He braced for impact, thinking he’d inevitably roll on the ground. However, that lightning didn’t harm Chris’s body at all. Only a slightly tingling sensation like static electricity was all. The current that had been running down his body sparked at his wrist with a crack!
Chris’s feet, which hadn’t rested even for a moment, were still running toward outside the alley.
The next moment, Chris was out on the main street. If he’d hesitated even slightly because of the lightning, his neck would have been caught.
The street was full of people on their way home from work. Like a fish swept up in the rapids of those moving their steps toward the tram station direction as if almost pushed, Chris also moved with that flow.
In a situation where he had to blend in with his surroundings as much as possible, he had no intention of imitating a salmon swimming upstream.
At the thought that he’d overcome the first hurdle by escaping the alley, cold sweat trickled down his spine. But Chris paid no heed and mixed into the crowd.
He regulated his breathing that had risen to his chin and adjusted his gait to match the speed of people around him as if nothing had happened. Like a mouse whose tail had been caught, moving his feet quickly, he was slightly hunched as when he’d first started running.
Since he’d burst out of that narrow alley, there was no way he’d completely escaped the other’s view.
The fact that he could even pretend to escape now was entirely thanks to White Night’s policy.
Yuri Sobolev, who led White Night, tended to care about surrounding gazes. If he’d thought nothing of creating discord just because he had power, he wouldn’t have established a re-education center and cracked down on drug dealers in the first place. He was seeking coexistence between the organization and civilians.
If they were White Night members with such a leader, there was no way they could drag Chris around like a dog on a street full of watching eyes in broad daylight.
They would push him toward a deserted area like herding.
His heart was beating roughly. However, Chris’s head was more calmly observing the situation than usual. The more critical the situation, the more his sharp reason shined.
‘Think. Think.’
Chris deliberately didn’t look back. Just the fact that no disturbance had occurred even though an Esper using electric current was following as a pursuer was enough to know he’d made the right choice.
They wouldn’t attack him where others were watching. Unless they approached closely, sent current through his chest to knock him unconscious, then kidnapped him saying they were taking him to a hospital…
Chris recalled the map of this area he’d already put in his head.
He couldn’t change alleys more than twice from his current location. If he did, he’d run into another path connected from the building where Heaven’s Kiss had been distributed just before. If he were Yuri Sobolev, there’s no way he’d have unleashed just one hunting dog, so being surrounded was a matter of time. What’s even worse is that Chris, who had only clearly recognized the yellow-eyed man, couldn’t know what the other White Night members chasing him looked like.
The yellow-eyed man who would be aware of and tailing Chris would recognize his colleagues and signal who Chris was.
So he had to escape this dead end before those two met.
Almost simultaneously with turning the first corner, Chris turned his coat inside out. The collar he’d spread open covered his neck like a Chinese collar. When the washed-out khaki lining came to the outside, this looked closer to a field jacket than a coat.
At the same time as turning the outer garment inside out, he took out the hat he’d brought inside his coat and pressed it down on the back of his head, hiding his brilliant platinum blond hair. When he pulled up his height as much as possible as if raising his vertebrae one by one from his waist, his view became much higher than usual. Chris finally spread his shoulders wide and stretched his neck long.
His careful quick steps as if he had something shady also changed to brisk ones in an instant.
All of this happened in a single moment. It was a bold transformation that would have been impossible if there had been even an inch of hesitation.
The one who had been chasing Chris hurriedly turned the corner to avoid losing him. However, his eyes widened when he couldn’t find his original target anywhere.
He’d clearly seen a suspicious man and chased after him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
The yellow-eyed man was counted among White Night’s professionals in tailing and tracking.
Normally, tailing would just involve following based on clothes or appearance. But he was different. He engraved in his eyes the physique, gait, and even movement habits of the person he was chasing.
A person’s physique isn’t always a straight line. Sometimes the spine is slightly curved or one shoulder is higher than the other. Humans in office work tend to have necks that bend forward, and people who work in the field have backs tilted forward due to the habit of carrying heavy objects.
Moreover, everyone has habits when walking. Slightly dragging the right foot, narrow strides due to an impatient temperament, or the speed of moving steps. The man visualized this and put it in his head as he moved.
Even if someone changed clothes or blended in among many passersby, that person’s habits didn’t lie, so tailing was always successful.
However, in that instant of turning the corner, all the characteristics of this tailing target had disappeared.
The luxurious gray wool coat that had gleamed in the sunlight was nowhere to be seen. Though people with light pigmentation were everywhere, the platinum blond hair with fine strands that had shone brilliantly in the sunlight had also disappeared without a trace. The careful gait of someone watching their surroundings couldn’t be found either.
Moreover, Chris’s current height was at least a span taller than the height he’d remembered. While it was possible to shrink one’s height, increasing it was practically unheard of.
Because he hadn’t expected to be shaken off so thoroughly, crowds were surging in while he dithered.
It would have been good if he could at least remember the characteristics of the shoes, but no matter how good his eyes were, specifying just feet among all those numerous moving legs was close to impossible.
‘I lost him.’
Along with emptiness, competitive spirit surged up from his lower abdomen. What the hell does he do? Along with that thought, anger welled up at his own pathetic state of barking like a dog as if showing off, then running only to lose his prey.
When he first struck down the lightning, he’d definitely thought he could catch him. However, his lightning only briefly crackled and scattered the moment it touched the other’s body. It was a phenomenon that couldn’t be seen unless a higher-grade Esper than himself was using energy waves to surround their body with a protective barrier.
It didn’t make sense. If they were a stronger Esper than himself, why didn’t they fight back but just ran away?
Slowing his steps briefly to grab the guy who would collapse from electrocution was a mistake. While he hesitated, the other had burst out onto the main street.
Still, he’d thought he could catch him. Hadn’t he felt competitive spirit toward a rat secretly eavesdropping?
The other’s rare platinum blond hair was exactly the same color as the hunting dog that had hung its head obediently beside its master. Because he’d never once beaten Chris Danil.
Though not the real thing, he’d thought it was decent practice prey…
‘Tsk.’
He failed this time, but he wouldn’t miss next time.
It was foolish to crane his neck looking for prey that had run off without even giving him a chance to grab it. The yellow-eyed man clicked his tongue, then turned and disappeared into the alley.
***
Chris, who had left Aurum 4th Ward’s main street, tried to enter a nearby shop to buy a backpack with loops and simple clothes. However, his terminal was the problem.
Chris’s face hardened as he left the shop clicking his tongue, saying the secondhand terminal was junk.
The lightning the pursuer used hadn’t harmed his clothes or body at all, but it had completely fried his terminal. It seemed to have caused a collision with the psychic Esper’s ability embedded to maintain the terminal’s communication network.
In this state, he couldn’t pay Credits or inform headquarters of the current situation. Though Northern Light’s branch was in the same 4th Ward, he couldn’t expose the main base in a situation where he didn’t know where pursuers might appear again.
He needed to break off the pursuit once.
Chris decided to transform into wolf form and travel over the mountain connecting to Aurum 8th Ward. No matter how great White Night was, they wouldn’t suspect and try to track even beasts wandering the mountain. Beast Transformation ability was on the rare side.
As soon as he made up his mind, Chris discarded the coat he could no longer wear. He’d already flushed all the Guiding Delight in his pockets down the sewer.
Next in order, he put the terminal in a nearby mailbox. Though it was broken, if they looked at the serial number on the back of the terminal, it would be sent to Northern Light’s collaborator. A terminal that had been forcibly shut down once wouldn’t be activated without biometric recognition and approval from Yont, the team leader.
At the same time, this was a signal. A signal that the agent issued this terminal currently had no means of communication and would be hiding in a safe house to avoid exposing headquarters, so please send support. Team Crow knew Chris was a wolf, so they would come looking for him.
With the slowly setting sun behind him, Chris carefully moved along the mountain.
The sense of direction felt in complete Beast Transformation state was new no matter how many times he experienced it. As if a compass had been created inside his body, he could know the direction where stars rose and set. Also which way to go to arrive at the 8th Ward.
Perhaps this was the wolf’s homing instinct. Though unfamiliar, it was a useful sense. Especially in situations like this.
He moved without rest. There were no pursuers caught by the wolf’s senses anyway. Because he moved along the mountain ridge, no matter how much he ran, when he arrived at the 8th Ward it was late. He thought it was probably close to midnight.
Because he kept using his ability, his physical condition wasn’t very good. He recalled Luca telling him not to overdo it. But it was truly an unavoidable situation.
If he returned to human form, he’d just be naked. Without the wolf’s fur, Chris would freeze to death on the Winter Continent’s mountain within less than two hours.
In the end, he had to endure on the mountain in wolf form until dawn passed and morning came. No matter how minimally he estimated the time for the postman to check the mailbox and deliver the terminal to Northern Light’s side, it would take at least half a day more.
