35 Finding Out

Several minutes earlier, in a gambling den at Crescent Town.

"Damn it! Lost again!", Marco angrily said while throwing down his cards on the table.

He unstably stood up from the game table, while burping from time to time. It was obvious that he was drunk.

He already lost all the money that he had to gamble with, so he might as well leave. However, before he could do so, two muscular men blocked his way.

"The boss wants to talk to you.", one of the men said.

"I want to go home, how about I'll meet him tomorrow instead?", Marco asked.

"You have already said that a lot of times.", one of the men answered.

"Alright alright, I'll go with the both of you!", Marco angrily snorted.

The men didn't seem bothered by his enraged tone and just escorted Marco towards a private room.

One of the men knocked on a door and said, "Sir, we brought Mr. Morgan with us."

"Good... good. You can let him in.", a voice said from behind the door.

One of the men opened the door and pushed Marco in, while they stayed on the outside.

-click-

The door closed behind Marco, and he saw a beautiful room lit with candles. The atmosphere of the room was very relaxing, with the color harmony of the paint of the walls and the furnitures, one could start sleeping in a short time.

"So then, Mr. Morgan, do you know how large of a debt do you have to our group?", a man sitting on the sofa asked.

"I don't know... but I'll pay.", Marco answered.

The man couldn't help but laugh, "You don't know but you'll pay?! Hahaha..."

After laughing for a while, the man composed himself and continued, "But you lost, yet again. Plus, you've already said that you'll pay two times. Now, this is the third time you said it!"

"I will definitely pay when my son comes back home.", Marco immediately said.

"Hmph! Get out!", the man angrily said.

Marco didn't dare stay too long and got out as soon as he can and left the gambling den in a haste.

The man on the sofa sighed and said to the two men outside, "Bring the 'Punisher Group' with you and kill him."

"Yes sir.", the two muscular men then left the area.

The man lit up his tobacco pipe and muttered, "Useless people must be eliminated."

***

Night covered the sky...

Unusually, the mayor suddenly canceled the curfew on the town, so there were a lot of people on the streets that night.

Of course, there were still some units of town guards patrolling, which prevented chaos from taking place during the night.

Marco turned at a street, unknown to him, there was0 a pair of eyes watching him.

"Father, what kind trouble have you gotten into now?", the figure wearing dark clothes was none other than Allen.

After keeping an eye on Marco for awhile, he noticed a group of people approaching him from different directions from the building he was on.

In fact, he even saw one of them hiding a dagger under his sleeves.

"They want to kill him?", Allen was surprised. "Did father offend somebody?" However, there was no time to ask that question, because Marco has already noticed that somebody was following him and started to run away.

Unluckily for Marco, he entered a street where there was no other people nor guards nearby, and was hit by a tranquilizing dart.

Still, Marco got to run away as fast as he can; albeit a bit slower this time after he felt that he was getting tired.

"You're not getting away!", before a muscular man was about to hit Marco with his short sword. A black silhouette went to his front and blocked the slash with a dagger.

The man made a few steps backwards after his attack was blocked. And from the distance, he saw Marco getting away and into the nearest wilderness and out of the town.

"Damn it! He got away.", the muscular man then angrily looked at Allen. "Who are you?!"

He couldn't see Allen's face as the latter was wearing a mask.

Afterwards, some of the members of the group entered the street and saw the big man looking at Allen.

Allen noticed that there were other people who entered the street and immediately ran away; however, the path to his back was also blocked by the rest of the group.

He also wanted to escape through the roofs, but there were two people guarding the roofs too. Without the Erchian Dagger and just relying onto his skills and his improved body, he could easily beat all of them, but not at the same time!

The group was about to get to him when Allen ran towards a dark alley. Nevertheless, those people even followed him!

"He's not getting away, he won't be able to find all of us!"

"Damn it, whoever that little person is, he's in big trouble!"

When all of them reached a dead end, the moon hid behind the clouds, making the location even darker.

Suddenly, they all noticed that two silhouettes fell from atop a building and towards their location. They saw that it was two of their members who were suppose to shoot the darts from the roof!

The group below all noticed that blood flowed out of their necks, and their expressions were very tranquil, meaning, they died without knowing how they did so!

-whoosh-

"Gahh...!", then they heard a painful shout, and noticed one of their men was slashed through his throat, blood flowed out of his neck.

-whoosh-

"Gahh...!", another one was slashed on his throat.

-whoosh-

"Gahh...!"

-whoosh-

The men died one by one, each survivor felt despair looming on himself, until there was only one person left.

That person's knees felt onto the ground and even tried to kill himself with his short sword. However, a shadow appeared right in front of him and disarmed him in an instant. Moreover, it rushed behind him and pointed a dagger on his neck.

"P... please don't kill me!", the man begged.

"Don't worry I won't, if you tell me who was the one who commanded to kill that man earlier!", Allen said, the tone of his voice on the latter part of the sentence was a bit angry. They tried to kill his father! What would happen if he haven't return last night? His father would've been killed already.

"Y-you won't kill me?", the man asked.

"Stop asking and start talking!", Allen angrily shouted and let the tip of the dagger bleed the man's neck.

"Stop! I will talk!", the man was frightened and said everything he knew, including about the location of the gambling den.

"There, I already told you everything I know, please, don't kill me!", the man begged again.

Allen didn't answer back and just used the handle of the dagger to knock the man out. Even though he was angry, he still didn't want to kill, he only killed the people earlier to scare the man onto cooperating with him.

The kid slightly calmed himself down and looked around him, unusually, he even felt a slight guilt for killing all the men that intercepted his father.

"That gambling den... is in big trouble!" Nevertheless, his guilt was overshadowed by anger and it seeped into his bones as he said those words.

***

Meanwhile, at the Three Heads Tavern...

-clang- -clang-

Sounds of metal hitting each other as Kate and Drake were sparring on the ground floor with their daggers.

-sou-

"Come here you big coward!", Kate sent out a dagger flash with the normal needed amount of energy.

-sou-

"You come here flower girl!", Drake blocked Kate's dagger flash with his own, and the former charged forward towards the latter.

-whoosh-

Seeing Drake charged, Kate wasn't surprised and charged forward too.

-clang- -clang-

-tap- -tap- -tap-

Mr. Sanchez went downstairs and saw the two kids sparring each other.

When Kate and Drake noticed the tavern owner, the both of the immediately stopped sparring and greeted, "Master."

Mr. Sanchez nodded and said, "Where's Allen? I have to talk to him."

"He left early today, he looked like he was on a hurry.", Kate said.

"Hais, he didn't even get to eat." Drake said then sighed as he continued, "So I ate his share of meal."

"He was on a hurry?", Mr. Sanchez asked.

"Yes.", Drake and Kate both nodded.

"Continue your spar.", Mr. Sanchez said to the two kids and walked back upstairs towards his office room.

"It's happening faster than I thought it was.", Mr. Sanchez sat down on his chair and murmured.