140 Chapter 140: Investigation (2/2)
”The organization that my uncle Frank founded…the same man who ordered the hit on both me and my sister.”
*
For the rest of the week, Kureha did as she said and launched herself fully into her investigation.
”Alicia, did you find anything?”
”Hmm…not much, I'm afraid.”
The two girls had chosen to meet up at a café to share their findings. Alicia had several holographic screens open and floating in the air as she read through reports, highlighting the sentences she thought were particularly relevant or important.
”I've gone through the thirty-two scientific organizations here, and none of them seem like they are a cover for this Research Foundation Group. And I can't find any group under that name listed in the city's records.”
”How smart of Uncle Frank.” Kureha chewed on her lip. ”Using a research organization as a cover would be too obvious, huh? Maybe we should look into other organizations.”
”Like what?” Alicia raised an eyebrow. ”There are over three thousand and five hundred commercial organizations in Jing Tian City. It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
”Ugh…” Kureha leaned back in her chair and held her head. This was going nowhere. They had spent an entire week combing through just thirty organizations. She couldn't imagine going through a hundred times that number. That would take too much time.
”But you know…” Alicia giggled. ”When you first approached me for help, I never imagined it would be for something like this.”
”What were you expecting?” Kureha asked distractedly as she flipped through several holograms in hopes of finding a clue they overlooked.
”Well, you're the Sword Saint. I thought you were looking for a fight or something. So I would have gotten ready to organize an official duel.”
”If I wanted a duel, I can look for that at home. I don't have to come all the way to Jing Tian City for that.”
Alicia winced at that. She was aware of the reputation Jing Tian City had when compared to the other cities. There weren't many strong young mages here, with the exception of Troy the Superman. Most of the times, Jing Tian City was looked down upon as a den of weaklings. The academies in the city had performed poorly in the national tournaments over the past few years, after all. Even Jing Tian Academy, the premier magic school in the city, had fallen so far from grace after the Hurricane Blade Feng Hai graduated.
In short, if an esteemed mage like Kureha was looking for a strong opponent, Jing Tian City would be the last place she would visit.
Unaware that she had hurt Alicia's pride, Kureha continued flicking through the holograms, and she sighed loudly.
”Ugh…I can't find any clues at all. Really? None of these scientific research organizations look suspicious to you?”
”We've visited and investigated all of them, remember? What do you think?”
”…yeah.” Kureha couldn't help but admit bitterly. ”There was nothing amiss about them. They all seemed perfectly normal to me. Only a couple of them are about monsters or anything remotely related to them. And those have been founded decades or centuries ago…way before my uncle was born. I hardly think he'll be able to bring them under his control that easily…and that prisoner we interrogated clearly said that Uncle Frank founded the group, which mean it can't be any of them.”
She glanced at the screen again, eliminating the organizations until a couple were left.
”Only these two were founded in the last couple of years. Three, if we widen it to ten. But this company manufactures drinks and researches on nutritional value. The other one is astronomy and stargazing. The ten-year-old company focuses on laser technology and lights. None of them are related to monsters.”
”And when we checked them out, we can't find anything,” Alicia agreed. ”They looked perfectly normal to us.”
”Yeah.” Kureha was frustrated at the dead end they came to. Leaning back in her chair, she took a sip of her iced coffee, her eyes wandering away. ”I wonder how Richard is. Do you think he has woken up yet?”
”I hope so.” Alicia pursed her lips angrily. ”He's always so reckless. I know he's…strong, but he always overdoes things and ends up getting himself hurt.”
”That's my fault. I was the one who got him involved.”
”It's nobody's fault.” Alicia sighed as she sucked on her straw, emptying her cup. ”Except your uncle's. Anyway, Richard has done more than enough. Let him rest. I don't want him to get involved and end up hurting himself again. He might be intelligent, but he's not the kind who's good at investigating stuff. How do I put it…he's more of a sci-fi person than a mystery or detective person. If it's just checking out companies, we can handle this on our own. Now let's go look for more clues.”
”Where should we go next?” Kureha asked as she finished the rest of her drink. ”I don't think there's any point in checking out these research companies again.”
”No, there isn't,” Alicia agreed, her eyes drifting to the holographic screen. ”But we can change directions. Look…” she spread her fingers to magnify a screen. ”I notice that this first research organization tend to ship the drinks they manufacture into a warehouse. Which is strange, now that I think about it. They are a research company, aren't they? Not a manufacturing or beverage company. So why are they manufacturing such large quantities of drinks and shipping them? Shouldn't they be getting samples of drinks and conducting research on them?”
”…which is what they are doing when we visited them.” Kureha frowned. ”Should we check them out again?”
”Yes, but not exactly.” Alicia tapped the photograph in her holographic screen. ”I meant to check out this warehouse that the drinks are being brought to.” she leaned closer to read the text beneath the photo. ”Hmm…just as I suspected. The drinks are brought to this warehouse…and left there. Weird.”
”What's weird about that?” Kureha asked, bewildered. Alicia smiled at her slyly.
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”Usually you would store the drinks in a warehouse before shipping them out…but the drinks never get shipped out. The warehouse receives more and more drinks…but, where do the drinks all go? Why are they stockpiling so many drinks? For research? Even if that's the case, isn't that…too many drinks?”
”That does sound suspicious,” Kureha conceded with a nod. Alicia dismissed her holographic screens and rose to her feet.
”It's decided then. Let's pay the warehouse a visit.”