Upon hearing Swire's suggestion, Ch'en found herself in complete agreement. 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 mess, 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 extremely nervous. These two usually couldn't go a single day without a shouting match the moment they saw each other; why were they suddenly so quiet today?
Make some 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 time 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 mess 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 immediately to look around. You go visit those companies run by Ursus citizens."
With that, Ch'en took Hoshiguma and headed straight for the original crime scene to investigate again. Swire watched Ch'en leave before she could even get another word in. It took a long moment 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.
Meanwhile, 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 government'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 environment made her feel uncomfortable all over. She knew that people died in Lungmen—some were heartlessly dumped into the wilderness via the city's drainage system—but this sight still made her skin crawl.
Some 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 same time.
"I've never actually been to Lungmen," 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 some cases, the skeletons were missing nothing but the viscera.
"Even if something happened in Lungmen, there's no need for this! I haven't heard of Lungmen 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 slammed 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 something foul. Although she had never been to Lungmen, she had never heard travelers mention such a "landmark" near the city. This place was gruesome enough to be a famous—if horrific—attraction.
"It should be fine? I don't know the specific road to Lungmen, but my intuition has never failed me."
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, Lungmen, was not far ahead.
"...How strange. I feel like we took a massive detour into some 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 something black on the corpses—most likely Originium. But since the sky was so dark, even with her "natural lighting equipment" (her halo), she couldn't see clearly.
"We'll talk about it when we get to Lungmen. 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 moment'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 Lungmen a commercial city? If the security was bad, who would come 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 became clear. The massive mobile city, Lungmen, slowly appeared before their eyes.
They had arrived just in time, 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 member looked at the Lemuen in front of him with total disbelief. He rubbed his eyes and looked again.
"Your name is Lemuen? Do you have your ID? Don't you dare try to fool me 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 documents, 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 enforcement officer to memorize your face after only one year?!
She hadn't expected to be "scammed" by her own sister this time! Lemuen clenched her fists, silently vowing to give Exusiai a thorough "education of love" the moment they met.