Contractbound

Valentine had promised Luuk to pay him with essential information regarding Contractbounds in exchange for his help. He would naturally share the information with Jacco as well since his goal was to disclose the secrets to them, but he didn"t tell Luuk that Jacco was actually helping for free.

This would be the best time to tell them the secrets since they hadn"t got into the danger yet.

"What I"m about to tell you is something that not a lot of people know about. It"s a valuable piece of information, so don"t go around telling people for free," he said sternly.

Luuk and Jacco were listening intently while keeping their pace, the latter especially since he was the slowest.

"First, the Deities are divided into ranks. The ones we are currently in contracts with are Earls," he said with a low voice, not to cause a lot of noise in the silent night.

"There is another rank called Marquis. I don"t know if it is directly above Earl or not, and right now I don"t know the t.i.tle of the other ranks," he said honestly. Those words were very unfamiliar to him, and probably to Luuk and Jacco as well.

Earl? Marquis? What language is that? Thought Luuk.

Jacco only nodded. It wasn"t clear if he even understood anything.

"Next, the Deity you"re in-contract with will determine your t.i.tle. Luuk is a Thief and Jacco is a War Marcher. I think you probably already knew of this."

"No, I didn"t. War Marcher sounds f.u.c.king cool!" said Jacco loudly, breaking the silence in the peaceful night.

"You should consider carefully which Deity you want to form a contract with next because if the powers are compatible, you will become much more powerful. For a Thief, it is suggested to form a contract with the Deity of Herbs and Precious Stones. Your t.i.tle will then change to a Jewelry Thief. For a War Marcher, unfortunately, I don"t have enough information," he explained lengthly.

"That sounds very complicated," complained Jacco.

"Where can I get the scroll for the Deity of Herbs and Precious Stones?" asked Luuk with full interest. The information that Valentine had just shared was very valuable.

"I can help divine it for a price," he said shortly.

Luuk went silent. He seemed to be thinking.

What a stingy man, he thought.

Valentine then stopped next to a manhole. The other two stopped and looked at what he was looking at. They seemed to understand what it meant.

"We"re going in. As I"ve briefed you, there will be wraiths inside. They"re weak against our blood, so you can just splash some on them to make them stay away,"

Luuk and Jacco nodded.

"Our goal is to reach the exit, not to deal with them. This is where your power will come into play," he looked at Jacco, "But once we reached the cemetery, we have to be stealthy,"

Valentine had briefed them the same before and especially asked Jacco to wear shoes that wouldn"t make a lot of noise. Tonight Jacco was wearing a pair of running shoes as a result.

Valentine turned the manhole cover and opened it with slight difficulty; it was a very heavy metal cover and made that way so that no one could "accidentally" open it. He climbed down the rusty ladder and descended into the darkness; his night vision had been activated, so he could clearly see the wall that slowly turned mossy and slippery.

It smelled gunky inside the sewer and it reminded him of the smell inside the university toilets. The stink penetrated his nostrils and went down his lung, but he was not affected; it was not the worst thing he had smelled in the world.

The air felt sticky on his facial skin, the only part of his body that was not covered. He took out his facemask and wore it, which caused the smell to diminish. He watched as his companions climbed down the ladders one by one.

Clank!

The sound of the manhole cover being covered back signaled that they were good to go. They started walking down the dark and wet tunnel carefully with the aid of their night visions, while Jacco was carrying a flashlight.

The water running in the sewer was greenish, but since Valentine"s night vision gave his vision a yellow hue, he saw the water in a strange yellow-green color. The current was somewhat strong, so falling into it would be dangerous for non-swimmers. Valentine was confident in his swimming ability, so he was not worried in the least.

Splash... splash...

The sounds of their footsteps on water puddle resounded in the dark s.p.a.ce but were completely drowned by the sound of the stream.

When they reached a fork, Valentine went to the right, which was the direction of where the cemetery was. He had confidence in his navigation ability, so being lost was not something he was worried about.

They walked without talking in the dark, for they were always on guard. The wraiths could appear anytime and from anywhere since according to Valentine, they could go through walls. Luuk was carrying his dagger that he had coated in his blood, while Jacco had readied a piece of metal plate and a stick, both of which were covered in his blood.

They came to another fork and this time Valentine turned left. They walked deeper into the dark when suddenly,

"Aaaaaaaaaa!!!!"

"Aaaaaaaa!!!!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaa!!!!"

A lot of simultaneous shrieking that was louder than the water came from the dark tunnel before them. They all covered their ears and couldn"t move for some seconds. The wraiths had shown up!

Those transparent figures with ghastly expressions were looking at the intruders with hatred and jealousy in their eyes. There were more than five of them in the dark tunnel, and being stunned and attacked by them all could be fatal. They were floating around, ready to charge at the trio.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Secrets, hereby declare the word aaaaaaaaa a secret!"

Valentine placed a restriction in the area. Although he couldn"t ban the action of shrieking itself, he could try restricting the sound it made, but he didn"t know if it would work or not.

"Now!" he quickly signaled to Jacco.

"I, in the name of the Deity of War, play this War Drum!"

Badum... badum...!

Badum... badum...!

The sound of the makeshift War Drum echoed in their ears, empowering them. They felt lighter and could run long without feeling exhausted. To the allies, the sound of the drum was like a sweet heavenly melody; to the enemies, it was just an obnoxiously loud noise. The wraiths felt infuriated by the drumming.

"--------------!!!"

"------------!!!"

"---------------!!!!!"

The wraiths tried to shriek again, but no words came out of their ghostly mouth. Valentine"s restrictions worked!

"Ignore them! Push through!" commanded Valentine while starting to run.

"--------!!"

The wraiths still tried to wail while attacking the intruders. Valentine slashed any that came too close with his blood-covered knife, which injured them, but not seriously since they were technically already dead.

Luuk did the same with his knife, moving nimbly around any who blocked his path and slashing any that came to attack him. He almost looked like he was dancing; his feet stepped lightly on the wet sewer floor.

Jacco, with his two hands busy drumming, didn"t have the liberty to attack the wraiths with them. However, he had sprayed blood all over his jacket, so if any wraiths came close to him, he would just ram them with his shoulders.

"------------!!!"

"---------------!!"

The soundless wailing was still happening, and naturally, it had no effect on the trio who were getting farther and farther away from the group of wraiths. They ran with speed higher than the wraiths as a result of the War Drum.

"Don"t get left behind! Follow me!" commanded Valentine.

The trio turned left on the next fork and ran as fast as they could; the wraiths slowly got left behind. Once the wraiths disappeared completely from their sight, the trio slowed down their pace but was still on high alert.

"Those things are f.u.c.king gone!" said Jacco in relief and stopped beating the iron plate. It was his first time facing wraiths. Although Valentine had briefed him in detail, it still shocked him to actually see one with his own eyes.

"Thanks to your power-up we could outrun them, I guess," said Luuk while breathing calmly. Although they had run for a long distance, he didn"t feel tired at all.

"Hah!" Jacco exclaimed proudly.

"Let"s move on," said Valentine decisively.

They kept walking until they reached a dead end. The water could still flow through the barred hole in the waterway, but there was a concrete wall will a rusty ladder in front of them.

"This should lead to the cemetery," said Valentine confidently.

Jacco stopped beating his drum right away. From that point on, they needed to be stealthy.

Valentine climbed up the tall ladder first and opened the heavy manhole cover with slight difficulty. He slid it to the side very carefully not to create a lot of noise.

"You know what to do now," he said almost whisperingly.

Valentine and Luuk walked into the cemetery while Jacco stayed behind, guarding their exit. He was the biggest of them, and his tendency to be loud was not best suited for stealth, so his job was to make sure no one compromised their escape route.

"Do you think there will be more wraiths here?" asked Luuk in a very low voice while sneaking behind a tombstone.

"I don"t think so. The Police Contractbounds must have destroyed them for public safety," he said in an equally low voice.

The cemetery that night was dark and foggy. There were only occasional lanterns scattered around the whole big cemetery, giving it a more mysterious atmosphere. There were tombstones of various sized with different engravings on them, but Valentine was not interested in reading them.

They made their way to the main big building in the middle of the cemetery carefully, while watching their surroundings. Their goal was not to dig up graves, because anything inside it would not be intact anymore. They were going to the central morgue, which also functioned as a crematorium where they stored the body before being buried or cremated.

There were a lot of unidentified dead bodies uncovered every day in Sloten. They would then be transferred to the Police for an autopsy. After the Police were done with the investigation, they had to store the body in the cemetery morgue to make s.p.a.ce for the new one. It was indeed a grim time, and now Valentine could slowly guess the reason.

"Careful," he whispered to Luuk.

There were two cemetery guards approaching with flashlights. They seemed to be only normal people. If the authority had wanted to place a Contractbound to guard the place, they would have sent someone with a night vision.

Valentine and Luuk hid behind a large tombstone motionlessly. One of the bright flashlights shone upon the empty cemetery composedly as though it was thoroughly searching for intruders, while the other only jumped around occasionally in laziness.

"Yaaawn... I"m sleepy," said one of the cemetery guards.

"Stop being lazy," said the other cemetery guard sternly.

"There haven"t been any thefts in months, and if there was any, I"m sure those two could handle it," he said casually.

"You might be right. But we still need to do our job properly," said the other guard with full conviction.

The duo waited a whole minute before the cemetery guards moved along to other spots.

Valentine gestured at Luuk and they resumed their move. They walked on the gra.s.s carefully, avoiding the soft soil so they wouldn"t leave any footprints. It took them a whole five minutes of carefully traversing the dark cemetery to reach the big main building.

They looked at the giant building before them in awe. The morgue was a building with a cla.s.sic architectural style, much like the library and the town hall. They seemed to have been built around the same period. The walls looked aged but still didn"t show any sign of decay. The pillars supporting the roof looked as tough as new. It evoked a feeling of majesty on the onlookers.

"Now, we just need to enter this place," said Valentine.