Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Sighing, Endra walked out of the Bella's hospital room. He filled his core to the brim, made himself invisible, materialized a gun, and started running.

He made his way outside the building, where Bella's window would be.

Thankfully, the man listening to the conversation was still there, silently hovering near the window. In Endra's Soul Sense, he seemed to be furiously writing something down.

'Since he's not running, his target's Bella? … or he's just confident in his invisibility since I didn't react at all to him being there?'

Endra could ask him in a few seconds. Slowly, he covered Bella's window with a layer of vacuum. Then, he loaded his gun with a metal bullet, and shot at the man.

The boom of the shot surprised the man, but he was too late. The bullet cleanly hit his wrist, and off he went wailing. Eerily, he made no sound as he screamed. Endra flew at the man, stabbed him through the mouth to prevent any chants, and started choking him. At that, whatever was silencing the man's noise disappeared and his gurgled screams finally became audible.

"Shut it," Endra hissed

The man was reaching towards his pocket, no doubt trying to either reach a Talisman, so Endra shot his remaining good hand and choked harder.

He couldn't even scream properly this time, so rapidly losing his consciousness.

Below, some people around looked around for the source of the commotion, but they wouldn't be able to find anything, as both victim and perpetrator were invisible. As for Bella, Endra could see her drinking from the coffee and was wiping off her tears. She had no idea what transpired behind her. Good.

Endra did not fancy himself the silent protector, but the girl had enough on her plates for now. She could learn about all this at her own pace.

But for the man who threatened to ruin that peace, Endra had no mercy.

He silently made his way to Heralt's base.

"You've come back earlier than I expected," Heralt greeted Endra as he helped tie up the sudden catch.

"Chanced upon an invisible, floating eavesdropper as I was talking to someone."

Endra took away the man's cloaking device. There wasn't any other device on him, though, which meant he was flying and keeping himself silent using his own magic.

He picked up the man's diary and read the latest entry.

[Ah, this is making me sound like an insufferable assho-]

The pen drew a long line afterwards, followed by a spray of blood.  He read up and found his whole conversation with Bella was written word by word. Before that, he found some details on Bella's schedule and habits, some other conversations she had, followed by the man's speculations on her suicide and how it was a chance to recruit her.

'So their goal was Bella… Guess I was an unexpected bonus.'

"Find anything interesting?" Heralt asked from the side.

"He was trying to approach Bellaslayn Borna," Endra ripped out the part that contained his conversation and handed him the diary.

"Seems so."

"I'll ask him his ID, how he was approached by the Orgonians and how he can contact them. Anything you wanna add?"

"What job he did to earn the Cloaking Device."

"Alright," Endra said. "Oh, and I'll need to kill him afterwards. That's okay, right?"

He waved the ripped-out pieces of paper and burned it.

"Personal information?"

"Something like that."

"Sure."

Receiving Heralt's approval, Endra squeezed the man's messed up hand.

"Aaagh!" the man woke up screaming.

"Name and occupation," Endra asked calmly.

"Wh- what…? Who, who, who are you?"

"Your name and occupation, tell them to me," Endra squeezed again.

"Aaaagh! S-stop! Pleease s-su-stop!" the man was crying now.

Endra squeezed harder.

"Leor Polivar! I'm Leor Polivar! I, I work as a manager in the Bureau!"

"How did the Orgonians approach you?" Endra asked, finger caressing the blood clotting on the wound.

"Orgonians? W-what are you talking about?"

Endra was a bit confused at the genuineness of the response, but of course, the other side wouldn't use their real identity so lightly.

"The people who gave you that cloaking device," he asked.

"I- I… I don't know! It was my colleague!" Leor screamed desperately. "She acted as the middle man! A woman named Fiscel! Bu- But she's been missing since forever!"

Endra turned to look at Heralt. The latter nodded to the board with the names on and lifted three fingers.

'Confirmed Turncoat?'

"How do you report to the Orgonians?" Endra continued his questions.

"The, uh, the orgonians, yes. Those guys, they… they meet me periodically. They always come at random times… but only when I'm alone."

Heralt showed a shrug at that. Same answer as the rest, Endra guessed.

"How did you earn your cloaking device?" he asked, holding the device in his hands.

"I…"

Endra reached for the man's hands again.

"I found it in Fiscel's room!" he screamed. "After she disappeared, I went through her stuff and found that! The, uh, the orgonians, they allowed me to keep it. And gave me fuel for it… I- I can show you where the fuel is!"

Heralt shook his head subtly. Endra guessed that meant the questioning was over, but he had to make sure.

"Anything else?"

"No," the big man replied.

Endra aimed his Hard Air gun at the man's forehead and shot twice. The man, of course, did not know what was coming.

"Ah, don't make such a mess the next time," Heralt said, sighing at the blood on the floor.

"Sorry."

"Well, doesn't matter too much," he said, casting a spell. A body of water appeared and carried the body away into another room.

Endra also cleaned his hands with a small spell. "So? Hear anything useful?"

"Not particularly. Same questions and same answers. Though that's normal, considering it's just a turncoat. A real catch would be an otherworlder," Heralt replied. "But it was surprising to hear the otherworlders allowing him to keep the cloaking device. Maybe they're getting desperate?"

"And who was that woman he mentioned?"

"Ah, she was caught a few months ago. Killed herself instead of letting us interrogate her."

"Huh. So there are the more zealous Turncoats?"

"It mostly depends on how deep they are in this business. The stronger your ties to the otherworlders, the stricter rules you must follow. The strictest of those rules apply to the otherworlders themselves. Hence, why it's so hard for us to find their bases."

Endra shrugged at it all. He patted the dust off his clothes and stretched.

"Well, as a job well done, I want my next spell."

"Ah, I'm afraid you'll need a couple more turncoats to receive your prize. Find me an Otherworlder, though, I won't even mind giving you two spells.

"Three turncoats for one spell. But three spells for one Otherworlder?"

"Something like that."

Something about the number felt fishy.

"I've already killed three otherworlders. I don't remember receiving nine spells."

"It's coz you killed them. The dead have the same weight."

The logic made sense, but Endra was still suspicious.

"By the way, you mind telling me who else works for this… border control you got going?"

"Why?"

"If I see something I can't handle, I want to call up on some allies. Whoever they may be."

"You can just tell me and I'll gather you a suitable team."

"Alright," Endra sighed. He just wanted to ask about their rates.

He said his goodbyes and headed back to the dorm.