Chapter 63 - Volume 4 (1/2)

“Hing! How could you drop something so suddenly on us like that, sunbaenim! I already had plans for tonight!”

“Relax. You’re not going to die from missing out on a single day.”

The police members had no work to do in the Ceta District. There had been some incidents between visiting tourists, but those were few and far in between. There weren’t any crimes like a.s.sault or theft. Plus, the captain of the police, who should have been training his men, made attending socials and parties part of his daily routine, depriving the police of their leader and overseer.

On paper, the three squads took turns patrolling the Ceta District. But in truth, they were busy playing around all the time. Most of the members of the police force were commoners who graduated from Campus. The 3rd squad was entirely made up of commoners whose families were relatively well-off compared to an average commoner, but they still needed to watch their spending. Kalden and Trentor gave them a lending hand as their sunbaes and predecessors to working in the city, making the lives of the police force more comfortable.

“Can I skip out on this?”

Reisha was designated the squad leader of the third squad and Kunette the sub-leader. Neither of them did their job properly, however, so all of the work fell on Krent to finish.

Krent’s time in the city had been miserable to say the least. As the successor to his merchant guild, he was very busy with managing the smuggling business; it was also a great burden on his mind thanks to Central’s involvement. And that burden has been magnified now that he had to manage all of the paperwork for his squad, which was only supposed to be his cover.

“Shut it! There are no exceptions! And Reisha, how many elves do you think have gotten to investigate and solve a murder case?”

Elves loved to be the first to experience something unique among themselves. On the flip side, they hated not experiencing something that everyone already has. Reisha had been tied to College until now, watching the other elves have the times of their lives as she bit on her nails. Upon her arrival, Reisha had been actively causing all kinds of incidents to make up for all of the waiting she had in the sidelines.

Reisha seemed to show some intrigue, so Isaac quickly continued.

“Go complain to the Mayor if you have any complaints. It was the mayor who gave this order.”

The police members seemed to accept Isaac’s words as reality when he pushed all responsibility to Rivelia. All did, except for one. Kunette, who knew the truth, gazed upon Isaac, which he knowingly ignored.

“Hing! I was supposed to go to the newly opened steak buffet restaurant…”

It seemed that mentioning Rivelia was the decisive blow, as Reisha began to grumble with disappointment. Isaac sighed at the sight. Reisha was Rivelia’s equal when it came to disrupting his peaceful daily routine.

“Fine. I’ll buy you guys dinner for tonight.”

“Heng! You think you can buy me over with that?”

Watching Reisha snort arrogantly, Isaac confirmed his suspicions; Reisha had ulterior motives behind her grumbling.

“… I’ll make you some bulgogi after we solve the case.”

“Kyaa! You promised!”

Smiles appeared on the squad members of the police force, having heard the news that their meals were going to be free. Members of the other squads didn’t care about what they spent since they received plenty of support from their families, but the members of this squad were in the opposite situation, sending money back to their families. The meals in this city were surprisingly expensive, since one of the policies of the city gave tourists coupons for free meals. Only tourists could use these coupons, so these men had to maintain strict control over their wallets.

“Hnng, maybe you guys should watch how much you eat.”

As expected of men in their prime, their proud strength came with a voracious appet.i.te. The restaurant they arrived in was designed for the residents of New Port City, where the meals prioritized quant.i.ty over quality at a cheap price. But Isaac could only smile bitterly as the receipts continued to break records set only moments before.

“Umu. So how come you’re still smoking the choyu leaves when you aren’t injured anymore?”

Reisha asked Isaac out of curiosity, all the while her mouth was preoccupied with the meat she was chewing through. Reisha seemed extremely happy, but her smile was sullied by meaty juices that dripped from the side of her mouth. Isaac found the sight to be both cute and irregular. Like an older brother taking care of his sister, Isaac wiped Reisha’s mouth with a napkin as he answered.

“Just because. There’s no real reason.”

Isaac avoided answering the question, since he wasn’t going to tell her that he gained mana whenever he smoked the leaves. Meanwhile, Kunette tugged at Isaac, seemingly wanting the same treatment as Reisha. Isaac proceeded to wipe the honey off Kunette’s mouth.

“Now that I think about it, how come I’m not getting fat?”

Isaac muttered to himself as he sipped on the fruit wine to finish off his meal. His usual routine was to eat, laze around, give a general order to the whining bunch, have lunch, laze around some more, look at the sunset after dinner, and then sleep with some snacks. Not one of those meals were absent of meat. He also enjoyed a good snack from time to time, all being completely sedentary. It had already been a year since he started living such a lifestyle, yet his body didn’t show any sign of gaining weight at all. He wondered if it was because his body was special or if there was another reason for it, but he was happy to know that he wasn’t going to suffer from diabetes or heart disease at an early age.

“Thank you! Please come again!”

The owner and employees of the restaurant saw Isaac and his group off with a broad, business smile fit for customer service. Seeing the sight rea.s.sured Isaac that his people were following his orders well, and he happily made the payment with his card. 156 Giga. It was quite the ma.s.sive bill, considering it was to feed only ten police members.

“Ugh, are you guys eating properly?”

How much money Isaac had to spend wasn’t the problem, but it worried Isaac to see his hubaes slap their own bulging stomachs, pleased with c.r.a.ppy food from a c.r.a.ppy restaurant.

Even if they were just commoners, they were still from Campus. They weren’t like his hubaes in the administrative body, whose houses were run-down victims of poverty. Their families were quite well-off from a commoner’s point of view. Yet they were the weirdos who volunteered to join the police force purely for the high pay and accepted the c.r.a.ppy food without complaining, even though it was food that other police members would frown upon.

Isaac wasn’t going to say anything against them, since they were good sons who mailed their pay back to their families, but the one person Isaac couldn’t understand was Krent, the second child of the Rivolden Merchant Guild’s current leader. In fact, he ate the most among the group. Isaac sneered at Krent, and Krent smiled playfully at Isaac.

“I’m from a merchant family, as you know. We’ve got to make the best of an opportunity when it presents itself, especially if it’s free.”

Isaac wouldn’t even feel half as annoyed by him if Krent was bad with his words. It wasn’t like Isaac was ever going to land a hit on Krent anyway, what with the differences in their physicality. All Isaac could do was despair at his lack of skills. Having too able of a subordinate was also a problem for a superior.

The group left the Ceta District and went deeper and deeper into the slums. The clean, well-furnished roads transformed into ones packed with mud, littered with rubbish, and dark all around. A foul smell wafted throughout the area, which raised some eyebrows among the knights.

The atmosphere was chilling and silent, where only the footsteps of the knights echoed. The few pedestrians they ran into quickly fled when they saw the knights and Isaac leading the group.

“Che, I could never like this place, no matter how many times I come…”

All of the knights nodded in a.s.sent as Krent made his comment. Despite the plentiful policies enacted with the goal of lifting the slums out of poverty, the endemic poverty persisted like a c.o.c.kroach; proof that not even a nation could end poverty.

Well, the syndicates still regularly embezzled goods and corruption was rampant behind the scenes, but Isaac wasn’t going to teach his hubaes about the cold, harsh reality.

The reality was that no matter how much one heard about an issue, it would remain weightless so long as they didn’t understand the issue themselves. Although they were commoners, these knights lived a life where all of their needs were met and were going to become the future leaders of the Empire. Although they came here for the money, perhaps by spending time facing the reality of the situation at the scene, they might be able to create social policies addressing the problem more effectively. The current government was just sacrificing innocent lives by setting unrealistic goals and engaging in factional infighting. If Isaac’s hubaes were successful, Isaac could benefit from their policies himself in retirement.

“You’ve arrived. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Axlon came up to Isaac when he noticed them and greeted him. He had been cordoning off the residential area where the murder had happened with his men. The building was an old apartment constructed for the impoverished souls in the slum. It was stuffed with as many rooms as possible, earning the nickname of ‘the beehive’ among its residents.

Isaac’s first thought was on how to cook Axlon alive, but there were too many witnesses. Isaac sighed, and Axlon flinched.

“What happened?”

“Well… the first witness was the overseer of the construction site.”

“Construction overseer?”

“My district was selected as the site for the new personal residential quarters. Well, considering the s.p.a.ce requirements and the possibility of future expansion, I guess there was no other choice, but …”

Axlon nervously gave his explanation, which didn’t fit his large physique. Axlon’s district was next to the Minolen mountains, which made it a hub for the mining and timber industry. By cutting down the forests in the area, they could make s.p.a.ce for new construction. Although this fact was well-known to everyone in the past, the reason it remained undeveloped was because there was no reason to, along with funding and manpower issues. For the redevelopment of the residential area, the administration wanted to avoid the ha.s.sle of demolis.h.i.+ng existing buildings and the logistics of migrating the existing residents. They managed to sidestep the issue by choosing to clear out the nearby undeveloped mountains instead. Because of this, these professional employees were free to enter the other districts like it was just another part of the Ceta District unlike the tourists, who were prohibited from entering the other districts.

“So the overseer found the body while he was going back to his house?”

“Yes. And he reported it to the police before we could stop him.”

“So you’re telling me you let an overseer walk about on his own in your district.”

“T, that’s…”

“You and I will have a nice talk after this. What about the corpse? Don’t tell me you got rid of it already.”

Isaac could only see ropes in the area and no corpse. It was going to be a big problem if Axlon disposed of the body in an attempt to keep things quiet even when it was already found out.

Isaac’s eyes narrowed, and Axlon quickly responded.

“We’ve moved the body to the hospital’s morgue.”

“At least you did that right.”

“Hehe, thank you.”

“Does it sound like a compliment to you?”

“…”

Axlon could only moan in silence at Isaac’s answer, standing still nervously. Isaac sighed and asked another question.

“So where did he live?”

“It’s the last room on the top floor.”

Isaac proceeded to walk up to the top floor of the building once he got his answer. This small three-story building held twenty houses in which the people of the slums resided. Their lives had turned for the better thanks to Isaac, but to this desperate lot who barely made enough to survive another day, even these hive apartments were a gift of mercy. The residents locked their flimsy old doors shut in fear of getting roped into the murder incident. Only the cries of infants eerily echoed in the otherwise silent area.

“How could one live in a place like this?”

The knights frowned to see the tiny foxholes of houses. The bedroom was the only thing they owned in this property, as the kitchen, showers, and toilets were shared by all of the residents. This was the first time these knights had entered the real slums of the New Port City; it was completely unlike the patrols in the Ceta District. The knights seemed unfamiliar to this environment, as if their subconsciousness were repelled against it.

“Who’s the victim?”

Isaac asked Axlon as he walked up the stairs. Isaac was prepared to replace Axlon if he didn’t make any preparations despite giving the police a justification to intervene. Whether it was good or bad fortune, Axlon answered Isaac without hesitation, seemingly prepared for this moment.

“The victim’s name is Kevin, but we are sure it’s an alias, and he’s around his fifties. n.o.body knows what his occupation is around here. Truth be told, it’d be stranger if anyone cared about anyone else in this neighbourhood.”

These people of the slums were too preoccupied with their own survival and had little luxury to care about their neighbors.

“What a harsh world. Did you find any evidence in his room?”

“We don’t know.”

Isaac made a stop at Axlon’s reply, seemingly dumbfounded.

“You didn’t go in?”

“I got help from Soland when I received a report that the overseer had found the body and reported it to the police. He told me to investigate the victim for now but not to enter the room. His reasoning was that since it was guaranteed that the police were going to intervene, we shouldn’t do anything that may further escalate the situation…”

“He has a point. Does anyone know him?”

Although Axlon was the boss of his district, it was too much to expect him to know every single member of his syndicate, which numbered in the hundreds. With the destruction of the Meta District and the migration of Soland’s syndicate into the area, Isaac’s question was implying if the victim was one of the syndicate members. Regrettably, Axlon shook his head.

“n.o.body knows him. Soland, Milena, and Dinozo are currently putting their subordinates to use to find out his ident.i.ty.”

“So, how’s the progress?”

“Currently, we suspect that he wasn’t a local but an outsider who entered when we began registering all of the citizens.”

This was a policy that was started before New Port City was open to the public as a tourist spot. Since they could be registered by simply giving a name, the vagabonds and runners found it to be a great opportunity to get a fresh new ident.i.ty.

The Empire’s Department of Administration should have put a halt on such policies, but the reason they remained silent was because the only people who would smuggle their way into New Port City weren’t going to be law abiding citizens in the first place. Catching criminals who have committed serious crimes like scams cost the Empire a great fortune. But what if all the runners were gathered in a single spot? The costs would drop significantly, and catching the criminals was going to be easier now that they were confined in a single city, despite having a new ident.i.ty.

Of course, the smarter criminals expected that to be the case and never planned to enter New Port City. But the Empire forced them into the city by initiating a search and arrest mission on a grand scale, trying to force all criminals into New Port City.

This led to a rather noisy period in New Port City. Every hour, a new comer would crawl their way in and cause a scene. The lone wolves were perhaps the easiest to deal with, too consumed by their arrogance. The real problems were those who formed groups of their own and started gang wars in the districts. These small-scale wars caused both gang and civilian casualties, which led to the syndicate bosses focusing on strengthening their authority over their districts instead of its infrastructure. In turn, this created the perfect opportunity for the rebellion to occur.

“Then how did that dead man survive until now? There should be a record of him working at least.”

“Well… we are still investigating, but seeing how he didn’t do any work, we suspect that he brought quite the fortune with him when he first came. We’ve asked the citizens in the area, and they told us that he would leave early in the morning and come back late at night. Otherwise, they didn’t see him around much.”

“But n.o.body knows who or what he is? What is he, some secret agent?”

Some of the police force flinched at Isaac’s comment, but Isaac never noticed it since he was in front of everyone.

“Let’s check the room for now.”

Isaac stumbled his way over to the victim’s room, which was the furthest one away from the stairs. None of them could go back home until the criminal was caught, and if they didn’t solve the case any time soon, it was Isaac who was going to suffer the wrath of the police force. Isaac complained in his mind, ‘why does a superior have to resolve an issue his underling had caused?’ A syndicate member stood in front of the room, waiting. Isaac received the syndicate member’s greeting with apathy and grabbed the handle of the door.

“Huh? It’s not opening?”

The door remained shut, so Isaac began pus.h.i.+ng and pulling the door, trying to force his way in.

“Ah! There we go.”

After a few heavy pushes, the door slammed open. At the same time, projectiles shot toward Isaac.

“Sunbaenim!”

“Isaac!”

“Kek!”