Chapter 198 – To Determine Who is Responsible

Near the exit of the catacombs.

[How many times have we been attacked in this peaceful city?] (Syrus)

[Can you not emphasise that...] (Eva)

[She does have the right to point out such contradictions.] (Luna)

The only silver lining was that they had only attacked them while they were in their standard Syrus disguise, but the fact that they had been attacked should be concerning by itself.

[So, it's been two groups of thugs and two groups of actual assassins.] Syrus commented. It was a lineup that had to be prearranged. [Someone is targeting us, but we don’t know who.]

[...Calling one of those groups' assassins is a bit much.] (Luna)

[They got paid and were competent enough. They got the title.] (Syrus)

[Then why are the thugs called thugs and not assassins?] (Luna)

[Not competent.] Syrus believed her logic was infallible.

[Girls... Why is this happening...] Eva breathed in and out. She mapped out every connection in her head, every piece of evidence and clue from now and the past, and she wanted to find an answer.

It was hard knowing that they had been attacked, not once, not thrice, but four times in her home city. Yes, Eva experienced some trouble in her youth when some people wanted their potions on time, but after she acquired her not-so-good reputation, that happened less often. Hard to aggressively complain when the person one was working with was known to be shit.

[It is what we discussed before, isn't it? Our connection to the royal family.] (Syrus)

[Then what about Maca and Lavender, and Ethan?] The latter was only a boy. [What about their safety?]

They had already confirmed last time they hadn’t been attacked, so far, to their knowledge, it had only been Syrus who had faced these repeated threats.

Luna mused, [Maca would be too obvious. The amount of attention he was getting by just being in the city was huge… If he died, then there would have to be a massive investigation, and surely it wouldn’t be handled by only the guards.]

With the tension filling the city, Eva and Syrus had to agree that the citizens would stop at nothing to learn the truth.

[Then Ethan is easy, he is only a kid. Is that really a threat that needed to be taken out back? Not to mention, he has shown to be, at least from an outside perspective, close to Max, and using him for that purpose could be a strong reason to keep him alive.] Luna finished. [For Lavender, I am not sure? Perhaps bad timing for attackers, or we are thinking about this wrong, and it's something specific about us, which makes us a target.]

[Which still leads us to bloody nowhere.] Syrus shrugged. It really looked like they would just be dealing with the problems as they came, again.

[No... we must find the cause.] Eva said with determination. [We can’t roll with the punches, otherwise Ethan and the rest might be caught in the crossfire.]

[That’s some good backbone.] Syrus stood up from the rubble chair. [Do you two have a suggestion on where to start?]

[Do you?] Luna asked, [You might have more experience in this field than either of us.]

[Ehh, maybe? Sure? My main method was still to brute force it; taking the stealthily approach to uncover schemes always did more harm than good.] (Syrus)

[I... Don’t think that is going to work when we have no clue who the target is... No one we have... defeated had any good information on who hired them.] (Eva)

[Hmm, torture is not the best, especially when the people involved don’t know the answer.] Syrus complained that torture worked minimally; you needed someone who was weak-willed enough to get the truth from but also had the knowledge in the first place, which wasn’t always the case. If it were knowledge that could be confirmed via other sources, then it was likely torture wasn’t even needed in the first place.

People were all too willing to give an answer the torturer wanted to hear if it would stop the pain, even if it wasn’t true. Syrus had seen the situation play out from both sides but found moments where it made an effective method to get information—mostly dealing with punks who didn’t know exactly what she wanted.

[Okay, how about the non-torture approach? Where should we be looking?] (Luna)

Syrus shrugged, [As said, this really just goes back to our earlier conversations. Why us? Look, usually I would at least have an idea in similar situations. People who didn’t exactly like me and wanted to bring me down a peg, or just the literal enemy I was fighting anyway. If we try to apply that to this situation, who is our enemy who fucking hates us? Probably Levi and some members of the church, but can they do something in this city? Maybe? If they can, we would need to figure out where they were influencing these people from, that’s of course if they were the ones involved, but still we are back to the problem we already had, where do we bloody well look?]

She completed her explanation and rant combo, leaving the other to mull over the idea.

It was complicated for both of them.

Who were they supposed to be looking for?

Who would want them dead?

The options Syrus gave were valid, but it had been such a short time, and would some assassin really be the best or even a good approach?

“Sigh…” Eva looked around. The assassins were long gone, realising the failure they had left as soon as possible.

Syrus was almost impressed with how well and quickly they judged the situation.

Eva closed her eyes and pondered. Perhaps Syrus was right; maybe brute forcing whatever came their way was the correct approach. Denying it simply due to it appearing improper was silly, but Eva's issue was with the fact that it felt too passive. Again and again, the world was moving on as it did, and they got repeatedly caught up in its chaos. She wanted to step forward, have a lead, and not be toyed around by forces that couldn't care less about them.

She thought deeply about what could be a reason for them to be targeted.

What had they done since being in this city?

If she excluded the reasons Syrus provided. Then that would mean the reason would have to be due to something about their time here. That was a simple conclusion, but they had to start somewhere. Of course, there was the chance that either the church or Levi was involved, but those leads wouldn’t lead anywhere. If they found new evidence that hints at those possibilities, then she could re-evaluate the solution.

[I can think of one of two reasons. As we have discussed, it is due to our relationship with the royal family, being key individuals that brought them home, would certainly make us a target of interest.] Whether that meant they should be even targeted was a different story, but it was a valid reason. [The second has to do with our investigations…]

[Into the plague?] Luna paused. [Why would that be a reason?]

[I do have to agree with Luna here, we are far from the only people who have been looking into it.] (Syrus)

[But we are also the people who have been working with the royal family.] (Eva)

[So you are combining reason A and reason B?] (Luna)

Syrus replied back seriously, her tone not containing a sliver of her early goofiness. [The reason doesn’t have to require anything to do with our exploring activities, but if it does, do you know what you are suggesting?]

[I…] It hadn’t fully computed with Eva, but the idea had still existed and was coming up whether she wanted to accept it or not. [I do… if they want to stop us from investigating the plague, then that means they know something about what caused it.]

Based on that evidence, that seemed likely… they had mentioned it already… the strangest of the whole thing. Many people died, and while many, so many people died, a large portion were those with exotic attributes or those trying to heal those people and that made sense.

Of course, the people trying to treat the sick would get sick.

That was logical.

But when it came back to the fact, as Eva said before, it should’ve been a massacre.

[They… must’ve known something and were able to protect themselves…] (Eva)

[That is the best-case scenario.] Syrus warned, [They could also be the individuals who caused the plague in the first place.]

A small something cracked inside Eva.

She knew it. Deep down. That could be a possibility.

But she couldn’t trust it.

Her own faith, her own biases, and her own hope couldn’t dare to believe that this act could be entirely purposeful.

At worst, it had to be people taking advantage of a horrible situation and not people creating the horrible situation in the first place.

Luna felt the need to interject. [The chance that it was someone causing the plague is low. If it were truly a man-made phenomenon, it would’ve been replicated by now.]

[There are ways of having an irreplicable weapon.] (Syrus)

…

[Are we sure we want to continue this theory?] (Luna)

[I'm fine with it, either way, if it is just some higher-ups wanting us dead for being connected to the future king or people being secretive because of some cover-up. We would likely be poking at the same type of nest.] (Syrus)

[I…] Eva steeled herself. [We need to explore the possibility.]