Captain

Without the slightest warning or preamble, the head of a bloodthirsty aberrant demon noble had simply and cleanly been "plucked" away. Standing to the side eating candy, Karen had only caught Edith's subtle expression when Neo placed a hand on her shoulder. His mind had still been analyzing whether this was another cliché about a younger sister pining after her brother-in-law. He had never imagined that Neo had placed his hand there purely for the convenience of removing her head an instant later. Killing a daughter right before her father's eyes. And then carrying on talking without a care in the world. The sheer impact of the scene was suffocating. For a moment, Karen couldn't fathom which version was the real Neo. One moment, he was the timid clerk trailing behind Deputy Director Mi'ang; the next, the captain seated behind a desk pouring out cheap platitudes while handing over an even cheaper ring; and the next, a man commanding an elite squad of the Whip of Order, casually severing the head of the daughter of the man he was supposed to protect, just to send her to the grave with his beloved. Karen's fingertips instinctively brushed against the ring, feeling its presence. Who was the one truly wearing a mask? *Thud!* Because her head had been removed so fast, Edith's headless body remained standing for several seconds before losing balance and collapsing backward onto the floor. She was dead—truly dead. The severed neck was pitch-black, a sign that the blade had been laced with a terrifyingly potent poison. Even with the formidable regenerative powers bloodthirsty aberrant demons were said to possess, no miracle could save her now. Dinkum and Pike instinctively drew closer, as though only each other's presence could offer any warmth in this moment. The two bodyguards who had accompanied Edith instantly underwent their bloodthirsty transformation, baring their fangs. But before they could charge at Neo, two black daggers were already pressed against their throats. Two masked members of the Whip of Order appeared at their sides like phantoms. The incomprehensible speed made Karen's eyes narrow slightly. From the start, he had felt that Neo's squad was far superior in caliber to Tyers's. Now, he was forced to elevate his assessment another notch. Was it because Tyers's squad, the first one he had encountered, was simply too useless? After all, they were already rotten to the core; a whip that had rusted through could never produce a sharp crack. Neo's squad, however, was certainly no ordinary Whip of Order unit. Karen recalled what the Count had said earlier. Over the years, Neo had been suppressed by the church because of his relationship with Edith. Yet even so, in the aftermath of the Qihe case, the church hierarchy had still deployed Neo's squad here to clean up the accumulated rot in this district. That meant a man whose background check should have raised massive red flags hadn't been dismissed or benched on the sidelines. Instead, he had consistently served as a Whip of Order captain and had even been reassigned straight into a core district—practically the capital circle. This could only mean one thing: Neo and his squad possessed raw, undeniable strength that even the higher-ups couldn't ignore. In an instant, the ring Neo had given Karen seemed far more precious. Even if it was plastic, so what? The Count spoke. "In a single funeral, I have lost two daughters." Neo didn't even glance at him, replying indifferently, "You have plenty of children anyway." "Does that really count?" the Count asked. "Yes. You only lost two among many. What I lost was my one and only." "Earlier, I already had Edith kneel before her sister's coffin to apologize." Evidently, the Count had known all along who had swapped the rest fluid. He had personally provided the real rest fluid, but it had passed through his daughter's hands. Thus, the moment he arrived at the funeral, he had essentially known the true cause of Elisa's death. "If apologies were enough, what would we need the Whip of Order for?" The Count looked at Neo. "I regret it, Neo." Neo glanced at the clock on the mourning hall wall. "Funeral hours are over." The Count said, "Edith died in an ambush by the Bocart and Magna families' forces in York City. She died protecting me." With that, the Count tilted his head toward Edith's restrained bodyguards. "Do me a favor." Neo waved his hand. *Squelch!* *Squelch!* The two bodyguards' throats were slit open. The poison on the daggers flooded directly into their systems. Pinned down, they couldn't even struggle before slumping dead to the floor. The Count adjusted his collar, looked toward Karen, and bowed halfway in mourning, acknowledging the funeral organizer. Karen bowed in return. The Count turned and melted into the darkness outside. Carrying Edith's head, Neo walked over to the mortuary platform, set the head inside the coffin, and gently smoothed Elisa's hair. "I like how she looks right now. Where is Inquisitor Pavaro?" Karen stepped forward on his own initiative, halting beneath the mortuary platform. "The boss isn't here. He's very busy." Neo nodded. He knew what Mr. Pavaro was busy with. If it had been any other Inquisitor absent today, Neo might have assumed they were fleeing trouble, leaving a few servants to watch the shop while they hid. But Pavaro wouldn't do that; he truly had to be busy. To Pike and Dinkum, the scene took on an entirely different light. They didn't know Neo, nor had they recognized him as the clerk who had accompanied the deputy director to deliver their "boss's" paperwork and bonus. Yet seeing Karen step forward so casually to converse with the man, they could only marvel: as expected of someone from the system. In truth, they had misjudged the situation, and Karen hadn't even realized it. Earlier, when Edith entered, she had asked if he was the Inquisitor here; the Count had asked him the exact same question upon entering. A single glance upon stepping inside was enough for any normal person to distinguish who the errand boys were and who was calling the shots. Add to that Karen's background and demeanor: no matter how wary he felt inside, he appeared completely composed on the surface. This wasn't an act or performance. If forced to cower like a shivering quail the way Dinkum and Pike were doing, he genuinely wouldn't know how. "You knew all along, didn't you?" Gross asked, looking at Neo. "Yes," Neo replied. Gross looked at the coffin, then down at his own hands, seemingly coming to a realization. Neo said calmly, "This morning, negotiations concluded smoothly. Barring any surprises, the Count would have approached me tonight to deliver the rest fluid into my hands." "So... so it was me..." Gross looked utterly incredulous. "It was me... it was my fault..." "Yes." Originally, Neo could have received the rest fluid directly from the Count, eliminating any chance of Edith tampering with it. More importantly, Neo would have tested its authenticity. Yet Gross had gone ahead and demanded it early. The Count likely assumed Neo had sent him; though negotiations were still underway with an uncertain outcome, the Count had given it to him anyway, thereby providing Edith the opportunity to swap it. Gross had then delivered the rest fluid straight to Elisa. Filled with warmth and gratitude toward her family, Elisa had never doubted the bottle's contents and drank it without hesitation. By the time Neo reached that room, Elisa had already taken her own life. For her, he and his squad had willingly endured years of suppression, forsaking promotions and advancement. Yet just as the moment arrived when their relationship could finally be brought to light—framed as a bridge of cooperation between the church and the Avanas family—fate had played a cruel, absurd joke on them. "I'm sorry..." Gross dropped to his knees, prostrating himself. "I failed you, and I failed the young miss." Neo shook his head. "I don't blame you, truly. "Because I know that tonight, once you had your revenge, you planned to follow Elisa into death. You feared that when her soul reached the River of Blood your people believe in, there would be no one to look after her. "In all her life, aside from breaking away from her family for my sake, she was always an innocent, sheltered girl who knew nothing of the world. "Go on, then. She's afraid of the dark and afraid of being alone. Don't keep her waiting too long." Gross nodded, tears streaming down his face. "Yes, sir." He pulled a revolver from his coat, raised it, and pressed it to his temple. *Bang!* The bullet tore through, blood spraying as Gross collapsed to the ground. A funeral held for one person had left four more corpses on the floor. "Is the burial plot reserved?" Neo asked Karen. "It is." Neo's gaze swept over the bodies on the floor. "Clean this place up." Pike and Dinkum thought he was speaking to them and stepped forward, trembling slightly. But they soon realized their mistake as a group of masked figures entered the mourning hall. They removed the bodies, scrubbed the floor, and finally erased every trace using purification spells—demonstrating consummate professionalism. Clearly, cleaning up after killings was routine work for them. Once everything was done, a line of Whip of Order operatives stood silently in place. Neo said, "Dismissed." The operatives stepped back in unison, their figures gradually fading into the darkness. Neo looked down at the woman lying in the coffin. "I'm going to take her to be buried." "Understood." Karen was about to call someone over to help carry the coffin, but Neo simply raised his hand. A faint black sheen radiated from his palm, enveloping the coffin as it floated into the air. "The hearse is right there. I'll get the door." Karen walked over and opened the rear doors of the hearse. Neo guided the floating coffin over and settled it steadily inside, then climbed in himself. Karen walked over to the front of the shop and told the others, "We don't need a crowd. I'll drive." Hearing that, Pike and Dinkum breathed a visible sigh of relief. "Car keys." Alfred handed over a spare set. The hearse keys were already in Karen's pocket; the set Alfred handed him was for his own used Ponce. But as Karen took them, he noticed a ring inside that had been glued back together. Karen nodded, slipped both the keys and the ring into his pocket, and walked over to the hearse. He slid into the driver's seat, started the engine, and drove out of the funeral parlor. Karen had assumed the ride to Ivy Cemetery would remain completely silent, but Neo spoke up on his own: "Do you have someone you love?" Karen glanced through the rearview mirror at Neo, who sat facing the coffin in the back. "I do." "How did you meet?" "Arranged by our parents, Captain. What about you?" "An accident. Back then, I was on a mission in a city near her home, and her family was tacitly permitted to operate there." "The way you met must have been very romantic?" "I was gravely wounded, bleeding all over, barely clinging to life. She saved me. Cliché, isn't it?" "No. Looking back on it now, it must have been very romantic." "Yes, it was." A faint smile touched the corner of Neo's lips. "You're luckier than me." "Yes. Since it was arranged by our parents, there's no resistance from family. We only have to work through things between the two of us." "Mm. So, do you love her?" Neo asked. "I do." "You sound a bit hesitant." "Because I don't know what it feels like to love someone unconditionally, but I think I do care for her." "I hear a sense of duty in that. Are you fulfilling a responsibility to her?" "Yes, a responsibility," Karen affirmed. "Do you think responsibility counts as a form of love?" Neo asked. "I don't know, but I think shirking responsibility definitely isn't love." Neo nodded. A brief silence settled over the cab as Karen drove on quietly. "You aren't an ordinary God's Servant." Hearing those words, Karen felt as though he could hear his own heartbeat. Even so, Karen replied, "No one favored by God is ordinary." "The more appropriately you answer me, the more you remind me of how unusual you are. It's not your fault." Neo rolled down the window, letting the wind blow in and ruffle his hair. "It was obvious when you were sitting in the mourning hall. No matter how deep gold is buried in the mud, it still catches the eye." "Mr. Pavaro trusts me, so the servants under him listen to me." "See? You're choosing the most appropriate answer again." "Captain, I'm just used to it." "Do you know what kind of person gets used to making every single move appear reasonable? Someone with secrets to keep." "Then again, who doesn't have secrets?" The moment he said it, Karen laughed at himself. *Damn this appropriateness!* "Heh." Neo chuckled as well. "When did Inquisitor Pavaro leave?" "Very early." "So you arranged the funeral?" "Yes." "Why did you make that extra phone call specifically to tell me the details of the funeral arrangements?" "Because during the first call, I noticed a shift in your tone, Captain. I felt you cared deeply about this funeral." "A shift in my tone?" "Yes." "So you concluded that I was connected to this funeral?" Karen was now certain that Gross hadn't told Neo about their phone conversation, meaning Neo had no idea Karen had bluffed his identity out of Gross. "Yes, Captain. Besides, the deceased's identity pointed to it as well." "Based just on that?" "Yes." "What about Inquisitor Pavaro's two daughters and his wife?" "I arranged for them to stay at a hotel tonight. The boss's daughters have been cooped up at home for a long time; a change of scenery does their condition good." "A very appropriate arrangement. See? We're right back to 'appropriate.'" The hearse pulled up to the gates of Ivy Cemetery. Karen opened the door, stepped out, and headed to the administration booth by the entrance. The caretaker had fallen asleep and woke with a foul temper, but riels were always the best remedy for high blood pressure. Once Karen handed over two hundred riels, the man's irritation vanished. He opened the cemetery gates, provided the coordinates for the reserved plot, and waved Karen through to drive in. Back in the hearse, Karen drove into the cemetery and parked by the reserved plot, where the groundskeepers had already dug the grave. "We're here, Captain. Right over here." Neo guided the floating coffin out of the hearse and lowered it gently into the grave. Then, he spread his hands. "Order—Purification!" A wave of purifying energy swept outward, completely scouring away the aberrant demon aura from Elisa's remains. Preventing contamination was only a minor factor; more importantly, it kept away grave robbers who specialized in harvesting spiritual corpses. Once the purification was complete, Neo sighed. "If I could, I'd pay an immense price to wake her so she could talk with me for just a little longer." Karen could actually have helped with that, but he didn't—not out of fear of exposing himself, but because Neo was capable of doing it on his own, even if waking an aberrant demon carried a steep cost and difficulty. The real issue was that Elisa had died before succumbing to lostness, her expression at death monstrously twisted. Even if awakened now, she would only become a bloodthirsty living corpse. Neo understood this perfectly well. Karen offered comfort: "She certainly wouldn't want you to see that side of her, Captain." "Yes. She always cared about her appearance." Karen brought two shovels from the hearse, propping one nearby and using the other to begin shoveling dirt. Neo picked up the second shovel and joined him. Compared to digging, filling the grave was far easier. Before long, the work was finished. "Captain, what kind of flowers did Miss Elisa like? I'll have someone plant them in a few days," Karen asked. "Are you trying to curry favor with me?" Neo asked. Karen shook his head. "It's part of the job, and a sign of respect." "She liked white roses." "I've noted it, Captain. Would you like a ride back?" "No need." "Then I'll—" Just then, Karen felt a hand rest on his shoulder. To say he wasn't nervous would be a lie. The last person Neo had placed a hand on had lost her head. "I've been wondering... if I hadn't reported my relationship with her back then, would things have turned out differently?" "Would the Avanas family have refrained from refusing Miss Elisa the rest fluid because of your ties to the Church of Order?" "Yes. If it had been Gross who eloped with her, the Count might have secretly slipped her the fluid. "Though, why didn't you ask whether my squad and I would have avoided all these wasted years of suppression if I hadn't made it public?" "Because I don't believe you're that shallow, Captain. You wouldn't regret the choices you made or the consequences that followed." "Heh." Karen felt the hand pat his shoulder. "I used to believe that responsibility meant making love public once you found it, facing everything together. I thought that if I revealed my sincerity to God without reservation, God would see my devotion. "Now, I suddenly feel that keeping a few secrets isn't such a bad thing after all." Neo turned to look at the tombstone behind them, then continued: "Because God might not care about your honesty in the slightest." "Inquisitor Pavaro once told me that what he praises is Order." "And so he accepted the point coupons Adjudicator Viclay gave him. Even Inquisitor Pavaro learned to keep secrets. "I've read the dossier on the Qihe case, and I've read the report Inquisitor Pavaro submitted to the district that got suppressed. I know what he was up against, the pressure he bore, and the heavy burden of his family. "That's why I respect him." "Then why did you arrange for me to..." "Did you think I had you report to me so you could spy on him?" "Wasn't that why?" "Yes, exactly. I do want you to monitor Inquisitor Pavaro for me—because if something like that happens again, I want to know in time so he won't be left without support or help like last time." "Understood, Captain. I'll keep a close eye on Inquisitor Pavaro for you." "My energy is limited. I can't go prying into every person who harbors a secret. So rest assured, I won't pry into your affairs, nor will I spend a shred of effort investigating you. "Because since Inquisitor Pavaro recommended you, I will trust his judgment unconditionally." With that, Neo's form dissolved into a cloud of black mist, drifting away into the distance. Karen remained where he was. He instinctively reached down to touch the ring on the ring finger of his left hand, shook his head with a self-deprecating chuckle, and murmured: "Sigh... damn this persona of mine."