Chapter 57-57- Case
After paying a deposit of 5,000 credit points, Yvette and Carters completed the commission transaction and made an appointment to meet with the client's female reporter in the bar tomorrow afternoon to discuss the details of the operation.
Unlike the devilish middleman who is rumored to be always ruthless, Carters seems to still have some humanity left. He has been hinting that if Yvette can't do it, it's better to pay some deposit than to give up her life.
Obviously, in his opinion, the degree of madness of this unknown lady in front of him, who was involved in the mission of a serial killer, was comparable to that of the female reporter who was his client.
Yvette naturally understood his thoughts. It was only because she had the Black Eyes ability as a trump card. If it were the last time she entered his dream, even if she became a mercenary, she would not consider high-risk commissions.
After leaving the bar, Yvette rented an apartment in the Bayard district using an agency platform and looked up some information about the werewolf killer.
This super criminal, who carried out a murder spree just last month, has killed at least eight people, including a powerful rune compiler, since his first act six months ago. He earned the nickname "Werewolf Killer" because witnesses discovered he had the ability to switch between being a giant wolf and a human.
According to the information released by the police, the source of the werewolf killer's ability is unknown. None of the existing large companies have announced that they have similar technology. Even if they do, it must be military technology that needs to be strictly regulated and is unlikely to flow into the civilian population.
Considering the werewolf killer's indiscriminate killing without any rules, many people speculate that the origin of the werewolf killer may come from a mad scientist, which is very common in urban legends.
…
The next afternoon, the sky of Agasa was overcast, but it did not rain. It simply covered the city with a depressing gray.
Pushing open the door of the Floating Light Bar, at Carters' gesture, Yvette saw the client of this operation, a young female reporter who looked like she had just graduated from college.
She was wearing standard business attire, carrying a small bag and sitting in a corner, sipping a cup of hot coffee.
When Yvette walked over to her and sat down, she was still a little dazed. After a while, she reacted and said, "Little sister, don't tell me you are the Miss 'Nameless' who came here to accept the commission."
Yvette hummed and nodded slightly.
"Really??" The female reporter's expression froze. She'd imagined the female mercenary who'd come to take the order, imagining her as a muscular, heavily muscled woman, more like a man than a woman. Or perhaps she was a seasoned cybernetic mage, covered in glowing magical machinery.
But she never thought that she would see a beautiful and unintimidating high school girl of sixteen or seventeen years old.
But it is really beautiful. Wearing a cool black dress, she looks like a little black rose that has not yet grown up. It is also pure and natural...
She secretly admired it in her heart, then looked towards the bar with a dark face.
"Don't look at me, Miss Irene. No one else will take your order except this person." Carters stood behind the bar, wiping the glass while saying innocently, "At least Miss Wuming is a genuine mage."
Hearing the teasing tone in Carters' words, the female reporter curled her lips childishly, retracted her gaze, looked at Yvette, and introduced herself: "Hello, my name is Erin Parker, a reporter for 'Bird News'. Nice to meet you, Miss Nobody."
"Hello," Yvette said.
Such a concise response made the air silent for a moment.
Miss Irene, unsure of how to greet people, got straight to the point. "I hope you can protect me while I investigate the identity of the werewolf killer, at least until the AJSP arrives... Can you do that?"
"able."
"Um, let me ask you first. Do you know about the Werewolf Killer?" Miss Irene emphasized. "He's not just a murderer who preys on ordinary people, he also killed a powerful mage. That mage worked for Black Tower Medicine and had been injected with a high-quality 'Active Rune Set'. From a mercenary's perspective, he seems to be a top-notch expert... You know all this, right?"
"Know."
"So do you still think you are capable of taking on this task?" Miss Irene raised the end of her voice slightly.
"able."
“…”
Faced with the silver-haired girl's calm and brief reply, Irene remained silent.
Well, she was not one to judge people by appearance. Since Miss Wuming insisted that she had the ability and was the only mercenary willing to take the order, there was no need for her to express her distrust.
After hesitating for a moment, she decided to reveal something, lowering her voice. "Well, during the investigation, we don't necessarily have to be attacked by the werewolf killer... it's just a possibility. If you encounter him alone, tell him my name, and tell him that it's Erin Parker from White Sands High School who's investigating. Maybe... maybe he'll let you go."
Yvette raised her eyebrows slightly. She thought that Miss Irene was not the kind of person who would do such a dangerous thing on a whim. It sounded like she had some personal connection with the werewolf killer.
Then, before Yvette could speak, Irene said, "This isn't the right place to talk in detail. Let's talk somewhere else."
Ten minutes later, the two stood in a deserted corner of the River Rhoyne, facing the filthy waters littered with floating garbage. In the sky, shuttles of various shapes flew back and forth, many carrying express packages, like a swarm of busy bees.
"I roughly know the identity of the werewolf killer." Irene said.
Yvette hummed, motioning for Irene to continue. As a bodyguard, she didn't really need to be involved in the investigation; she was solely responsible for preventing danger. But if the client was willing to share some confidential details, she wouldn't mind listening.
"He might be my high school classmate, Tennyson Norton, a boy from a less-privileged family. We used to have a pretty good relationship."
A look of reminiscence flashed in Irene's eyes, but when she saw Yvette's expression change, she quickly added, "But we weren't in that kind of relationship. He just had a crush on me. He never confessed his feelings, and I didn't accept it."
Yvette nodded and continued listening.
"After graduation, he didn't go to college and went straight to work. My contact with him was completely cut off during this period."
"Six months ago, when the werewolf killer committed his first crime, the police captured a blurry shot of the werewolf killer's profile. Even though he was wearing a mask, I still think his profile, hair color, and eyes are all too similar to Tennyson's."
"Then, out of curiosity, I tried to contact Tennyson, but I didn't get a response for a long time. Finally, I felt strange and went to Tennyson's house, only to find out that Tennyson had disappeared last year. The police investigation concluded that he was defrauded online and believed in a lucrative job, and was sold to the Rust Free State. He is either still alive but living a life worse than death, or he is already dead, his soul and body separated, and used as experimental material for the cultists."
Hearing this, Yvette's heart moved, and some information about the Rustbone Free State emerged in her mind.
Although there are some small countries in Kuroshio Island, there are three major countries.
First is the New Eden United States, one of the world's top two superpowers and the birthplace of "Black Tower Medicine" and "Lin Tui Biology".
The second is the Kuroshio Federation, which is not large and is located on the northeast coast of Kuroshio Island. It mainly relies on the "Kuroshio Corporation" as the national economic support, which is a bit like the relationship between South Korea and Samsung.
Third is the Rustbone Free State, a country smaller than the Black Tide Federation, characterized by social chaos and the absence of major corporations. However, it is home to the infamous cult, the Holy Spirit Sect. Because its forbidden research into necromancy is considered too sinister and dangerous, requiring extensive human experimentation, the Rustbone Free State has earned the nickname "the nation of human traffickers" and "the nation of fraud."
However, because the prospects of the undead magic expounded by the Holy Spirit Sect are indeed attractive, such as the resurrection of the dead, the immortal body, and skeleton labor, even if it is just a pie in the sky on PPT and touches the bottom line of human ethics, it still has many believers all over the world, which is also a headache for governments around the world.
Irene continued, "...but I think the story of being sold to Rusty Bone is fake. If someone were sold to Rusty Bone, the normal process would be to force them to call home and extort money from their relatives. But the Tennyson family didn't encounter this situation."
"I suspect the truth is that Tennyson must have gone through a painful experience, and then had some unexpected adventure that turned him into this state, giving him such powerful strength. Perhaps he's killing people like this crazily to seek revenge against those who harmed him, or perhaps he wants to use this method to convey a message to the outside world."
Finally, Irene's eyes grew firm, and she said seriously, "I want to decipher this information, find the underlying reasons behind the werewolf killer's actions, and then reveal the truth to the world... I hope you can help me, Miss Nameless."
…
As an impatient young woman, after having bodyguards, Irene Parker took Yvette to a community park in the Bayard area that night.
That was where the werewolf killer committed his first crime, and the victim was a homeless man who was tenting in the park.
According to an old lady living nearby, she was sleeping that night when she woke up to strange and terrifying noises. She opened the window and looked out to see a giant wolf tearing at the body of its dead victim in the park, its eyes red and frightening. However, after she screamed in terror, the wolf immediately got scared and fled, and after that, it disappeared without a trace.
This was all the information the police had already gathered. Even after visiting again, Irene hadn't uncovered anything new. Furthermore, six months had passed since the incident, and asking again might not be as accurate as the public police data.
In the next few days, accompanying Irene, Yvette traveled all over Agashe and visited the areas where the remaining werewolf killers had committed crimes.
During the process, Irene also spent money to retrieve camera footage from areas with better security, but she did not see any trace of Tennyson in the video records before and after the incident.
Irene's investigation suddenly came to a standstill.
She found that the results of her independent investigation were not much better than those of the police, and the expected information related to Tennyson was not found.
The only thing to be thankful for was that she didn't become the next target of the werewolf killer, but in a sense, this also showed that Irene's investigation was indeed useless.
Five days passed in the blink of an eye. On the evening of the last day of the commission, they returned to Bayard without success. Walking along a path along the Rhone River, Irene heard Yvette ask, "Will the commission continue tomorrow?"
This is obviously asking whether to pay more money, and the calculation is double, which is 20,000 yuan per day.
Irene shook her head in frustration. As a novice reporter, she realized she didn't seem to have the talent for detective work. She couldn't uncover anything the AJSP couldn't. Continuing would be a waste of money—her savings were only a little over 50,000 yuan, and while her parents had money, they were too embarrassed to ask for it.
Seeing her first employer's distress, and the fact that she hadn't had much room to improve in the past few days, Yvette thought for a moment and decided to offer some extra care. She said, "I have a suggestion."
"Um... what?"
Yvette said, "Since you think your old classmate Tennyson Norton is a werewolf killer, why don't you just investigate Tennyson's disappearance?"
Irene was stunned for a moment. Her first reaction was that this made a lot of sense, but then she thought of something and said, "No... this doesn't seem to work."
Then, seeing Yvette's confusion, she explained, "Tennyson's disappearance case involves the Holy Spirit cult, and access to relevant information is prohibited... Even the victim's relatives can only receive the AJSP's investigation results and are not allowed to obtain more information. The reason seems to be to prevent people from coming into contact with the cult and becoming its followers."
"Okay." Yvette didn't say anything else. She could actually use hacking methods to obtain some internal information, but this was not within the scope of the commission.
So, after five uneventful days, Yvette's first commission as a mercenary came to an end, and it was hard to say whether the result was good or bad.
Although he received the commission for normal settlement, which was equivalent to picking up 50,000 credit points for free, it was not enough to prove his ability. In the eyes of the middleman Carters, he would probably still be labeled as a newcomer, of course, a newcomer with a very high luck value.
Looks like I have to take on another difficult commission...
Or maybe just go catch the wanted criminal? For example, find some clues about the werewolf killer and kill him. That way, you could get the AJSP's 1 million yuan bounty and immediately prove your ability...
From this perspective, the clues provided by Miss Erin Parker are quite useful. Besides, there's not much difference between bounty hunters and mercenaries; both can make quick money...
Yvette pondered silently in her heart.
In order to save energy, she bought relevant information on the gray market directly from Carters these two days and found that it was much more difficult to obtain military-grade equipment than she had imagined.
For example, a military spell unit that can cast a 100,000-level spell has an official price of 250,000, but the price on the black market can soar to over 800,000. The premium is outrageous. She now has 500,000 credit points, which is a lot, but she still can't afford it.
Therefore, on the third day after the commission was completed, when she was still worried about saving money to buy equipment, a sudden message from her former employer, Miss Irene, made Yvette's pupils shrink slightly.
It was a voice message sent in a low voice, with undisguised fear and panic, she said in a tearful tone: "Miss Wuming... I... I think I saw Tennyson... He was... in the house across from mine... looking at me..."
(End of this chapter)
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