Uriel arrived to the beach on the east side of Texas not long after asking Sharp to take the wild girl with her to hollywood. It was the only solution he ca up with to keep her from getting involved with the dangerous situation he was about to face, but without Sharp's help infiltrating the city was going to be difficult.
Luckily for him, the beach was filled with people bathing in the sun and it gave Uriel an idea.
"I can't call Vivian or any of the people involved with because they might be spying on them, but if I sohow mix with the crowd and create a distraction I'll be able to sneak into the city without problems." Uriel muttered, keeping his hand on his chin in a pensive manner.
He had enough ti to think of several ideas on the way to the beach, but none really convinced him. He thought he might be able to flirt with a random girl and maybe go inside the city with her, but that would make him feel uncomfortable.
There was also the possibility of being honest with soone and paying them for their silence, but he doubted soone would dare to oppose the Fallen corp. and maybe the governnt at the sa ti. Besides, the reward for turning him in might be bigger than whatever money he could offer.
Then, an idea hit him. He bought a swimswit, an expensive watch and a new backpack. Then he discarded anything that didn't fit inside that backpack and jumped into the water before being noticed by the people at the beach.
The next step was to find a beast rank cryptid and lure it towards the shore and he found a nice candidate. It was a fish with a glowing antennae on the top of its head and a wide maw filled with sharp teeth. Needless to say, their bite was quite powerful, but they were slow and fragile, which made them among the easiest beast rank cryptids that lurked in the ocean.
This was as much a blessing as it was a curse, since it was so slow that herding it towards the shore took more ti than Uriel would have liked. Thankfully, before Uriel reached the shore the presence of the beast rank cryptid was noticed by so of the hunters at the beach and they sounded the alarm.
Needless to say, the hunters who were having a good ti at the beach didn't bring any weapons with them and the ones responsibles for people's safety were those who got paid for the job, but even if their response ti was fast, it was still faster for those nearby to co and lend a hand.
Uriel pretended not to notice the ruckus at the beach and he allowed the beast rank fish to get dangerously close to him, which triggered one of the hunters who couldn't let soone die in front of his eyes and he readiy jumped into the waters to 'rescue' Uriel.
"Swim faster! There's sothing behind you!"
"Huh?" Uriel pretended to be confused.
"Hurry up!" The hunter swam as fast as he could, but Uriel soon realized he was way slower than the fish. He had the right intentions, but lacked the power to do anything about it and if it wasn't staged, that poor young man would have ended up dead.
Uriel allowed the hunter to grab him by the shoulder and 'help' him, though in reality he only forced Uriel to carry both of them out while pretending to be in trouble.
"Thank you! You saved my life!" Uriel said loudly, but without any enthusiasm. Pretending to be afraid of a fish that would die with a nudge was one thing, but thanking soone who could have made things worse if it was a real danger was difficult.
'It's fine, I'm an archaeologist, not an actor.' Uriel inwardly though.
"That's no way to thank soone who just saved your life, kid." An old man scoffed.
"Yeah! He's such a jerk!" Those kind of comnts erupted from the crowd. It wasn't planned, but it served to cause the distraction he needed.
"Who asked for his help? I was fine on my own."
"Shut up and pay him, don't you have any manners? If you don't have any money just give him your watch and make things right." This comnt finally made sense of things to Uriel.
He gazed at the young man who looked troubled, but didn't say anything. This could only an that he did jump into action just in the off chance of getting a reward and the watch Uriel bought from the souvenir shop looked expensive, mainly because it truly was expensive.
The value of the things Uriel bought from his souvenir shop didn't always match the actual price, but it was always more expensve to buy from his souvenir shop than from a store. The reason for that was simple, each trite was the sa as 1k credits and the souvenir shop only accepted trites. As if that wasn't unfair enough, the cheapest article he could buy was 1 trite.
For this reason, it took Uriel a long ti to see the true value of his souvenir shop.
Now, however, it was a price he was more than glad to pay and he handed the gold coated watch to the man, doing his best to look grateful. When the hunters on baywatch duty arrived they followed protocol and took him to the east gate.
Even if he wasn't injured in any way, he still needed to be check by a doctor. It was just an excuse to get money out of people and to make sure they paid those who rescued them, but most of the people who could afford going to the beach could also afford it.
"Are you a citizen? Where's your ID?"
"I'm a hunter, but it seems I lost my ID on the oncean." Uriel replied with a shrug.
"Kids these days, I'm telling you, they might even forget their head if it wasn't attached to their neck." One of the gate guards laughed.
"We need to confirm your identity anyway, let run the registry for a few minutes please."
"What!? I just went through a life or death situation, those guys extorted my expensive watch from and I even had to pay you guys for dical treatnt even if I'm completely fine and now you want to stay for a few minutes!?" Uriel had no need to pretend to be offended. The hurt was real, though the cause was the waste of money in a watch he didn't have anymore.
"What else do you want us to do? You haven't even given us your na yet. Since you said you're a hunter we don't have any issues respecting your identity, but in order to enter the city you need to let us run the registry. If nothing shows up, then you're free to go.
I know it's troubleso but we're only doing our job." The fact that they needed to run the full registry ant that Uriel wasn't in the most wanted list anymore, or at least that they weren't warned beforehand that he might co back to the city.
Thinking about this made Uriel realize that people might think he's dead, since the zeppelin crashed in a very dangerous place. While it provided him so relief, it also troubled him since that ant he went through all that trouble for nothing.
"Co on man, just give us your na so we can search you on the database."
"My hunter na is Magnum..."
"Magnum!? You're that guy the boss has been looking for like crazy!" The gate guard exclaid. Uriel was getting ready for a fight to break out, but then the man continued. "You're free to go. By the way, when you stop by the ranger's headquarters make sure to ntion Jimmy sent you."
[System notice] New title acquired: Professional overthinker.
'What kind of bullshit is this!? I even got a new title!' Uriel inwardly cursed at the system, the city guards and the man who took his watch. Though he knew he had only himself to bla.
He entered the city like many tis before, only now it felt different. It wasn't just that he spent so much ti outside he felt like a stranger, the city was actually different than he rembered. The streets were cleaned, the place wasn't as crowded as before and it was difficult to see any slum dweller begging for money or looking for an easy target.
For uriel, spotting that kind of people was easy even before acquiring a trait. Now, with his mystical sense should have been easy, though there just weren't any thugs nearby.Unsettling could only begin to describe the feeling Uriel got, but no matter how hard he tried, he only saw improvents. The buildings were freshy painted and business seed to be thriving, even people seed happier sohow.
"I wasn't gone that long, just what happened in here?"
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