Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

Two people on Tristan's side were dead. Four were badly wounded, and possibly even crippled for life. The numbers weren't good, but they were typical for fights in tight spaces, when there was no avoiding being shot point-blank or knifed under your rib.

Tristan's people wore bulletproof vests, but most of the fanatics fought with melee weapons, and wielded them with inhuman strength.

'I ordered a direct attack that led to these losses, and couldn't even catch Gospel in the end,' Tristan thought as he helped to administer first aid to the wounded.

His fingers tightened the bandage knot until the wounded man winced; Tristan caught himself and relaxed before he made the wound worse.

Kicking the wall earlier was far from enough—Tristan was itching to punch Gospel's face and then kick him repeatedly. But he wasn't here.

Nobody else was happy, either. Damien's dark mood was written on his face, but he stayed mostly quiet about it.

The stormy mood that was radiating from Tristan made others hold their tongues.

Later, when Tristan sat in the van on the way to the prisoner holding facility, he realized he had an unread system notification. He had been so angry and so focused on the aftermath of the fight that his mind barely registered it earlier.

[Secret task complete: capture or eliminate Gospel's "apostles". Reward: your PP increased by 8000!]

This felt like an insult to injury—like even the Second Identity System was giving Tristan handouts.

He closed his eyes and ran his hands over his face, now goggles and respirator-free.

'Fuck.'

He had to be smarter than letting the anger control him now. Tristan's boosted intelligence had analyzed his past actions enough that his imagination could paint a picture of what would happen if he went to interrogate the prisoners immediately.

They would say something that will piss Tristan off.

He will punch them—at least once. He might easily misjudge his enhanced strength, or he might stop caring whatsoever.

Then the prisoners will die or be in no shape to talk, and Tristan's last lead to Gospel will be gone.

When the van stopped near the building that had the temporary holding cells for King Lion Gang prisoners, instead of going there, Tristan said that he would rather interrogate everybody later.

He called Kevin to help with the cleanup and medical help and told everybody who was on the operation to rest until the morning.

"Yeah. Let them stew a little," Damien said to that, nodding in approval. "I will make sure everything is squeaky out here."

Tristan narrowed his eyes at the man. Damien's desire to punch the prisoners while "keeping them squeaky" was written on the man's face in font size 32.

"Get rest, too. You have a cracked rib, for God's sake. And that's an order." Tristan paused. "Be good and I will give you whatever will be left of these guys. They are just brainwashed pawns, anyway—no better than punching bags…"

"Well, some bags HAVE to be punched," Damien grumbled, but didn't protest.

So Tristan drove back to his gangster boss mansion, almost breaking the speed limit, went to the kitchen, and opened the plate drawers.

The plates were expensive and fragile.

Tristan took one and threw it to the floor.

It smashed with a loud crack of ceramics. The shards flew all over the place. There was something very satisfying about all this.

Imagining that it was Gospel's skull, Tristan took another one and did the same. And another one…

Twenty plates later, Tristan finally felt calm enough for rational thoughts. The rational thoughts told him to do something peaceful until morning—and THEN interrogate his prisoners.

They needed to nurse off the injuries Tristan gave them, anyway.

***

Next morning.

The room would've been just an ordinary room in an ordinary house if the window wasn't boarded, if there was more furniture, and if the door wasn't metal and with a peephole looking inside.

An entrance door that had no place INSIDE an apartment.

Without any enhancements from Gospel, the prisoner who sat on a narrow cot was just a scrawny, middle-aged man who squinted at Tristan like he was nearsighted. Not Frederic, but someone of the same kind—averagely pathetic.

He was the least wounded fanatic out of the two—one with a bruised neck. The other was concussed and was in a much worse state for talking.

Holding a plastic cup of lukewarm tea with one hand, Tristan closed the door behind him with the other and smiled charmingly at the prisoner.

This took him an effort he could only find in himself because of the night's rest.

At Tristan's appearance, the prisoner jerked up and stood up in alarm. Despite his nervousness, it didn't seem like he was trying to escape the room until Tristan looked.

Although there was a guard posted outside, anyway, and a hidden camera inside the room itself.

"Hello. Are you feeling well? I hoped to talk with you a little—but first, drink this. For your throat," Tristan said, offering the prisoner the tea.

The man wasn't recognizing him as the one who bruised him, or at all—like Tristan hoped. Back then, Tristan's face was mostly concealed, and although his identity was the same, he was acting very differently.

Now he was all charm and smiles.

The prisoner eyed the cup suspiciously.

"Wha—"

He coughed, interrupting himself, then rubbed his throat and winced.

"It's just tea. And I'm not here to do anything bad with you… Really." Tristan lied. "I'm sure everything will soon turn out to be a huge misunderstanding and you will be free to go home. But first, I need to clear some things up."

The prisoner nodded a little. To Tristan's mounting annoyance, he was acting like he was a normal civilian caught in something he had no place to be in, instead of a bloodthirsty fanatic he was yesterday.

'I suppose even fanatics can go on doing the fanatic things ALL day long,' Tristan thought.

Finally, the prisoner took the cup from Tristan's hand and sat back on his cot to drink it. Tristan waited with hidden impatience for him to finish.

That cup had 1500 Criminal Points worth of truth serum in it. Which equaled to one dose.

"What's your name?" Tristan asked when the cup was empty.

"Albert Ragwort," the prisoner replied without a pause, then coughing again.

"What's the real name of Gospel?"

"Michael! He's the Commander of the Heavenly Host, the angel who descended upon our sinful earth to help us clear it from the false idols—what… Ugh!"

The more the prisoner spoke, the wider and more horrified his eyes became, until he finally stopped talking and began coughing instead.

Unlike the last time Tristan used truth serum, this time the victim didn't want to share this information. At all.

And yet, he was forced to anyway, and didn't even know why.

Tristan grinned. This was proving to be more satisfying than he expected. And he had a name, too!

'It had to be another alias, but it's better than nothing.'

"Michael, like the angel? No surname?"

"Yes, no—what's going on?!"

Tristan ignored the question.

"Did you meet with Michael often?"

"Never," the prisoner covered his mouth with his hands, but his words were still intelligible when he spoke, "before yesterday—please, stop!"

Tristan tilted his head slightly, wondering if he should tie the prisoner up. But no—if someone had the willpower to fight off the effects of the truth serum by physically keeping his mouth closed, it wasn't this guy.

"How did you communicate, then? When did you start?"

The prisoner's grip on his mouth weakened just enough that he could answer. Tristan moved closer to him, close enough to loom terrifyingly.

"He would send us messages. Online, at first—it was a year ago that it started—then in our dreams, but still online, too. There were several accounts, Gospel is deleted, but there were HeSpeaks, and TrueWord…"

Tristan jotted it down in his excellent memory and nodded.

"Good, good… Keep talking. Let the words flow—you can't stop them, anyway." Tristan chuckled. "So, the dreams. Do you remember them well? When did they start?"

Tristan grilled the helpless prisoner for everything his squishy brain had stored. There was less than Tristan hoped for, but more than there could've been.

At the very least, Tristan had a few more accounts to try hacking in.

Besides that, he found more about Michael's followers. They didn't talk to each other much—for the sake of secrecy—but all had the dreams, as far as the prisoner knew. And they all started only AFTER the fanatics started to think there was something true in Michael's beliefs.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

And afterward Tristan asked questions until the prisoner's voice turned so hoarse it was barely audible and the truth serum's effect wore off.

By then, the man was a crying mess.

"Yes, be ashamed of turning on your teacher and your people so easily," Tristan told him cruelly. "And remember, traitors go to the lowest depths of hell."

He left the holding cell with a pep in his step.