Finding Targets

"The mayor is alone now, G," muttered Valentine as he was following the tall, big man walking leisurely in the distance, "He must be confident there was nothing here that could threaten him," he added.

Valentine was observing Mayor Krammer carefully; from the way he walked, the way he spoke, and the way he behaved in general. Although Graham would get the knowledge about the mayor once he read someone's memory, Valentine wouldn't, so he needed to learn for himself. Besides, it didn't hurt to know their target better.

"He is going to get into that motor carriage. It doesn't look like a government-owned one," muttered Valentine.

The mayor was walking towards a plain-looking motor carriage that was stopping by the side of the road. There was already a driver there and the moment he saw the mayor approaching, he started the engine right away.

"Ready to go, Mr. Krammer?" asked the driver in a rather casual tone.

"Yes, Wiebe. Don't worry about those two. They'll be back on their own later," replied the mayor. His voice was much friendlier than when he was talking to the man and woman he caught.

Valentine, who was watching and listening from the distance, memorized the driver's name and looks.

"G, it seems that we have our first target," he muttered.

Vroom!

After closing the driver's window, he drove away with the mayor, leaving the Rosse Buurt behind.

"We have no other option now but to see what those bodyguards are doing," he said decisively.

Valentine quickly made his way back to the alley and saw the two bodyguards carrying a person each as if the people they were carrying were sick. The woman, who had been knocked unconscious, was lying on Lucas's arms with her clothes already on. The dead man with a twisted neck had his face 'fixed' and now looked like he was just sleeping. His body was covered by his shirt, including his neck that was beyond repair, while Danny was carrying him.

A motor carriage pulled over not long after and the two bodyguards placed the man and the woman inside it. The woman was laid carefully on the passengers' seats while the dead man was dropped on the foot space. Lucas hopped on to the front passenger seat, and the driver drove away at once, leaving Danny behind.

Not long after, another motor carriage pulled over and a person came out. Valentine, who was watching from behind a tree, was amazed by how efficiently and fast the mayor's people worked.

"They sure do respond to his commands quickly," he muttered.

The person who had just come out of the motor carriage was a woman who was wearing a tight, yellow dress and a black coat over it. Her black hair was tied up and there were big, round glasses on her face.

People in the street had been walking past or pretending like they didn't see anything except for a handful who seem genuinely curious. Those curious ones were watching from a distance, but with a glance from Danny through his sunglasses, they felt immediately intimidated and moved along.

"The mayor's faction does hold a tremendous power here it seems," analyzed Valentine.

The woman who had just come walked into the alley and then slit her palm using her sharp nail. The blood that came out of the wound was dropped onto the paved ground as she was muttering something, which was very clear to Valentine.

She was placing anti-divination in the area!

Valentine watched carefully where her blood was dropped with the intention of wiping it clean later, otherwise, Graham wouldn't be able to use divination to find out more about what had just happened.

Once the woman was done, she and Danny went back to the motor carriage and the driver, who was waiting inside, hit the gas and left the street.

Finally, peace came back to the steamy street. People who had seen the accident pretended they didn't see anything, but Valentine could still hear chattering about in nonetheless, especially since people in the city tended to speak loudly. He perked up his ear and tried to listen in to their conversations.

"It's the mayor again, isn't it? He's really scary,"

"As long as you don't commit a crime or go against him, you should be okay. Isn't that what matters?"

"Yes. It's those people's fault for committing a crime, whatever it was. They deserve all the punishment!"

"That's true. The mayor only did it for the sake of his people!"

The chattering quickly derailed into chants of praises for the mayor, so Valentine just ignored it. He walked sneakily back into the alley and looked around carefully to find the bloodstain that was used as a medium for anti-divination. It didn't take him long because the woman didn't actually bother hiding it for some reason. She must have been sure that no one would bother cleaning something that tiny.

On the ground near a stack of wooden boxes, there was a red dot the size of a small seed. If he hadn't seen where the woman had been standing, Valentine wouldn't have found it as easily. The bloodstain had dried up and it would be impossible to just wipe it clean, so he had to rely on Order that was stored in Purloin, the belt.

Valentine looked around for a kind of combustible surface and found an old piece of paper lying nearby. He then squatted near the bloodstain with the piece of paper next to it.

"I order the bloodstain on the ground to transfer to this paper!"

The pattern on the belt that he was wearing emitted a faint glow as the tiny red stain began liquifying and then magically squirmed like it was alive towards the old piece of paper. Once he was sure there was none left on the ground, he got up and moved away from the area, where he burned the paper and spread the ashes on the gutter. With that, the anti-divination on the area should have been lifted.

"Now let's go back to the hotel and you do your part, G," muttered Valentine.

Valentine began walking away from Grotstraat with the help of the map that Graham had drawn in the notebook. He walked south, in the direction of his hotel, and after walking for quite some time, his surroundings finally changed. The steamy hotels and red glass windows were gradually replaced by valleys to his right and restaurants to his left. He could even smell the fragrance of the food they were selling.

After making sure he was far enough, Valentine went into another alley and undid all his Concealments. He then walked into one of the restaurants to order a takeaway before going back to the street to stop a public motor carriage.

The motor carriage that he was riding in arrived after a while. After paying, he got out and checked his watch. It was already almost three in the afternoon, and he was very hungry. Carrying the bag of food in his right hand, he quickly went into the hotel.

"Welcome back, Mr. Hymes!" greeted Stefan warmly from behind the reception desk.

"Hi, Stefan," replied Valentine shortly, and then walked up the stairs quickly. He wanted to get a taste of his food as soon as he could before it got cold, and thanks to the cold temperature of the city, it wouldn't take any longer.

In his room on the fourth floor, Valentine unpacked the food that he had bought and revealed the mouth-watering content. It was a box of steamed pork buns and roast lamb with a kind of traditional Hoorn sauce smothered all over it.

With a large bite, Valentine got a taste of the food that was luckily still warm and delight quickly overcame him. The bun was soft and the pork filling was tender and juicy. The explosion of flavors in his mouth made him close his eyes to be able to focus entirely on it.

"G, can you taste it? It's really good!" he said in excitement.

Valentine quickly finished the buns and lamb and only after there was no food left, he lied on the bed and went to sleep on a full stomach.

Graham, who woke up not long after, was mumbling a complaint.

"Val, you know I can't taste what you're eating. Why didn't you leave me any..."

He quickly got over it, or at least tried, and sat on the table after cleaning up after Valentine's mess. He lit a fire using his lighter and ordered the flame to burn using his stamina instead because he would need to do a lot of divination.

The flame began floating and then Graham put his lighter back inside the pocket of the denim pants that he was wearing. He tried to sit comfortably in them, but he just couldn't, so he quickly changed to a pair of cotton pants. He also took off the leather jacket and wore only the t-shirt despite the cold room. Valentine had turned on the radiator but it was still slowly heating up the room and hadn't reached the desired temperature yet.

Once he felt comfortable, he sat at the table and focused on the floating flame above it.

'Who are the people who trust Mayor Hank Krammer the most that I can choose as my targets?'

The flame began burning brighter and an image began to slowly appear. His divination had now worked because he knew about the mayor more. That much was needed since his target turned out to be a Marquis rank Contractbound.

In the image, he saw the face of the driver that had just taken the mayor away earlier. It showed him driving the mayor, so if he hadn't already known about it, he could guess that the man was the mayor's driver. The image then changed to that of the face of the two bodyguards, Danny and Lucas, standing next to the mayor. After that, it changed yet again and this time, it showed the woman just now who was standing in the mayor's office, handing him some documents. Graham could guess that she was his secretary.

After displaying the four people whom Graham had already seen through Valentine's eyes, the image changed again and showed another person who was unfamiliar to him. It was a young man who resembled the mayor in some way. That must be the son of the mayor. And then the image shifted one more time and now it showed a man who looked to be in his fifties sitting behind an office desk. He was wearing a suit and judging by the overall looks of him and the office he was in, the man was a higher up in some kind of company.

The flame was still burning brightly and the image kept changing until it showed Graham a total of ten people who trusted the mayor the most. Based on the question he asked, those ten people were also the most suitable candidates for him to make as targets of his trickery. To his surprise, someone in the local Police was also one of the people shown.

Once the image disappeared, Graham began analyzing what had been revealed to him.

"My mission from the Deity is to fool these people by pretending to be the mayor and steal their most valuable possession. I need to also make sure that they blame the mayor. That sounds easy enough but also vague. 'Valuable possession' is just not definite enough, Val," he leaned on the back of his chair and rubbed his chin.

"What if the person's most valuable possession is their virginity? I don't think I can do that. We need to find another target if it's indeed the one. Now, hopefully, I can use divination to find out what their most valuable possessions are," he muttered with expectation.

Graham turned his focus back on the burning flame and asked another question about the target that he found the easiest to get to.

'What is the full name of Mayor Hank Krammer's driver?'

The flame then formed a text that answered Graham's question: Wiebe van Houten. After that, it disappeared quickly.

"That's the same last name as the bodyguard Danny. That means they're brothers. It makes things a little bit more complicated, but that shouldn't affect our plan that much," he said.

'Where does Wiebe van Houten live?'

The flame flickered and then an image gradually appeared. It was a small two-story house on a cliffside that looked nice despite its size. The view from the second-floor balcony must be amazing. After that, the image shifted to an aerial view of the city with two red dots, one indicating Graham's location and the other one showed the house of the target. According to Graham's memory, the driver's house should be on Klifstraat, to the east of his hotel about five kilometers away.

After the image disappeared, Graham asked another question.

'Is Wiebe van Houten a Contractbound?'

The flame showed a short text: 'no'. Wiebe van Houten was just a normal person, so it should make things easier for Graham.

'What is Wiebe van Houten's most valuable possession?'

The flame then showed an image of a bedridden woman whose face was as pale as the first winter snow. Her black hair looked as brittle as her thin body. The expression on her face, however, wasn't that of sorrow, but rather, contentment and joy. On the end table next to the bed, there was a photo of what looked to be her younger self with two even younger men which Graham assumed to be Wiebe and his brother, Danny. After that, the image disappeared.

Stupefied by what he had just seen, Graham scratched the back of his head.

"Have I told you that I'm a hypocrite, Val? I can't just go around killing somebody's sick mother. Killing a Contractbound is different because, for some reason, we're no longer 'human'. At least that's what I feel," he muttered weakly.

Graham then focused back on the flame and rephrased his question.

'What is Wiebe van Houten's most valuable material possession?'

The flame burned brighter and this time, it showed an image of a thing, not a person. It was an antique locket that was hung around Wiebe's neck. In the image, the man was opening the locket and revealed the photo inside, which was similar to the one on the end table from the previous divination. However, the photo had four people in it: child Wiebe, child Danny, the younger mother, and a man who should be the father. After that, it disappeared.

"Now, that's more like it. I can steal that locket and blame it on the mayor. Or manipulate him while pretending to be the mayor to make him give it to me, and then destroy it in front of the man. Whichever way we choose, at least we don't have to kill anyone," said Graham decisively.