Artifact Report

Chapter 15: Chase, Human Hunter
Chai Si took out a silver comb from his suit pocket and slowly combed a strand of hair to the back of his head.

The comb was small, and the emeralds in it reflected a deep, clear light; the light sank into the black hair and broke between the strands.

Luxurious and expensive things in this world, if they exist, are meant to be used by people. Chai Si would not keep a comb in a jewelry cabinet just because it is a valuable antique.

"I stripped him of his clothes with my own hands."

Chase leaned back in his chair and said, "I have no problem finding a new use for the cauterizing gun, but Dr. Nate was worried I might puncture his intestines with my heavy hand, so he examined me. I was watching the entire time, and I can confirm that the bodyguard had nothing on him."

Kailonan, who was sitting opposite, hummed.

He was over sixty, his hair faded to an iron-gray color, like the thick fog on a cloudy morning. Wrinkles carved a hard face that rarely showed any expression, and his dark blue eyes always seemed to be observing people from afar, deep in the fog.

In front of him, Chai Si sometimes thought he was still a toddler.

"Where's the bodyguard's home?"

"I just came back from his house this morning, and now there's not a single intact tile left." Chase pondered for a few seconds and continued, "I searched the car, but found nothing. I also checked the driving records and surveillance footage. He drove straight home after leaving the manor and hadn't left the house before I found him. Except for the pizza delivery man, no one had met him. If he hid the fake image in the manor--"

"There's nothing left in the manor," Kilronan whispered. "The new hunters have scouted it."

Chai Si nodded, frowning his thick black eyebrows.

"The bodyguard didn't get any of the four fake images that disappeared from Vesile's study?" asked Kellonan.

Chai Si looked at the ceiling and thought for a while.

"No," he murmured, "he got it... he got at least one."

"how do you know?"

Chai Si sat up, a little irritated, his two large, fair hands clenched tightly together, a few veins popping out on the backs of his hands. There was a faint line of black and red stains between his nails, and he hadn't had a chance to clean them yet.

"I searched every possible hiding place, but there were no artifacts. The guy, having just broken his left arm, begged me to search his house and car. He even gave me the address of his sister's house outside the city without me asking."

He pulled out a few banknotes, folded them into two stacks, rolled them up, and slowly cleaned the cracks between his nails with the pointed corners of the banknotes.

"I inspected the bill very carefully, confident I hadn't missed anything. But as I watched him on the boat, a feeling gradually developed... I can't explain it, but I just knew it." Chai Si stared at the black and red markings on the corner of the bill and said, "He's got the fake image."

Although Ivan was terrified and in pain, and wanted to escape from the boat and Chase at all costs, there was something... there was something indescribable, like a bone, supporting the man who was crying and twitching and howling, and made him grit his teeth and hold back the secret.

People who have seen another world seem to have a certain distance from the reality before them. Even physical pain seems to be separated by a layer of cotton at first.

Chai Si had experienced this feeling before from a hunter who had just returned from the "nest".

Ivan is not a hunter; he only has a relationship with another reality through an illusion, which vaguely carries a similar aura.

However, he couldn't hold on for long.

When Chai Si thought of this, he twisted his hands together in frustration.

No matter how precious a false image is, it is not as valuable as life and limbs; even if it is a rare false image that can enable people to obtain the highest wealth and status, no one will be willing to become a human pig for it.

Late last night, Ivan sat naked in a pool of blood, shivering violently in the cold sea breeze. One of his arms, broken into several sections, was dislocated from his shoulder, which had a bloody hole in it, and was much longer than his right arm.

Looking at his appearance, Chai Si knew that he was not far from the critical point of collapse without any real action.

By any standards, Ivan is not a tough guy.

In a few minutes, he would be able to speak, but at this moment, a light suddenly pierced the night sky above the dark sea in the distance; the sound of the engine of a large speedboat roared through the waves, pushing the light into Chai Si's sight from afar.

Doctor Nate's head shot up and he whispered, "Is it the Coast Guard?"

According to Chai Si's understanding, the coast patrol would not usually appear at this location at this time, but out of caution, he still threw the blood-stained dumbbell in his hand; it hit the ship with a "bang", causing the ship to shake slightly.

"Get down," he ordered the bodyguard, adding, "Doctor, give me the cover under the seat."

He threw the cover cloth usually used to cover the boat over Ivan's head, covering up his red and white body and the black and red blood stains.

Chase took a big step over the shivering, rustling cloth, took a can of beer from the liquor cabinet, tossed it to Dr. Nate, and said, "Drink."

The crisp sound of the pull ring being broken open was drowned out by the sound of the engine getting closer and closer; vaguely, Chai Si could see that the approaching ship was a large speedboat, very similar to the coast patrol ship model, and it seemed that it would break through the waves and pass in front of them in a few minutes.

"Well, I pay taxes, and you're preventing me from doing my job."

Chai Si muttered as he sat down, picked up a fishing rod from the boat, and didn't even throw the line into the sea.

Tonight, the sky is covered with thick clouds, and there are no stars or moon. The visibility on the sea is extremely poor. A few meters away, it feels like falling into a dark void.

If the other party didn't turn on the searchlight, we wouldn't be able to see how many people were on the boat, let alone the fishing line. The reason we prepared the cover cloth, beer and fishing rod was just in case.

Although there were not many boats going out to sea for night fishing at two or three o'clock in the morning, there was never a shortage of private cruise boats in the central bay. The coast patrol seemed to have other goals and drove straight past them. They had no interest in Chai Si's small boat and did not even slow down.

The large speedboat, moving at high speed, stirred up waves, throwing the small boat up and down, causing it to rise and fall involuntarily. As the waves swayed, Chai Si suddenly cursed inwardly, jumped up, and turned to pounce on the cover.

He lost his balance and bumped into the guardrail; but he seemed not to feel it. With a wave of his arm, a big hand with long fingers grabbed the cover.

"what happened?"

Amidst Dr. Nate's screams and the sound of waves hitting the hull, he pressed down the moving cover with one palm and clenched his hands - Chase was confident in his hand strength. If he held someone's hand tightly, that person would not be able to break free unless they imitated a gecko breaking off its tail.

But Ivan had somehow escaped. The incident happened so quickly that it was only afterward that Chai Si figured out how Ivan had gotten away.

Taking advantage of the rough waves, Ivan climbed from under the cloth to the railing, hoping to take advantage of Chase's distraction to jump out of the boat; Chase noticed it in time, jumped over, grabbed him and pulled him back - however, due to the shaking waves and the cloth in between, Chase did not expect that what he grabbed was his left arm, which he had broken and had a bloody hole in it.

The bodyguard's shoulder was pulled, and the wound that had just been sealed by burning was torn deeply again; a long cry of pain immediately rang out from the railing, piercing sharply into the darkness.

Along with the cries of pain, blood also flowed out of the body.

Although the pain was unbearable, it was precisely because of the large amount of blood that Ivan finally took advantage of the swaying of the waves, pulled out his broken arm, and rolled off the boat - all this happened in just three or two seconds, but when Chai Si rushed to the railing and looked around, the bodyguard had already sunk and was out of sight.

The night was dark and the sea was vast. Even with a flashlight, one could only see the waves a few meters away.

Although the bodyguard was dragging an injured arm, it would not be difficult for him to get out of Chai Si's sight if he held his breath and swam underwater for a while.

"He thought he could swim back to Blackmore City despite being injured and bleeding?"

Chai Si tried to smile, but his facial muscles felt heavy, and he couldn't move. "I'm afraid he's already dead in Central Bay, swept away by the current somewhere. I'll keep an eye out for any reports of a dead body over the next few days."

"You have to wait for news of a dead person before you know how to proceed?" Kaironan asked with a smile.

"No... Of course not, Uncle Kai."

Chase couldn't help but lower his voice. "I'm going to look for his sister and the pizza delivery guy."

Kailonan seemed uninterested in his next plan. He took a sip of black coffee and said, "Anything that will be exposed and visible to you is not a good place to hide anything."

Chase tried hard to swallow the words.

He was speechless.

Before Ivan jumped ship, Chase had already taken his keys, phone, ID, and even important passwords. It was only his bare body that escaped. Logically, even if the bodyguard had escaped, as long as he had hidden his belongings somewhere he'd been before, Chase should have been able to find the clues sooner or later.

But Chai Si searched every hiding place he could think of and still found nothing.

What exactly did he miss?

Chai Si's hands had been twisting and crushing unconsciously, and only now he realized that the banknotes he had just used to clean his nails had turned into powder and fell onto the carpet - he suddenly felt embarrassed.

"Uncle Kai, I'll go get the vacuum cleaner. Is the handheld one still in its usual place?"

He just stood up, but Kailuo Nan said: "No hurry, sit down."

Although puzzled, Chai Si sat down again.

"Injury has a two-way effect," Caronen said slowly. "The force of a punch on someone inevitably jars into one's own bones and heart. So torturers either become numb or gradually become numb through the violence."

A warm and tingling sensation spread from the palms of my hands to my chest.

"Uncle Kai, I'll be careful," Chai Si said gratefully, "It's just bloody, I can bear it."

"That was not what I meant."

Chai Si's heart suddenly sank. He waited for Kaironan's next words, just like waiting for a punch to hit him in the stomach.

"Brutal and callous thugs are the least valuable in this business," Kellonan said. "You grew up beside me, and I thought you would be smarter."

After a short moment, Chai Si regained his breath.

"For a Hunter clan to grow, the lair is merely the foundation. The real key lies in how we navigate the world and establish our influence. A truly powerful Hunter clan grasps the reality within which each of us must live."

Kaironan laughed deep in his throat.

"...But mastering 'reality' requires more than just violence and bloodshed. Don't tell me this is the only card you have."

Chai Si didn't know that his head could be so heavy. For a moment, he just wanted to lower his head deeply and sink it into his hands - not because he hadn't slept all night.

He knew that Kailonan was not angry, but he would rather he was angry and questioned and scolded him why he didn't get things done.

Chase is now a head taller than Kaironan, well-trained and powerful, even hunters are afraid of him. But when Kaironan is disappointed in him, Chase still feels like he is drowning in ice water - because he can't help but be disappointed in himself.

He stared at his hands; there were several long, pale scars on the backs of his hands, extending all the way to disappear behind his watch and cuffs.

In his youth, in order to find his own path, Chai Si conducted many experiments, leaving various scars and hidden injuries on his body.

Only 1% of the human population in the world has "access" and can enter the nest through their own access; but no one knows what their access is, so they can only try one by one - he tried all the known access methods, but still stood in the world and could not see the nest.

Now he is thirty years old, but he still can't forget the look on Uncle Kai's face when he finally accepted the fact that he had no access, with his eyelids drooping and his silence.

It was like seeing a piece of art shattered on the ground, revealing the foam plastic inside.

The scar on the back of his hand wasn't caused by the experiment. It was inflicted by Chai Si with a hunting knife after the experiment. He didn't know why; perhaps he thought it would create a path.

"I understand." Chai Si said, then realized his voice was hoarse and cleared his throat. "Uncle Kai, I promised you that I would leave this part of the human world to you."

He cannot enter the nest, but he can become a hunter in the human world and seize all the power and wealth that can be obtained in the world for the Kai family.

Because he couldn't give Uncle Kai what he really wanted.

(End of this chapter)