Nem watched as his target was leaving the Fat Snake but didn't immediately follow. Instead, he started thinking.
'Where do the orphans in the monastery come from ? Short answer, there were originally from the other, more normal orphanages that the Church of Peace has all over the world and got selected because of their devotion or capacities.'
'In a way, I'm an exception. Most kids were there since they were young and some might not even remember where they were born. In any case, they didn't talk about it with me.'
So was it possible that they came from slums, getting kidnapped and "luckily" sold to the kind and innocent food church ?
'Yes, it is. It would be an easy way to acquire believers and helpers who are truly devoted to the Church. Then again, I don't have any proof so I might very well be wrong. Even if I'm right, it wouldn't be more than half of the kids... Which is still quite a lot.'
'More importantly, if I'm right, it might answer what I'm doing here. Perhaps I'm here to recruit one of their "suppliers" or something along those lines. In that case, it explains why I would be only spying on them like this instead of delivering them to the police.'
Even if this made sense and sat well with Nem's distrustful mind, he didn't forget that it was only a supposition. In fact, he quickly found a few things that didn't fit. For example, why did Carl tell him not to spy on the boss of this organization ? He had a guess that it wasn't as simple as Carl being afraid of hurting his feelings.
Also, would the Church really be so untactful as to send an orphan on a mission to help capture more children ? It was very unlikely, especially considering Nem's lack of faith.
After thinking a bit more, Nem had to admit that he really wouldn't know unless he checked by himself. For the first time, Nem became really immersed in his mission, even if it wasn't quite what the Church had in mind when they sent him there...
After a while, he got up and headed in the same direction as his target while keeping out of sight. It really wasn't difficult to follow people in this part of Lunhart, especially since it was now noon and everyone started to come out in the streets.
Looking around him in the blazing heat in the sun, Nem was stunned at the number of people around him and their apparent... normality.
In this rundown area filled with danger and devoid of laws, Nem could see men, women, families, children, old people, shops... It felt... Alive.
He suddenly realized he had stopped walking and almost lost Mannie and his men. Shaking his head, he prepared to follow when his hand reflexively caught a thin wrist that was sneakily approaching his belt. No matter how surprised he was, Nem simply wasn't able to let down his guard surrounded by so many people.
He turned to the kid to who the wrist belonged to. It was a little girl, apparently suffering dangerously from malnutrition judging from her bony figure. She looked about 6 years old and was showing her pointy little teeth like a caged animal, her eyes resolute. There were a few missing.
Nem's expression got a bit darker, and he let go of her arm. Before he could say anything, the girl acted like she had succeeded in shaking him off and ran away, lost in the crowd. Nem's mouth, which he had opened earlier, closed slowly, leaving him expressionless.
He looked at his hand for a second, then turned to where Mannie had been and started walking.
'"Alive", uh ?'
***
Approximately an hour later, in a more secluded part of town, close to the ruins of an abandoned church, Nem was taking a short nap in a large tree, sheltered by its leaves from the sun. From where he was, he could observe the small wooden building where Mannie and his men went to eat a quarter of an hour ago.
Nem didn't have to eat yet, since he had already consumed the bread and apple he had stolen in the morning. Also, it clearly wasn't easy finding something to eat while spying on someone.
For now, he didn't want to stop following Mannie. He needed to know where the boss was usually to execute the first part of his plan. What he wanted was to spy on this person who apparently didn't care about any unwanted listeners and told everything as it was.
'Of course, I can't do that now, since I haven't determined if I was being observed by Carl yet. It would be very strange if I just jumped into what he told me was great danger on the first day.'
He let out a low sound and stretched his back on the branch lazily, half asleep. An onlooker might take him for a particularly large cat if they didn't look carefully enough.
'I guess I'll just follow monocle-man until where his boss is and then call it a day. I kinda want to laze around today to be honest...'
Even though he didn't really do anything, he was still quite tired from his travel. Also, Nem was decently sure that he wouldn't be bored no matter what he did in such an environment.
As he made himself more comfortable on his tree branch, his messy black hair fell gently on top of his half-closed eyelids. Slowly, the image of the children in the monastery came to his mind and he compared it to the sensation of holding that tiny, fragile wrist into his hand.
The red color under his hair disappeared as he closed his eyes and said in a whisper.
"I guess I need to find a place to sleep anyways. No harm in asking the other orphans..."
During the following two hours, Nem followed Mannie around town and visited a few of the spots indicated by Carl. To his own surprise, Nem already found one or two ways to orient himself in the city.
'Wow, maybe all those hours I spent lost in the corridors of the monastery finally paid off !'
He had to admit that it was rather difficult to lose one's way in this enclosed space where no building looked like the other and everyone did as they wished with their houses.
The southwest area of Lunhart wasn't small, but it wasn't very vast either, and Nem could follow the city wall or the line of ashes if he didn't know where to go. Of course, it didn't happen yet, since he had just followed Mannie the entire time, but it was time to go on his own now, since he had already gotten too close to where the boss lived.
The place Nem was at right now was the most industrialized part of Lunhart he had seen for now, even taking into account where he had spotted the factory before.
It was also close to a wide river, and they seemed to want to build a metal bridge there at some point, but stopped. Nem was sure of it, since there was still a lot of scaffolding left and even a portion of the bridge was still hanging in there, somehow. There was also an authentic coal factory ejecting black smoke in the area, and Nem decided to go check it out first.
He left behind the place where he believed the boss lived in, which he couldn't see without approaching too close, Nem started to walk in that direction. After all, it really was curious to a functioning factory in such a part of the city.
As he got closer to his destination, the boy spotted something different from afar.
'This is... A fence ?'
Soon he arrived in front of it and extended his hand to touch it, feeling the cold and hard metal on his fingers.
"How odd..." He murmured to himself in puzzlement.
As he was about to sink into his thoughts, Nem heard some noise and hid quickly, already accustomed to the action. The sound of footsteps became more clear and the boy decided to peek discretely to see who it belonged to.
On the other side of the wall was a man wearing red clothes, a small hat and carrying a musket. He was walking along the fence, seemingly on patrol and didn't look like he had spotted anything special.
Nem observed a bit before concluding that he was just patrolling by chance. He relaxed and started thinking about this situation.
'This is a technologically advanced place with heavy security... but it's in the southwest area, and suspiciously close to where the boss of the organization I'm targeting is living...'
He racked his brain for a while without finding anything convincing.
'It can't be some kind of special business done by the boss, right ? This is on a completely different scale than the criminal activities I've been exposed to so far. This factory is probably specialized in metalworking or something like that, since it's situated so close to this metal bridge. How could a small-time criminal work with this ?'
As for the metal bridge itself, it seemed to invalidate his theory about the construction of this city and the southwest area. He took a breath to calm himself and his face had a strange expression.
Somehow, this place had managed to completely and thoroughly confuse Nem all on its own.