After saying goodbye to Jenny and Tina, Peter took his squad to a small warehouse he rented at the suburb of the city. It was just rented three days ago. Peter chose to rent it because he wanted to use it as information base before they would go and hunt those evil bastards down one by one. Moreover, he also understood that he needed detail planning in fighting against powerful and influential people.
After entering the small warehouse, Peter pulled up the main switch and then turned on the lights and air-conditioner. Several pinboards full of photos are placed against the wall and there are a table and several chairs in front of them.
Ben suddenly said to Peter, “Dude, you just put them like this? Aren’t you afraid that somebody might break in for burglary and accidentally know these? If that happened, it would bring us a lot of troubles.”
Peter took out a portable wireless router from his space ring and said, “Don’t worry, Ben. We are in San Christobal, the safest city in seven states around us. Unless we are really on bad luck and met a wanted criminal, we don’t really need to consider about normal burglary.”
He put it on the table and then took out a laptop and a projector. Ronald and others were already standing in front of pin boards and reading the contents on it. Peter said to Ben while operating his computer after he turned on the wifi-router, “Ben, you should also take a look at things on the pin boards. After a while, we are watching videos I kept on safe box.”
Ben nodded to Peter, walked towards the pin boards and joined his buddies. After a while, Peter clapped his hands to attract attention of his buddies who were still intently reading the information on the pin boards. He said calmly, “Guys, come take a seat here. I am going to introduce the things we found out.”
Everyone sat down on chairs facing against the blank wall and Peter also walked away to turn off the lights. Soon, everything fell into darkness except the projection light on the wall. A photo of a beautiful woman and a smiling young girl appeared. Peter looked at the image for several seconds as he recalled a lot of things and he said calmly, “This is Adele Jofwind and her daughter Lucy Jofwind. A single mom living in Texas city, Houston, with her young daughter of five years old. She is the one I talked about, code name the first lantern. There was no record about Lucy’s missing case in both city office and city police department. Even after Adele lost contact with us too, it was only recorded as normal death from level four stomach cancer. We went and even sneakily dug their tombs in a night. However, there were only two ash bottles inside their tombs. Although it seemed completely normal, we decided to dig further. And yep, it brought out a lot of things and if not for valid protection for my talent, I might have already joined my dead friends too.”
Peter changed the image and another photo of a family appeared. It is still the image of a mother and her young daughter. Peter awkwardly introduced, “It’s another single mom and her child. We indeed have a lot of single moms in our federation thanks to some shitty bastards. Anyways, mom is Caroline Yorkman and her daughter is Lina Yorkman. Another pair of victims. Children of single parents have higher possibility of being targeted by these scums. So, they can easily solve the parents too. You know, woman is weaker than man and they have very few means of defense in these things. They met the same fate as Jofwinds as Ms. Yorkman was a great mother like Ms. Jofwind. Let’s go to the next one.”
Two hours later, Peter turned on the lights and said, “Internet is not safe. Apparently, things uploaded by most of the victims were removed directly soon after they posted and talked about their experiences. So, local government departments can easily control the direction of information. I hope we would never search about these on internet nor talk about it in communication softwares.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“So, what’s the plan?”, asked Ben eagerly. Peter looked at the crowd looking at him, he shrugged and said honestly, “There’s no plan for now. I thought that we would just sneak to there and kill one by one. I know that evidence is low and we will have a wide range of targets. The worst is we don’t even know who’s innocent and who is someone involving in this. But now, I’ve an idea but it still needs further confirmation. Once, it works, then we will rock.”
Peter took back the wifi-router, and laptop back into his space ring, then he took out the ammo cans and said, “Put your shares into the storage bags. And we need to visit nearby underground arm dealer to get some more things and yes, supermarket for dry rations like energy bars and water too.”
When he turned back his head to look at the quiet crowd, Ben shrugged while the other were trying hard to not smile, and Ben said to Peter, “We don’t have that much money.”
Peter forced a smile and said, “Alright, since it’s my business, I am paying for this.”
It made the crowd fell into smiles and laughter. Ronald patted Allen and said, “I won. You’re paying for the drinks tonight.”
Allen asked calmly, “Are we going to the bar right now or at night? If we are going right now, Peter can join in too.”
Peter raised his hand and said, “I vote that we should go and have a drink right now.”
Glenn said teasingly, “Alright, let’s us give respect to our responsible family man. And he might be starving of beer and alcohol too.”
The crowd laughed. Peter helplessly covered his forehead and said, “Stop joking guys. You know that I don’t drink high alcoholic drinks. It is easy to affect my thinking and rationality.”
Ronald walked over and put his hand right hand around Peter’s shoulder and he said jokingly, “I bet our smart ass had never realized that we could stay sane under several cups of vodka now since our bodies have become stronger and stronger during these days.”
Peter raised his eyebrows and asked, “Is that true?”
Ronald took him towards the exit and said on the way, “Try it out and you will get the answer. Let’s the fact speak, okay?”
The squad drove to the bar which their guild opened and had a rare fun. And, Ronald was proven right. Highly alcoholic drink like vodka doesn’t make them drunk at all anymore. At most, they would only have blushes on their faces and feel the better blood circulation with a warm stomach. In the evening, Peter parted with them since he had to pick up his two wives at Origin Church. Peter drove his white ford as if he didn’t drink anything at all. But two women keenly noticed that their husband drunk alcohol when they got into the car. However, they didn’t make any opinion on it.
At night, in front of TV, the trio sat on the long sofas and snuggled together in a group. Peter put the chips into his mouth, chewed several times before swallowing, and he asked, “Jenny, do you have something that can make a person spit out all truths?”
Jenny said boringly, “There’s a potion called Truth potion which is produced mainly for mortals. As long as you let him drink it, you can ask him any question you want. And he will tell you everything truthfully.”
Jenny thought for several seconds before she continued, “But, there could be some situation like being cursed or in secret oaths which can make the swearer die immediately as soon as he wanna break the oath. In these cases, you would need an item called Forbidden room. It is a key. As long as you use that key and lock a room, that room will become a room with forbidden field which denies all contracts and oaths.”
Tina noted new knowledge while Peter was surprised and excited. However, Jenny’s next word made him felt bad. Because Jenny said, “That is Tier three item. But it is very rare. I know what you want to do and I also want to help you. However, I don’t have it.”
Then, she turned her head to look at Peter who looked disappointed, she thought for a while and said, “Don’t worry. I can ask Lilac tomorrow. She has a very grand collection and I might be able to find it at her.”
Peter rubbed her hairs and said, “It’s not a big problem even if you can’t find it. At most, it would bring a little troubles to us. Change the channel. This one is boring. Why don’t we watch drama tonight? Or how about the one we watched yesterday?”