192 Night Time Hoorn

It was already ten in the evening and the street was only getting busier. People wearing thick clothes kept on coming and gathering around the many bonfires. There were happy looks on their faces like there was nothing wrong in the world. Their cheeks were puffy and red because of their liquor and their loud voices filled the air.

Graham walked out of his hotel room wearing a black trench coat covering a thick, dark brown shirt that he was wearing underneath. He wore a pair of black cotton pants at the bottom and a black trilby at the top. If he was standing in the shadow, he would blend perfectly, especially since the night was moonless.

In front of 'The Hotel', there was a group of five men and four women who looked to be in their late thirties. They were gathering around a bonfire, roasting the food that looked like some kind of potato but the color was purple. They were loudly chatting and drinking the clear liquid from a bottle that had an intact snake carcass in it, passing it around each person every time.

Feeling mischievous, Graham walked a little closer to the bonfire and muttered something inaudible.

"I ask that you create a snake form!"

Whoosh!

Because of his Flame Manipulation, the fire in the steel bin shot in the air and started slithering around like a snake. It went dancing for a while and then returned to normal as if nothing had happened.

The people around it were surprised for a second, but then they looked amazed and started cheering.

"Whoa!! Do it again! Do it again!" shouted a man at the flame that had returned to normal excitedly.

"Yes! Hahaha!" added a woman.

They kept on laughing and shouting like they had just seen the most spectacular show in their lives. The people were surely drunk.

Graham didn't pay more attention to them because he had his own mission. He had had his little fun, so now it was time to go.

Unlike Sloten, Hoorn was too big to travel on foot, even for Valentine who could walk really fast, so he had no other option but to hail a public motor carriage. However, since it was night time, they wouldn't just be driving around randomly. He had to ask Stefan to call the company to send one to the hotel.

There were a lot of public payphones in the street, so Graham could use the same method for going back to the hotel later. It was also most likely how most people there traveled at night.

The driver starting driving once his passenger had told him where to go.

Even from inside the carriage, Graham could hear the noises that people were making outside in the street. They were singing, dancing, laughing, and mostly, talking with their unnaturally loud voices.

"Val, at least they look happy. That looks like a channel for them to release their energy," he muttered, and then asked the driver, "Does this happen every night?"

"No, no, sir. People only do this on Saturday nights. And it's especially festive tonight because it's the last Saturday of the month. On weeknights, there are usually only a few who gather outside like this," explained the driver loudly, just like the rest of the city's inhabitants.

"Why Saturday nights?" asked Graham curiously.

"It's because it's the last working day of the week, Sir. People in Sloten work six days a week-- Monday to Saturday, and they have Sunday off. That is if they work for the government companies. If they work for private companies, it's the normal five working days, Sir. But most people here work for the government," he added, "The mines and the factories are all owned by the government of the Republic, you know that, Sir?"

"All the different factories and mining companies are owned by the government?" asked Graham.

"Yes, yes, sir. Amazing, isn't it?" said the driver proudly. His voice resonated within the carriage.

"So what happens on Sunday if people are off? Who will take care of the mines and the rest?" asked Graham curiously.

"Oh that. There are people who work Tuesday to Sunday, Sir. So everything never stops working here. There are also people working night shifts to make sure production is kept running 24/7. We have a lot of manpower, after all, so there is never not enough people," replied the driver.

"That's interesting, Val. So this city must be very important to our country. I wonder what sorts of things they are producing here," muttered Graham quietly. Mining and production were not his specialties, so he didn't know a lot about it.

They arrived at their destination not long after, and just like the rest of the city, Klifstraat was also full of people gathering around bonfires. After trying to haggle without success, Graham paid the driver reluctantly and got out of the motor carriage.

"This street is called Klifstraat, so there should be a cliff here, right, Val? Just like what my divination showed us this afternoon. I'm sure it's beautiful during the day, but at night like this, I can only see a dark abyss," said Graham.

Behind the houses and buildings there, there seemed to be a cliff that was just pitch-blackness at night. There were metal fences built a little far from the edge to keep people safe, so even if it was dark, people shouldn't accidentally trip and fall into the abyss.

Graham walked around a little to try to find a secluded place. He needed to do divination to determine where his target was. There were a lot of flames there, but he couldn't just use one and reveal the image to everyone near the flame.

Since it was a busy night, it was rather difficult to find an area where there was no one around. Even the alleys were full of people dancing and singing, so Graham had no other choice but to go near the fence to the cliff where there were fewer people and lit his lighter there.

With his back facing the street and the abyss of a cliff in front of him, he concentrated on the flame from his lighter and asked a question.

'Where is Wiebe van Houten right now?'

An image appeared in his flame and it showed a man sleeping in his bedroom. It was his target, Wiebe, who was currently sleeping. After that, the image disappeared.

Graham had divined the man's location before, in the hotel, but after seeing the condition of the street, he became aware of the chance that the man might be heading outside. However, it seemed that Wiebe was still asleep the whole time.

After putting out the fire from his lighter and stuffed it back inside his pocket, he focused on the belt that he was wearing.

"I hereby declare my presence a secret!"

"I hereby declare the sounds I make a secret!"

He had had Valentine store his Concealment inside Purloin, so now he could use it twice. A thin yellowish mist began descending and covered his whole body. The mist made people instinctively ignore him like he was just an insignificant rock on the pavement-- nothing to pay attention to. However, it didn't mean that he was completely invisible.

It was also the same for the sounds that he created. To people, it now sounded muffled and just like an insignificant background noise that was completely normal. That was why doing something eye-catching might make people see through his Concealment if they concentrated hard enough. Creating a loud noise would have the same effect.

He now had used all of his Concealment charges stored inside his belt, and he hadn't put any on his face. If people looked at him, he would still be easily recognizable. If he had Concealment on his face, there would be a thick yellowish mist covering it, blocking people's view. However, for Graham, it was not an issue.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Cunningness and Transformation, hereby change my whole being into that of Cornelis Haring!"

Graham's body began undergoing a transformation process at once. He became taller and a scar formed on his face, running across his nose. In a short while, he had completely turned into the Police officer from Sloten, Rood.

"!!"

Suddenly, he felt like a pair of yellow eyes was staring at him from the darkness below. It sent a chill down his spine and he felt scared for some reason. The eyes only stayed for a split second, but he was sure they were there. They were like the eyes of a giant monstrosity lying dormant in the abyss.

"Val, did you see that?" muttered Graham while trying to control his breathing. His heart rate had increased significantly because of it, "What was... that?"

He quickly got away from the fence and turned his back against the dark abyss. Whatever that was, it wasn't something the current him could probably handle. Besides, he had his own mission, so he had to get to it. Later, he would use divination to try to find out what it was if it was possible.

"Let's just go to our target's house," he muttered more calmly.

He walked fast but carefully towards the location of Wiebe's house based on his memory. The body of Rood helped him do that because the man was better trained than he was. It didn't take long for him to get to the mayor's driver's house, all the while staying in the shadow to avoid attention.

Graham stood near the back door of the house which most likely led to the kitchen. He remembered that Danny, the brother of his target, was a Contractbound of the Tongue and War, so he had to be careful. However, Danny shouldn't have any detection ability-- that was assuming he was even home at all. He was the mayor's trusted bodyguard, after all.

After using divination to determine the safety of the house, he issued an Order to the door.

"I order you to unlock yourself!"

Click!

A clicking sound that was luckily drowned by the noise from the street was heard. After that, Graham very carefully opened the door and closed it behind him as quietly as he could. He made his way through the kitchen and up the second floor, where the man's room was.

Tiptoeing, he walked down the corridor to the man's bedroom. He found out that his door was unlocked, which was probably so that he could quickly respond in case his sick mother needed him. It also meant that Wiebe wasn't a deep sleeper, so Graham had to be extra quiet.

He twisted the door handle and pushed open the door slowly. The faint sound it made was drowned by the noisy street, but it still woke the man up!

"I order you to fall asleep!"

He quickly said before Wiebe could fully get up from the bed.

Since Wiebe wasn't fully awake yet and Graham was much stronger now, his Order took place immediately and the driver went unconscious.

"An amazing man this guy is," Graham muttered quietly, "It seems that he had trained himself to completely ignore the noise from the people outside during these nights, but other noises can still wake him up." There was praise in his tone.

Graham approached the sleeping man and placed his both hands near his head. After that, he started chanting while focusing on the information he needed. It was about the mayor of Hoorn, Hank Krammer.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Cunningness and Transformation, ask to read the memory of this man!"

Sploosh!

That was what Graham felt. He felt like he fell to the water and was now inside an aquarium, watching the scenes in front of him through the glass tank. He saw the interactions between Wiebe and the mayor, and it was apparent that the mayor was treating him kindly. That explained why the driver trusted the mayor so much. The scenes kept changing and Graham memorized everything about the mayor that was shown by Wiebe's memory. There was also information being transferred to his brain slowly.

Once everything was done, Graham felt like he was pulled out of the water and returned to reality. The man was still sleeping soundly on his bed and his expression showed a little discomfort for a second. After that, it became peaceful again.

Meanwhile, Graham was processing all the information he had received.

"So, the mayor's cane is his enhanced weapon. And the book, as we know it, is an artifact. Anti-divination has been placed upon them by the secretary, that's why my divination didn't work earlier, Val," he muttered, "According to this man's memory, the cane is almost indestructible and can cause the mayor's enemy to instantly develop a random irrational obsession. It sounds like a very powerful weapon," he said jealously.

"If we want to pretend to be the mayor, we have to make a replica of the book and the cane, because the man always has those two items with him," he said quietly.

Graham was looking at the locket that the driver was wearing.

"We cannot steal it tonight. It has to be a believable performance where the mayor is the villain, and it has to be powerful enough to shake his trust that he has built all these years," he muttered coldly.

Leaving the sleeping man alone, Graham quietly and carefully got out of the house through the same way that he had entered. Once outside, he walked several meters away to get a payphone to call for a public motor carriage. Before making the call, he removed the Concealment shrouding his body but not the transformation. He would do that later once he was near his hotel.