I, who had murdered two men a few days ago, was now attempting to murder my third.
In the past four days, I had been to several bars and spent hours there sipping on alcohol while listening to people grumbling.
Every once in a while, I'd hear someone complaining about losing a pocket watch, or other rare times, something else of value. More than half the times, those thefts happened in the crowded areas around the Red Theatre.
This helped me pinpoint the exact nature of the thief, and also verify what I had divined using that lad's hair.
Finally, I was now hunting the man whose face I had confirmed with the drawing that was presented by the Second Mate, Allen Bower.
I didn't even need to really look at his face to confirm it, just his nose was enough.
It was too big to be called a nose. Massive, thick, long, wide, and far-reaching... indeed, it was a heap of raw cartilage. For a moment, I had to double take, and make sure that our dear boy Freddy wasn't a Faceless, or a Rose Bishop morphing his nose to look that way. I didn't even know if Rose Bishops could do that.
If he were to eat out a woman, would his nose automatically stimulate the clit with every breath...?
As the crazy thoughts passed through my head, I chased after injured the Freddy from the street sides that were hidden in darkness and shadows.
I had guessed his plan the moment he'd turned into the narrow street. Not giving him any chance, I used all my spirituality to overtake him, who was injured and greatly slowed down by those injuries.
I threw out my three poisoned needles one by one, two of which were dodged by dear boy Freddy, who had been a beyonder for about a month, and was far in tune with his potion than me. But the third needle had hit him right on the nose, literally.
Freddy grunted in pain as he pulled out the needle from his nose's cartilage, and threw it on the ground.
He then took out two knives from his pockets, and threw them right in the direction the needle had come from, and kept running towards the police station.
I had already moved away from the point that Freddy targeted with his knives, and took a leap across the streets. The next moment, dark shadows squirmed in Freddy's way, as a man in a brown jacket, brown pants, and a brown hat appeared. The man hurled a knife at him, which Freddy barely dodged, resulting in it grazing past his right thigh.
Knowing the kind of peril he was in, Freddy gave up on any thoughts of running to the police station. If he was going to die, then he was going to make sure that his assailant would have no easy time escaping afterwards.
"HELP M-"
Before Freddy could shout out another word, and cause a ruckus, I who made myself appear for the final action, and was prepared, used the Assassin's Mighty Blow; morphing my body, and leaping straight at him, I released all of my body's physical strength into that one blow.
My fist tore through Freddy's throat before he could shout out his second word.
Not wasting a moment of time, I held Freddy's body from falling, and using my superhuman strength as an Assassin, delivered him to the gate of the police station, and left a paper that had his address written on it, along with the words "Pocket Watch" in Loenese.
I took out a charm from my pocket, and threw it at Freddy's fallen body.
"Burn."
I chanted as Black Flames appeared all over him, and around him. They burned away all semblances of my remnant spirituality around him, that could be used to divine about me.
Retracing my steps, I went to the narrow street where I had fisted Freddy, and picked up my fallen needles and the knife. Then, I went back to his house, and picked up the two knives I had used there.
It was there, I noticed a particular drawer in his storage cabinet that was full of pocket watches.
Taking a moment to verify what I was seeing, I picked one of them out, and put it in my pocket.
I used another Black Flame charm there to burn away any of my remnant spirituality, and circled back through a different route to a tall building from where I could see the police station.
There were a few officers who were standing out at the open gate now, looking at the work I had done.
Seeing the results that I had hoped for, I ran away, circling through random streets towards the Amyris Leaf bar. There, in an ally, I found a cloth bag that had a change of clothes. Changing my clothes, I picked up the bag, and threw out a third charm at the clothes that I had used. Then, I lit them up on fire, and watched them burn. Once they'd become ashes, I traversed through the shadows to take a detour to a particular house.
From there, I went to the Wind of Azure inn via a roundabout route.
Once I reached my room, I laid down on the bed, and closed my eyes.
Another mission accomplished.
I sighed as I felt the Assassin potion inside me digest more than half. I, who had completed the act of punishing to the very end, and presented the result to an authority of justice, felt myself growing closer to the beyonder characteristic inside me.
"How many points did I get this time?"
I asked the System.
[Quite a bit. With your practice of gathering information over the past several days, you had gained about 15 points every day, and with today's task, you gained a total of 120 points. So your total is now 210 points.]
Since I had used only 120 of my original 150 to buy a Divination charm the last time, and was gaining 15 points for four days, my total was indeed at 210 points now. With this, I would be able to buy two Blazing Spear charms, which I would need when dealing with the Sequence 8 Marauder.
Of course, I had to find him first.
As for my Black Flame charms, they came from captain Tracy, who had made a point to tell me the dangers of divination and the importance of anti-divination.
I, who had already internalised the acting principles of the Assassin via the help of the system, found myself feeling slightly joyful at my progress. In a matter of five day, I had digested more than half of my potion. Albeit, half of the response came due to the System watching my every move, it was still quite a good rate of digestion.
Getting up from the bed, I picked up the bottle of Sonia Blood wine that had been kept in my room, along with a piece of sweet toast that was covered in honey and cream.
Even though the toast had stayed there for more than an hour, it tasted just as good as a freshly taken out one...
Indeed, it is the power of sugar and sweetness.