"Hey, Captain, where are you guys off to?" Returning to the base, Jack watched a group of senior members leaving. He curiously looked at them until the captain appeared; he stopped his own captain, wanting to get to the bottom of it.
"On a mission. Keep your mouth shut if it’s nothing important, and, have you finished the task I assigned you?" The middle-aged man stared at Jack and asked.
"Done. No unexpected incidents. I’ve checked on several families, nothing strange about them. The only thing is the young people at 177, there were numerous complaints about them from various residents, including a pair of old men with considerable influence." The young man finished speaking and pulled out his report, "Who do I give this to?" By now, Jack didn’t expect the captain, who seemed ready to leave, to take the report from him.
"Go inside, find Miss Navali, and if there’s nothing else, get back to sleep early. Don’t go out late at night for no reason." The captain finished speaking and followed the group, obviously not planning on explaining why to stay indoors to his rookie coworker.
The giant muttered something in the highland language that Jack couldn’t understand, and Jack turned and kicked the giant’s foot: "Alright, do me a favor and follow me back."
The giant nodded his head and turned to leave through the Security Bureau’s gate.
Meanwhile, Jack walked in, the young man with the report passed through the door opened by the guard, brushing past unfamiliar colleagues. He came to the table of a girl with red curly hair and sparkling eyelashes, setting the report on her desk, "Captain Valor asked me to give this to you."
"Okay, leave it there. I’m busy right now, so I might deal with your issue later or simply tomorrow. If you don’t have anything else, you can go," the girl said while quickly organizing everything on her desk — lipstick, hairpins, nail clippers, and some things Jack didn’t know the purpose of.
Women in the big city really live pickily, thought Jack, who came from a village in the south.
After bidding farewell to the preoccupied Miss, Jack left the ground floor office area. Not needing to surrender his service pistol, he went to the mailroom where he handed an old man a cigarette: "Old man, can you tell me where my captain is going."
"You sure are curious. But seeing how energetic you are, I’ll tell you — they’re out chasing Chaos," the old man sniffed the cigarette: "Nice smoke. You’ve come into good times, lad; our Prince has just raised your compensation."
"That’s a grace from his Lordship, the Prince... But chasing Chaos sounds exciting," Jack exclaimed and bid farewell to the mailroom old man, who smiled, "I thought you’d dig deeper."
"A wise man once said, the more you know, the more pain you feel, and in our profession, the more you know, the more dangerous it gets. Sometimes, I really wish I wasn’t working here — it’s just that some things always need to be done," Jerin said with a smile, then strode away from the gate.
On the street, he glanced at his pocket watch.
It had been almost twenty minutes since he left that district. If they were going there for a sweep... it didn’t make sense in terms of manpower usage or timing. After all, if that was the case, there would be no need for him to carry out the inspection; a few hundred guys blockading the place would have settled it.
The young man pondered and finally looked in the direction they had gone — south.
South side of the city... Apart from the civil sector and the square sector, what else is there?
Wait a second, the square sector, the transit hub!
Jack spread the map in his mind, eyeing the transit center; he recalled the families he had just visited.
The first one, no, it couldn’t be a family of three in terms of manpower or vigor.
The second, neither would it be, a family of five with three kids, it was unlikely that the two adults would target the transit center.
The third is impossible, they are honorably retired members of the Church of Justice strike force. If they had issues, then no one in the city would be innocent.
The fourth house... Jack thought for a moment and recalled that fellow Casaman, his hands... his hands had some calluses from guns, but in those days, adult men with money would inevitably have gun calluses, and those without money would have even more.
And Hills... He was a wealthy gentleman; Jack had just reviewed his information, a man from a prominent family, a blue-blood of Rongma; he was not the problem either.
As Jack was ready to continue thinking, his recollection was interrupted by a vicious dog barking at him. The young man edged towards the corner, eliciting laughter from the woman holding it: "I’m sorry, young man."
Jack doffed his hat, politely greeting the lady whose attire and taste revealed her status as a high-society lady. In a city like Rongma, it was not a place for a young man without any backing like him to act recklessly.
As he watched her leave, the young man noticed her posterior, which was definitely enhanced with padding.
Then, like a bolt of lightning, Jack remembered that painting.
The woman in the painting faced away from the viewer, but her waist... no, her entire silhouette, he was sure he had seen it somewhere!
The thinking young man heard an impatient voice from behind. He turned to see the newsstand owner staring at him, his gloomy face filled with annoyance: "Young man, you’re blocking my shop."