Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

Chapter 1815: The Gallows

Mira turned toward Ning with a surprised look before quickly nodding. She turned back toward her computer, typing something up quickly, pulling up some information.

”You were right,” she said, as a bunch of pictures came out.

Pictures of the ghoul in plain shirts of various colors popped up one after another, each one taken within a decade of each other. He didn’t look that different from picture to picture.

Ning looked through it all, trying to see what she had found, but he couldn’t see any connection at all.

”What... am I looking for here?” he asked.

”You told me that it made no sense that a man that old had such a clean record, so I started searching more about him. Going through our database, I found plenty of pictures attributed to the victim, all of which are these.”

Mira rolled back her chair, letting Ning get closer. ”Can you see what I noticed?” she asked.

”His age?” Ning asked.

”The photos certainly are taken at a similar age, but keep looking. It took me nearly 15 minutes to notice. But you should be able to find it in no time, right?”

Ning frowned internally. He wasn’t as smart as the girl made him out to be. Would he have to ask the system for help?

He looked at the pictures, trying to see what she wanted him to look at. It certainly couldn’t be the clothes, and she had remarked already about his age being similar.

In that case, there was only one thing left to mention.

”Where are these taken?” Ning asked. ”The backgrounds look so...”

He couldn’t find the right word for what he was going for. The backgrounds were fine, but at the same time, they weren’t.

”Fake? Edited?” Mira asked. ”You’re good, Sir Valen. It took me so long to realize.”

She enlarged the images. ”I thought they looked weird too, so I started digging through them, trying to find out where these pictures were taken. Guess where?”

Ning shrugged. ”Where?”

”Nowhere,” the young elf said. ”Or more precisely, they’re fake. Those backgrounds aren’t real places.”

”So they are edited,” Ning said.

”No, I thought so, but the algorithm doesn’t detect any modification. I checked the metadata too, and it appeared untampered. I came to the conclusion that these backgrounds are neither fake, nor edited.”

”So? What are they?” Ning asked.

”Screens. In a photo studio,” Mira said. ”These were all taken in one place. Probably over the course of a few days to let the hair and beard grow out, to make the man look more... aged.”

Ning narrowed his eyes. ”And I assume you found where that was.”

Mira grinned. ”I did,” she said. She pulled up something next. A bunch of other photos appeared on the screen with the people in them completely blurred. However, the background remained visible.

Ning raised his eyebrows. ”They have the same background.”

”They are!” Mira said excitedly. ”These are all taken in the same photo studio. And best part, it was taken in a studio that belongs to the Limaro Marshalls’ Witness Protection program.”

”Meaning...” Ning could grasp the full extent of the information now.

”Meaning this man had been involved in something that required him to go into Witness Protection,” Mira said.

A pair of footsteps stopped right next to them. ”Why are you here? I thought you were at the hospital.”

Larissa had arrived just then.

”I had left, and she called me,” Ning said.

Larissa ignored him and handed a piece of paper to Mira. ”We’ve got the permission. The chief had to fight hard to get this for us.”

”On it!” Mira said and got to work.

Ning took no time to realize from his memory that the chief would have to let the Witness Protection officers know about their witness’s situation. The chief would then have to get permission from them to gather previous information about the man.

”Oh, it wasn’t Tritus. The hospital should’ve called you,” Ning said.

”We know,” Larissa said.

Ning nodded, feeling a little awkward. ”Where’s Jack?”

”Scouting and surveying. Trying to find us some crumb of a lead here,” Larissa said.

”Good man.”

Larissa looked away, focusing on the screen. Ning shrugged and looked toward the screen as well.

”Got it!” Mira said as the information opened up. ”Here we go, his real name is... oh...”

”What?” Larissa got closer to the screen, her eyes narrowing. Her eyes found the field where the name was written. ”Mudmill... GALLOW?”

Ning heard the name and immediately spoke out something. ”The Gallows?”

He leaned in, reading the rest that was written in there.

The Gallows were a mob gang from long ago, made of some of the vilest group of criminals. They were formed of some of the scummiest people in all of Limaro, owning a majority of the businesses on the eastern end, running drug smuggling rings, human trafficking, prostitution, and what not.

The kingpin of the Gallows was a man named Trunno Gallow, a Centaur known to be more dangerous than any man alive. Worse, none of the crimes could ever be pinned on him because he had a slew of lawyers all in his pockets.

He also had cops working for him, making it harder to arrest him for longer than a few days.

However, that had all come tumbling down about two decades ago, when the largest arrest had been made, bringing the Gallows down in a single night. Most of the people among them were behind bars, the rest, including the Kingpin, executed.

So, the fact that one of them was not only around, but also in Witness Protection was quite surprising.

”It says here he was an informant for the detective back then,” Mira read slowly. ”He and his wife wanted out of the group, so they snitched on the Gallows. It says the wife died in a crossfire, but the man survived. He got into the Witness program, and then disappeared.”

Larissa took a step back. ”Does this all have to do with the Gallows?”