Chapter 6.

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The all too familiar ‘Flack Flack Flack’ sound of bullets racked the UP-Armoured Humvee Kalden was in which he quickly answered up with his own dish of .50 cal machine gun fire from his M2 Browning mounted on the top of his Humvee.

They drove over a small bump, and the Humvee lifted up, and for a split second, Kalden felt like he was floating, he was thrown out of his turret seat for a moment before he fell, back into the Humvee itself.

> His radio crackled.

Kalden’s eyes snapped open, the front of the Humvee was pratically gone, black scorch marks and small flames licking the crumpled hood, parts of the engine sticking out, his eyes turned to the driver side seat and widened in shock. There was blood, a lot of it, too much, mixed with burnt flesh and clothing.

“Wretch!” Kalden screamed, and the next thing he knew he was bolting out of bed, gun in hand, as beads of cold sweat formed little streams down his forehead, soaking his already drenched shirt.

“Fuck.” He silently cursed, his voice coming out hoarse and dry as he wiped away any stray tears, tearing off his shirt in the process. When he stepped into the bathroom, he stopped by the sink to briefly inspect his puffy red eyes before splashing some water on it; hopefully, they will return to normal after breakfast.

“Knock. Knock.” Two soft but firm knocks knocked against his room door. At first, Kalden though he was just hearing things and ignored it, but a series of heavy raps soon after the brief silence proved him wrong.

Shit. Who could it be?

Suspicious filled Kalden’s mind immediately, none good. Quickly, he put on his discarded shirt, ignoring the icky damp feeling against his equally sweaty skin and grabbed his pistol, taking a moment press checking it to make sure it was loaded.

With his left hand clutching the gun behind his back, Kalden gingerly opened the door slightly.

“Who is it?” he asked, keeping his head away from the opening, ducking slightly behind the door.

“Take a guess.” The same obnoxious silky-smooth voice from yesterday said.

“Redgrave? What are you doing here?” Kalden asked through the door, still debating whether to come out or not.

“What do you think? We need to talk.”

Kalden was not particularly eager to talk to Redgrave, at least not at this time, call it paranoia, but the way he behaves just rubs him the way. His happy-go-lucky attitude felt like a front, a means to hide something darker behind it.

Regardless of Kalden’s own feelings for the god, he opened the door, gun still hidden behind his back just in case. What good it would do he did not know, at least he could say he went down fighting.

Redgrave stepped into the room, staring down Kalden, “Bad night?” he asked,

“I slept good enough,” Kalden answered dismissively, with a soft sigh, tucking the gun into his pants, disguising it as a tired back scratch.

Redgrave stared at Kalden for a moment, and grunted disapprovingly, “well, you look like a mess. Get yourself cleaned up and a change of clothes, we’re going out for breakfast, my treat.”

“But you said we needed to talk?”

“That can wait,” Redgrave replied, flashing his signature smirk as he made himself comfortable on the small chair, propping his feet on the equally tiny desk at the same time.

Not needing to be told twice, Kalden rushed into the bathroom, it was a good thing he forgot to take off his watch last night since his phone still inside his jacket on the bed. It allowed him to buy a new set of clothes, a towel and some basic toiletries.

The water from the shower was cold, which though should not be that surprising in a world a century or so behind Kalden’s old world, he still found it strange that despite the having air conditioning provided freely in its rooms, it could not provide a hot water function for its bathroom.

After putting on his new change of clothes, discarding the old ones in the sink for now, and tucking his pistol into his pants, covering the outline with his shirt as best as possible, a temporary solution until he could put it back in its holster. This was one of the disadvantaged of the HK Mk23 pistol, made for the US SOCOM as an offensive handgun, it was large, making it hard to conceal, and as Kalden found out, very uncomfortable stuffed in between his thigh and pants.

He took one last look at the mirror, making sure his eyes were no longer puffy and red, before emerging out of the bathroom, putting on his jacket and bend over to put on his boots.

“Where do you have in mind?” he asked, as he tied the laces uptight.

“I’m thinking Trattoria Lino. It’s just a few blocks away from the guildhall, they serve some of the best traditional Remulan breakfast.”

Kalden nodded, standing back up, “Well, lead the way.”

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Breakfast in Reme is very much similar to a traditional Italian breakfast Kalden had back when he was vacationing there, a light breakfast consisting of a cup of coffee and pastries or for Kalden’s case, a cup of hot Kawa, this world’s version of Coca and Brioche, a puffy bread which he dipped into his cup of Kawa before consuming, letting the rich buttery taste of the bread mix with the bittersweet Kawa in his mouth.

Redgrave, on the other hand, had opted to load the table full of food, piling the table with all sorts of local Remulan pastries and a type of breakfast skewer Redgrave called Birochi made up of Brioche bread, scrambled eggs and sausages. And he was consuming them with a kind of fury, relatively quiet, but fast and violent.

Though Kalden did not show it, he was both amused and fascinated, with a dash of intimidation with the way Redgrave ate, especially when he bit into the biscotti like it was nothing without even dipping it into his cup of espresso first. The first and only time Kalden did that was during his first morning in Italy, afterwards. He thought the inside of his mouth had been shredded.

The two ate in silence, making occasional glances at each other or at the street outside that was gradually filling up with people and vehicles, neither wanted to be the first to start.

This went on for about twelve more uncomfortable minutes, by now Kalden had finished his share and was nursing his cup of luke-warm Kawa. Back on earth, he would’ve without hesitation whipped out his phone to occupy himself, listen to some music or a video, but not here, that would just be inviting more uncomfortable questions.

“How’s your new life being coming along?” Redgrave suddenly asked.

“Huh? Oh, fine enough.” Kalden grunted, shrugging, “that cover story you gave me worked fine. Someone recognised the name however.”

“Ah.” Redgrave smiled, “I thought it was the perfect cover, obscure gunsmith, with the same surname that recently passed.”

“It’s not. Old man Sivle from the Guild Hall reconisged the name, seems to admire his work. What if he asks about my ‘father’?” Kalden snapped.

“Then you will just have to come up with something.” Redgrave shrugged, “That’s your specialty isn’t it? Lying.”

“…” Kalden averted his eyes momentarily, “Why the sudden visit anyway? Aren’t you busy doing your godly stuff?”

Redgrave’s smile disappeared at that instant, the faintest of a frown replaced it instead.

“Well…there has been a problem I need taken care of… and I was wondering…”

“No.” Kalden immediately replied.

“But you haven’t even heard me out yet!”

Kalden raised an eyebrow in surprise at the reaction, it was the first time he had seen Redgrave like this and his suspicion in the problem grew.

“I know a shit mission when I see it Redgrave, and I’ve been in enough to last me two lifetimes over, the answer is no.”

“It’s just one target Kalden.” Redgrave sighed, running his fingers through his greyish hair, “100 million dollars. Just one guy. That should make it worth your while, right?”

“At its peak, UBL (Osama Bin Ladin) was only worth half of what your guy is, yet it took an entire intelligence agency and years to find him. I’m only one guy, in a foreign land I yet to even know how to properly navigate through. Find someone else, thanks.”

Kalden replied coldly, he slid a ten-denarius bill. “I know this is your money, I’ll pay you back soon, with interest. Thank you for breakfast.”

With one last curt nod, Kalden got up from his seat and quickly left, a part of him wanted to turn around and look, to see what expression Redgrave was putting on, but another part of him urged not to, he highly doubted the god would take kindly to refusals. But it was the right move, the job he was about to offer sounded too sketchy, the price too high for just a mere person.

As morbid as that sounded if what he saw on the dark web was true, an average human life was worth only about ten thousand dollars, and if the reports from insurance companies are true, 50,000. If his experience in hunting UBL said anything, obtaining useful intelligence on the target will cost more than the reward itself.

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Since Kalden was already out and about in the city centre, he decided to do what he had been planning to do when he first arrived here, route familiarization. In Kalden mind, any good intelligence officer worth his/her salt needs to familiarize themselves with the layout of the city they are in within the first week.

He might not be an intelligence officer anymore, but getting to know the city more wouldn’t hurt, it’s also an excuse for him tickle his inner history geek, it had already been salivating at the mere thought of exploring more of this roman-esque city. Reme was everything Rome should've looked like if the roman empire had not fallen. Even from where he stood, Kalden could see the bright white marble structures reminiscent of the ancient Roman temples up on the hills that dot the city.

The wide avenue that cuts across the city was jammed packed with a mix of horse-carts, bird and lizard-like mounts as well as motor vehicles of varying shapes and sizing, one of them Kalden noticed looked very much similar to a Toyota Century, a very rare luxury car, back on earth in terms of design. He wanted to take a closer look, but the police bikes that were escorting the car managed to force an opening in the gridlocked avenue, allowing the car to escape from view.

A wasted opportunity, but there was plenty more to see in the city, if the pamphlet he snagged from the Reme Tourism centre was anything to go by, there were so many landmarks, historical sites and museums dotted all over it was impossible to visit all of them in a day.

Regardless, Kalden attempted to do so, with the aim of visiting every single historical landmark and monument in the city. It was more than just sightseeing of course, Landmarks are one of the important tools for any intelligence operative when it comes to mapping out a location, and throughout the entire stroll, would take short breaks in the maze of alleyways, away from prying eyes to mark every landmark he saw, be it a major historical site or just a fountain at the bottom of some steps, they were recorded down into the digital map via his smartwatch.

This would be a good first step, once he’s done with marking them all, he would have to start route familiarization, navigating the city without the use of his map. Enchanted by a god or not, Kalden always believed the fallibility of technology, it always fails when you need it the most.

By the time Kalden reached the last major landmark designated to visit by the tourism pamphlet, the sun was already starting to set, a quick glance at his watch showed it to be 6.30pm.

But it was just as well, as in the middle of the square where Kalden stood, was an impressive marble statue of a young boy, staff raised up high in one hand, the other wrapped around the handle of his still sheathed short sword.

Due to the way it had been built, the reddish-orange sunlight splashed across the white marble, giving it a sort of soft glow to it, with the help of the sun reflecting off its staff, the statue looked like it was about to cast a spell, a giant ball of light to this darkening world.

“In Honor of the great Hero who saved the City of Reme.” The words were chiselled into the marble at the base of the statue.

Kalden could not help but spend a good few seconds staring at the statue, he never thought a statue could ever make him feel something, but here he was standing before one, trying to figure out what was that feeling swimming inside him.

Pride? Joy? Sadness? Kalden figured he didn’t care, and just simply enjoy it, not everything needed to be meticulously dissected and deduced after all. Sometimes it was best to just let it be.

He approached closer to the base of the statue and was pleasantly surprised to find out a small pond had been made right in the base of it, together with two small fountains, each depicting a little girl, barely clothed, pouring water out of her jug, into the pond where a colourful gasp of Koi fish swam around, children and elderly alike stood at the sides, tossing bits of bread, and other edibles into the water. The children watching with particular glee as the fishes fought over each other for a bite, thrashing up a shower of water.

As lovely as it was watching Koi fishes form masses of white, red and gold Kalden was more surprised by the fact the Remulans had Koi fishes since it was a fish that originated from Asia. Kalden was under the impression the world here had roughly the same geography as earth.

It was until he looked at the small plaque to the right of him did he get his answer.

“The City of Reme is grateful for the Amura generously donated from by our Japanese friends.”

Well isn’t that nice, they have their own japan here. I guess that explains why the adventurer’s guild had it.

Kalden then found an empty bench, and that’s where he sat for the next hour, till dusk, simply taking in the atmosphere of it all, letting it all soak into his weary bones. This was going to be one of the few times he reckoned he would be able to rest, best to make the best of it.