Of course, during the whole process, they would make no contract or certificate which could be used as a guarantee, and ultimately, if they could achieve the desired result for the employer was also completely unknown. In general it could be said that the more prestigious organizations would care about their credibility, so their commission costs were also high, while the new organization would charge a lower price, but made it more likely to lose one’s life and property in the process. With time a delicate balance had been formed between the street rats and the city patrol, which together maintained an image of superficial order inside of King’s City.
Before Theo had entered the palace to become a palace guard, he had served as patrol, responsible for giving some task to the street rats to handle if they were inconvenient for the public to see. As a result, making it very clear to him which groups of street rats were the most powerful and what their share in King’s City was, giving him the opportunity to eliminate the time taken to deal with the connector. As for the reason why he had chosen the Skeleton Fingers, that was because they weren’t as thoroughly bad as the others.
“Can I ask you, whom are you working now?” Black Hammer asked after a moment of hesitation.
Theo didn’t give him an answer. Instead, he simply pointed with his thumb into the direction of the palace behind him.
After leaving the patrol and rats, most people only knew that he had become a guard, but they didn’t know that he was soon selected by Wimbledon III as the personal guard of the 4th Prince, following His Royal Highness to Border Town. Within his six months of disappearance, they should think that he had been working in the palace. Moreover, by just pointing to the direction of the palace, he hadn’t lied — the royal family wasn’t only Timothy, Roland Wimbledon was also a member of the royal family.
“I see,” he nodded. “But Hillwei and Swineherd are gone, can I pick my own hands?”
“What happened to them?”
“Dead,” Black Hammer said full of hate, “Within last year’s winter, a conflict with the people of Dreamland Water arose, they had taken hold of poppy flowers and dying fern, selling it within the northern city district. Casas had led everyone to drive them back. During the fight, Hillwei got a knife to his neck, the blood simply could not be stopped from flowing, and Swineherd was also thrown into the canal.
Theo frowned, with such kind of thinks the patrol would bother themselves, from time to time they would even deliberately provoke the rats into biting each other in order to control their strength and quantity, so whenever one of them died, they wouldn’t care. “That’s all right, but remember, they must be the people of the tavern.”
…
Theo took a deep breath after leaving the Covert Trumpeter.
The moist and moldy smell in the pub made him want to vomit, only when his lungs were once more filled with the burning hot summer air was he able to disperse the dark and suffocating feeling.
Although Black Hammer had invited him to wait in the tavern, even claiming that he would come up with good wine to entertain him, Theo wasn’t willing to stay in that small place for too long. In the event that something unforeseen arose, he would be unable to react by the time he became aware of it.
After leaving the tavern, he decided to go to the inner city, and look for a reasonable Inn and reserve a room there for the night. As for the soldiers of the first army, they were already very skilled in setting up camp for the night, so there was no need for him to worry about them.
When night fell, Theo returned to the Convert Trumpeter.
At this time, the pub was doing its usual business, and from time to time a customer would enter or exit. For a while he just watched from the dark, waiting for the regular customers to come into the house.
As a low-grade tavern in the outer city, most of the visitors were commoners, so the drinks were also the cheap ale. Just ten copper royals was enough to drink several large cups in succession. Within the noisy surrounding, he quickly found Black Hammer’s men; they were sitting around a table next to the wall and on top of their table laid a white phalange.
When Theo, calmly and collectedly walked over, a person immediately stood up to make a place for him.
“Good evening, Sir,” Silver Ring and Pott greeted him with a nod.
“Let me introduce these two to you. This is Little Finger.” Black Hammer patted the little woman beside him and then pointed at the young man opposite her, “And this one is Hill Fawkes, he only recently became a member of the Skeleton Fingers.”
“Fawkes?” Theo’s eyes stopped on the opposite party, while the latter somewhat sparingly bowed his head in greeting.
