Chapter 388

Three Hundred and Twenty-One: Persuasion

During the night, dark clouds obscured the bright moon in the sky. The main stream of the river, which meandered from afar, flowed over a desolate beach west of Tivyán, heading towards the distant city.

On the riverside far away from the city of Tivyán, a villa stood tall. In the darkness surrounded by the sound of the tide, lights shone through the windows of this villa.

At this moment, inside this villa, in a decoratively elegant room, Davik, covered in wounds, lay on the bed. The bandages on his chest had been removed, revealing a large scar there. Standing beside him in a white nun’s robe was Vania, placing her hand on his chest, her expression focused as she treated his wounds. Under the warm orange-yellow glow in Vania’s hands, Davik’s injuries slowly healed, and his originally rapid breathing gradually became more relaxed.

On the other side of the room, two men dressed differently stood there, their expressions cold as they monitored Vania’s healing to prevent her from doing anything abnormal.

After a period of continuous healing, Vania sighed in relief, then stood up and turned to the two men who were watching her.

“Now Mr. Davik’s condition has stabilized, he won’t be in immediate danger, but he will still need to rest well afterward.”

Vania said to the two men in the room. After hearing this, the two men exchanged glances, and one of them spoke to Davik.

“How do you feel, Jones?”

“Huff… Huff… Better than before… Thank you, Sister Vania… You saved my life again,” Davik panted, and Vania responded politely.

“There’s no need to thank me, I’m just fulfilling the will of the Holy Mother…”

Vania responded like this. Seeing her actions, the two men monitoring her couldn’t help but look sideways, thinking that there really are such followers of the Holy Mother who can treat enemies without discrimination. She truly belongs to the Holy Mother.

“Mr. Smith has ordered that once your wounds stabilize, you should immediately go see him. He is waiting for you in the secret room. Also… after this nun heals you, lock her in the dungeon immediately. Miss Nun, please follow him first.”

One of the men monitoring her said, then another man stepped forward, looked at Vania, and took her away. With a hint of panic, Vania glanced at Davik on the sickbed and was led out of the room.

Afterward, Davik went to see Smith, and Dorothy, who did not know the location of the secret room, rolled her eyes and made Davik slowly put on his clothes while sitting on the bed, then slowly get down. After a moment of unsteadiness, he staggered toward the monitoring man and fell. The man immediately helped Davik up.

“What’s wrong? Jones? Are your wounds not healed yet?”

“Huff… Huff… No, the wounds are fine, but I’m still very weak. Well… I might have some trouble walking on my own, how about you help me to the secret room to meet Mr. Smith?”

Under Dorothy’s manipulation, Davik said this. Hearing these words, the man paused and, after looking at Davik’s frail appearance, agreed to support him all the way out.

Supported by the man, Davik began to move through the villa, turning countless corners until he reached the end of a corridor. Here, the man triggered a candle mechanism, and the portrait depicting a banquet on the wall opened, revealing a secret room. Davik was supported into the room.

Behind the portrait was a spacious secret room with red floor tiles. On the arched ceiling, a bl**d-drawn symbol of the Wolf bl**d Association was painted, a wolf’s head within an inverted triangle. Deep within the secret room, there was a cup-shaped altar made of human bones soaked in bl**d, with writhing flesh inside. Dorothy had seen similar altars before, in the homes of Holy Communion members in Igewent. These bl**d-colored altars were tools for remote communication among them.

In the secret room, sitting on a sofa next to the fireplace, was a middle-aged man. He wore a dark red suit, had brown hair, and a serious face marred by animal claw marks. Dorothy immediately recognized that this was the werewolf who had brought them here after reverting to human form. His name was Smith.

“It seems you’re still quite weak, sit down.”

Seeing Davik arrive, Smith spoke, then pointed to a seat in front of him. Controlled by Dorothy, Davik nodded and sat down, supported by the man.

“Mr. Smith, I’ll leave now.”

After delivering Davik, the original monitoring man quickly left the secret room. For a moment, only Davik and Smith remained in the room. After taking a few puffs on his pipe and exhaling smoke, Smith spoke.

“Davik, you’ve been captured by those Black Dogs for so long… Tell me honestly, did you say anything?”

Smith said with a stern expression. Davik paused slightly after hearing this and replied.

“No, don’t worry, Mr. Smith. Those Black Dogs didn’t get anything out of me. After being ambushed in the Basket District, I managed to escape. As soon as I woke up, I pretended to have amnesia.”

“Pretending to have amnesia? You’re pretty resourceful… Did they really believe you?” Smith continued after taking another puff, and Davik nodded in response.

“Yes… To be honest, I’ve done some research on amnesia before, so I acted convincingly. They believed me. To get information, they tried every possible method to help me recover my memory, even thinking absurdly about showing me old things to see if they could trigger any memories. So they took me to their headquarters, but we didn’t expect to be rescued on the way back. Mr. Smith, where did you get information about me?”

Curious, controlled by Dorothy, Davik asked, and the other party answered directly.

“Of course, it was bought at great expense from the Eight Pinnacle Nest. They planted a very deep informant in the Black Dog Bureau. That’s where the intelligence came from.”

“Infiltrating the Anonymity Headquarters… A very deep informant? Mr. Smith, does this mean… you knew about me in the hospital from the beginning and planned the rescue?”

Davik continued asking, and Smith responded immediately.

“No, we only found out about you this afternoon. Initially, we commissioned them to gather information about you, and they said they weren’t sure if they could find it and it might take a long time. We waited for days without any news, but suddenly today, we received very accurate information. It seems their informant was a bit unstable.”

Smith said, and hearing this, Dorothy was stunned, pondering that the Eight Pinnacle Nest had mobilized even Gregor, an intelligence officer who hadn’t fully infiltrated the bureau, to track Davik’s whereabouts. This indicated that their deep informant’s intelligence capabilities seemed indeed unstable. If he could provide stable intelligence, there would be no need for Gregor to undertake intelligence collection tasks.

“How did they manage to infiltrate the Anonymity Headquarters so deeply?” Dorothy continued, making Davik ponder aloud, and Smith exhaled a mouthful of smoke before continuing.

“I don’t know. The Eight Pinnacle Nest is particularly skilled at infiltration. They might have some special skills… Rather than how the Black Dog Bureau was infiltrated by those spiders, I’m more concerned about how your whereabouts were exposed. Maybe we are being infiltrated too.”

Smith said seriously, and Davik immediately responded.

“When I was pretending to have amnesia, they showed me a photo of Alex… I think they might have found me through that clue.”

“Alex…” Hearing Davik’s words, Smith’s expression darkened, and he said with disgust.