K spent several hours talking with Derrik on the next day after he arrived. Stories this old hunter had to tell were very interesting - interesting enough to make a great material to write a book, and a book with main protagonist being K.
Based on what Derrik said, K's name was actually Kaleb Silver and was in fact born in Poland as a son of Samon and Anna.
His father was officially working as an archeologist, while also being one of the hunters belonging to an organization and the man, who was the reason for Derrik to become a demon hunter and one of the members of Shadows. Derrik also claimed that Kaleb's mother had no idea about this line of work his father was involved in, being only aware of her husband archeologist job. Kaleb's father went missing when the boy was three years old, while his mother was killed by demons when he was fifteen.
After mother's death, he ended up in orphanage, where he stayed only temporarily since a friend of his father, also belonging to the same organization Siwald Greendale - took him in. This immediately made K ask why it was not that man, but Derrik who ended up finding him and the young hunter was informed that Siwald is currently indisposed and staying in the main headquarters to receive necessary treatment for his condition.
Putting the state of affairs right now, back in the past, Siwald remained with Kaleb for over one year in Europe before heading to Japan for the boy to continue his training and receive same education as his father before joining the ranks of Shadows. His stay there lasted for several years and the last day when he disappeared was the very day Garths invaded the main headquarters of the organization. The last thing Kaleb's comrades saw, was him falling into a rapid river and there were no traces left of him afterwards despite many hunters looking.
During their conversation, K was asking numerous questions about Kaleb's past, yet Derrik did not know all the answers - he was only able to provide information about events he personally witnessed or learned from limited number of people who knew Kaleb Silver. However, there were moments when K had an inkling feeling this man was avoiding answers - despite that, K decided not to pressure too much and not to force anything for now. More than anything, he wanted to organize all the received information inside his head, because even such a long discussion was still not enough for his memories to return - it was either that something was still blocking them or that he was not Kaleb Silver as Derrik claimed.
As the two were deep into talking, Saya returned - among all the people K knew right now, she was the only person who spent with him the whole time since the oldest memory he was able to recall. Moreover, she was one of the reasons he managed to get to where he was now, what he amassed in terms of wealth and position - it was her who helped K in organizing engagements in contracts and handling the payments in early days of his hunting career and now Saya was supervising vast part of operations in the pub, so its prosperity was something that would be barely possible without her. She was away when Derrik arrived as she had immediate summons to Japanese embassy.
Soon after she returned, Saya first spoke with Gareth to learn about mysterious, old hunter who recently arrived in the town. For the moment, she was hesitating how to approach the situation and was considering if she should sit by the same table K was having a conversation with Derrik at, but she ended up stopping herself from it and waited for K to provide her with a summary of the situation.
Having listened to what he had to say, she took a sip of beer and nodded.
"This is a really interesting story indeed" she admitted "And it would have explained quite a lot. Still, what do we actually know about this Derrik guy? Gareth says he never saw his face anywhere in town. You obviously cannot remember him, also saying that you had no memory flashbacks of any sort when he was telling this story. Are you absolutely sure this man can be trusted?
K shrugged.
"You know, nowadays is hard to trust anyone" he pointed out "Nevertheless, we don't have any reasons to worry about him, and the man himself is definitely believing in what he is saying."
Saya looked with suspicion in the direction of the table where the hunter with massive build was sitting.
"What do you intend to do next?"
"Derrik rented a room and intends to stay here for a while" K informed her "It is all to have a chance to talk with me more, apparently. It's what he claims, at least. Even if I won't regain my memories, I don't think it hurts to listen."
Saya appeared sceptical about this idea. Despite that, she had no intention of disagreeing with K's decision.
"I heard you got some interesting job recently. You mind sharing what it was about?"
K started telling her what happened.
There was this new owner of an old factory in another town nearby and had an issue with workers dying on site in peculiar circumstances, thus he ended up looking for additional help of a specialist other than police or soldiers from Perseus and one of the old clients referred him to Gareth, who accepted the job in K's name.
As usual, the hunter first went to the back of the building where he had a workshop combined with a garage, which in fact seemed more like a small armory rather than what you would expect from people to keepy in such a building. He geared up with weapons and items that felt right for fighting indoors, thus shorter blades and handuns were the first picks - he ended up with carrying two swords, two handguns, a shotgun, a few knives, all packed on his motorbike to ride towards the location he was supposed to clean.
He also mentioned how Gareth bothered him to tag along, but both K and Saya looked at each other and nodded that it would have been a bad idea at this point, for which the bartender seemed disappointed, yet he understood the reasoning - still, it was irrelevant for further story, thus K carried on, focusing on what was next.
The hunter drove his motorbike to another town for about twenty minutes without much rush since the weather was not really perfect for this kind of a ride. Even though it was a dangerous job, he liked such trips and used that time to get rid of unnecessary tension and come up with a plan for exterminating any potential danger.
In fact, he did not know anything about the demon or demons that attacked the workers and had no idea how much did the area change since the last time he was around. K could easily remember how vast was this place, but he also heard from people that a number of building was already demolished and many more were in the process. Because of that, he could not know which buildings were still there and which were not. With such factor, all he could plan for was what steps to take in order,
Even without rushing, the route was short and he reached the industrial district earlier than expected. The old factory was the dominating part of the landscape, surrounded by an old wall, most likely to the point of being around still in communist times - all the old stuf was grey, aside from tall chimneys which were emitting lots of toxic fumes back in the past, which were painted red and white, though the paint was already falling off to the point of uncovering the concrete these were made of.
Currently, the place was a mixture of old structures, mostly awaiting their demise and new ones either already completed or slowly raising from the foundation. In some places, there were unattended trees and bushes growing without any control, while in other there were well-maintained, recently planted trees and lawns. Since the oldest plants were originally growing there to absorb the chemicals, even after the years of factory's inactivity, one could still easily see scars left on these trees because of toxic substances - some were close to withering away, but most were still fighting despite bark falling off or other probems eating at them.
Because of these plants, it was much harder to get a good look at the overall state of the factory from the outside. K was driving around the wall, investigating the state of concrete walls and looking for potential gaps that could be used for entering aside from the main gates that were usually pretty secure. At the same time, he also checked the situation in the neighborhood for anything suspicious.
It did seem that the new owner is taking a good care of the place, including security as there were numerous warning signs placed everywhere, though K was doubting their effectiveness in keeping people away. For the time being, it seemed that there was no one peculiar in the area and the young hunter was unable to find traces of life anywhere close, yet he was aware of how human nature worked and that it was quite likely for people to check such locations, not only because of ill intentions, but also out of curiosity - thus, it was usually teenager who would end up tresspassing.
Still, less people around meant things were easier for K to take care of the matter he was hired for - bystanders were always a problem and a risk in this line of work, and he did not like complications, thus he honestly hoped everything could stay as it was, at least until the cleaning is done.
In the end, he found a spot for his motorbike to park on, then he geared up with the equipment he took from the garage and headed through one of the smaller, side gates. As agreed with the owner of the place, no one was around and K had a free passage.
"I feel as if it's been a long time" a voice echoed inside his head "A decent job finally to get me involved?"
"What do you thing?" K replied in his thoughts "I doubt there's anyone sane going for a walk, equipped with a sharp blade."
"Yeah, but there are definitely those crazy ones who would do that" the voice said and laughed "So, what do we have here?"
K shrugged.
"Not much I know about. Some workers died and that's it."
"Lots of details as usual..."
"What's the difference for you, though? In the end, you just cut whatever or whoever is enemy."
Laughter again. The voice belonged to a ghost or maybe a demon sealed in the sword K was using. Her name was Asha and it was even hard for herself to explain what she was. Similarly to K, she also lost her memories, but in her case the amnesia was mainly related to ancient times when she was still alive. She apparently could recall her memories from the beginning of her existence as a sword, so the last several hundred years, but she was self-aware only when wielded by someone with strong enough aura, thus out of several hundred years, only about fifty years were really active.
Asha, while remembering only her life as a sword, in conversations behaved as every intelligent being. She had her favorite topic, jokes and a sharp tongue, possibly sharper than her blade at times. Asha liked K and willingly cooperated with him. Apparently, good relationship with the wielder was not always the case for her, but she preferred not to share the details for some reason.
"So, it's the usual search and destroy mission?"
"Something of the sort, I think."
"Where do we start?"
"Frim the spot where the last attack happened. The body is no longer there, but I may find some traces there."
He headed through a narrow route between the backs of two enormous warehouses, heading towards the building workers who died were supposed to demolish. After a short walk, he reached the main route cutting through the whole complex, used for heavy transports in the past. On both sides, he was passing still standing old buildings, partially disassembled structures, debris and cleaned parcels.
In the past, this was a well-maintained factory hiring several thousand people, and yet it failed to ruin that no one wanted to rescue. It was much easier to sell it, clean up for new buildings and sell, maybe readjust the layout. The new owner most likely went with approach of trying a bit of each option, based on the works done so far.
"Not everything looks that bad" Ken muttered, looking at a building which most likely functioned as the office in the past "They could have made use of it still."
"Everything comes to pass, K" Asha spoke in his mind "This place is way past it's prime already. I've seen way too many such places."