Recently, Daku has been living in fear. Only a small amount was left of the 100 gold coins he received from the Military Intelligence Section Seven. Once indulging in wine and women relying on these rewards, he felt what it was like to be in dire straits again.
That night, he was driven out of the Boar and Whistle Inn by Shelley - because he didn't have enough money for wine. That was a place he liked, because he could peek at Nicole Langston and imagine her sitting on his lap.
"Bitch, what a face." He rubbed his wrist, which had been twisted red by Shelley.
A beggar by the roadside stretched out his hand to him, fully expecting this man who had once generously thrown him a silver coin to show mercy again, but Daku kicked the wall next to the beggar's head.
"Stupid waste, scum. Scum!"
Leaving this curse, he swayed unsteadily along the riverbank.
His blurred eyes glanced at the river from time to time, with his distorted reflection in it.
Suddenly, his eyelid twitched.
He saw another shadow just behind his shadow, almost overlapping.
He turned around abruptly but saw no one.
"Damn it -" To hide the unease in his heart, Daku strode forward, but he knew clearly that the nightmare that had troubled him for a long time had appeared again. The bloody and mutilated face of the man he betrayed had caused him to wake up screaming in his sleep countless times.
But he couldn't help glancing at the river from time to time. The shadow behind him seemed to exist and not exist. His ears pricked up and his pace quickened.
"Hey, you!"
This sudden call almost made Daku scream. When he found that the one who stopped him was the guard, he thought, "Thank God, a live man."
"What are you doing here so late?" The guard came over.
"Just want to go home, sir. I just came out of the Pig and Whistle Inn."
"You don't seem quite normal. Report your name."
"I'm..."
The guard interrupted Daku. "Oh...I know you. Your name is Graham...no, Daku, right? That Defian traitor who led our army to find VanCleef's hiding place?"
"Yes, sir. That's me."
"I heard you got 100 gold coins. But judging from your appearance, you don't seem to be living very comfortably... Forget it, since it's you, I won't ask any more questions, I'm sure you dare not cause any trouble."
"Naturally, sir."
"Okay, you can go. Don't wander around so late in the future."
"Thank you, sir." While saying this, Daku was thinking, "Another useless scum eating and not working."
Seeing a live man, he temporarily abandoned his imagination about the nightmare and strode away with a spit. At the corner in front of the canal district bridge, just as he was calculating in his head how to use the last bit of money to try his luck in the underground casino, a hand reached out from the shadow behind the wall, grabbed him, covered his mouth, and stabbed a dagger into his heart.
Before he died, Daku clutched the other person's sleeve tightly, his mouth opened forward, spitting blood, as if trying to say something. The other person cut off his tongue, stuck it on the dagger, and smeared two big words on the wall with blood: "V3". By the next morning, these two bloody words would appear more vivid under the gaze of countless eyes.
It was when he saw Daku's corpse that Jorgen connected this series of murders to the name VanCleef, because he knew Daku - the 100 gold coins reward came from his hand.