Chapter 47: Failed to Capture
A hired carriage was galloping along the street towards the dock area.
In order to avoid being discovered by the "instigator" Tris, the two night watchmen did not ride in a four-wheeled carriage with a police logo, but hired one at random on the street.
Listening to the occasional shouts of the coachman outside the window, Dunn Smith, captain of the Tingen Nighthawks, looked at Leonard Mitchell sitting in the seat opposite him.
The latter was carefully organizing his equipment, the holster under his armpit, the revolver in the holster, the spare bullets in his windbreaker and trouser pockets. He checked them one by one carefully and put them back in their original places.
Since their target was only a Sequence 8 Beyonder, they did not use the Sealed Artifact this time as they did when capturing Madam Sharon. Instead, they would rely solely on the abilities of a few Nighthawks and ordinary weapons to fight.
Dunn didn't pack his own pistol like him. In fact, he rarely used a pistol in combat now, carrying a gun mostly as a deterrent to ordinary people. After reaching Sequence 7 "Nightmare," his fighting style had become closer to that of a true Beyonder, relying on the Beyonder abilities granted by potions rather than fists and weapons.
Leonard stuffed the last set of spare bullets into the loader and put it in the left pocket of his windbreaker for easy access. After finishing everything, he looked up at Dunn, seeming a little confused.
"Captain," he hesitated for a moment before finally asking, "Why don't you bring Miss Granger with you? Although we have a portrait of the 'instigator' Tris, she has seen the real person with her own eyes. If Tris really dares to appear in the underground trading market again, she is the only one who can quickly identify the target."
"On the other hand, Tris has also met her. Wouldn't you be wary of someone who just rejected your invitation yesterday suddenly changing her attitude and approaching you today?"
Dunn asked with a smile. He had already learned from Angel the details of their contact last night.
"That's not an excuse." Leonard's expression turned serious. "She could have been a secret observer, or even just stayed in the lobby of the Dragon Bar, watching the entrance. There's no need to get close. As soon as Tris shows up, we can take action."
"You still doubt her?"
"Don't you have any doubts?" Dunn leaned back in his chair, shifting his legs to make himself more comfortable. "A wild Beyonder who had just become an 'Assassin' reported his Beyonder mentor. He even inexplicably broke into the Nighthawks' base and died inexplicably."
"After joining the Nighthawks for this achievement, she subsequently 'ran into' two other 'assassins' and 'instigators' who followed the same path. Through various clues, she tried to draw our attention to the Gnosis Society. Was this a coincidence, or was there a conspiracy?"
Leonard tilted his head slightly, as if listening carefully, but his eyes were sideways, not looking at Dunn across from him. He frowned and replied, "It's not uncommon for Beyonders of the same path to meet. It's not a reason to doubt her... and the battle with Sharon Hoy was extremely dangerous. Even if we fought again under the same circumstances, I'm not sure I could win, let alone emerge unscathed."
"If she approached us with ulterior motives and even let us down a bit during the fight, you would have seen the remains of Ms. Daly and me when you returned to the company."
"That's right." To Leonard's surprise, Dunn didn't refute him, but nodded in agreement. "Daly also gave me a detailed account of the battle. She specifically emphasized that Miss Granger saved her twice. And this time, she ran into Tris at the Dragon Bar. If she hadn't told us, we wouldn't have known about it. And if we use conventional methods to hunt for him, it's almost impossible to catch an assassin or a Beyonder who's adept at hiding. Just like our other instigator, Cole Granger, we've been wanted for nearly two weeks and there's no clue at all. Even the divination for him has failed."
"At least she does her best to deal with criminal Beyonders."
"Then why are you..."
Leonard was even more confused now.
Dunn Smith lowered his voice, as if not wanting the driver, who was just across the door, to hear. "It's not her who I suspect, but the strange attitude of the people above."
"You know, I just faxed the details of Miss Granger's identity investigation and her battle with Sharon Hoy to the Sanctuary yesterday, and at the same time submitted an application for her to become a full member."
Leonard also leaned forward, closer to his captain, and the two of them seemed to be secretly plotting something, whispering in the dim carriage.
"According to normal procedures, the Sanctuary will respond in about a week. If they need to retrieve more information or if their contribution is deemed insufficient, the wait may be extended. Do you remember how long you waited when you joined the Nighthawks?"
"Four weeks? Or five weeks?"
Leonard felt a little embarrassed. That was three years ago, when he had just become a Beyonder. His first mission was to accompany Dunn to capture cultists secretly performing evil rituals. Unfamiliar with Beyonder powers, he not only lost his target but also nearly fell into the river. This caused his reputation to plummet, so much so that the Holy Temple delayed his application for full membership for a month.
This was certainly a deliberate attempt to conceal his incompetence, but it also showed how strict the Sanctuary's review of those joining the Night Watch was. Even the authority to distribute potions for Sequence 9 could be delegated to the captain level, and becoming an official Night Watcher required the Sanctuary's approval.
"But this time, the Holy Church sent a telegram reply early this morning, less than 24 hours later." Dunn seemed not to notice Leonard's thoughts and continued to speak.
"You agree so soon?" Leonard raised his eyebrows and asked in surprise.
Dunn nodded.
"Klein Moretti, who joined at the same time as her, is not yet an official member. He needs to wait for the Backlund Diocese to deliver Sealed Artifact 2-049 and find the Antigonus family's notes before he can be considered to have made enough contributions and become an official member."
"The difference between the two new members in the Sanctuary was so obvious. Even though Angel Granger helped kill Sharon Hoy, a Sequence 6 member who had already been confirmed as a member of the Witch Cult, their reaction was too strange. It was like..."
He tried to form words to describe the Temple's overly swift decision.
Seeing this, Leonard took the initiative to respond, "It's like I've been waiting for you to send a telegram requesting this?"
"Hmm..." Dunn opened his mouth, wanting to express himself, but in the end he repeated Leonard's words, "Yes, it's like he's been waiting for me to send a telegram."
"But what does this have to do with you not letting her participate in the arrest?" Seeing that the captain didn't doubt Angel, Leonard asked curiously, "It's not for reasons like protecting her, right?"
"Didn't I tell you? Her presence would easily alert the enemy and allow Tris to escape early."
Dunn Smith's gray eyes were filled with a smile, as if the whispered discussion between the two just now happened in a dream rather than in reality.
Then why are you talking so much...
Leonard was stunned, still feeling that the captain was hiding something from him.
As the two men stared at each other, the carriage slowly stopped with a "whoosh" from the coachman.
The small window at the front of the carriage was opened, and the driver's muffled voice asked, "Gentlemen, the road ahead is blocked. If you want to go to the Dragon Bar, you can only walk there. Or do you need to go somewhere else?"
Seeing the two men wearing windbreakers in the hot weather and talking furtively in the car, he thought they were not serious people and did not want to be stopped by the police in the car, so out of professional ethics, he asked them in advance.
"What? Blocked?"
Leonard was startled and ignored the driver. Instead, he pushed open the door and rushed out of the car. Dunn followed closely behind him. The two of them walked around the car to the front and looked in the direction of the Dragon Bar.
The entrance of the bar, which had not seemed noisy during the day, was now crowded with people. More people kept coming out of the door and were only allowed in after being recognized by the two armed men standing on the left and right of the door.
It looked like most of the people crowded at the entrance were traders driven out of the underground market. Though disgruntled, they obediently followed orders under the "command" of their guns. Furthermore, several burly men stood high up, dressed in standard uniforms, carrying off-white mechanical boxes on their backs. Pipes emanating from the boxes connected to strangely shaped rifles. The gunmen, occupying the commanding heights, scanned the surroundings with hawk-like eyes, their frequent aiming of their guns at the crowd effectively increasing their obedience.
"High-pressure steam rifle?" Leonard muttered. "It's over. With such a big scene, Tris must have escaped."
Without paying attention to the crowd of screened people gathered at the door of the bar, he looked around, trying to find the target hidden among them.
But Leonard knew in his heart that this was futile. If he were Tris, and had managed to escape from the Dragon Bar and get out of the encirclement of these burly men, he would naturally run as far as possible. How could he dare to stay here any longer?
Dunn Smith seemed calmer than Leonard. He glanced at the door of the bar and found someone he knew. He walked over with his hands in his windbreaker pockets, but his frown showed that his mood was not as stable as he seemed.
"Swain, what's going on?" He asked the leader of the group of people standing in a group at the door of the bar. The leader was wearing a tattered naval officer's jacket and was whispering something to the others. His messy brown short hair seemed to have not been washed for a long time, and the grease on it reflected the light in the sun.
Hearing Dunn's question, the brown-haired old man turned his head and looked at Dunn Smith with his blue eyes. He paused for a few seconds before remembering the other party's identity.
"It's you, Dunn Smith. Long time no see."
The captain of the Nighthawks, also with brown hair, nodded as a greeting and asked again, "What's going on? Did we fail to capture the 'instigator'?"
He thought about it and thought that this was the only reason that could cause chaos in the entire underground trading market, and even the high-pressure steam riflemen of "Mechanical Heart" were dispatched.
Swain's pent-up anger seemed to explode at Dunn's words. He cursed fiercely before replying, "It's all those Steambots' fault. A Mechanical Heart informant spotted the 'instigator' in my market, brazenly purchasing items and haggling over prices. Instead of notifying my people, he hurried off to meet his superior, most likely after the hefty bounty."
"Tris discovered something was wrong. The informant must have been watching him before he left, and he noticed him. Before the main force arrived, the guy ran away."
The old man spat, staring at the crowd outside the bar, wondering if the informant he was cursing was among them. "If he had informed me directly, or the Mandated Punisher, they could have sent someone to keep an eye on things, and things wouldn't have gotten to this point. What's the point of them screening ordinary people one by one? Triss probably isn't even at the docks anymore."
Perhaps due to their different identities, Swain, the owner of the Dragon Bar, could express his emotions here, while Dunn, as a Nighthawk, needed to focus on the case itself. He thought for a moment, then asked, "Was Tris still bargaining before he escaped? Did you ask the person he was dealing with?"
"I was doing this before I retired, after all. I've already asked him!" Swain shook his head. "There's no useful clue. He's just looking for shadow lizard scales and golden mandrake flowers. The juice is also fine."
None of them are extraordinary items... Dunn thought to himself, maybe he was preparing items for some kind of ritual, which is why he committed the Alfalfa tragedy and hurried to Tingen City to commit more crimes?
Or maybe...
Dunn thought about the ability of the "instigator" and made another bolder guess:
Tris has already achieved some kind of promotion by inciting the passengers on the Clover to kill each other, and is preparing the next sequence of potions for himself?
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