary. The assassin sat aside, apparently the strongest of them, almost Legendary in caliber—he turned to ashes the moment he saw Malin, with Mana holding six Shotguns by his side. Must be the use of a special tool or something else, Malin instantly lost his perception of him, a decisively fleeing fellow indeed.

The other five gentlemen seemed to have an interest in fishing, except this time they caught something they could not handle. The Shotgun that Maya controlled fired in a flash, scattering the shot skyward. In an instant, the five fishing guests each revealed their powers, with one transforming into an illusion, hoping to evade the barrage, but Malin’s shotgun was loaded with demon-busting blessed lead, so the unfortunate one covered in lead pellets bled out on the floor.

Another jumped out the window, only for a Fireball to drop from the sky. Malin could only eject the revolver’s cylinder to let the shells slide out while watching the fire man stroll along the street before finally making a faceplant.

Yet another stood up, transforming into a giant, intending to hold off Malin to allow his comrades to escape; halfway through the charge, the giant screamed, clutching his head, twisting his own neck. The lifeless large frame fell to the ground, very thoroughly dead.

In an instant, someone vanished, and Malin turned his head to glance at the corner. Thus, from that spot, there came loud, thudding sounds of a head striking against the wall. The pristine white wall, in addition to showing damage, was also now covered in a copious amount of blood until the controlled victim who lost consciousness collapsed to the floor.

After reloading his bullets, Malin frowned at the guy who was still bellowing in pain while clutching his leg.

Mana, understanding the situation, leaped forward, treating the injured man’s broken leg and stopping the bleeding while also taking control of his life or death.

It hung him upside down, and Malin walked to the front hall, pushed open the door, and gestured to the two in the sky before returning to the scene.

As a Wizard proficient in shooting, Todd Spencer approached with the M1911 Malin gave him and recognized the man who had been pelted with shotgun pellets and was now groaning on the ground: "Isn’t this the brother Jack from the Dark Guild’s third special operations unit?"

The Activating Vine beside him hoisted the injured man up to the ceiling.

"Looks like the Dark Guild’s folks silenced the victim by murder?" Malin explained the situation of the escaping individual to Todd and Laglov, who immediately identified him from his general circumstances — said to be a Lone Assassin who had just joined the Dark Guild recently, achieving success in every mission, even having nearly killed a Legendary half a year ago. Though he failed to execute the kill, managing to severely injure his target and escape unscathed was already testament to his skill.

Hearing this, Malin nodded his head — okay, letting such a guy escape wasn’t just due to his decisiveness; Malin’s carelessness had also played a part. If a Dimensional Anchor had been set from the outset, there wouldn’t have been so many complications.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t bad to have identified this guy. The wizarding world had no shortage of ways to find him, and Diviners were also willing to offend this individual for Malin’s sake — after all, opponents that Malin set his sights on always seem to meet with rapid demise, and the Diviners had their ways of ensuring the victims never knew who did them the favor.

The next task, then, was to extract some intel from the mouths of these three individuals — the one who broke his own neck was dead beyond dead, the one who perished in the fire outside was also dead, apart from the two hanging from the ceiling, another who had woken up after repetitively colliding his head with the wall now saw Malin, Todd, and Laglov sitting on chairs, looking at him with benevolent smiles.

The young man awkwardly withdrew his hand from the opened window then obediently sat between his two suspended comrades.

One could say he was very meek.

"Name," Malin inquired.

"Mica Stockton," the obedient young man answered first.

"Fisher Gallo," the young man with shattered legs seemed very aware of his situation.

"Hamil Guy," the unfortunate soul who barely survived, still with pellets embedded in his back, finally managed to respond.

All true names — Malin, detecting no lies, happily nodded his head.

"You all know me, so I’ll be brief. Do you know who hired you for the job?" While asking, Malin distributed cigarettes to the three assassins, and Mana, with a lighter in hand, lit the cigarettes for them one by one. To ease their suffering a bit more, Malin let them down as well.

"Your Excellency Malin, you are not aware of our guild’s workflow. The client hands the job to the guild, we take the assignments from the guild, and there is never any direct contact between us and the clients. They don’t know us, and we don’t know them," the obedient young man, besides a swollen forehead, was quite alright and puffed heavily on his cigarette, showing great cooperation.

"Indeed, Your Excellency Malin, you don’t understand the workflow of the dark world. It’s out of the question for us to have direct contact with the clients; it’s against the rules," another added.

"Who is the guy that escaped?" Malin nodded and shifted to a new question.

"Don’t know, he works solo, different from us guild types," replied the individual who had been riddled with shotgun pellets.

He’s not from the guild? What kind of nonsense did I hear then?

Malin’s eyebrows furrowed; the lie detection indicated the young man wasn’t lying.

Now that piqued curiosity, didn’t it?

Curious, Malin turned to the compliant young man, "Then how do you refer to him?"

"Victor, V," the meek young man gave such an answer that made Malin facepalm.

Meow indeed, it’s the cyber... wait, it turns out it’s the infamous V.

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