Nina went out to school, and like many times in the past years, she once again believed her uncle's promise to her, believing that her uncle would wait for her in the store when she came home from school.
It is also possible that she has actually stopped believing in it for a long time, but is still stubbornly pretending to believe in it.
Duncan stood behind the window on the first floor of the antique shop, watching Nina's trotting figure quickly turn around the end of the street and disappear from his sight.
Uncle Duncan would wait for her at the store until she came home. He had promised.
"Aiyi, come here."
As a thought flashed through his mind, a stream of green flame suddenly streaked through the air, and the figure of a dove appeared in front of Duncan.
The bird tilted its head and looked at its owner with its green eyes.
Through the connection established by the spiritual fire, Duncan can clearly sense the location of the pigeon and its condition - although it is not yet possible to fully share the five senses, this level of perception can already do a lot of things.
Duncan lowered his head and looked into Ai's small eyes: "You are actually very smart. You can completely understand what I say and can do a lot of things, right?"
The pigeon immediately flapped its wings proudly: "Loyalty cannot be expressed in words! Loyalty cannot be expressed in words!"
"Well, I have a bold idea now, and I want you to try it." Duncan smiled, and then took out the sun badge from his arms, which has now become a "cultist approach alarm."
He carefully wrapped the badge with a piece of cloth to prevent it from being exposed to ordinary people, and then carefully tied it to Ai's back with a strip of cloth.
The pigeon was extremely cooperative from beginning to end, and even used its mouth to help Duncan tie the cloth strips. It seemed to understand exactly what its owner wanted to do, and except for the fact that it couldn't express its thoughts accurately, it was as smart as a human.
"Just fly around the city, and when the badge becomes hot, search for a location that resonates with you, preferably a specific building," Duncan told the pigeon seriously, "I'll sense your location... By the way, stay in the Lower Town and the Cross Street District first, and don't go to the Upper Town. I'm not familiar with that area, and I can't determine the address just by positioning."
The pigeon flapped its wings and tilted its head: "Some French fries?"
Duncan said sternly: "If you can locate one, I can bury you with French fries."
Without saying a word, the pigeon flapped its wings and rushed towards the gate, as if it was afraid that its owner would go back on his word.
Duncan watched the pigeon fly farther and farther in the sky with a smile on his face, and his perception clearly tracked the pigeon's current position and the general state of the environment around it. Then he returned to the room, took out a map of the Pland city-state and put it on the counter. While looking at the map, he recalled the plan details of the lower city in his mind, and tracked Ai in his perception, constantly confirming the position of the bird.
This was actually easier than he had expected—the connection established by the Spirit Fire was even more stable than at the beginning. Ai's flight path was almost a clear and bright indicator line in his mind. With the help of the map and memory, it was not difficult to locate the bird.
This is a good method.
Duncan exhaled lightly, changed into a comfortable posture and leaned against the counter - he promised Nina that he would not go out to "ask for danger", so of course he had to do it.
But he can release the pigeons to hunt and write the report letter at home...
To be fair, this is actually a better solution. Flying pigeons are much more efficient than him driving around the city searching - of course, there are disadvantages to this, which is that after finding the cult's hideout, there is no way to blend in to gather intelligence, and the only value left is reporting.
But Duncan didn't care much about this regret. Anyway, based on his experience at the last rally, those cultists who could be easily found were actually a group of minions gathering information at the grassroots level. The value of their intelligence was limited. And if Ai really sensed some "big fish"... he also had a follow-up method to "fish up" the big fish alone.
After all, Ai’s abilities are more than just flying around with a sensor on its back—its main job is to deliver goods…
If a big fish is really found, let Ai open the door on the spot and teleport the person to the Lost Homeland. Since his real body is on the ship, it will be more convenient to interrogate him in detail.
It just so happened that he had not yet tried to use pigeons to teleport humans, so he could not use innocent citizens for such experiments - but it was different for those evil cult priests who killed people and dug out their hearts for no reason.
When necessary, they can be "consumables".
Duncan leaned back in his chair, sensing Ai's position while thinking over his plan in his mind. He felt more and more that this was a perfect plan - his draft letter of complaint, interrogation draft, search and transmission process were all planned out. Now all he needed was a two-legged purse called "Sun Believer".
At present, the only thing that needs to be considered in this whole plan is how to explain to Nina when the authorities issue the reward if his report letter is really true - he has promised the girl not to go out "hunting".
Duncan thought for a long time, and suddenly remembered something -
In this world that has developed into the industrial age, there is such a thing as "bank".
This is the inevitable result of economic and productivity development, and also a necessary condition.
Although the banking system in this world is not as convenient or popular as that on Earth, it always has the most basic account functions.
The city-states on the vast ocean even used this to build a financial system of interoperability - even though maintaining this system was much more difficult than on Earth, they still built it.
The original owner of this body was not doing very well and had never established an account in the City-State Bank - this was a very normal thing in the Lower Town. Usually, only the respectable people in the Upper Town would reach the "level" to deal with the bank, but the bank itself was open to all citizens.
There is a bank in the cross street area.
Duncan had a plan in mind. He decided to go to the Cross Street District in the next one or two days to establish his first "bank account" in this world. This way, if his activities in the human world expand, the flow of funds will become more convenient. Even if he doesn't consider the future, he can skip the step of leaving an address when writing a report letter in the future and can directly leave an account.
Of course, whether this approach is feasible or not would have to be tried out at that time. After all, the original owner of this body did not have much experience in dealing with the city-state's security department (or strictly speaking, not much positive experience), but Duncan believed that this was reasonable.
In this not-so-safe world, anonymous reporting should be the normal choice made by many concerned citizens out of a cautious mentality.
As for today... he decided to just stay quietly in the antique shop.
This was not entirely because he had to strictly abide by the "agreement" with Nina, but because this was the first time he released the pigeon so far and then used the power of the spiritual fire to locate it. His lack of familiarity with the operation required him to concentrate extra, so he needed a stable environment.
Another reason is that it's time for him to get down to business - the store has never been opened under his ownership.
Duncan stretched and stood up from behind the counter. He slowly walked to the door and hung the "Open" sign outside.
He now has some plans and new proposals, and the beginning of all this is just because he made an agreement with a seventeen-year-old girl. This is really... an interesting experience.
…
Near the Cross Street District, in a dilapidated abandoned factory, church guards wearing long coats with black backgrounds and silver edges have set up a blockade around it. Inquisitor Vanna, wearing light armor and carrying a blessed giant sword, accompanied by two deep-sea priests, walked through the downward sloping stairs and came to the abandoned space on the first underground floor of the factory.
Everything here remains the same as it originally was—after the first group of guards received a tip-off and discovered this gathering place, they have sealed off the scene until now.
In the huge basement, the disgusting smell of blood was particularly strong, mixed with the pungent smell of chemicals roasted by flames. The bodies of the cultists were scattered all over the ground, but apart from the bodies of these solar heretics, no traces of the "attackers" were found at the scene - no extra bodies, not even extra pieces of clothing.
Vanna frowned slightly.
This was a one-sided crushing battle. The attackers were much more powerful than these cultists who were basically ordinary people. Moreover, it seemed that the incident happened extremely suddenly, so that a considerable number of these solar heretics were killed without having time to resist.
Who did it
A wild supernatural being with a personal vendetta against these cultists? Another powerful heretical sect? Or some kind of bloody sacrifice that went out of control, causing these suicidal heretics to summon monsters from the "deep" that they could not control at all
The young Inquisitor fell into deep thought.