Volume 1 Chapter 16 New Identity

Yao Stout was walking down Glor’s main street; it was quiet as it was six in the morning.

The sun was barely out in the distance and the road was almost empty, that was because the people of the worker class were already working and the nobles weren’t out of their luxurious house in the central district yet.

Yao’s brown hair with some shade of white was flustering in the wind and his eyes were going back and forth between the road and the rooftops.

He seemed like a rich boy, a bone ring with an intricate pattern engraved around it on his ring finger, a small sheathed dagger at his hips and colorful pieces of clothing.

His walk and his attitude screamed self-confidence, pretty ridiculous when compared to his small body.

Jack's new identity was that of the son of a high-ranked priest of Eryn’s Church, his current family name gave him access to near infinite funds when compared to his old life.

The Stout family had been known for being firm supporters of the Guardian faction of the Church, getting their agreement for Jack’s use of their name had been trivially easy as Cardinal Joseph was one of the leaders of the reformist faction.

He had to make one stop before going to Glor’s Sin Cleaning Brigade, which was to destroy a very small gang in the sector of Klong; Klong was one of the three workers’ districts and the one with the lowest criminality rate amongst the three.

Looking at his map for the fifth time he turned left into a more destitute street, looking up he could see a group of youth talking to each other.

Jack decided to take a detour; his goal today was to wipe out the Red Ghost Gang, not to cause more trouble by picking fights.

While walking down an alley, Jack stumbled on a dead body.

Startled by surprise, he started trying to contain his Chus from leaking out and leaving traces, with a swift movement he unsheathed his dagger and approached the carcass.

A blood puddle could be seen around the body, the flies had already started to roam around the body.

After taking a few more steps forwards so that Jack could really see the scene he saw her; the dead woman was lying in a pool of her own blood.

After a quick inspection he could see the twisted art piece.

The woman had a gaping hole in her chest; her heart had been plucked out by a meticulous attacker.

Half of her right hand was replacing the heart she had lost; the other hand was put in her dislocated mouth.

A vision of horror was plastered on her face as she died leaving an aura of gloom around her dead self.

She had four wounds on each of her arms and legs; probably made using a high quality hunting knife.

Each of her wounds was filled with hay and her eyes’ sockets with the flesh of a lesser beast.

Jack couldn’t tell the rank of the beast only using its flesh but the Chus emission indicated that it wasn’t that weak.

He didn’t have time to waste on a dead body as it would either be found by a vagrant or be left as a mysterious disappearance and the case would be closed. After all there were so many cases of people going missing that went cold each year.

One more disappearance wouldn’t make a difference.

Going on his way, Jack reached an abandoned house in front of the minor gang’s headquarters.

Lynch hastily entered the wreaked house and waited for something to happen.

While waiting, Jack’s thoughts wandered off.

He was now Yao Stout; son of Ronvey Stout, his position in the Sin Cleaning Brigade had been secured using his father’s authority.

He was raised in an environment free of worries and was one hell of a piece of pride.

Yao was trained to the basics of fighting by an instructor when he was young but had quit because of laziness. As such he wasn’t a great fighter but had a lot of potential.

In reality, Yao never existed and the fighting training he had was given by Therio on their way to Glor.

Today’s goal was to put in practice his training to not appear exceedingly clueless when he would arrive at the Sin Cleaning Brigade.

After waiting for half an hour, one of the gang members got out of the house that served as their base.

His vest harboured the Red Ghost Gang’s sigil; a flaming skull with a knife in his mouth.

Jack got out of his hiding place and quietly followed the man. He stopped at the very same alleyway Jack had used to come to this place.

The man took out his reproductive organ and started peeing. Using this opportunity Jack closed the gap between the two of them.

And as the man took a breath of satisfaction and of relief Jack stabbed the man in the lower back.

As the man grunted in pain Lynch hit the man’s head with as much strength as he could.

Slowly but surely the man started dying of blood loss and his fuzzy head made it too difficult for him to shout for help.

With that Jack had scored the second kill of his life.

The kid took the keys for the house from the dying man and headed for the entrance of the Red Ghost Gang’s hideout.

He entered with as much discretion as he could; the first room was small but Jack would still be able to hide in a corner if he wanted.

With this information in mind, he brought out a metal string of his bag, and attached the metallic fiber around one of the inner door’s hinges.

After doing that small action Jack went to hide behind a coat rack. He purposely left his trap unstressed to not show its localisation to a gang member coming to check.

This trap of his was one where he had to pull on the sting at the last second to not alert his enemies beforehand.

Hiding in the corner he waited.