44 Frozen to death (2/2)
Michirou Juumonji nodded before he silently handed the remaining pictures to Seiji.
In total, there were five people, five corpses, and although each of them died in slightly different positions, they all shared the same terrified expression, and their bodies were all contorted strangely.
”These are all that we’ve discovered... They’re all scumbags that froze to death in alleyways and other such places that people usually don’t go to, and if it wasn’t for the fact that my group was looking for each of them, who knows when each of them would have been discovered.”
”Why were you guys looking for them?” Seiji inquired.
”Because of... a specific type of ‘medication.’” Michirou lowered his head slightly.
Seiji raised his eyebrows. A mafia group looking for ‘medication…’ This probably referred to illegal drugs.
”This ‘medication’ you speak of... they sell it? Is it ‘high quality,’ or ‘low price?’”
Michirou remained silent for a moment, before he slowly spoke up, ”This ‘medication’ they were selling, although nobody from our organization was able to obtain a sample, based on reports, there was something odd about it. It was something half-solid and half-liquid—a small, soft, mushy lump that would shake by itself if you placed it on the palm of your hand. After ingestion, you could feel it moving in your stomach, then your entire body would heat up, and finally... you’d feel like you were visiting another world. Those observing a drug user reported that the user would enter a near-death state for almost an hour. Their breathing would shallow, and their body temperature would also drop precipitously. But the user would wake up eventually and recover to normal in about half an hour.”
Seiji furrowed his eyebrows. ”Your group... has never seen this ‘medication’ for yourselves?”
”That’s right, we’ve never seen it,” Michirou agreed strongly. ”It’s only natural that we would want to find out more about such a thing appearing in our own territory.”
”But all the suppliers you found ended up dying in such an unusual fashion?”
”That’s correct, and we haven’t been able to find out anything useful on their possible cause of death. There are no clues whatsoever.”
”Are the police just ignoring all these deaths?”
”Yep, all the corpses have been ignored and cremated with no investigations done on any of them.”
”What price were they selling this at? And who were they selling to?”
”They were selling the ‘medication’ for one-third the street price of other similar ‘medications,’ and selling mostly to young people... to be more specific, to people younger than twenty-five.”
There was a momentary silence.
”There are too many inexplicable things about this situation… The police are ignoring whatever’s happening, so you believe that this may have something to do with a mystical ability user?” Seiji asked calmly.
Michirou nodded. ”That was the only possibility I could think of... That’s why I desperately wanted to seek out another mystical ability user and learn just what exactly has been happening here in our Juumonji group’s territory… Or what’s still currently happening...”
The mafia boss sighed at the situation. ”Since the situation is one where even the police are remaining silent about, it’s probably not one that underground folks like us can hope to unravel... But, even if it means I’m old-fashioned and stubborn, I believe that since our group lives in this city, we should know exactly what’s going on. Only if we know what’s happening can we think about how to protect ourselves as well as... everything else we want to protect! Haruta-sama... we’re the mafia; we’re an existence that’s far beneath those on the top, but just like how ants have their own order in ant society, we have our honor as well, and there are certain things we simply cannot back down from.”
After Michirou Juumonji slowly finished his statement, he backed away once more while remaining seated opposite from Seiji and kowtowed again. ”I respectfully request you to aid us… Please untangle this mystery!”
‘Even if you beg me, I have no clue what’s going on, uncle!!’ Seiji thought inwardly. Although his outward expression remained unfazed, he mentally broke out into a cold sweat.