Upon hearing Swire's suggestion, Ch'en found herself in complete agreent. But as she had pointed out, the core issue was the total lack of a breakthrough lead.
The two sat in the office, racking their brains as they sifted through every case file from this year involving gangs, Ursus, and Penguin Logistics. After half a day's work, they were still nowhere close to a coherent theory.
The leads they did have were tied to those three areas. However, the connections between the gangs and Ursus-affiliated companies were a tangled ss, and the "leads" on Penguin Logistics were just a mountain of various unpaid fines.
The two Senior Superintendents sat in the office, re-evaluating the cases in their hands, hoping to find any trace of a clue. Rare as it was, the two of them were actually in a state of peace, focusing all their energy on flipping through the old archives.
This, however, made the officers outside extrely nervous. These two usually couldn't go a single day without a shouting match the mont they saw each other; why were they suddenly so quiet today?
Make so noise, dammit! What's going on in there? It's scary when you two suddenly act like this!
"Just searching blindly like this isn't the answer. If we keep going this way, the culprits will have sold off all the stolen goods by the ti we crack the case. We need to go out, walk the streets, and see if there's anything suspicious," Swire said, looking at the desk buried in files, her head beginning to ache. Finding a lead in this ss was like looking for a needle in a haystack—and there was no guarantee the needle was even in there.
"Fine. Hoshiguma and I will head toward the slums imdiately to look around. You go visit those companies run by Ursus citizens."
With that, Ch'en took Hoshiguma and headed straight for the original cri scene to investigate again. Swire watched Ch'en leave before she could even get another word in. It took a long mont before she spat out:
"That Pink Sausage Dragon, running off before I could even finish talking."
Swire then handed the remaining files to the LGD officers to look through, while she headed out alone to check on the various enterprises.
anwhile, having rested for a while, Jeanne was finally full of energy again. Worried about Lemuen driving while fatigued, she firmly took back control of the steering wheel. It wasn't that Lemuen's driving was unsafe in her normal state; Jeanne was just afraid that the Sankta would get tired after driving for so long. She couldn't handle it if Lemuen started sleep-driving.
"Still, isn't the Yan governnt's governance supposed to be famous across Terra? What is with the state of things along this road?"
Jeanne looked at the skeletons and corpses with hollowed-out torsos that occasionally appeared by the roadside. The environnt made her feel uncomfortable all over. She knew that people died in Lungn—so were heartlessly dumped into the wilderness via the city's drainage system—but this sight still made her skin crawl.
So corpses had already turned to bone, while others were fresh, yet only their internal organs were missing while the rest of their bodies remained intact. Even with the car windows rolled up tight, Jeanne felt as if a sickening stench was seeping in.
From the looks of it, this place served as a body-dumping ground. The corpses clearly hadn't been left here all at the sa ti.
"I've never actually been to Lungn," Lemuen said, looking at the bodies in the wasteland. "But I don't think there are that many beasts around here. And do the beasts in Yan only eat internal organs?"
Oddly, the organs were entirely gone; in so cases, the skeletons were missing nothing but the viscera.
"Even if sothing happened in Lungn, there's no need for this! I haven't heard of Lungn having this many deaths, either."
If anyone with a weaker stomach had seen this, they might have vomited up last night's dinner. The scene was truly revolting. Jeanne slamd on the gas, and the vehicle surged forward. Before long, they escaped the cluster of the dead. Only then did Jeanne roll down the window she had kept shut.
"Jeanne, are you sure you know the way? I feel like we veered off-course just now. We shouldn't be seeing a sight like that if we were on the normal path, right?"
Lemuen opened her window to breathe. Earlier, she had been breathing as shallowly as possible, terrified of inhaling sothing foul. Although she had never been to Lungn, she had never heard travelers ntion such a "landmark" near the city. This place was grueso enough to be a famous—if horrific—attraction.
"It should be fine? I don't know the specific road to Lungn, but my intuition has never failed ."
Jeanne scratched her head, wondering if her Revelation really had a bug. Can I contact God for a bug fix? I wonder if there's any compensation...
But the "Navigation" of her Revelation was still functioning normally. It told her that their destination, Lungn, was not far ahead.
"...How strange. I feel like we took a massive detour into so weird place."
Despite the unsettling feeling, Lemuen still trusted Jeanne's intuition. This "living radar" usually didn't malfunction.
"Could that place be for handling the Infected? I think I saw large chunks of Originium on those bodies," Lemuen recalled. She had caught a glimpse of sothing black on the corpses—most likely Originium. But since the sky was so dark, even with her "natural lighting equipnt" (her halo), she couldn't see clearly.
"We'll talk about it when we get to Lungn. If we're really worried, we can just report it to the LGD. I've heard they aren't like the Ursus military police; their discipline is very strict."
Since she couldn't figure it out, Lemuen decided to stop dwelling on it and stretched out on the back seat. She had seen too much of this world's darkness; if she tried to handle every single tragedy, she'd never have a mont's peace. She'd treat it as a bizarre incident for now and inform the local police out of a sense of conscience.
"Isn't Lungn a comrcial city? If the security was bad, who would co here to spend big money? Though I hear the LGD works much harder than the Ursus police."
As they spoke, a dark city in the distance gradually beca clear. The massive mobile city, Lungn, slowly appeared before their eyes.
They had arrived just in ti, reaching the city before the inspectors went off duty. Otherwise, they might have had to sleep on the streets and wait until morning to enter.
However, when Jeanne and the others went to process their entry permits, the staff mber looked at the Lemuen in front of him with total disbelief. He rubbed his eyes and looked again.
"Your na is Lemuen? Do you have your ID? Don't you dare try to fool with a fake one! If you're joking around here, there will be consequences..."
His gaze was as if he'd seen a ghost, as if Lemuen shouldn't even be able to appear here. Even after she handed over her docunts, he inspected them page by page.
"Looking at this... my sister is pretty famous in this city, huh?" Lemuen said awkwardly to Jeanne. Jeanne could only offer a sympathetic smile. At this inspection speed, it was going to take a while to get inside.
Lemuen was fuming! She knew exactly what kind of troublemaker her sister was, but how do you get every law enforcent officer to morize your face after only one year?!
She hadn't expected to be "scamd" by her own sister this ti! Lemuen clenched her fists, silently vowing to give Exusiai a thorough "education of love" the mont they t.
User Comments
0 comments from readers