Chapter 26

After finishing their conversation, Anthony left Helen's house and headed for his car. He then realized that he had no idea where the kids went and he would have to find them, hoping they went for the targets in the order they were written down.

Previously, he could have found them by simply rolling down the window of his car and listening, but now that wasn't possible. While he was happy about the dampening of his senses, he had to admit that his old ability was quite convenient to have.

Without much direction he started driving towards the first target on the list. He was almost there when he almost ran off the road due to a rude intrusion in his field of view.

[Your attributes have increased due to the actions of Peter Williams.]

The curses that followed could be heard outside the sound proofed car. Anthony stopped for a while to calm down before continuing to drive towards his destination, where he found a slightly bloodied Manda and a paler than usual Peter.

The three of them tied up the passed out cannibal before throwing him in the back of the car and heading for their next target. They decided to do one more just so Anthony could try out his new abilities.

The car was parked a few blocks away from their destination so they could do a trial of Anthony's abilities. The first one was the shadow body he got from Peter. It worked a little less effectively than the original user's, most likely because Peter had experience using it and was slowly learning to do so without the assistance of the interface.

The second was the bone armory, which was unique to him according to Sarah. Activating the ability resulted in a shield made out of bones appearing in Anthony's left hand. Some experimenting later, he also managed to create a short sword, but he couldn't make any other type of equipment no matter how much he tried.

As it turned out, their experimenting session ended up being loud enough to alert the target who made the questionable decision of fighting his attackers head-on. The only advantage he got from doing so was that the usual sneak attack wouldn't work.

[Entity class 4]

[Abilities: Strength enhancement, Agility enhancement]

Anthony started to fight with only a shield, since the goal was to capture the man and not to skewer him. It was a good opportunity for him to adjust to his lowered strength and test the effectiveness of his magical equipment.

As it turned out, Anthony wasn't a great fighter. Previously he was too strong to get any meaningful practice and it really showed. Thankfully he was not only immortal, but also able to shrug off most of the hits he received, only receiving a few bruises that were healing at a visible speed.

The shield was also underwhelming, breaking after only a few hits. While it was easy to reconstruct, it was hard to do so in the middle of a fight. The altercation quickly turned into a battle of attrition, which ended with Anthony hitting the target over the head with a half broken bone shield, knocking him out and letting Peter do his thing.

[Successfully absorbed class 4 performance blessing.]

[Result: STR +0.1, AGI +0.1, MGC +0.04, EXP +40]

Afterwards, the two detained men and Manda were dropped off at Helen's house while the father and son duo headed home to let the poisoned Peter recover. Before going inside, they agreed that they would continue hunting people for the Green dragons, mostly because it was the fastest way for them to get power and also because Peter was still concerned about earning money.

They were paid immediately and it was four times more than the two target's official bounties put together. Combined with the fact that they got a lot more detailed descriptions than what the proper channels provided, it was too good of a proposition to pass up.

At home Sarah was in the middle of a workout session. Peter joined her, in spite of the horrible state he was in, since he was not too far from the previously neglected milestones.

[Achievement unlocked: Strength training 3/5]

[Achievement unlocked: Agility training 3/5]

[Total Rewards: STR +0.2, AGI +0.2]

James on the other hand had a troubled expression despite seemingly getting over his brother's death. He showed Anthony a recording he made of the day's news, where his death was announced, on the channel he was working for.

The man in question could do nothing but laugh. This made it obvious that basically everyone knew about the attempt on his life and in a surprisingly amateur move, they interpreted him missing a single day of work as the assassination being a success.

It really was laughable and Anthony couldn't wait to see the expression on everyone's faces when he turned up the on next day of work, alive and well. He even considered going there without a shirt, making the hole in his chest visible, just to mess with them.

In the end he did go to work properly but with a prewritten resignation letter in his hand and fully prepared to get into a conflict.