Mr. Mischael sat up from the hospital bed—it was now fifty-five minutes past four in the afternoon. The hospital, founded by the Goddess of Mercy, was currently going through a shift change, and the nurses would not come to the private rooms at this time.
He donned his coat, moving as if devoid of any wounds. He opened the door and walked out into the empty corridor. Across from his room, the door was wide open, with an old man on the bed laughing at a newspaper every now and again.
He seemed like a senile old man, sent here by his children who had confirmed he was insane, saying they would transfer him to a suburban rehabilitation hospital tomorrow.
To put it bluntly, it was merely finding a quiet place for the old man to await death.
But at least the children had paid money, which made them countless times better than those who were even stingy with that.
Walking on the carpet, soundlessly, Mr. Mischael pushed open the door to the security passage. He descended to the first floor via the external stairs of the security passage. The alley was quiet. Mr. Mischael turned the corner, took off his coat, and handed it to himself.
"Hard at work, I see," said the Mr. Mischael receiving the coat, nodding.
The one who handed over the coat also nodded. He walked to the end of the alley, stood in front of the river, and then, placing his hands on both sides of his head, twisted forcefully.
The body, now devoid of control, plunged into the river.
The Mr. Mischael who had taken the coat put it on and hobbled back up the emergency stairway, arrived at his own floor, opened and locked the security door, and came to his own room.
"Sister of mercy, surely there’s no need for inspection this time, right? The people staying here are all wealthy and noble. Clearly, they don’t fit the murderer’s profile." At the end of the corridor, the head nurse accompanied a group of burly men as they approached.
"Sister of mercy, if a murderer could be defined by money and power, then would the poor be born criminals?" The inspector rendered the head nurse speechless with just one sentence.
Mischael thought for a moment, twisted his foot with force, and then fell headlong onto the corridor floor.
"Ah, Mr. Mischael! What happened to you?" The head nurse immediately rushed over, accompanied by a burly man. Mischael, somewhat embarrassed, said, "I apologize, it seems I’ve twisted my ankle."
After speaking, he sat up, pulled up his trouser leg, and revealed his swollen ankle.
"My goodness, sir, you are indeed unlucky," said what seemed to be a member of the Church of Justice, making a cross over his chest.
"It’s nothing really; I’m lucky. To think that I fell and didn’t hurt the cut on my back." Mischael continued with an awkward smile, "And you are?"
"A member of the Church of Justice, here to find a murderer from an assassination. Sir, about the knife wound on your back..." "I got injured this very morning."
The conversation ended there, and the big man nodded, "Thank you, sir. Come, let me help you up."
With his help, Mischael stood up and was then assisted back to his bed.
"Thank you, messenger who judges evil. I am Mischael, and my family is always welcoming to friends like you."
"Think nothing of it, sir. You might want to get the sister of mercy to treat the wound on your foot." After saying that, the big man left the ward. He returned to his leader.
"How did it go?" the tall man in the corridor asked.
"He doesn’t seem to be the one. I didn’t see the back wound, but according to the hospital records, when he was stabbed, Miss Margaret and Mr. Colin were present. When I helped him up, I felt he only had the strength of Sequence Eight and didn’t belong to a strength-based Sequence. Mr. Malin fought with the killer, and many witnesses saw them exchange blows. The killer was able to use leverage, which shows his strength wouldn’t be much less than Mr. Malin’s; otherwise, that kick would have been enough to kill him."
"Then it’s probably not him..." Watching the team members come out of the rooms shaking their heads, the tall man sighed, "It seems our efforts are destined to be in vain... I wonder how the other envoys from the church are doing."
Malin found himself with little to do, as the adults seemed very busy, and Colin was working despite his injuries, responsible for gathering the intelligence that was passed along, then sorting and distributing it to different people.
Meanwhile, an investigator from the Church of Justice was dragging him to do a combat replay.
"You said you were in this position when you traded kicks with him, what’s the deal with this footprint?" The female investigator did not believe for a second that Malin could have made such a deep footprint.
Therefore, Malin had no choice but to kick again near the footprint, this time aiming at a 200-pound wooden dummy. Without holding back, his kick sent the dummy flying onto the roof, shattering it mid-ascent as it had been carved from a single tree stump.
At the same time, he also made an even deeper footprint next to the original one.
"How strong are you exactly?" The male investigator, having watched the dummy’s ascent, looked down and asked this question first thing.
"How would I know," Malin shook his head.
"How old are you?" The female investigator obviously did not want to dwell on the footprint issue any longer.
"Old Ferrero measured my bone age; he said I’m eleven," Malin said, looking at the male investigator. "Can you measure strength?"
"Sure, wait a moment, I’ll have someone from the Church bring you a Fate Stone Plate..." As he said this, the male investigator asked with some curiosity, "Do you also call it a Fate Stone Plate here?"
"No," Malin rolled his eyes. "Isn’t that thing for kids to use?"
"That’s for testing Spell Formation affinity, but Transcendents also have attribute-testing stone plates," the male investigator explained, glancing at Malin. "Right, usually the first attribute test isn’t done until you’re fourteen."
So Malin waited for a while, and during this time, some fearless youths from other churches who wanted to challenge the great strength of the Goddess of Harvest Church approached, only to be knocked out with a single blow from Malin’s hammer.
"I think at least 14 points of strength, he held back, didn’t kill anyone," the male investigator interpreted.
"At least 15 points of strength, the other guy was the top student in the seventh year at the Church of the War God, and he was wearing armor. The armor wasn’t even dented by the blow, you’d need over 15 points of strength to do that," the female investigator frowned. "Eleven years old, 15 points of strength, that’s practically an ancient Frost Giant."
"I heard he’s of mixed Frost Giant heritage; his father’s side must be incredibly strong to suppress the dominant Frost Giant genes," the male investigator felt like he had stumbled across a gold mine. "I have a daughter about his age..."
Then the two investigators saw Malin open his arms and embrace a little girl who ran into them.
"Mowish’s little princess, I guess your daughter’s out of luck," said one.
"Forget I mentioned it," said the other.
That brought the investigators’ banter to a close.
Their brethren returned with a stone plate, and after placing it in front of Malin, the male investigator tested it first: "8.7, good, up by 0.2 from last year." Then he stepped aside, and the numbers formed by spiritual energy on the stone plate gradually faded.
"Your turn, Malin. Channel your spiritual energy," the female investigator said with a face full of expectation.
So Malin did as told, and the stone plate cracked, showing a number 20.
The male and female investigators looked at each other, their faces full of question marks.