Tujea ran wildly with his gun in hand, and the moonlight of Litatra fell down his spine and fell straight down his coat, hanging down the corners of his clothes, as if his clothes were in a cold sweat.

The boots he was wearing weren't very good, and the reaction force from the soles of his feet every time they touched the ground made him feel a tingle in the soles of his feet.

It can't be helped, it's just an old-fashioned pair of 'animal skin' boots, which are not cold or heat-resistant. In fact, it is not made of animal skins at all.

Tujea didn't have any spare money to spend on such a place, and almost all of his salary was used to buy ferry tickets, food, and some cheap organic sweets. They can be found almost everywhere, and there are vendors selling them on cargo ships.

These candies come in twelve flavors, and some say that there is one more flavor that is hidden. Tujea didn't know if it was true or not, he never ate it anyway.

Moreover, they taste terrible.

As bad as the taste that was filling his mouth at this moment. He was familiar with the taste, but he never liked it.

In the name of the emperor, who likes to drink blood? Moreover, it is the blood of others.

No, I don't have time to continue thinking about it for the time being

Tujea forced himself to throw away this nonsense, which did not help anything, and he looked up and observed his most important goal right now.

Thanks to the low buildings in the area, he could easily see the church's towering bell tower. In the moonlight, it was a little eerie, but it also showed a way for him, a strange stranger.

Tujea immediately turned around and entered another alley. Of course, he didn't know the road, but he knew in his heart that playing a game of chasing me with the chasing soldiers on the road was no different from looking for death.

Fortunately, there is never a shortage of alleys in the nest capital.

They are to the nest what blood vessels are to humans. His boots dared into the filthy puddle, his shadow darting and twisting against the low brick wall, his lungs squeezing themselves with all their might so he could catch his breath.

Oxygen. Tujea began to think crankily again. Humans are addicted to oxygen, we are slaves to oxygen, we take deep breaths when we are stressed, we take deep breaths when we feel tired, and we take deep breaths when we are dying

We need oxygen, I need oxygen.

He took a deep breath, stopped abruptly, turned around and fired. The dirty corners of his coat fluttered, and Tujea stared at the sparks bursting from the muzzle of his gun with his eyes open, watching his bullets fly into a man's chest.

It continued to gain momentum, piercing the other man's right hand holding the gun. Two thugs barked from behind them, their brutally modified automatic guns gleaming, and the sharp, sharpened steel plates reflected the moonlight and dazzled Tujea's eyes.

He no longer hesitated, ran out of bullets, then turned and continued to run, while still not forgetting to reload.

"Kill him!" Someone howled. "He wants to go to church!"

Bullets flew past him, and Tujea took another deep breath, trying to keep the rhythm of his breathing. On the ground, chemical waste is slowly passing through exposed sewage pipes.

They didn't know what they were reacting to, and the pungent smoke drifted through the alleys, violating the meagre human dignity that Investigator Tujea enjoyed as a loyal citizen of the Empire.

They made him cough mercilessly, disrupting the rhythm of his breathing and staggering his steps.

Everything has a price, and he was one step slower, so a bullet followed, shattering the smoke and slamming into his right shoulder with ferocity.

Tujea snorted, but didn't stop running.

Chaodu gangs are big and small, and the quality of their members is naturally uneven. Some people have equipment that can compete with the most elite law enforcement teams, while others can only work with illegally modified automatic guns.

They usually have very few opportunities to shoot, so they don't shoot accurately at all. Most of them are idiots who will point their guns at themselves to check the condition of their weapons before the battle begins, but the problem is that human luck is usually equal.

They're already idiots, then, they'll definitely get a little lucky.

And he's not, so he's usually very unlucky.

Another bullet flew at this point.

Tujea heard it, and there was a sudden tingling pain in his left abdomen. Then came the cold, which crept up from the depths of the veins. At this moment, the pain left him, leaving only a burst of mechanical calm.

He stopped, turned around, raised his gun, pulled the trigger - he killed a tattooed bastard, and stabbed another man in the throat, blood splattering and creating a patch on the face of his fellow man.

Moonlight was pouring overhead, and the dirty automatic gun was slowly raised. Tujea tightened his grip on his gun, trying to target the two remaining thugs.

There was at least a few tens of meters between him and them, and if he was not injured, even on a night like this, Tujea was confident that he would take them down with only two shots. But not anymore, his hand holding the gun was trembling because of the wound in his shoulder.

Aim, he has to aim hard as his enemies do.

No.

Tujea suddenly put away his gun, turned and ran.

If you can't hit it, he knows it in his heart.

His hand covering his abdomen had become sticky, and the sight in front of him had blurred. This meant that the bullet that flew from behind, pierced his coat and back, and ended up in his abdomen coincidentally caused massive bleeding

If it weren't for that, he couldn't have become so weak in such a short period of time.

Tujea had some basic medical knowledge, so he understood that hemorrhage was almost the same as a death sentence.

Bullets continued to whizz past his ears, and the two remaining thugs were roaring, their voices sounding as noisy as mutated canines to Tujea. He didn't know if he had been hit, but he hoped he hadn't. He ran, and the smoke still lingered in front of him.

The last thing Tujea saw before everything went dark was a dark shadow that was too tall to be overly large.

At this moment, there are still five minutes left before midnight in Litatra.

——

"He'll survive." A man said.

"He'd better not die." A woman spoke indignantly. "I still have a few more accounts to settle with him."

"Don't do it in church." The man said. "You can break it up with him elsewhere, I don't have any opinion, but not in church."

"I understand, pastor. Plus, I owe you once. ”

"No, we're even." The man who was called the priest replied disapprehantly.

Listening to this conversation from not far away, Tujea slowly opened his eyes, a small slit in his eyes to be precise.

He didn't turn his neck, but cautiously observed where he was now through the corner of his eye.

It took him a moment to get used to the flickering candle flames, and the cold. Neither of these things would be easy to do given his current physical condition, but he could still think, and humans would always be good at thinking.

The first thing he was sure of was that the woman he was talking to was Gore, who he was looking for. This isn't good news, of course, but it can't hold Tujea's attention anymore.

He closed his eyes again, pretending to be still asleep. However, the priest walked up to him.

"Also, Mr. Investigator." The priest stopped a few steps away from him and spoke softly. "How did you sleep?"

Tujea opened his eyes helplessly, and sat up from a mattress little by little.

It was absolutely very clean until his blood stained it red.

He slowly sat up straight, and found that his injured abdomen and right shoulder were all properly bandaged.

His sense of smell 'woke up' at this time, and a strong smell of disinfectant water rushed into his nostrils. Pain and intense headaches all over the body followed.

Tujea forced himself to ignore all of this, and he kept his face and looked at the priest with an absolute expression.

He thought he would see the iconic white robes of the Anglican priests, but he was wrong, he only saw a man dressed as a commoner, he had no memorable features on him, if he had to say, he was a little tall, a little pale, and nothing more.

Tujea immediately raised his vigilance, which had become his professional instinct. As an investigator, he has a keen eye for anything out of the ordinary, and this pastor is very unusual.

The state church has a complete and rigorous rite of ascension, and any devout person who can be assigned to a single priest in a nest area must have extreme zeal.

They are not those missionaries who can adapt to local conditions and create various variants of the state religion that suit the local people's conditions. These people are the agents used by the state religion to control the minds of the masses, and as a result, they will lead by example in their daily lives to abide by the rules and regulations of their faith.

One of these is the dress code, which the Church clearly states that all priests must wear on non-rest days

Tujea decided to speak, but he would speak to the priest at a rather slow pace. However, his plan failed before it could be implemented.

"You bastard!" A woman came towards him with an angry voice. "You've ruined my exchange!"

Tujea's eyes flashed over the face of the female clerk. Then, he raised his hands very sensitively and gave a negative answer.

"No, I didn't. I have not destroyed any of your belongings, citizen Gore. Only six guards in your exchange had some degree of flesh wounds, and as for the bullet holes and shattered glass doors, they were caused by the mob that had targeted me. ”

"You're very good at talking!"

Gore roared, acting very angry, but didn't take a step further. She stopped behind the priest, her rough face flushed.

She had a prosthetic eye and a crooked nose, apparently often injured in the past. She has a large old scar on the side of her face that has left very visible stitch marks.

This means that the person who operated on her is a quack, and this does not match the precision of the prosthetic eye. Her hair was a light chestnut color, and she wore her hair in a high-flying braid, like some thugs who sought to be unique.

Just looking at this Gore, Tujea sketched in his mind an inspirational story of his early years of hardships and hardships.

Then he said, "My eloquence is indeed appreciated by my superiors, and thank you for the compliment, Ms. Gore." ”

As he had said this, he looked at the priest without a trace.

"What the—"

Gore's face twitched, and it stands to reason that someone like her should immediately pull out a gun and punch Tujea's head through.

He knew them, dignity was a very funny word in the nest, sometimes it was worthless, and sometimes people bleed for it.

And for a small leader like Gore, the loss of dignity and the inability to regain it may be more terrifying than death.

But she didn't pull out her gun.

Tujea frowned deeply.

"You're trying to provoke Gore, Mr. Investigator." The pastor spoke appropriately. "It's not a good thing, I think-"

His voice was interrupted by a roar coming from outside the church.

"—Hand them over, priest!" Someone yelled. "We know he's in there! Hand him over! ”

Tujea turned his head and began to follow the direction from which the voice had come from, taking the opportunity to observe the interior of the church.

The church was not very large, and there were not even chairs for the faithful who might come. However, it is piled with statues. Statues of emperors, large and small, are piled up in every corner, every step.

Some are wooden, some are stone, and some are even crystal. Each and every one of them was wiped spotlessly clean and clean. Then there were the candles, where there seemed to be no power system, and the few candlesticks that provided the only remaining light, one of which was placed beside him.

"I'll go out."

The priest nodded to Gore, so saying, and turned and hurried away, unarmed. Tujea watched him leave the side door of the church, stretched out his right hand, grabbed the candlestick, and stood up little by little.

"Sit down, idiot." Gore said contemptuously. "Also, take your dirty hands off that candlestick, which I donated."

Tujea ignored her, but let go of his hand.

Little by little, he walked to a simple wooden bed that he knew had been used as a makeshift operating table, his coat and hat hanging from the edges.

It was fitted with pulleys at the bottom, handrails for pushing at the edges, and a small extra platform on which lay an iron disc with two bullets in it, and a blood-stained scalpel in good condition.

The armrests are very rounded, apparently often used, and the wood is dark red. Combining all of the above, Tujea came to the conclusion that the wooden bed was probably designed to be used as an operating table.

That is, the pastor may have often done similar things to heal people, drawing blood and strife to one of God's dwellings in the mortal world?

Is this really strange, a priest who is not religious, and who often violates the precepts? Not only that, but there are even people in the nest who dare to come to the door to provoke him and ask him to hand over people?

Tujea slowly reached out and took his hat back and slowly put it on.

"Where's my gun?" He asked without looking back.

"With me." Gore replied with a sneer. "You don't want to go back, do you?"

"Or else?" Tujea asked.

In front of her, he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a handful of candy again. He picked one, and with a quick movement peeled it open and put it in his mouth.

And this time, the flavor that exploded on his taste buds was not any one he was familiar with, but one that was very. Special taste. He didn't know how to describe the taste, but his instincts told him it could be a real sweetness.

It's not sour, it's not astringent, it's not weird and terrible sweetness, it's a sweetness that overflows with a fresh fragrance. It is mellow, full-bodied, and full of great well-being.

Tujea was speechless for a moment, and the second half of the prepared sentence was swallowed back into his stomach.

Behind him, Gore let out a burst of scoff.

"An investigator actually eats such cheap candy? It's ridiculous, aren't you lackeys of the legal department all rich? ”

"Obviously, except for me." Tujea said slowly, and turned around. He left the candy wrapper and put it in the pocket of his pants. He didn't want to look at this candy wrapper that might be very useful to him for a while.

"Come on, who knows what you're here for? You bitches are always going to get into trouble."

"What kind of mess?" Tujea asked.

"You know it in your own heart." The people of the nest replied in disgust.

"If you're referring to mutants, illegal psionics, dangerous contrabands banned by order, or cults that are hatching plots, we're not here to blame. They exist, and we're one of those who fix them. ”

"Is your solution to this problem to hang all the people involved in the law enforcement team? Regardless of whether they are innocent or not? ”

Tujea sighed slowly, took the coat with his backhand, and draped himself on.

The voices coming from outside the church were getting louder and louder.

"First of all, you have to understand one thing, citizen Gore." He said slowly. "There are innocent people in this world, but we don't have the right to pronounce judgments."

He held out his right hand.

"Now, give me my gun, if you don't want that priest dead."

Gore still looked at him contemptuously, unmoved.

"He's not going to die, idiot."

"How so?"

Gore didn't answer, but walked to the small side door where the priest had left. Tujea frowned, but he still followed, all kinds of doubts still lingering in his heart.

It is impossible for the news of his visit to Litatra to be leaked, and the whereabouts of the investigators of the Ministry of Justice are sometimes unknown even to themselves.

Despite a minor accident, many people in Starport had heard the captain's curses, and the news of an investigator coming to Litatra shouldn't have spread so quickly.

Regardless of how the man who showed the door to the [Kiss] bar recognized him, the reaction of the local police officer alone was strange enough. They were relieved that an investigator could walk around their precinct rather than send someone to restrain him

And now, not only can those people quickly find him scurrying around like a headless fly in the nest, but they even have the courage to rush to a church and ask the priest of the state church to hand him over.

Of course, there's one last question, the most important one.

How was he rescued?

With these answers in mind, Tujea followed Gore to the side door. Behind them, the candles were still flickering, but the statue of the emperor had quietly changed its appearance.

Blood began to spread on the floor.

(End of chapter)

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