Zheng Yang realized that he had been overthinking things.
Ricky simply didn’t like the fact that Venar walking alongside him affected his “coolness.” So, he imagined having Zheng Yang by his side instead, and thought of how cool the three of them would look as they walked behind Rovni.
“Honestly, what are you doing here?” Feeling exasperated, Zheng Yang chose to just shoot straight instead.
Ricky remained silent for a bit and said, “Alright, I’m just here to confirm if you’re a metahuman.”
“What if I am, and what if I’m not?”
“Rovni thinks that you are! If you really are a metahuman, you’ll need to register with us and tell us what your powers are and at what level they are. This is so we can rule you out if someone did some bad paranormal things, and that we can work with you if necessary.”
“If I were to let others know the strength and traits of my powers, wouldn’t that make it easy for my enemies to act against me instead?” Zheng Yang thought.
Zheng Yang siphoned a bit of spirit power, then spun about for a bit like a top and slashed down on Ricky with his right hand acting as a blade. Ricky yelped and backed away half a step to evade the slash.
He then continued closing in on Ricky, bringing down a chop from above. Ricky crossed his hands before him and took the attack head on before leaping backwards for about two meters along with the force of the attack. Ricky then straightened his coat for a bit as he landed, spinning for a bit in a dashing fashion, before breaking out two shiny silver Dessert Eagles and pointing them at Zheng Yang.
Zheng Yang flicked his right hand and, as he locked eyes with Ricky, asked rather eagerly, “My specialty’s blade work. Does that make me a metahuman?”
Ricky hesitated for quite a bit before asking, “Is that all? You have the strength of three adults. With blades thrown in, you’d be as strong as five. But, unless you possess the ability to manipulate spirit power, you can’t be considered a metahuman.”
“So, manipulation of spirit power is the mark of a metahuman then?” Zheng Yang thought.
Zheng Yang shrugged and said, “Then I’m not a metahuman. What about you? Do you have superpowers?”
The question sounded rather crass, but he didn’t care. Given how the other party kept asking about his powers, he didn’t see why he couldn’t do the same.
Ricky toyed with his pistols for a bit before putting them away and answering in a rather awkward manner, “I’m a gunslinger. Technically speaking, I’m not a metahuman either. But, my guns and bullets have been alchemically enchanted, making them capable of taking on demons and other evil stuff out there. My job is related to the paranormal side of things, so you could say that I’m half-metahuman.”
Zheng Yang kept his gaze locked on Ricky. His gut feeling told him that Ricky was not telling the truth. Other than using enchanted firearms, the other man definitely had real superpowers too.
Both parties were only telling half-truths to each other.
However, Zheng Yang was intrigued by the enchanted pistols that Ricky used. He was able to see that Ricky kept them holstered at his hips when he wasn’t using them.
Ricky had no intention of talking more about his guns, so Zheng Yang asked, “Where can you buy guns and bullets like that?”
Ricky beat around the bush and said, “I assume this sailboat of yours is very expensive, no? I really envy you rich people. You lot can play with whatever you fancy after all.”
Zheng Yang’s lips twitched. “Sh**, if you can find five pounds on me and in my bank account, you win,” he thought.
Zheng Yang saw no point in wasting any more of his time. “Alright,” he said. “Have it your way. Get on with your business. I’ll be taking my leave.” After saying this, he left Ricky at the docks and returned to his boat.
Ricky watched Zheng Yang disappear into the boat’s cabin and flashed a grin. “Slick kid,” he thought. “I’ll have you show your true colors sooner or later.”
…
Night fell upon the English Harbor, and the moon in the sky was no longer as round as it had been several days ago. The city lights, however, remained bright enough to light up the harbor.
The streets of the harbor were lively. Other than the local residents, there were also merchants, workers on ships and boats, and sailors. The workers and sailors were especially eye-catching. They left the decks of their vessels and had a great time, enjoying a blissful life on land so as to get enough rest before returning to sea.
As a result, the harbor wasn’t actually all that quieter at night compared to the day. In fact, things actually looked even more dazzling at night than during the day.
The harbor was lively, with skimpily dressed girls everywhere, along with awfully drunk men.
Dancers were ramping up the mood with their saucy dance moves in a bar that was rather far away from the harbor, and there were all kinds of noises coming from inside.
However, there was a corner of the bar that seemed to be cut off from the rest of its surroundings. It was a corner where the noise outside was completely isolated, and the people around didn’t seem to even notice the corner’s existence. None of the patrons looked at the corner for more than a second.
Even if someone happened to bump into the place, they would subconsciously avoid it and leave before long.
There were three people talking in that corner.
“Desmond’s ritual worked, but something else happened.”
“So, he did a conversion ritual on himself too? I heard that he got himself a sacred body.”
“No, not that. I’ve looked into the whole thing. He only did a summoning ritual, summoning a demon to possess his dog. However, the dog mutated and became a source of corruption. He was infected with a mutated rabies virus, and when the infection broke out, he transformed into a werewolf, losing all capacity for reasoning and becoming incredibly bloodthirsty.”
“A demonized mutated virus, huh? That’s a werewolf body, no doubt about it. The so-called bloodline is something determined by genetics, no? The demonized mutated rabies virus would alter a normal human’s genes into those of a werewolf, completely in line with one of our theories of spirit conversion.”
“But, an infectious spirit conversion like that would cause a person to lose all capacity for reasoning after the transformation, making the infected a loose cannon.”
“…”
It was extremely noisy in the bar, but the corner itself remained extremely quiet, except for the sound of chatter, which went on for a very long time.
It wasn’t until the three of them were finished talking and one of them, a middle-aged bespectacled man dressed in an immaculate suit, thumped his stick on the ground for a bit, rescinding the formless barrier around them, that the noise of the bar flooded that corner. When the other people in the bar turned to look at the corner, they would no longer turn their eyes away subconsciously.
…
The streets became somewhat quieter past midnight. The “girls” left with their male customers after deciding on a price, while drunkards lay curled up on benches as they snored away.
The “girls” negotiated a price with the men asking for their services and left,
Desmond remained locked up in the basement of the Special Phenomena Bureau.
An uncontrollable, dangerous entity like him would be shipped off elsewhere as research material, even if he weren’t executed right away, his chances of getting released were next to none.
A mosquito flew into the SPB and slowly approached a strong guard dressed in black guarding the door. The bug then made a peculiar buzzing sound as it flew close to the guard, causing him to gradually relax. His eyelids drooped as he slowly opened the door with a dazed look on his face.
The mosquito left the door and searched deeper inside. The checkpoints were opened personally by the guards themselves, and the dungeon where Desmond was locked up became one smooth, unblocked passage.
Rovni was awakened by a phone call before the sun rose, and she made her way to the SPB as fast as she could.
Desmond was missing, and surveillance showed that it was the guards themselves who had opened the five doors leading to Desmond’s cell, releasing him. However, none of them remembered doing this. All they remembered was the buzzing of the mosquito. Everything else was a blank.