บท 55: The King of Information

"Cluez is still alive!" Hugo stopped for a second but moved forward upon realizing what sort of information he just got.

'Didn't he get killed by the police a few months ago, though?'

He greeted the receptionist and walked over to the bulletin board in search of suitable target practice.

"As much as I'd like to travel across the world to destroy that cockroach. I find there to be no point to it, besides, he's always reviving. And I have no time for such pointless revivals,"

He crossed the option of his list while searching for other suitable alternatives.

"I wonder, what kind of criminal would do?"

He pondered and stroked his bare chin. Most of the villain missions issued on the board were all internationally famous ones. Cluez's was one of the few ones that were placed there locally.

After a while, he settled on one of the better missions.

"Hmm, so the mission is to capture the renowned Swindler. There isn't much information on his Awakening or powers. Making him the perfect target, and that I won't have any logistical advantage over him."

He walked over to the receptionist and handed her his application for the mission.

"Thank you, Mr Black Knight, and I wish you happy hunting."

'She speaks like the villain is some sort of cattle ready to be farmed at any moment.'

The receptionist's smile was alluring and devilish at the same time.

'No doubt she has enough fighting experience.'

This was the first time he'd seen a receptionist with that much strength. It wasn't a given that she had to be very strong, but this was just unexpected.

'Unless they have some unknown recruitment process I don't know about.'

Hugo shrugged it off as a cautionary method and continued on his way. Once he became tired of thinking about the receptionist's strength, he started thinking of tracking methods and got tired of doing that too.

"How should I go about this though? I don't know how to navigate myself around this city and I'm absolutely terrible at tracking people down,"

"Perhaps I should use the GPS or hire someone to track this swindler guy down, then I'll just capture him from there on out,"

'The only person I know who can do this is Ruki, and I don't want to call her for now.'

He decided to just stroll around the city and familiarize himself with the geography of the area; it was probably the best move until he came up with a solution.

His journey posed nothing but questions to him. The questions were for clarification purposes, but he still felt there was an actual use for all those questions.

'I think I'll use the available information on his description to find him,'

And instead of sitting around, he reviewed the information he'd gotten from the Association and looked for patterns between the descriptions.

"I need a comfortable place to study this information. Hmm, maybe a park..."

He crossed the thought out as soon as it appeared. It seemed he and parks had no good history together.

"I think I'll just go to a cafe or something,"

So that was what he did. He found the closest and nicest cafe and ordered some croissants and decaf coffee.

'Huh? Am I here for something?'

The downside of it all was the overall comfort he found in this certain cafe; the mystical-like comfort was enough for him to forget his original intentions prior to entering the establishment.

"I'll figure out eventually, I guess." He sipped on the hot coffee and observed the people coming in and out of the small cafe.

Some of them were like him, Dancers who had nothing to do or were just tired of working. Others were more domestic figures, like businessmen and even a few police officers.

It was a diverse crowd within the coffee shop and some people socialized and networked. However, most just kept to themselves in order to maximize the total amount of satisfaction gained from sitting around and drinking coffee.

This experience broadened Hugo's mind, and he decided to come there every so often whenever he could.

And after a while of sitting and pondering other things, he stumbled upon the earlier issue on how to find the criminal.

"Hmm, the problem was how to locate Swindler. And all I have are vague descriptions of his face, which some artists tried their best to get,"

Three images of the same person appeared over his communicator, depicting images of Swindler. In three of the images, he wore varying face masks and different wigs.

'I have to say this guy knows his craft. He even changed techno lenses each time he disguised himself. There aren't many people that know how to be so through!'

The images were vague because there wasn't an established physical status for him. No one knew whether he was plumb or skinny, meaning to say his descriptors were filled with ambiguities.

'The only constant is the mask.'

"I don't have the kind of tech to run a scan on people within the City F with that preference. I also don't know anybody like that,"

After sitting around for a while, he paid for his food and walked out the door with a hot coffee in his hands.

"Well, that was relaxing."

He sipped the coffee and walked back to Kiter's park with new problems on his hands. First was the problem of the shurikens, and now was the location problem, not to mention that they were explicitly connected.

Upon reaching the gates of Kiter's residence, he met with the previous guns and weapons, but it did look like they had reduced considerably to the previous day he was there.

'I guess that guy's warming up.'

Hugo snickered and verified his identity as he walked in. The coffee left a hot feeling in his stomach, much like the feeling of indigestion.

"You're back already? And drinking coffee? We're in the middle half of July for god's sake, and not to mention that scarf? Are you planning to die of heat or something?"

After Kiter pointed out all the inconsistencies in his dressing, Hugo mentioned what he was originally going to talk about.

"I didn't go anywhere, and besides my scarf is cool you hobo old man!" The response was childish due to his good mood making kiter feel astonished.

"How is that cool-"

"Anyway, I was going to say that I found a suitable target. But the only issue now is finding him. Do you know any way that I'll be able to locate the target?"

"Hmph. Does a Red TigerLion have a weird name?"

"What the hell does that mean?!" Hugo cocked his head and threw his now empty coffee cup onto the floor.

"The answer is yes! Even if you don't know what animal that is, you should still be able to guess! Anyway, come with me, I'll show you why I was labelled the King of Information."