Chapter 86

Chapter 86: A Better Plan

Nina went out to school. Just like many times over the past years, she once again believed in her uncle’s promise, believed that Uncle would be waiting for her in the shop when she came home from school.

Or maybe she had long since stopped believing, but still stubbornly acted as if she did.

Duncan stood behind the display window on the first floor of the antique shop, watching Nina’s running figure as she turned quickly at the end of the street and disappeared from his sight.

Uncle Duncan would be waiting for her in the shop when she came home. He had promised.

“AI, come here.”

As the thought flashed through his mind, a stream of green flame suddenly swept through the air, and the pigeon appeared in front of Duncan.

The bird tilted its head and looked at its Master with its little bean-like eyes.

Through the connection formed by the fire of spirit form, Duncan could clearly sense the pigeon’s position and its state. Although he still could not fully share its five senses, this level of perception already let him do many things.

Duncan lowered his head and looked into AI’s small eyes: “You are actually very smart. You can understand everything I say, and you can do many things, right?”

The pigeon immediately flapped its wings proudly: “Loyal beyond words, loyal beyond words!”

“Then I have a bold idea I want you to try.” Duncan smiled, then took from his coat the Sun emblem that had now turned into a “cultist proximity alarm.”

He carefully wrapped the emblem in a cloth so it would not be exposed in front of ordinary people, then cautiously tied it to AI’s back with a strip of cloth.

The pigeon cooperated from beginning to end, even using its beak to help Duncan knot the strip. It seemed to understand completely what its Master wanted to do. Except for not being able to express its thoughts clearly, it was as smart as a person.

“Just fly around the city. When the emblem heats up, search for the place it resonates with, and try to narrow it down to a specific building,” Duncan told the pigeon carefully. “I will sense your position… Right, stay around the Lower City and the Crossroad District first. Don’t go to the Upper City. I’m not familiar with that area, and with only your position I won’t be able to tell the address.”

The pigeon flapped its wings and tilted its head: “Some fries?”

Duncan kept a straight face: “If you can locate even one, I can bury you in fries.”

Without another word, the pigeon flapped its wings and shot toward the door, as if afraid its Master would change his mind.

Duncan watched with a smile as the pigeon flew farther and farther into the sky. In his perception he clearly tracked the bird’s current position and the general state of its surroundings. Then he returned to the room, took a map of the city-state of Pland, and spread it on the counter. While looking at the map, he recalled the layout details of the Lower City in his mind and, through his perception, kept tracking AI, constantly confirming the bird’s position.

It turned out to be even easier than he had expected. The connection formed by the fire of spirit form was more stable than at the start. AI’s flight path in his mind was almost a clear, bright guiding line. With the help of the map and his memory, it was not hard at all to pinpoint the bird.

This was a good method.

Duncan let out a light breath and shifted into a comfortable position behind the counter. He had promised Nina he would not go out and “look for danger,” so of course he had to keep that promise.

But he could send the pigeon out to hunt while he stayed home writing denunciation letters…

Honestly, this was an even better plan. A pigeon that could fly was far more efficient at searching than him riding around the city in a carriage at random. Of course, there was a drawback: after finding a cultist’s lair, he would no longer be able to sneak in and gather information himself. He would only get the value of reporting them.

But Duncan did not care much about that small regret. Based on his experience at the last gathering, the cultists who could be found easily were basically a bunch of small fry at the bottom, running around gathering news. Their information value was limited from the start. And if AI really sensed some “big fish”… he had follow-up ways to scoop that big fish out alone.

After all, AI’s ability was not just flying around with a sensor on its back. Its main job was doing deliveries…

If he really found a big fish, he would have AI open a door on the spot and teleport the person onto the Vanished. His true body was on the ship, and there it would be even easier to question them slowly.

He also had not yet tried letting the pigeon teleport humans. He could not use innocent citizens for that kind of experiment, but those cult priests who had nothing better to do than kill people and dig out hearts were different.

When necessary, they could be “consumables.”

So Duncan leaned back in his chair, sensing AI’s position while he ran through his plan in his head, feeling more and more that it was perfect. He had already drafted his denunciation letters, interrogation outlines, and the capture and teleportation procedures. Now he only lacked a two-legged money bag known as a “Sun believer.”

The only thing left to consider in this whole plan was how he would explain it to Nina if his denunciation letters really worked and the authority later issued a reward—he had promised that young lady he would not go out “hunting.”

Duncan thought about it for a long time, then suddenly remembered something—

In this world that had already entered the industrial age, things like “banks” existed.

They were the inevitable result of the development of the economy and productivity, and also a necessary condition for it.

Although the banking system in this world was far less convenient and widespread than on Earth, it at least had basic account functions.

The city-states across the Boundless Sea had even built a circulating financial system between them on that basis. Although maintaining this system was far harder than on Earth, they had still created it.

The original master of this body had not done very well in life and had never opened an account in any city-state bank. That was quite normal in the Lower City. Usually, only respectable people from the Upper City reached the “level” where they dealt with banks. But the banks themselves were open to all citizens.

There was a bank in the Crossroad District.

Duncan made up his mind. He decided to go to the Crossroad District in a day or two and open his first bank account in this world. Then, if his activities in the human world expanded, money transfers would also become more convenient. And even if he did not think about the future, later when he wrote denunciation letters he could skip the part about leaving an address and just leave an account number.

Of course, whether this would actually work still needed to be tested when the time came. After all, the original master of this body did not have much experience dealing with the city-state’s security departments—or to be precise, not much positive experience. But Duncan still felt this approach was reasonable.

In a world that was not very safe, anonymous reports should be a normal choice for many enthusiastic citizens who wanted to be careful.

As for today… he decided to stay quietly inside the antique shop.

That was not only because he wanted to strictly keep his “agreement” with Nina. It was also because this was the first time he had let the pigeon fly so far away and then relied on the power of the spirit form fire to locate it. His lack of practice meant he had to focus especially hard, so he needed a stable environment.

Another reason was that he really ought to do business seriously for a day. Since the shop had come into his hands, it had not actually opened properly yet.

Duncan stretched and stood up from behind the counter. He walked slowly to the front door and hung the “Open for Business” sign outside.

He now had a few more plans and a new scheme. And the beginning of all this had only been an agreement he made with a seventeen-year-old young lady. It really was… an interesting experience.

…

Near the Crossroad District, inside a ruined abandoned factory, Church guardians in long black coats edged with silver had already set up a cordon around the area. Inquisitor Vanna, wearing light armor and carrying a divine blessing greatsword on her back, walked down the sloping staircase into the abandoned basement level of the factory, accompanied by two priests of the Deep Sea.

Everything here still stayed as it had been at the start. After the first group of guardians received the report and discovered this meeting place, they had sealed the scene until now.

In the large basement, the nauseating stench of blood was especially strong, mixed with the acrid smell left when fire scorched chemical substances. cultists’ bodies lay scattered all over the floor. But aside from the corpses of these Sun heretics, the investigators had found no trace of the “attacker” at the scene—no extra bodies, not even extra scraps of clothing.

Vanna frowned slightly.

This had been a one-sided crushing battle. The attacker had been far stronger than these cultists, who were mostly ordinary people. And things seemed to have happened so suddenly that a good number of these Sun heretics had been killed before they could even resist.

Who had done this?

Was it a rogue extraordinary with a personal grudge against these cultists? Another powerful heretical cult? Or some bloody sacrificial rite gone into a runaway state, where these death-seeking heretics had summoned from the deep layers a monster they could not control at all?

The young inquisitor fell into thought.