The chauffeur was a veteran, he immediately noticed that Tom seemed unconvinced, and growled, "My brother, the chauffeur for the Minister of Administrative Affairs, always finds out a lot of gossip; ministers and their secretaries always like to discuss things in the car as if no one is watching, as if the car is on autopilot, and all we drivers have to do is listen quietly, and we get countless insider information."
"Department of Administrative Affairs?" Harry was curious.
"Yeah, Department Of Administrative Affairs, DAA, Department Of Administrative Affairs, super catchy name, right? That's where my best friend drives for the new Minister Hacker. To be honest, I don't think much of him, I'd say the minister's career is one step away from being over." Seeing the young man's interest in what he had to say, the driver got excited and started talking about it.
"The DAA is famous for its graveyard of civil servants, and previous ministers in the administration have all left their posts in disgrace, leaving their careers behind, and I think Minister Hacker is no exception, he probably offended the Prime Minister by throwing a newcomer into such a department..."
Along the way, the driver kept rambling and rambling about the new British cabinet. The three listened raptly.
"There were two candidates for the new bishop of the church, one wanted to get God out of the church, the other wanted to get the Queen out!"
"So in the end they chose the one who wanted to kick the Queen out?" Ron, feeling he could follow the conversation, interjected.
"Of course they didn't! The Queen and the Church are inseparable, and as for God, the Prime Minister, the Church and the Cabinet Secretary all agree that it's what's called an 'additional choice'"
Tom: "..."
"The so-called modernists in the Church, they are the ones who deserve to be disbelieved."
"A non-religious clergyman? Do atheists get into the church too?", Harry was also deeply dismayed by this sentence.
"Atheists? Of course not, atheists don't get an allowance from the church, so when they don't believe in God, they call themselves modernists. There's a very famous bishop who built a church in South London with an orange juice supply area, a section for families, a section for protest groups, but no space for communion!" The driver also thought it was a bit outrageous: "It's a crazy world, isn't it? No God in the church, no doctors in the hospital."
Tom, Harry and Ron: I couldn't understand but was so shocked that they couldn't move after the driver's words, as if their virginity had been taken.
"If something paranormal happened, I'm afraid these guys wouldn't be able to fix it." Tom felt a little sad: it was Britain's turn to do all the work!
"What do you mean by a paranormal event? There is no such thing." Finally, thanks to Tom's efforts, the subject came up at the last paranormal event in London. Seeing how fond Tom was of urban legends, the driver began to school him, "Don't be suspicious! All those supposed paranormal happenings, in the end, are proven to be false, have scientific explanations and are haunted by people."
"Amazing, isn't it?" The host laughed, "There's a lot of news you'll never believe again when you learn the inside story in the bathroom literature magazines."
"For example, there was an alleged 'paranormal' incident on one of the earlier trains," the driver held up his hands, index and middle fingers together like an inverted comma, hooked his fingers, the cab gave a jolt and Harry's and the others' hearts fluttered. The driver immediately put his hands on the steering wheel.
The way he had done it, it meant that what he had said was backwards, that it was bullshit.
"Something about a man who died suddenly on a train and then came back to life, turned into a zombie and bit everywhere, and didn't stop attacking when he was set on fire in a big fireball, causing a carriage to explode..."
Tom's spirits rose, he hadn't expected the driver to know.
"So what happened?" he asked eagerly.
"What else?" the driver scoffed, "The police searched the backpack of a witness, the man who claimed to have seen the attacker dead but still moving, and found a bag of 'leaves' in his bag, he was probably drugged and had hallucinations."
"However, the explosion in the carriage is a real thing. It is most likely caused by the crazies in Ireland, and was distorted in this way under the propaganda of a drug addict."
"And was there anything left at the scene?" The key, Tom thought, was to find out where the man had bought the old gold coins, and if he had anything else like it. That would require knowing his identity, his address, and the dealer from whom he bought it.
"How would I know?" The driver waved his hand impatiently, "They'll probably take it to the police, after all, it was a bomb case..."
[Task: Kill demons on horseback (Prologue) Act 1 is completed]
[Quest reward: 20 magic stones, Act 2 of the quest begins]
[Act 2 of "The prologue" begins]
[Quest objective: Go to the police station, obtain the relics of the victim of the "Luxury Train Attack" and investigate the incident further]
[Reward: 40 magic stones, start of act 3] [Reward: 40 magic stones, start of act 3].
It was a worthwhile journey.
Tom and the other two had a clear idea of what was going on, and had a preliminary investigation.
The cab pulled up.
"Here we are. All the hotels here are good, so pick one and stay there." The driver waved a warm goodbye to them, then tucked the large bill Tom had passed him in his wallet and left them in the dust.
Tom looked at the hotels on the street and picked one at random.
It looked like a small store, but outside was a sign with four stars on it.
The three of them pushed open the door and went inside.
The inside of the hotel was nicely decorated and the pretty lady at the front desk was not dozing, she smiled professionally when she saw the three of them enter.
Tom walked up to the solid pine reception desk and asked for a triple room. Good thing it wasn't high season, so there were plenty of rooms in the hotel. But the three couldn't get a legal ID: Tom is a gangster and Harry was too young to get a room. As a cold sweat broke out on Harry's head, Tom pulled an elaborate arm figure and silver handle from his bag.
"Confundo!" He fiddled with the handle twice before a light erupted from the front of the figure's arm, striking the lady at the front desk and causing her eyes to blur.
"Yes, thank you." She said with a blank stare, as she quickly checked them in.
Apparently, once the receptionist was attended to, no identification was required: the check-in was now done on paper, nothing like the electronic systems of later times.