Lord of Cinder in American Comics

By the time Clint finished his report, Hill had also disembarked from the Quinjet. She had replaced her original coat with a different style that didn't fit.

Judging from the miraculous reaction that occurred on the Quinjet earlier, Hill must have tried it himself, following Geralt's instructions.

Geralt pointedly admonished Clint, "Don't use abilities that don't match your abilities in public, it will cause unnecessary trouble... You are a hunter, using miracles will cause misunderstandings!"

Upon hearing these words spoken to him, Hill reached into his robes, tore the amulet to pieces, and threw it into the shredder.

"Ahem, can we talk about the price for the previous hire?"

Geralt rubbed his hands together, a malicious smile spreading across his face.

Hill was aware of Geralt's words, but since this wasn't a battlefield, Geralt's tactics of demanding exorbitant prices wouldn't work this time.

Looking at the gradually brightening sky, Hill said, "Let's go to town and find a place to talk slowly. Besides, Clint can't stand his hunger anymore..."

Ravensfield is a typical small town. Although it doesn't have a large population now, it has all the necessary facilities.

At the restaurant, Clint had already eaten more than fifty fried eggs and even more slices of bread. His gluttonous behavior sparked a betting contest among the other diners.

The restaurant owner also kindly waived all of Clint's meal expenses. As the bookmaker and big winner, the amount Clint ate was negligible.

Meanwhile, Hill and Geralt were discussing the price they had paid for hiring him.

"I need a lot of steel, even iron ore will do..."

Hill was shocked by Geralt's offer; it wasn't too high, but too low. International steel futures prices for hot-rolled coils were no more than $600 per ton, and iron ore prices were even lower.

According to Hill's internal quote, this amount of money could buy enough steel to build two more Eiffel Towers.

Seeing Hill hesitate, Geralt said, "It's nothing, I just need these materials..."

"Just like when you were short of building materials before?"

Geralt previously requested a large quantity of building materials, materials that even S.H.I.E.L.D. had been collecting for a long time. Now, Geralt is gathering steel. What is he planning to do?

Upon hearing that the deal involved steel, Clint, whose mouth was full of food, couldn't stay any longer.

"Where's my salary, Geralt? This isn't what you said before..."

"What do you know! As long as I repair Farron Keep and tidy up the undead settlement next to it, any mage who comes to Farron Keep to stay will have a place to live, right? Can Constantine not arrange a place for his apprentice?"

This costs money... It even saves on construction workers; I only rent out the land, and those mages will build the houses themselves!

Geralt's statement shocked Clint so much that he gaped and refused to eat his fried egg.

In his haste, Clint hastily wiped his mouth and joined Geralt's scheme.

"Isn't the broken bridge above the Old Wolf of Fran connected the Undead Settlement to other places? We can build a tollbooth on it..."

The two instantly transformed into urban architects, trying to find profitable business opportunities everywhere.

Hill not only heard about basic methods like collecting tolls and renting out houses, but he even heard about establishing a sewage discharge mechanism, clearing the silt from the Farron Fortress to build a biogas power plant, and then charging the mages for electricity, and even building the power plant himself...

The two became lost in fantasies about wealth, while Hill helplessly rubbed his head and painstakingly jotted down this jumbled information.

At that moment, something unexpected happened in the restaurant.

"Jamie, raise your hands!"

A detective pointed a weapon at a young man who was dining in a restaurant. This sudden action shocked those around him.

An elderly woman, startled, instinctively wanted to scream, but she forced herself to hold it back, covering her mouth with her hand, not daring to make a sound.

Jamie raised his hands, lay face down, and was handcuffed by the detective.

But Jamie kept explaining, "Detective, I'm not a murderer! I didn't kill my wife and children!"

"Oh! You know your wife is pregnant, but that's the most common excuse a murderer uses. You fled your home and left the parole zone. That's how you escape your crime!"

As the detective spoke, he checked the handcuffs, pulled Jamie up from the ground, and led him toward the door.

Clint put down his knife and fork, and said somewhat uncertainly, "Geralt, I have a bad feeling... like..."

"It's as if there's an indistinct veil surrounding him; when you look at him, something is obstructing your vision, preventing you from seeing clearly..."

"Yes! That's it! How did you know?"

Geralt took out the Water of Life, which he hadn't drunk in a long time, poured half a bottle for Clint, and drank the rest himself.

"Last night you slew a demon from hell and banished a marquis from one of the seventy-two demon gods. The soul power the world is giving you is gradually strengthening everything about you, which is why you can see all this. Congratulations, when you can see all of this clearly, you will become a formal hunter..."

After saying all this, Geralt looked at Hill and asked, "Are you still going to prepare notes? If you plan to continue, help stop them..."

Hill, of course, wouldn't let this opportunity slip by. She blocked the detective's path and pulled out her identification.

Hill naturally possessed S.H.I.E.L.D. credentials; as the director, she certainly wouldn't use Forberle's fake credentials.

After examining the identification, the detective looked at Hill with a hint of disbelief and said, "S.H.I.E.L.D.? Shouldn't they be pulling out Forberle's ID? They're not even pretending anymore?"

Hill did not explain S.H.I.E.L.D.'s previous actions, but simply replied in a formulaic tone, hoping for their cooperation.

Meanwhile, Jamie, the prisoner being escorted by the detective, seized the opportunity to explain himself: "I didn't kill anyone. I only came here because I found out some information and came back..."

These words were considered by the detective to be the murderer's excuse, and Hill, having just heard Geralt's words, naturally steered the matter toward supernatural events such as demons.

Hill pointed towards Geralt's location and signaled to the detective to take Jamie over.

The skeptical detective, after looking at the S.H.I.E.L.D. badge, still chose to believe Hill. After all, with the S.H.I.E.L.D. badge in hand, any trouble would be attributed to S.H.I.E.L.D.

The four people at the table looked at Jamie, who was handcuffed, and listened to his explanation of what had happened to him.

Jamie is indeed from Ravensfield, but he left while he was in school to pursue his career in another city.

His newlywed wife died mysteriously in their apartment after her tongue was cut out. The police were unable to find the killer and could only list him as the prime suspect.

While Jamie was sorting through his wife's belongings, he found a wooden puppet with Billy's name written on it, which reminded him of the eerie legends about the town of Ravensfield from his childhood.

“Mary Shaw, with her glaring eyes, is a puppet she always holds in her arms. Your children, remember this well: if you see her in your dreams, do not scream.”

Jamie sang a nursery rhyme from his childhood, but the rhyme drew everyone's attention in the restaurant.

Compared to the old woman's earlier act of forcibly suppressing her scream, Hill believed the message of the nursery rhyme.

Hill acted as the interrogator, asking Jamie, "Why did you leave this town? Don't say it was for your studies or other reasons. You and I both know that your father had enough wealth in town to send you to a better place, instead of you still living in an apartment..."

Within minutes of meeting, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intelligence investigation had thoroughly investigated Jamie's information.

Seeing the disbelieving looks in the four people's eyes, Jamie finally gave up struggling and told them what had happened.

“I met Mary Shaw when I was a child…”

Before he could finish speaking, the restaurant owner threw a teacup at him, which smashed under the table.

"Damn it! You outsiders, don't mention that name to me!"

The startled detective stood up, gripping his pistol in its holster, and warned the restaurant owner, "Hey, hey, hey... put down what you're holding! This gun isn't a toy..."

Despite the threat of a gun, the restaurant owner put down the teacup he had just picked up, crossed his arms, and looked at the table.

In this environment, Jamie didn't mention Mary Shaw's name again, and continued in a different guise: "I saw him when I was a child... in my family's morgue. My uncle had died for some unknown reason, and I saw him next to his body... I was so scared that I covered my mouth with my hands and dared not make a sound... After that, I left here... until yesterday..."

Jamie's explanation didn't bother the detective. In the detective's eyes, Jamie was the murderer, and he wasn't a New York police officer who could carry a bottle of holy water to detect all sorts of dark forces.

The detective prepared to pull Jamie up and said, "Alright, everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D., I'm taking him back to review the case."

However, seeing the thoughts of Hill, Geralt, and others, he couldn't figure out the reason either.

"Damn it, could there really be something bad in here? Should we call the control department to come and take a look? I need to contact the sheriff for their number..."

While the detective was frantically flipping through the phone, a blonde woman walked in from outside the restaurant. She looked around and spotted Jamie.

"Jamie, I'm looking for you. Your father has passed away..."

## Chapter 221: Geralt's horse is of course called Radish (Bonus chapter for Alliance Leader 4/10)

Jamie was a little emotional upon hearing the news of his father's death, after all, he had just seen his father yesterday, and he was fine then.

Seeing Jamie's reaction, the blonde woman explained, "Actually, your father has been battling cancer for many years. It's a miracle he's still alive today. He held on until he saw you one last time..."

Upon hearing this, Jamie covered his face and began to cry, at which point the handcuffs on his hands were revealed to the beautiful woman.

Upon seeing the handcuffs and then the detective's badge, the woman said somewhat awkwardly, "Uh... I thought you were Jamie's friends... Did he commit some crime? Oh! I'm Jamie's stepmother, my name is Ella..."

Compared to the fact that Elana and Jamie were almost the same age, even though they knew it was a fantastical event, all the men present still expressed their respect for Jamie's deceased father.

At Hill's prompting, the detective unlocked Jamie's handcuffs.

"Let's go see your father."

Whether Jamie liked it or not, the group went to his father's residence.

As they drove through the town and arrived at a manor at the foot of the mountain, everyone gained a new understanding of the wealth of these nouveau riche.

Along the river at the foot of the mountain, the estate encompasses both banks of the river. On the smaller side, a grand classical building was constructed as the residence of the master and servants, while on the opposite bank, there was a meadow.

There were no herds of cattle and horses on the grassland, but rather a few scattered animals, these few herbivores sharing the entire grassland.

Meanwhile, Jamie's father was being placed in a coffin by servants and placed in the center of the house.

Upon seeing his father's remains, Jamie couldn't contain his emotions and went up to him to share his thoughts.

Clint followed Jamie to the coffin and subtly touched the corpse a few times.

Back with Geralt, Clint quietly reported the situation. "It is indeed a corpse. There's nothing strange about it on the surface, and I don't have any particular feeling about it..."

Geralt nudged Clint and said irritably, "If he were anything special, he would have turned into a zombie long ago! Why would you need to go see him? You should find out where Jamie's morgue is... Don't rely too much on your feelings; feelings are both the most reliable and the most unreliable thing."

Geralt was instructing Clint, but he still had something he didn't say. After all, in the movie "Dead Silence," Jamie's father should have already had his internal organs removed and was propped up with wood.

Now, the corpse is indeed intact, and it is also filled with internal organs, but Clint can't tell the difference between them.

In Geralt's perception, the internal organs were carved from wood and brought to life through some means. This was done in a partial way, and then the parts were put together to make the whole body move.

This subtle method, rather than a holistic manipulation, did not produce a strong power reaction. With Clint's current abilities, he couldn't see anything wrong with Jamie's father's corpse.

Clint was sent to the morgue, while Hill went with the detective to investigate the strange events in the town. Geralt was the only one left alone.

Wandering around the manor, Geralt saw some vessels tainted with dark power, but none of them were anything of importance.

Geralt didn't find anything useful until he left the building.

Upon reaching the riverbank, Geralt discovered that Ella was playing with animals on the opposite meadow.

The animals in the meadow showed no aversion to Ella; on the contrary, lured by the food, they were quite willing to approach her. Only when Geralt got close did the animals scatter.

However, one huge black horse remained lying on the ground, stubbornly refusing to leave. Ella groomed it while feeding it carrots.