He didn't want to believe this man or listen to Wrath, but three things convinced him to give it a chance. The first thing is that the information did have a point. That point is that only Zain was sent after him.
It is logical to think that if the man had wanted to kill him, he would have sent more than one person to pursue him. But only Zain had pursued him.
Wrath was almost certain of that. Unless there was someone else that is truly invisible in all wavelengths of light and more, then it was only Zain that was sent after him.
He knows that the information broker had 50 men with him at that time. He also expects that he could spare more than one of the 50 of them. Wrath has also bragged about its ability to see dark matter and sub-spaces.
All of these lead him to believe that the man has a point. But what truly convinced him was what Zain had said when he was dying. Zain had said it was a test and that he could go. This is the second reason why he is willing to believe the information broker.
He is willing to accept the possibility that Zain was lying. Actually, it is highly likely that Zain was lying. After all, a dying man would say anything to survive. But it is unlikely that Zain and the information broker are telling the same lie.
It could be a coincidence that both of them had said that the whole thing was a test, but if it is not, it would explain why only Zain came after him and why the man bothered to leave his fortress and venture into the wilds to honor his father's grave site.
He had called the information broker's monthly venture outside of the city a stupid and dangerous endeavor. Now he knows that it was less dangerous than he thought. He also has reasons to believe that it might not be as stupid as he thought.
The third reason is that he has two bad options. The first option is to ignore the information broker and gain a Hoard of unknown enemies coming after him. The second option is to deal with the information broker alone.
The first option will bring a whole slew of problems that he can't predict, but the information broker is an enemy he has seen before, can locate, can identify, and can target.
While the second option is clearly dangerous, it has a lot less uncertainty. So he is willing to give the test a chance.
He said to Wrath, "Maybe he is telling the truth. Maybe the test is real. But we just can't believe whatever he says. We have to confirm somehow."
Wrath shrugged and said, "Fine. Do whatever you want."
Then it said, "At least you got something out of all of these. 500,000 dollars hasn't made up for the risk to your life, but it has reduced your loss to 100,000 dollars."
He scowled at the shadow spirit, but it didn't stop taking digs at him. So he ignored it and made plans to do an independent investigation into the information broker.
He doesn't plan to take the man's word without some proof. The man tricked him, so he can't believe his words or the information he received from him, which he used to make his plans.
So he plans to visit other information brokers for information about this particular one. He would have liked to put up an investigative mission through the terminal, but he has been burned three times by it already.
The first time can be attributed to bad luck, and the second time can be called a coincidence. But this third time cannot be overlooked. It has proven that there is an underlying problem with the mission system. He just can't trust it anymore.
So he left the comfort of his house to do legwork and get information from reliable sources. It is true that he had to use the terminal to find these sources, but he has very little choice in the matter.
Fortunately, he didn't get burned this time. He found a lot of information about the broker. He learned that the man was indeed hiding his ability. Apparently, his ability was a beta ability called Ant physique. He also learned that the man was at least D-rank.
He learned a lot about him, but what truly stood out to him from the dossier he paid for was that the man had been leaving his house on many occasions and on those occasions encountered an assassination attempt.
The frequency he leaves his house was not once a month, like he told Kelvin. He might not leave his house at all in a month, or he might leave up to three times. But each time, someone would try to kill him.
Most of those who tried to kill him died, but some escaped and are still alive. These lucky few are also very strong or good at escaping.
The dossier on the information broker was enlightening, but it came at a cost of 500,000 dollars. So he had to spend his recent paycheck on it.
The loss of that kind of money filled him with pain and heartache as he was reading the dossier. He made sure to go through every word and not miss anything so as to get his money's worth.
Eventually he decided to text back the information broker. He wrote, "I'm in."
Wrath encoraged him by the side, "This is a good decision. It is good—if only for the fact that you need the money. I believe that you are broke and beggers can't be choosers, so you can't be picky about this."
He was indeed broke. He had less than 50,000 dollars on him. That is a lot of money to him, but Wrath won't let him be content with it. It has to remind him every time that he is not rich.
He just shook his head and gritted his teeth at Wrath's comments. It is the only thing he can do because he can't do anything to the shadow spirit. He can't even touch it. So the shadow spirit can mouth off however much it wants.
He was beginning to suspect that maybe the death of the previous wielders of the ring of paragon was not a mistake. After all, there is one thing in particular that they all have in common.
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A/N: It is bad when you're broke. But it becomes worse when there's someone there to constantly remind you.