Wearing a tattered coat, with black hair blown into a mess, and in a strange posture of "bending knees and sticking out buttocks"... Leonard couldn't connect this corpse with the extraordinary person of the "Secret Society" who had come and gone without a trace before.
"Dead? How could that be?"
Surprised that the Tuxedo Clown, who had just walked under the gunpoint of everyone and was still at ease facing many night watchmen, had turned into a corpse, Leonard wiped the blood from the corner of his eyes and prepared to walk closer to identify it carefully.
"Be careful, 2-049 is right next to us, don't get too close."
Angel reminded him.
"2-049... Hmm, was he affected by the negative effects of the Sealed Artifact, so he couldn't escape?"
Leonard frowned and muttered to himself as he analyzed. He tilted his head, thought for a moment, and continued to ask:
"But he is a member of the Secret Order and should be very familiar with the Antigonus puppet. How could he accidentally enter the range of influence of the seal? Even we would not make such a low-level mistake."
"He does know a lot about this sealed object and has been avoiding its range of influence, but he has a mission just like us, which is to seize the notebook, so he lingers on the scene. I worked with Klein and used this to force him into the negative effect range of 2-049."
Angel did not hide the fact that klein provided crucial assistance in killing Tuxedo Joker, but did not mention that he was able to remove the influence of 2-049 on his own.
After all, this matter is just a conclusion drawn from my own observations and there is no conclusive evidence, so it can only be put aside for the time being.
Besides, who doesn't have a little secret?
Leonard seemed to have a lot of questions. His eyes moved back and forth between the body of Tuxedo Clown, Sealed Object 2-049 and Angel, his green pupils full of confusion.
Seeing this, Angel pointed at Klein, who was helping Dunn up and searching his pockets, and said, "It looks like Klein is also looking for 'The Goddess's Gaze'. Do you have any more?"
"No more. Each person was only given one bottle. Do you think that's some cheap stuff?"
Pretending to pat his empty pockets, Leonard answered with a wry smile.
"I'll go check on the Borgias. If they shared a bottle, there might be some left."
He walked towards the Backlund Nighthawks who had already stood up by supporting each other. Angel also came to Klein's side and helped him to lift Dunn up.
"Captain, there is no blue metal bottle in the inner pocket as you said."
Klein searched all of Dunn Smith's pockets but did not find the "finger-long sky-blue metal vial" that the latter had described.
"Maybe... I forgot to bring it. It's okay... I'll take a break... You guys go... and find the notes with the others..."
Dunn spoke slowly, enunciating each word. He sat up with the help of the two men, supporting himself with one hand and touching the back of his head which had been hit when he was blown away. There seemed to be a large bump there.
Forgot to bring medicine... This is the captain I know...
Angel complained inwardly. Seeing that Dunn was still struggling to stand up, he quickly replied, "Captain, the notebook has been found. Leonard, go to Borgia to see if there is any more of 'The Goddess's Gaze'. You should sit down and rest for a while."
Hearing Angel's answer, Dunn's scattered eyes focused on her face, and it seemed that it took him a few seconds to recognize her.
"…You are…Miss…Granger…"
Did he hit his head and have memory problems?
Angel looked at Klein on the other side and saw the same worry in his eyes.
Fortunately, Leonard soon came over from Borgia, holding a sky-blue metal bottle in his hand - "The Goddess's Gaze".
"Luckily I went quickly and managed to snatch half a bottle from Ms. Lorota, but this amount is enough... Captain, do you mind?"
Dunn took the potion from Leonard, not caring that the metal bottle had been used by someone else, and drank it all in one gulp. In just a few seconds, his confused gray eyes regained their spirits. He didn't know if his headache had eased, but he no longer covered the back of his head.
"Sorry, I forgot to bring my potion with me."
Shaking his head, he stood up without help from others, scanned the entire place, and quickly ascertained the situation.
"…I failed to consider that an out-of-control Riel Bieber would explode with such force once the note left his body…"
He frowned as he looked at the "Real Bieber" scattered all over the floor, then shifted his gaze to the Sealed Object 2-049 in the field and the Antigonus Notes next to it.
"Fortunately, the notes have been found, and the seals have not been lost. '2-049' needs to be resealed as soon as possible, and then taken back to 'Chaness Gate' for preservation until it is sent back to the Backlund Diocese. The same goes for the Antigonus family's notes. The 'Secret Society' has sent out mid-sequence Beyonders to snatch the notes. We underestimated the importance of this item to them."
"As for the extraordinary person from the Secret Order..."
"Dead," Leonard replied quickly, "the two of them did it."
He pointed at Angel and klein.
Dunn raised his eyebrows. It was only then that he recognized the body of the "Tuxedo Clown" whose tuxedo was in tatters.
"Well done, but tell me more about how you did it later."
The Nighthawks who had gathered their teammates dared to come to the range of the negative effect of 2-049. As expected, the surroundings were full of fragments of the body of Riel Bieber, a descendant of the Antigonus family, and the seal was still in a "violent" state. Dunn and Borgia, who entered the five-meter range first, were instantly affected by the negative effect. The arms that were flexing and extending slowly stopped and entered a stagnant state.
Klein and Leonard, who were following behind, quickly patted the two men on the shoulders and helped them release the control.
Most of the Antigonus puppet's body had already crawled out of the cracked iron box, and its arms wrapped in brown cloth were waving towards the Antigonus family notes not far away.
Borgia rushed over and grabbed the puppet, ignoring the angry expression on its painted face, and opened the iron box and stuffed it back.
During this brief process, 2-049 controlled four people one after another, but the vigilant Nighthawks helped each other to eliminate the effects.
Locking the iron box, Borgia reactivated the holy emblem of the Goddess of Night on the box, and the invisible wall that isolated the spirituality once again surrounded the cracked iron box.
"Fortunately, the holy symbol was not damaged, otherwise it would have been very difficult for us to bring it back to Chanis Gate."
Borgia breathed a sigh of relief and said to 2-049, who had become quiet again.
"Put it aside for now, we still have a lot of things to do."
Dunn Smith gave the order as he picked up the Antigonus family notebook that had fallen to the ground and was covered in dirt. He shook off the dirt on the cover, opened the black hardcover, and began to flip through it.
"Yes, this is it. We will take it back later and place it behind the Chanis Gate together with 2-049. Borgia and Lorota will take it back to Backlund."
After quickly confirming the authenticity of the notes, Dunn closed the cover and tucked the notes under his armpit, regardless of the dirtiness.
Luo Luota, who was less seriously injured, stayed outside, guarding the area outside the seal's effect to prevent others from approaching the scene. The rest of the people went into the warehouse with Dunn to search, but unfortunately, there was nothing special to be found in the dark warehouse except for a pile of chewed human remains.
"It looks like there is more than one victim."
Leonard pretended to be calm, but his pale face was obviously not just caused by blood loss. The complexions of the other people were not good either. The stench in the warehouse made people not want to stay for long.
Leaving the warehouse which was not worth searching, several people returned to the open space outside the door. Under the leadership of Dunn, they began to carefully search every piece of land with the explosion location of Rel Bieber as the center.
"What are we looking for?" Klein asked in confusion, not knowing what was going on.
"The extraordinary substance, or material, left behind by Rel Bieber." Leonard answered casually, kicking away a piece of meat covered in dirt.
"Before he mutated, he was probably using the power of the notebook to try to advance. Regardless of success or failure, after his death, a part of his body will be enriched with extraordinary power."
"Like Mrs. Sharon before?" Angel, who was listening carefully, couldn't help but interrupt.
She remembered the mysterious eyeball-like object that appeared next to Mrs. Sharon's body after her death.
Will mutated monsters also develop extraordinary characteristics after death, just like extraordinary people?
"Yes, later...ah, I found it."
Dunn Smith was halfway through his speech when he suddenly walked quickly forward and squatted beside an open space. The others also moved over.
Among the various parts of Rel Bieber, a palm-sized piece of gray-white substance lay quietly, like the body fluid that flowed out when the mutated monster was hit by a bullet before, but it was more compact, with an uneven surface and full of grooves, like an enlarged walnut, or... a shrunken brain.
"That should be it."
Dunn tried to grab the object with his gloved right hand, but the gray substance looked solid but was actually like liquid. It quickly spread out where it touched, dripped through his fingers, and then condensed into a ball again.
"Who has a cigarette box? Or a bullet box?" After several unsuccessful attempts, he looked up and asked the people around him.
Angel had just received bullets from Old Neil early this morning, and the metal box containing the demon hunting bullets was still on her. Seeing this, he quickly took it out and handed it to Dunn.
With the container in hand, Dunn picked up the gray substance again and threw it into the metal box for storage before it dripped.
After carefully putting away the box containing Rel Bieber's "extraordinary materials", Dunn stood up again and said to the few people, especially the newly joined Angel and Klein:
"If you encounter something similar during a mission, or if you kill a Beyonder, never miss these objects. They may be some kind of spiritual material or clues to a case. But once an ordinary person comes into contact with them, it often means another case involving Beyonder powers."
Angel's breathing stagnated as she thought of the "assassin" she had just killed on the rooftop. Due to the emergency situation, she had no time to deal with the body and left it on the roof to be exposed to the sun.