Chương 646: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Sixty-Five

The essence of spycraft, as Beth had learned a long time ago and was having reinforced again, was waiting. Even now, as they were following someone around, they were basically waiting for something interesting to happen. And that was going to be a long wait, considering the kind of winding, dodging route the second runner was taken, though runner was a bit of a stretch.

Faster ambler would have been a bit of a stretch, given the man's pace, and it led to a couple 'chase,' wherein Beth and Sera idly strolled together down the streets while Bjorn mirrored them some blocks in the distance and Blood tried to keep ahead of their target. Val had checked the bar where the hand-off was made and had determined, through some method Beth didn't ask about, that the woman didn't have the note from the dead drop anymore and it wasn't in the building.

She had moved to rejoin them, though Beth had her wait at certain positions rather than wander around, trying not to have too many people tracking one target. Honestly, she didn't know if that made any difference, as they really weren't all that great at this spy stuff, but their stats and skills could make up for a lack of, well, skill, to a certain extent. Finally, after several hours of walking and following, the whole thing wrapped up in a stunningly boring way as Beth observed the man drop the letter off.

He didn't hand it to their target, of course, as that would be far too easy and simple for such an operation and such a boring day. Instead, he dropped in another dead drop, or just a mailbox, whatever the terminology should be at this point. That meant that they were back to watching waiting, not even having the pleasure of walking around during their activities.

Beth and Sera took up post in an old building three blocks away that had nothing in the top floor, the third floor, and Beth monitored the area around the dead drop. Bjorn found a bar to drink at, which might have been unprofessional, but Bjorn could drink everything in that bar and not even get tipsy. He was just so massive, with such high Endurance and so many powerful defensive skills, that even passively, he wasn't affected by even powerful alcohol.

Blood and Val both preferred to keep moving, and did so, and they all waited as Beth monitored the place where their note had been dropped. Beth was hoping the person they were looking for would come and pick up the note themselves, which would make everything much easier, but she was assuming that someone so cautious would have another messenger pick the note up. What she wasn't assuming, and what really surprised them all, was when a man stepped out of the shadows in the room Beth and Sera were sitting in.

The two had deployed some furniture from their storage spaces, not trusting the couple old, dusty pieces that were in the room they had chosen. Beth had felt the mana stirring right before the man appeared, and she wasn't taken by surprise, though she was on guard. She wasn't panicking, however, considering that the only way someone like this could really threaten her was if there were at the peak of Ascended or beyond, and she highly doubted this guy was anywhere near that level.

She didn't get the sense that he was all that powerful after he appeared, though someone with his kind of… specific skill set would very likely have ways to hide their power and presence from others. Just his ability to step seamlessly through shadows was already rather impressive, especially since he had made practically zero disturbance while doing it.

"Can I ask why you're looking for me?" the man asked in a surprisingly smooth voice. Beth couldn't help it, but his tone and sound gave her the impression of a posh butler rather than an assassin, assuming this even was the person they were looking for.

"CRA," Beth replied with a shrug, holding up an empty hand, palm out, and having her Emblem materialize in it, which the man had no problem seeing in the dim light. After he had a chance to look at it, Beth made it disappear again before saying, "We're here to investigate a few disappearances. Disappearances, it turns out, that were likely all murders, murders by a certain individual that seems to be playing the part of an assassin.

I'm wondering if you have any information about this case or know anything about that?"

"I might have some relevant information," the man said, folding his hands behind his back and assuming a loose stance.

"What is it you want to know?"

"First of all, do you have any kind of license or decree for your work?" Beth asked, shifting her position in her chair slightly but remaining seated.

"Not that the CRA always acknowledges the validity, but I do have license documents from the Hushed Hand," he said calmly, bringing a hand forward and making papers appear with a twist of the wrist. He levitated the papers to Beth, using some kind of mana she didn't immediately recognize, but it wasn't too hard to narrow down what someone like him, who had already demonstrated knowledge of things like shadow mana, was using.

"How much do you know of the Hushed Hand?" Beth asked Sera as she grabbed the papers and looked through them.

"Semi-legitimate organization that licenses assassins," Sera said, the man grunting when she had said it was 'semi-legitimate.' Sera continued, "They operate out of a known headquarters and have a few branches, including one on Arbitus Prime itself, but they're not officially recognized by anyone."

"So it always goes," the man said calmly in response to Sera.

"Well, aside from the dubious nature of your licensing, what exactly brings you to this kind of backwater, Mr. Reed?" Beth asked, calling the man by the last name written on the paperwork.

"I have some business to take care of here," he said, holding up a hand right away.

"Sorry, that came out slightly wrong. I have some other business, apart from my usual trade, that I need to handle here. Sadly, it hasn't been as easy as I had hoped at first, but that has been a sort of blessing. There's plenty of criminal activity here, and I'm not just talking about the actual 'criminals,' which gives me a whole field of opportunities in mine line of work. I've been careful about what contracts I take, as well, considering the rules of the Hushed Hand and are agreements with the CRA."

"You've followed all the procedures on target assurance?" Sera asked as Beth was finished going over the couple papers.

"That's right. I have documents I've kept on all the jobs, if you would like to see them," he replied. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"We would, thank you," Beth said, casually levitating the papers back to the man with a slight manipulation of spatial mana, which he seemed to find suitably impressive, though it was hard to read his expressions and body language.

"One moment," he said, returning his license papers to whatever storage item or power he had before focusing for a moment. Some people had a little more trouble keeping storage spaces organized and mentally sorting through them; not something Beth had any experience with, but she knew it was a possibility. Nobody on her team needed time to dig through their items or powers, which she supposed just pointed to them all being a certain level of competence with a wide variety of tasks and abilities.

"Here it is. This folder contains the basics of every job I've taken so far. I have a small folder for each individual job if the outlines are insufficient."

"Let's go over this," Beth said with a sigh, making a table appear in front of her and snapping her fingers, making the rest of the team appear in the room.

"Didn't pay my tab," Bjorn grunted, putting his beer down and standing before frowning. The doors weren't exactly titan-sized in the building and Beth returned him to the bar with a snap before summoning him back a moment later when he said he was ready. The whole place creaked a bit under his weight, but Bjorn was used to being a massive man in small spaces and moved quite carefully because of that.

"This is our target, or supposedly is our target," Beth said as the others sat or even lay down, in Blood's case.

"He's a licensed killer, as these things go, and has kept files for every job he's done. Time to review them."

"This is going to suck," Val muttered, though everyone in the room could easily hear her. The team got to work, rapidly scanning through the files to see if anything stood out. The whole thing was pretty strange to Beth, but considering how the Hushed Hand worked, the CRA gave them a certain amount of leniency, or so the CRA files she had access to claimed. It was still a judgment call on their part in what to do with or about an assassin that they had tracked down.

Beth could give him a pardon or semi-officially sanction the work he had done so far, or she could decide that she didn't like what she was seeing and take exception to it. It was all on a whim, really, and she could simply decide she didn't like the cut of his jib and decide to arrest him. Considering he was a Hushed Hand member, they would have to arrest him, or try to do so, first before the situation devolved any further.

If he had been unlicensed or hadn't claimed an affiliation, they would have been justified in any response, but the sort of backhand deal they had with the Hand meant they needed to show some slight leniency. If there was nothing else she could say about the man and his work, he did at least keep meticulous records. Even the simple file that he had handed over with summaries of every job he had done so far on this planet was neat and orderly.

Each of the three page summaries was done in a meticulous hand, following the same format, with careful attention paid to even the smallest detail. There wasn't a full breakdown of all aspects of every job, but Beth had to admit she was impressed; if just his summaries were this well-kept and detailed, she couldn't imagine what his full reports were like. In fact, it might be a good idea to compare one of them, if he was willing; assassins could be touchy about revealing all the details of their work.

"This case, the one from a month ago; a John Parson," Beth said. At his not, she continued, "Do you have the full file for that on you? I would like to compare to the full file and see the exact detail."

"Hmm, Parson," the man thought, pulling out four folders after a moment and looking at them. He put the other three away after a quick glance before quickly paging through the one he had kept out.

"No, I don't see a problem. The details are all recorded in here, and there's nothing about the job that I might want to claim privilege on."

"Lawyers and assassins, all the same type," Sera said, sounding like she was quoting something.

"Yes, yes, how droll," Mr. Reed said as he passed the file to Beth. Beth took it and started paging through it, finding it just as meticulous and detailed as the summaries had been. Parson's had been a bit of an unusual case, which is the reason she had selected it out of the, frankly, too long list of jobs he had done in the last year.

John Parson had been a mason, a bricklayer that worked in a city in the slightly more temperate equatorial band of the planet, often using his skills to repair buildings and do routine maintenance. There wasn't a massive demand for new constructions currently, so a lot of people in a profession that normally dealt with building were occupied by repairs and renovations. Parson had, from a quick glance, looked like a pretty ordinary guy; no wife, though he did have a long-term girlfriend.

No children, and no plans for any from what it appeared, but plenty of friends and coworkers, many of whom clocked him as an ordinary guy. John, was not, however, just an 'ordinary' guy, not by a long shot. His girlfriend had reported on his activities twice before she had mysteriously disappeared, and it was only after Mr. Reed had taken on the case that she was found, or what was left of her. Turns out, the old, steady Mr.

Parson had a bit of a penchant for heavy drinking and rather excessive force with anyone and everyone. On top of that, he often got into trouble in an underground fighting ring; Beth had to do a double-take on reading that one, as that wasn't something she had expected in such a relatively simple case. The more she read, both of Mr. Reed's report, and of the information the CRA and local law enforcement had pieced together, the more she developed a deep dislike for John Parson.

He was, if it was not clear enough, an abusive drunk who had no problem attacking and beating just about anyone, though he had done a fairly remarkable job of being a functioning alcoholic. His friends and coworkers hadn't seemed to understand just who he was, and he seemed to keep it that way.

"All this is confirmed?" Beth asked after reading through the whole file, glancing at Mr. Reed.

"It's been verified by local law enforcement, though I haven't directly with them, as you might imagine," Mr. Reed said, nodding calmly. Mr. Reed had thoroughly investigated John Parson before acting on the job he had received, something Beth could really appreciate. That led to all the information that the filed contained, including what Mr. Reed, no stranger to killing himself, had pieced together about the three murders John Parson had been involved in.

Considering the various case files in the summary, while Beth wasn't going to be calling Mr. Reed an angel any time soon, it seemed he only took jobs targeting shadier individuals or those with provable misdeeds in the present. The kind of people that, especially when their more secretive activities came to light, really wouldn't be missed all that much, certainly not by society at large.

"I'm in a bit of a difficult position here, Mr. Reed," Beth finally said with a sigh.

"We've got a job to do, which is stopping the string of disappearances and suspected murders around here, so I'm not sure what to do about you. Can we leave you off with a warning and trust you not to continue? How should we proceed here?"

"I'm more than happy to curtail my efforts here," Mr. Reed replied calmly.

"As I said, I'm here on business, business that doesn't involve my typical line of work. As with many, I saw no reason to not also put in some time and make some coin while I had the downtime, though it's not necessary that I be working my main profession. I can pull back from any contracts for the remainder of my time here." Beth glanced at the others before looking back at him and saying, "Tell you what. Do two things for me and I'll file this report in a delicate enough way that we all get away with it."

"I'd be happy to help," Mr. Reed said, not being obsequious, but clearly understanding which way the wind was blowing.

"Give me a copy of your full case files, just for this planet, that's number one," Beth said, holding up a finger. Then, holding up a second finger, she said, "Give me a token or something that I can call in a favor from you later. Not for free, mind you, but that I can contact you and get priority on a job."

"Well, that's easy enough," he said. He pulled out a stack of folders and sorted through them quickly, returning some to his storage space. He then made a copy of the stack somehow in an instant, which was quite a handy clerical skill to have, and then floated the copies to Beth. He made the originals disappear and pulled out a coin, flicking it to Beth.

"That's a token the Hand uses for priority jobs. They're linked to individuals; you can use it to contact me."

"Excellent," said Beth, pocketing the coin.

"Keep your nose clean the rest of the time your on this world, and we won't have any problems."

"Easily done," Mr. Reed said, bowing once before disappearing into shadows.