Chapter 2334: Aftermath of the Turmoil

Chapter 2334: Chapter 2334: Aftermath of the Turmoil

With the matter of the Time Key temporarily concluded, this Monday could finally be considered the true beginning. Only, on that morning before everyone left home, Shard asked one last question:

"Maid, do you know where I can find Director Anlos right now?"

The last time Shard had met Director Anlos was a few weeks ago, when Anlos said that, as MI6 was reactivating its sleeper Agents in Moon Bay City, they discovered that one of them was missing.

Back then he said that if they really couldn’t find that man later, he would ask Shard to help with the Investigation, but since then Shard hadn’t received any new notice.

But that morning Shard was going to see his superior not because of that matter, but because he wanted MI6 to help look into the situation with Moon Bay Bank.

He met Director Anlos at a restaurant on Silver Cross Avenue. Shard often brought the cat here to deal with his dinner, but it was still early now, and there were only a few customers having breakfast in the restaurant.

By the time Shard arrived, Director Anlos, who had just received the letter delivered by the Maid sent by Miss Galina, had already hidden his face behind a newspaper and taken a seat at a corner table. Shard didn’t know why, when his own home was so close to here, it was instead Director Anlos who arrived first.

"You want to find a specific account?"

Hearing Shard’s request, the utterly unremarkable-looking middle-aged man hesitated for a moment:

"Do you know exactly which bank it is?"

"I don’t. I only know that in the past two years, that account would make large remittance transactions during certain specific periods."

Shard took out the dates that Baron Chandler had confessed to yesterday in the basement of the Morgue.

Director Anlos nodded, folded that piece of paper, and slipped it into his pocket:

"Leave it to me. Today is Monday, you’ll have results before the end of the week."

"That fast?"

Shard raised his eyebrows in surprise. Director Anlos lifted his teacup and said:

"We’ve been closely watching the situation in Moon Bay these past few years. Large transactions in the major banks of Moon Bay are already one of our focal points. If it’s just about finding one account and clarifying its transaction records, that couldn’t be simpler. I know anything you’re involved in is bound to be trouble, so I’ll have them act with caution."

Shard didn’t press further:

"That missing... colleague you mentioned some time ago, have you found him now?"

Director Anlos let out a sigh:

"No, but we do have some progress in the Investigation."

He looked like he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, so meeting Shard here also let him settle his own breakfast, and he didn’t mind chatting a bit more with Shard:

"His disappearance wasn’t because he betrayed the... company, but because he ran into an accident. He’d been assigned to work this far away from home, and for so many years he hadn’t contacted headquarters, so it’s normal he’d meet with an accident. But we still need to find out what kind of accident it was—after all, at least a month and a half ago, he was still living as usual."

Breakfast was laid out in front of him, while Shard had only a teacup before him: ℴℴ𝘮

"Murder? Crime of passion? Accidental death? Or did he get caught up in something unspeakable?"

The latter referred to matters involving Circle Sorcerers.

Director Anlos cautiously looked around, and seeing that the breakfast atmosphere in the restaurant was quite relaxed, he lowered his voice again:

"Ridiculous as it sounds, it has to do with a Roder Card. No, not gambling debts or anything of the sort, but a special-rules card at collectible grade."

Shard raised an eyebrow:

"You don’t mean the recent Moon Bay City talk of the town, the ’Out-of-town Merchant and the Three Missing Cards’ incident, do you?"

"You do know about it."

Director Anlos said with a smile:

"It’s said that each of those three cards can be sold for more than five hundred pounds; they’re extremely ancient cards. Our colleague himself wasn’t a Card Player, but in Moon Bay he did some business as a collector and dealer in antiques."

"From the situation as it stands, it seems he acquired one of the cards, and then vanished abruptly while plotting a lucrative deal with others."

Finishing, he picked up his cup and took another sip of coffee. Shard noticed that his superior drank coffee with no sugar at all.

"But even so, we still have to avenge him. After all, that’s the rule."

"Do we know which card it is?"

Shard asked again, and Director Anlos shook his head:

"Those three cards have caused a lot of trouble in Moon Bay, and at the moment we’re still not sure which one it is."

Shard had already obtained the Holy Sword: Dragon Slaying Sword from the dead merchant and his son; that card had nothing to do with the missing and murdered Agent. As for Ancient Alchemy: Dragon Transformation Stone, Shard had heard about it not long ago.

The champion Card Player of Big City in 1850, Viscount Bell Gra’s younger cousin, had tried to get information about that card from Vampire Kind Captain Rudolf, but at the time Captain Rudolf frankly admitted he didn’t have it, so Viscount Gra’s information was clearly wrong.

Therefore, the card that had once appeared in the hands of that missing, now dead Agent should be either "Ancient Alchemy" or the unknown third one:

"I once ran into an information broker in Moon Bay; she said she had a lead on one of those three cards. If I have time, I’ll help look into it."

He was referring to Mrs. Frei, the proprietress of the ’high-end technical establishment’ Parsifal Club. Shard didn’t know which of the three cards she actually had information on, but he didn’t mind trying to repay MI6, which paid his monthly salary.

His meeting with Director Anlos didn’t take long, because he had to come back in the afternoon to attend the Holy Prayer Day activities at the church. So after returning home, Shard hurriedly followed his plan and went to Moon Bay again.

As for little Mia, a cat with its tail on fire was not suited to go out. But Shard wasn’t worried about the cat burning down No. 6, Saint Delan Square; Miss Galina was going to stay long-term until Tifa left, so there would be several Maids in the house, and they would also help keep an eye on that cat.

He walked out of the cave connected to Dragon Nest, and from the small grove looked out over the city from a distance. The great fire from last night had clearly been extinguished, yet the city was still shrouded in black haze.

When Shard passed through the city gate via Saint George Stone Bridge and entered the urban area, he found that the street before him was indeed half-burned. The air was still filled with the smell of smoke and gunpowder; although there weren’t many buildings that had completely collapsed, most of them bore scorch marks, with wisps of black smoke rising toward the dim sky.

This street directly connected to Saint George Stone Bridge looked far busier than usual; the residents and shopkeepers on the street were all sorting out the damage to their homes, hanging up furniture that had been soaked during the firefighting, and hauling away burned furniture and other debris.

Police officers wearing safety helmets were walking back and forth along the street, seemingly tallying the disaster losses. The city fire department was still at work, preventing smoldering embers inside buildings from reigniting. The people who died in last night’s fire had already been carried away, leaving behind the poor souls who had to keep facing life, cleaning up the aftermath.

Judging from last night’s battle, the most heavily damaged area should be this part of the northern city that caught fire, as well as that block in the east of the city where the Witches fought the Light Chasers.

But the latter was partially protected by the Witches, so although many houses were lost, there probably weren’t many dead civilians. The north of the city, however, had truly been struck by a catastrophic blow under the ravages of Vampire Monsters and the great fire.

Because Shard looked different than he had the previous night, the people on the street did not recognize that the young man passing by had been the one who helped them. But Shard did see the two children he had rescued from the flames last night, holding hands as they followed their father and mother, searching for anything still usable amid the ruins of their home.

He didn’t speak to them, only stood there watching for a while before leaving.

It wasn’t just the city; clearly something had also happened in the countryside outside Moon Bay City last night. But not only did the coachman not know the details, even the newspapers hadn’t published them.

Because of last night’s events, local reporters had spent the night compiling the disaster situation in various parts of the city, racing to put out an extra sheet before the morning edition went on sale—a small paper outside the usual numbering, a "special extra." But the front-page headline wasn’t the situation summarized by the reporters; instead, it was the comforting speech that the Mayor of Moon Bay City was to deliver this morning, which had been urgently sent to every major newspaper around midnight yesterday.

As Shard read the newspaper in the carriage to learn what had happened, he also chatted with the coachman. This man in his thirties had been very lucky, his family almost entirely unaffected:

"Sir, my family lives in the Lower District in South City. When everything started last night, someone organized the neighbors and had us hide together in the basement. By the time we came out at dawn, it was all over. I heard it was that ’Eternal Light’; folks say it’s an organization that helps the poor. They’re truly good people.

Some say monsters appeared in the city, but I reckon bandits are the most terrifying. There were gunshots everywhere last night. Just now, the passenger who rode my carriage read the Mayor’s speech to me—Mr. Wright says pirates colluded with the city’s gangs to try and loot the city, but I don’t think it’s that simple."

Last night the great fire had engulfed five streets north of the city connected by Saint George Stone Bridge, and once one left that area, the traces of the fire basically disappeared. Yet along the streets the carriage passed, city workers could still be seen splashing water and solvents to wash away bloodstains; Priests were going door to door, and wagons transporting Corpses moved in and out of the alleys.

Those Vampire Monsters had killed quite a few people in the city last night. And aside from the monsters, the gangs that took advantage of the chaos to rob and commit other crimes had committed equally heinous acts.

Shard and the coachman didn’t talk much about the tragedy in the city. Shard didn’t know how to begin, while the coachman felt that the prophecy about the city was probably true and that such things would happen again in the future.

The closer they drew to the core of the city, the smaller the apparent impact of last night’s unrest became. By the time the carriage arrived near Belindel Estate, signs of turmoil were almost invisible.

It was only because Belindel Estate shared the same district as City Hall that the police were conducting checks at the entrances to the surrounding streets, questioning suspicious passersby. Shard, seated in the carriage, was also stopped and questioned briefly, but he managed to muddle through.