Westminster Bank

The Griffin Carriage's coachman never imagined in his entire life that he could be hijacked. And his hijackers were just two masked individuals, their faces obscured. Still, he could tell one was a young man with fluffy blond hair.

The Coachman silently noted the young man's features, planning to secretly report him to the Griffin rental association after this was all over.

"Care for some tea?" The blond youth suddenly, and quite abruptly, pulled a cup of tea from his coat and offered it to the Coachman. "It's still hot."

Unable to refuse the offer, the Coachman took a sip and promptly passed out.

"Got it from Old Man Bagins's place. Figured it would be useful."

Jack also took a grinning sip, but his expression suddenly changed. He looked at Baron in astonishment. "Holy shit… I forgot…"

He passed out, too.

Baron: "…"

He sighed. 'Could it be true, just as Secretary Stella said, that none of the Westminster Cathedral containment specialists who've worked under Governor Howard are normal?'

After tying Jack and the Coachman to their seats to keep them from falling out, Baron lifted the curtain and entered the carriage cabin.

This Griffin Carriage was escorting the attendants of a Hestia Family Elder. Inside, two Attendants sat stiffly. Upon seeing Baron, one of them demanded, "Who are you?"

'Who I am isn't important. Who *you* are is what's important.'

Baron recited the cheesy line in his head, then smiled and pulled the Iron Knee Cap—a friendly gift from Morey—from his Holding Ring.

The Attendants looked disturbed. "What are you doing?"

"Simple. Each of you answers one of my questions. If you refuse, I'll use this Iron Knee Cap to give your 'crown jewels' a good, hard strike."

The two Attendants exchanged a look, and after a moment of silence, they suddenly lunged at Baron!

A moment later, both men were on the floor of the cabin, clutching a certain critical area.

Baron tied the two of them together and said nonchalantly, "You're Dragon Devourer Cultists, aren't you."

Neither Attendant spoke, their faces flushed crimson from the pain, but Baron got the answer he was looking for anyway.

Generally speaking, silence implies consent—an unspoken rule of interrogation.

Baron spoke again, "What is the Dragon Eater Association planning this time? And what does Fla… Miss Freya have to do with you?"

The two Attendants remained silent. He checked their breathing—they were already dead.

'So they weren't clutching their groins because of my knee attack, but because they each used a small knife to pierce the other's vitals. Was it to ensure they wouldn't talk? Brutal.'

Still, their actions all but confirmed for Baron that the Dragon Eater Association was planning to cause a major incident in Berthelili.

'If it were as simple as attending the Alchemy auction in Berthelili, like the Coachman said, they wouldn't have offed themselves so readily.'

'How interesting. Berthelili actually belongs to the former Dragon Knight clan, the Dragon Family. And Traitor's Cliff—where the Traitor of the Seven Old Gods is said to have fallen, and where either the Dragon King or a Pure-blood Ancient Dragon Mad Dragon was sealed away—is located not far from Berthelili.'

'All these connections made Baron wonder: was this all just a coincidence, or part of some hidden scheme?'

'Forget it. Thinking about this now will only cause headaches. The priority is to deal with these two Attendants and get on with the mission.'

Baron lifted the carriage seats, planning to hide the bodies inside and then impersonate the men. As he did, he discovered Cultist robes from the Dragon Eater Association. There was no need to guess their identities now; it was plain as day.

Baron collected the clothes and put on a uniform, then splashed Jack awake with water.

The Legendary Thief woke up, wiped away his drool, stretched, and asked, "Where are we?"

Baron was speechless, but handed him an Attendant's uniform and a Dragon Eater Association robe. "Put on the Attendant uniform for now. We'll see about the other one depending on the situation."

Jack nodded and changed his clothes.

Next, Baron splashed the Coachman awake. When the Coachman came to, he saw two Attendants from the Hestia Family stepping out of the cabin. His memory of the hijacking came rushing back, and he said urgently:

"Sirs, something terrible has happened…"

He proceeded to tell the two Hestia Family Attendants about the hijacking, but one of the Attendants said, "Isn't that just an excuse you've come up with for falling asleep? We're at an altitude of ten thousand meters. Who could possibly match a Griffin's speed to hijack us?"

"This…"

Hearing the two Attendants' response, the Coachman began to doubt himself. 'Could what happened earlier… have just been a nightmare?'

Yet the image of the blond-haired hijacker was too vivid. Even with the mask, his features were so defined that they shaped the mask's contours. That, combined with the messy blond hair spilling out from underneath, was an image the Coachman had memorized in a single glance.

The Attendant sneered. "Still going on about it? You're just afraid of getting fined for dereliction of duty, for sleeping on the job."

The mention of a fine jolted the Coachman. He immediately stopped talking about the incident and began to grovel. "My lords, good sirs… please forgive my rudeness, please forgive my dereliction of duty… My entire family depends on my job as a coachman to eat."

"It must be hard to make a living as a coachman in London, isn't it?" Jack, who could make friends with a lamppost, struck up a casual conversation with the Coachman.

Baron wanted to warn Jack not to talk too much—the more you say, the more you might slip up and create problems. But on second thought, being too quiet would be just as suspicious. He let Jack carry on and began to analyze the situation in his head:

'First, Anthony's murderer. While it's not a certainty, there's at least a seventy percent chance Freya did it. My next move is to get Fla to admit it herself, and then expose the truth to the world…'