Chapter 149: A Performance True to Character

Chapter 149: A Performance True to Character

“You suspect Vice Admiral Ailment’s fleet is hidden there?” Anderson asked thoughtfully after hearing Danitz’s words.

Danitz answered with considerable excitement, “There’s a very good chance! Didn’t the Black Death disappear after sailing west from Celos Island?”

Anderson curled his lip and laughed softly.

“If Vice Admiral Ailment’s whereabouts could be found out that easily by you, what would be the point of her hiding?

“And if even you can learn of that island, how can it possibly be called hidden enough?”

“Hey! What do you mean by that?” Danitz felt as though he had been mocked.

Anderson spread his hands.

“I don’t mean anything. I’m merely using my brain to analyze.

“That island should exist, but it’s either the kind of place plenty of people around here know about, or news of it was deliberately leaked by someone.

“If it’s the former, Vice Admiral Ailment Tracy’s fleet absolutely cannot be hiding there. If it’s the latter, then that’s rather interesting. Who released the information?”

At first, Danitz was still a little angry, but gradually, he followed Anderson’s train of thought and began analyzing the matter himself.

“A trap set by some pirates or adventurers? But an island without resources can’t lure people into exploring it.

“Vice Admiral Ailment herself? To find out who has been investigating her whereabouts?”

Anderson smiled.

“Not bad. After my teaching, you’ve improved quite a bit. Otherwise, I’d suspect that even after drinking the Conspirer potion, your brain still wouldn’t improve. You’d only mutate some ability that makes enemies dumber, drags them into your familiar field, and then defeats them there.

“Those words aren’t mine. They’re from Emperor Roselle.”

During this period of gathering materials, Anderson had already helped Danitz obtain one main ingredient and almost all the supplementary ingredients for the Conspirer potion. Only the final step remained.

“I suspect you already have an ability like that…” Danitz muttered under his breath in reply.

Anderson ignored him and continued on his own. “If Vice Admiral Ailment herself had someone release the information, then that hidden island must be a trap. Perhaps there’s nothing there at all—only mirrors monitoring ships and people that approach the island. Or perhaps it really is, as Gehrman Sparrow said, an important stronghold of the Demoness Sect.”

“Then what do we do next?” Danitz asked subconsciously.

Anderson gave a heh.

“You can’t even think of something this simple?

“Whoever you heard this information from—we go find that person, figure out where his intelligence came from, and keep tracing it layer by layer. Eventually, we’ll discover something.”

That’s right… Danitz had originally wanted to nod in agreement, but when the words reached his lips, they became only a “heh.”

Close to dawn, on the second floor of a casino.

Buzz, the brown-haired man, yawned as he walked into his room.

Before he could use the moonlight outside the window to light a candle, he suddenly saw a blazing white flame flare up before his eyes, bright enough to leave him unable to see for a short time.

Buzz’s heart tightened. He threw himself to the side and rolled across the floor.

He had only rolled twice when his movements came to an abrupt halt, as though someone had used petrification on him.

That was because an icy chill and faint stabbing pain had come from his neck. It left him with no doubt that if he moved even a little farther forward, his blood would spray onto the ceiling.

“What do you want?” By then, Buzz’s vision had recovered. He saw a blond man beside him, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a pitch-black dagger, while near the window stood someone in a black cloak whose hood covered most of his face.

Danitz did not answer Buzz’s question. Instead, he looked at Anderson with visible surprise and said, “Why didn’t you disguise yourself?”

“If I’m disguised, how will others know who to hate?” Anderson answered with utter indifference.

“…” Danitz exhaled. “Thank goodness I haven’t been infected by that rotten habit of yours.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Anderson smiled. “If you grab anyone on Celos Island and ask, they’ll know who I’ve been hanging around with during this period.”

“Shit!” Danitz cursed without thinking.

Buzz, whose neck was held down by Anderson’s dagger, dared not move. He could only listen quietly from the side, feeling as though he had returned to Trier and was watching a farce.

What exactly are these two here to do…? The information broker sank into deep confusion.

At that moment, Anderson withdrew his gaze, looked down at Buzz, and asked, “Who told you about that hidden island southwest of here, away from the main sea routes?”

Buzz suddenly understood. He looked toward Danitz by the window.

“It was you!”

In the past few days, he had sold that intelligence to only one person.

…He recognized me that quickly? For a moment, Danitz had no idea how to respond.

Anderson pressed the pitch-black dagger in his hand slightly lower, making the sting sharper and clearer.

“Please respect the order of events.”

Buzz instantly felt as though his life were draining away at high speed. He hurriedly answered, “It was—It was Vice Admiral Ailment!”

“When did she tell you? Why did she tell you?” Anderson continued, not surprised at all.

“The night before the Black Death left Celos Island,” Buzz answered extremely quickly, terrified that he would die from excessive blood loss. “I didn’t ask her why. At the time, all I cared about was admiring her beauty. She truly lives up to being the famous Maiden of Ailment of the Five Seas…”

Even after so much time, and even while recalling it under such extreme danger, Buzz still could not hide his admiration.

“Is this the charm of a demoness?” Anderson muttered to himself, then asked, “Do you have any way to contact her?”

“No.” Buzz shook his head rapidly. “She told me to remember everyone who came to ask about her whereabouts, then tell her when she returned to Celos Island. And if anyone obtained the intelligence about that hidden island and actually left port for it, I should simply let them go.”

“So that’s how it is… very reasonable.” Anderson nodded and withdrew the pitch-black dagger. “Is that place a trap?”

“I don’t know either,” Buzz answered frankly.

Anderson said nothing. He searched Buzz’s body and room for money, then pointed the dagger at the information broker.

“I’d originally wanted to kill you, but then there’d be no one left to hate me.

“Live well. Curse me a few more times every day.”

He immediately turned around, walked to Danitz’s side, and jumped out the window with him, disappearing into the dark night without streetlamps.

Buzz touched his neck, where blood had seeped out. With lingering fear, he stood, rushed to the window, and confirmed that the two men from earlier were already gone.

“Good thing I ran into that kind of mentally abnormal fellow. Otherwise, I’d definitely be dead today…” He shut the window, locked the wooden door, carefully checked the room, and finally sat down, gulping nearly half a bottle of Lelang Qi.

Fueled by the alcohol, Buzz collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep just like that.

Time passed, minute by minute, slowly reaching three in the morning.

Suddenly, Buzz turned over and sat up. His eyes were bright and alert, without the slightest hint of drunkenness.

He found a dagger, pried open a wooden floorboard in the room, and took out a paper ball the size of a thumb.

Layer after layer of white paper unfolded, revealing a clump of thick, paste-like black substance in the middle.

Buzz took about a quarter of it, walked to the room’s mirror, and was about to smear the substance onto the surface.

At that very moment, he saw two figures reflected in the mirror. One wore a white shirt and black waistcoat, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a dagger. The other was draped in a deep cloak, his face unseen.

“…” Buzz’s pupils had only just begun to dilate when Danitz punched him in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious on the spot.

And the last thing he remembered was a voice speaking with a smile:

“He truly didn’t disappoint.”

After dealing with Buzz, Danitz bent down to pick up the paste-like black substance that had fallen to the floor and said with a heh, “He actually believed it. He really believed you didn’t kill him because you wanted him to hate you.”

The earlier conversation between him and Anderson had actually been a rehearsed play. Its purpose was to make Anderson’s decision to spare Buzz seem reasonable and not suspicious.

“That means you acted well enough,” Anderson said with a smile. “Playing yourself really is different.”

“Shit!” Danitz cursed without restraint.

Then he sighed with feeling.

“I didn’t expect him to be so patient. He waited until deep into the night before taking action. And we were even more patient.”

“If a hunter wants to capture prey, he must have enough patience. Sometimes, waiting for several days is acceptable.” Anderson answered casually.

For the two of them, there truly was no other choice. Whether Hunter, Provoker, Pyromaniac, or Reaper, none of those pathways were good at spirit channeling, much less abilities like hypnosis. If they wanted to obtain information, aside from crude methods like interrogation and threats, their only option was to work hard at “conspiracies.”

That sentence makes a lot of sense, but from now on, it will become something I use to lecture others… Danitz looked at the paste-like black substance in his hand and said, “Looks like it’s meant to be smeared on a mirror… and then it can contact Vice Admiral Ailment?”

“That should be it. But even if you contact her, what use is it? Invite her to Celos Island to share breakfast?” Anderson mocked.

Danitz also knew that neither he nor Anderson could affect the person on the other side of the mirror. He merely instinctively wanted to do a little more, to complete Gehrman Sparrow’s task a little better.

He frowned slightly.

“Then what next?”

“Contact Gehrman Sparrow, of course. Hand the follow-up to him. That guy is mysterious in every aspect. He should have a way to resolve it.” Anderson clicked his tongue. “Besides, the task he gave us was to track Vice Admiral Ailment’s whereabouts. We’ve already obtained a result.”

Danitz gave an “Mm,” then began taking out candles and other ritual materials.

“What are you doing?” Anderson asked, his expression turning a little strange.

Without looking back, Danitz arranged the altar and answered, “Summoning Gehrman Sparrow’s messenger.”

“…” Anderson fell silent for several seconds before saying, “I’ll go out for a smoke first.”