Honk!

“What do you think you’re doing!”

“The road ahead is wide open!”

“Aren’t you going to move?!”

I picked my ear at the loud shouts being fired at me.

These were the citizens of a city who had lived far from the word ‘control.’

District 4 was at least under the influence of gangs, but District 5 had lived far from the city government’s administrative power for a long time.

I had only gone out onto the road and blocked traffic for a short while, but the voices of protest were loud.

“I will demonstrate first, so you can follow me.”

Taylor acted steadfastly even amidst the pouring criticism.

The way he confidently crossed between the vehicles that were protesting as if they would run him over, his courage was admirable, separate from his stubbornness.

“Who are you people?”

“Public Security Bureau. We will be controlling the area for a while and conducting inspections, so please cooperate.”

“An inspection by the Public Security Bureau?”

The driver’s eyes, peeking through the half-lowered window, narrowed.

“How can I believe you’re from the Public Security Bureau or whatever?”

“Here is the Public Security Bureau uniform.”

“Forget it, I’m busy, so get lost now. Damn, what bad luck.”

“Ugh.”

Taylor was perplexed by the other party’s unreasonable stubbornness.

It was an attitude as if his guts were outside his belly, even against a Public Security Bureau official who even the gangs that ruled a region would grovel to.

‘They don’t know how scary the Public Security Bureau is.’

This was because they rarely came into contact with the Public Security Bureau in their daily lives.

Since they often turned a blind eye even to violent crimes like murder and kidnapping, they thought it was okay to ignore them.

They had brought it upon themselves.

“This is an inspection ordered by the city government, so please cooperate. We need to inspect your belongings and search the interior, so we would appreciate it if you would open the car door.”

“I told you I don’t know!”

At this rate, it didn’t seem like the inspection would proceed normally.

I have no choice.

I sighed and stepped forward.

“……Step back for a moment.”

“Ah, hey, it’s okay. I’ll do it.”

“How are you going to inspect each and every one of them by working like that? Didn’t your senior teach you how to conduct an inspection?”

“I did it by the book.”

“If the Public Security Bureau had followed the rules and principles, the city’s public security wouldn’t be in such a mess.”

“……”

If one were to follow the rules and principles, that was true.

They should have arrested and thrown even petty criminals in jail instead of turning a blind eye with the excuse that it didn’t affect the city’s upper class.

Having silenced Taylor, I pushed him aside and leaned into the vehicle.

“Who are you?”

“I’ll give you three seconds. Get out.”

“What?”

“Three seconds are up.”

I stuck my hand through the half-open window.

The driver had a dazed expression, as if he hadn’t fully grasped the situation.

I grabbed him by the collar and roughly pulled him through the window.

Kwajik!

“Keuk!”

“What are you doing!”

As the driver’s forehead hit and broke the window, a scream and a rebuke were heard at the same time.

I spoke to the driver’s crumpled face.

“Last warning. Open the door and get out.”

“I-I’ll get out, I’ll get out!”

“Don’t just say it, move now.”

Kudangtang!

When the throat is choked, breathing is blocked.

When breathing is blocked, the brain stops, and judgment becomes clouded.

The driver, unable to even compose himself, hastily opened the door and fell to the floor.

“Now that he’s out, check his belongings and the inside of the vehicle.”

I’ve set the table, so he should pick up the spoon himself.

“What on earth did you just…”

Taylor muttered blankly.

Looking down at the driver who was bleeding profusely from a broken nose.

“This is how you conduct an inspection.”

Was he shocked?

It wasn’t my business.

The request I received was not to take care of a rookie.

“Why, did you picture a scene where we all laugh and cooperate nicely with each other?”

“That’s not it, but…”

“This is an inspection by the Public Security Bureau. If they don’t listen, you make them cooperate even by hitting and threatening them. You’re carrying out official duties to catch a criminal, so it’s right to achieve your goal even by being coercive.”

On the contrary, there was no one who would listen if you spoke nicely.

Shooting them with a gun as an example and cleaning up the body was just an accident that happened frequently in the process.

His movements were suspicious, so he was shot and killed as a suspect.

It was an all-purpose excuse used by the Public Security Bureau.

“……I will inspect your belongings.”

“Yes, yes.”

The driver obediently accepted the inspection.

Unfortunately, an illegally modified implant was found in the trunk.

The driver wiped his dry face, forgetting that his face was covered in blood from his nosebleed.

“Nothing special. Move on.”

“But there is a potential danger…”

“It’s not related to terrorism. If you nitpick and confiscate everything, it’ll just be a hindrance.”

Inspection is a means, not an end.

The main point was to crack down on terrorists, so there was no need to increase the workload unnecessarily.

In the first place, this was the custom of inspections.

The driver, not knowing this, must have been scared and acted stubbornly.

“Of course, there’s no reason to pretend we didn’t see it either.”

I held out my open hand to the driver.

After a moment of trembling pupils, he seemed to understand my action and fumbled in his pocket.

“This is all I have right now…”

“Pass.”

“Thank you!”

The driver, worried he might get caught again, hastily fled.

“What is that?”

“A small token of gratitude.”

“……Isn’t that a bribe?”

“If you put it uncharitably, that would be the word.”

I wasn’t trying to shake him down.

I was satisfied with just a show of sincerity.

“It’s about being flexible to reduce trouble for both of us, so there’s no need to refuse.”

I stuffed half of the bills into Taylor’s pocket.

He fidgeted as if something dirty had touched him, then let out a resigned sigh.

“……You know more about this than I do. Have you worked for the Public Security Bureau before?”

“People are the same everywhere.”

Taylor didn’t ask for the detailed circumstances.

I had no intention of blabbering on either.

This was enough of a demonstration.

“Now go and work.”

He didn’t seem to be bad at his job, so he would probably do well on his own.

***

A week since the inspections began.

The inspections, which had started on the scale of a single neighborhood, expanded day by day until they controlled all of District 5.

As expected of an organization made up of cells, the number of organization members caught in the inspections was extremely small.

And that was all just hearsay.

Taylor and I had come up empty-handed so far.

“Here, here you go.”

“Yes, you may pass.”

“Thank you.”

The only achievement so far was the improvement of Taylor’s inspection skills.

Even now, he quickly took the bribe and sent the vehicle on its way.

‘The ones who offer a bribe right from the start are actually not suspicious.’

It was a survival skill to get past the troublesome procedures.

The ones to be suspicious of were the ones who went a step further and asked about the situation.

‘Because they’re the shady ones trying to confirm if the inspection is targeting them.’

Taylor quickly understood and applied it in practice.

He didn’t forget what he was taught once and quickly mastered it, so it was an efficient investment made with a day’s hardship.

“……It’s ambiguous.”

“Did I do something wrong just now?”

“No, I wasn’t talking about you.”

It had already been a week.

The results of the inspections were minimal, and the information extracted from the organization members was nil.

The Public Security Bureau’s aim was on the security officers, but well.

‘If they were going to get results, it wouldn’t have taken a week.’

Security officers are not chosen just because they are strong.

In addition to that, they had to be resourceful to be evaluated as having the minimum qualifications.

If the security officers had moved, a week was enough time to get results.

Nevertheless, the fact that the higher-ups of the Public Security Bureau were still quiet meant.

‘It’s not a half-baked organization.’

It was a terrorist organization that moved systematically.

They were a rare breed in Gellerg City.

If they had the capacity to do so, it would be much better to be hired as mercenaries by a corporation and sell their skills.

‘It doesn’t seem like a request that can be solved just by trusting and leaving it to them.’

On the contrary, if I let my guard down, I could be in for a hard time.

A terrorist organization.

If they had the skill to escape the clutches of the Public Security Bureau, it wouldn’t be strange if they tried to make a fool of the Public Security Bureau in return.

‘I think I’m starting to get a feel for what this incident was.’

There weren’t enough clues yet.

However, considering that it was not a simple incident as it appeared on the surface, there were a few things that came to mind.

The reason I couldn’t conclude what it was was probably because there was still a part I was mistaken about.

To find that out, I couldn’t just cling to the inspections.

I took out my phone and sent a message.

When I contacted a virtual contact that didn’t actually exist, a message automatically appeared on the phone screen.

「How may I help you?」

「Connect to the CCTV footage of the entire District 5.」

「Understood.」

On the small phone screen, numerous videos appeared and disappeared repeatedly.

The hawk’s vision, synchronized with the Guardian Hawk, scanned them all accurately without missing a single one.

It wasn’t that there were no suspicious individuals in the rapidly passing videos.

But the CCTV footage would be being monitored by the Public Security Bureau as well.

「Mark the blind spots not covered by CCTV on the map of District 5.」

So the area I should be interested in was the other areas.

A place outside the CCTV’s surveillance area and not overlapping with the inspections.

The number was surprisingly not small.

This was because there were also CCTVs that didn’t actually work.

Still, it was worth checking them all within half a day.

“From now on, I will move separately.”

“Yes? Suddenly?”

“You can handle the inspections on your own now, can’t you? Did the Public Security Bureau order me to stay by your side and help with the inspections?”

“That’s not the case.”

“Then it should be fine for me to move alone.”

I unilaterally informed him and left.

In the places I was about to search, normal inspections would not work.

No contractor would deliberately take along baggage that would only be a hindrance in a real fight.

All such contractors would have lost their lives early on.

***

Whoooosh!

My hair fluttered in the strong wind.

Between the tall forest of buildings, even the wind could not escape and circled in the same place.

The Public Security Bureau’s inspections were the same.

By setting up positions at key points of the alleyways, they formed a siege network that turned into a spider’s web that wouldn’t miss a single ant.

Having wandered through District 5 myself, I could feel the tight manpower composition on my skin.

A mere terrorist buried in trivial anger could not escape from here.

That’s why the fact that they hadn’t found a single clue yet paradoxically spoke of their competence.

「The Whisper of Mother Nature has been activated.」

The system message rang while I was passing by a huge skyscraper.

The whisper that Mother Nature remembered conveyed someone’s voice to my ear.

It was a faint but clear echo with a distinct direction.

‘If it’s around here…’

There was also a blind spot that Beta had marked in this vicinity.

I walked along the map.

「The World Tree feels an incongruity that tickles its skin.」

The spirits, unable to find their direction, wandered in confusion, then barely followed me.

An eight-lane wide main street.

The intersection connecting one district to another was deserted.

Even the traffic lights were not working properly and were blinking simultaneously.

It was quiet, but somehow gave a chaotic impression.

The stirring of the air was reminiscent of the environment just before a typhoon raged.

This was clearly an atmosphere spread by a group that had occupied the center of the main street.

“To occupy the main street even while knowing there’s a Public Security Bureau inspection, you have great composure.”

The whisper of Mother Nature was coming from them.

“An inevitable carelessness, you must have aimed for the dark spot under the lamp. It’s a good place to exploit a loophole, since the traffic lights are broken in addition to the CCTV.”

They slowly got up from their seats and made excuses in a friendly tone.

“You seem to have misunderstood. We were just taking shelter for a while because it’s noisy with the untimely inspection.”

It wasn’t even funny.

“You have thick skin. Did you think I wouldn’t know you’ve cast a barrier spell on the building to bind people?”

If they had cast the spell on themselves, they would have been suspected in the Public Security Bureau’s inspection.

They used their heads and used the spell on the building to enjoy an indirect effect.

Since it was a security measure that a corporation would use, the Public Security Bureau would have let it pass.

“It was a mistake to think they would try to get out when the inspection occurred. Since they decided to hide inside, it was impossible to weed them out just by forming a siege.”

The direction was wrong.

They did not wish for survival.

“Terrorism in the midst of a Public Security Bureau inspection. The intention must have been to shake not just the city’s upper class, but this entire city.”

“……You.”

Perhaps because I had pierced their intentions point by point, they stopped their futile denials.

“How much do you know?”

“This is as far as it goes for now.”

I took out my gun from its holster.

“I’ll have to hear the rest from your own mouths.”

(End of Chapter)