Cyril couldn't make a couple of steps before he realized he was still naked.
'Fuck, I'm so sick of going without clothes!'
He was used to the cold, but it didn't make him any less of a problem. Cyril had a plan, and that plan might not work for lack of a cape.
'If I ever go to another world again, I'll take my fucking suitcase and my three-piece suit with me!'
The oil lamp in his hand swayed, illuminating the courtyard. Behind him, Kalim shrank back into the shadows. The lights of the strangers had left the hangar and were moving toward them. Cyril looked around.
A corpse lay a few meters away. The past rain had dampened the smell, but the faint light from the oil lamp was enough to see the condition of the body. The skin on the man's face had darkened, partially peeling away, and the empty eye sockets were filled with a mixture of rainwater, blood, and worms. His cheeks were torn by crows.
Holding the rolled-up map to his nose, Cyril left the lantern on the ground and bent over the corpse. He hoped that the strangers near the hangar would not notice his marauding tendencies. And if they did, they wouldn't be distracted by such small things.
'If I'm mistaken for another tramp, it will only be to my advantage.' Cyril thought, and leaned over the disfigured body.
With an effort, trying not to choke on the stench of the rotting body, he pulled off it's boots and tossed them aside. Then he unbuttoned man's pants at the waist, noting a hole in man's stomach the size of a football, and pulled them down.
"I'll be rather fucking naked." He muttered, and hurried away from the corpse.
Gagging rose in his throat as the strangers drew closer. Soon two men in gray coats came up to Cyril. Each held a similar oil lamp in his hand, and sheathed daggers hung from their belts.
"Who are you?" One of them asked, casting a questioning glance at Cyril.
A quick glance didn't miss the old scroll in the naked guy's hand. The man looked Cyril up and down and saw no threat.
"Why is he naked?" The younger man asked, but the man just shrugged. "Hey, why are you...?"
He wanted to ask the naked guy directly, but Cyril cut him off.
"No, you tell me who you are." He asked in an annoyed tone. "Where's the mechanic? He promised me help."
Cyril began to look around, looking at the strangers' backs and pretending bewilderment. His whole appearance was so preposterous that the men in gray involuntarily recoiled. There was a rumor that a mad mechanic lived in this house, and the naked guy now looked very much like a madman.
"We are agents of Fate." The older of the two said. "We have the same question for you. Where's the mechanic?"
Cyril laughed, further embarrassing the agents. The neighbor's dog told them to shut up, but people don't understand dog's language. People only know how dog style in bed when it came to body language.
"Agents of Fate? Show me the tattoo, agents." Cyril laughed. "Now every sucker covers up with this word, even the mechanic did it."
The junior agent looked at the senior agent as if asking what they should do. He had only recently become a Bloodhound, and this was his first field assignment. A special unit of Bloodhounds worked directly for the head of the clan and was considered the elite of the secret investigation of the Kingdom of Hewman.
Of course, Cyril didn't know it yet, but a powerful explosion in the city attracted the attention of the king, and Phalos ordered an investigation. At the same time, the Bloodhounds began investigating the disappearance of Lady Oink, but they did not even think that both cases could be connected with this naked jerk.
The Bloodhound captain nodded and rolled up his sleeve to show the tattoo.
'So this is what you are.' Cyril nodded to himself, appreciating the intricate design.
The young Bloodhound also pulled back the sleeve of his gray doublet and opened the sign of Fate. The situation seemed to him both strange and absurd, but at the same time natural, if you believe the training at the Academy.
The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. That's what teachers told future agents. Except it didn't feel like a crime. He and the captain examined the site and found an accident.
"So." The captain said again, hiding his tattoo. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"Uh." Cyril said, and pretended to be surprised. "Don't be angry, okay? I didn't know you were real. Is the clan of Fate really watching us?"
"It keeps order." The junior agent said.
"Yes, of course." Cyril said, and moved closer again, looking over the agent's shoulder.
The intrusiveness of the naked guy confused the young agent, and he took a step back.
"I met the mechanic a couple of days ago." Cyril continued, snuggling closer to the guy. "He promised to help me fix the clock, told me to come this evening, and I brought the drawings, but I was delayed by this rain, and then the donkey broke down. I mean, the wheel, yes. The wheel broke and the donkey ran away."
Muttering this, Cyril moved as close to the agents as possible, now glancing behind them, now raising the lamp to their eyes to get a better look at their faces. The junior agent kept glancing at the senior agent to see what to do in this situation, because they hadn't been taught that at the Academy.
The captain of the Bloodhounds remained impenetrable and listened to Cyril, in turn examining the stranger.
"And I lost my clothes, can you imagine?" Cyril muttered, looking more and more surprised at the courtyard and pressing closer to the agents. He deliberately clutched his balls in his fist, stamping his feet in the cold. "We played strip games with the boys, because I had already lost the watch and the donkey and cart, and the king allowed men to have sex, did you hear the news? Well… Such an interesting experience... What happened here?.."
Cyril was talking nonsense, confusing events and recalling everything he had learned about the new world. He couldn't tell the truth, but he had to know if the agents had found the mechanic's body. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to kill anyone, but these two wouldn't let him just walk around the scene of an accident.
It would be even more difficult to explain why he was not wearing clothes, because a man simply could not dig a well with his bare hands and bury his own suit. Or could he? Cyril decided not to check it yet.
"You're late, boy." The captain replied in a firm voice, barely able to keep from knocking the naked pervert in the balls with his knee. The clan of Fate demanded that its members behave with dignity even in the worst of situations. "Everything blew up. I'm afraid you'll have to repair your watch yourself."
Cyril scratched his cheek ostentatiously and tilted his head to look at the captain.
"Oh, that's a shame." He mumbled. "And the mechanic died?"
"We don't know." The junior agent said. "Maybe not."
"How's that?"
"We haven't found a body." The captain said. "Now get out of here if you don't wanna go to jail. And get dressed, for Fate's sake!"
"Yes, yes, sorry, men." Cyril muttered, backing away guiltily. "I'll have to stay without clocks. And without a donkey, and without clothes, that's a shame. Thank you for your service! Fate is kind!"
He dropped the last sentence when he was far enough away that the agents couldn't see the grin on his face.
"Fate is kind." The two agents replied automatically, watching the naked idiot go.
Then they turned and continued to study the bodies on the ground. A minute later they disappeared back into the hangar, hoping to find traces of the mechanic and a woman.
According to preliminary data, the king's sister, Ophelia, could be here. She often ran away from the castle with her daughter to see how the common people lived. Ophelia went mad after her husband's death, but king Phalos could not keep her locked in.
Although the King's guards were guarding the woman, she managed to escape several times, and the last time it happened on the day of the explosion. When the king asked his sister why she was running away to the city, Ophelia replied that she wanted to show her daughter a Wonderland. Then the king would pat his five-year-old niece on the head and ask: "Well, Alice? Did you like the wonders?" The girl clutched a soft toy in her hands and nodded silently.
Cyril couldn't have known this. He extinguished the lamp, and the alchemist crawled out of the darkness.
"Why take such a risk?" Kalim whispered. "We could have been arrested or even killed."
"Stop shaking, you weakling." Cyril replied in his usual squeamish tone.
"You want to revive the mechanic, don't you?" Kalim asked. Sitting in the dark, he listened to Cyril's conversation with the agents and tried to think. It was easy to guess whose corpse his new friend wanted to get.
"That's right." Cyril said, and crouched in the shadows, moving along the fence toward the shed.