"Hello, to the newcors. In case you didn't know, my na is Vin. Just Vin, Codena: Queer. I'm the person in charge of taking responsibility for this case,"
Vin took a mont of breathing before adding, "The people seated you are looking for is my squad. We're not really into introduction stuff since we wanted this case to be ended fast and briefly. Doing it will be just a waste of ti so how about we move to the main problem of our case?"
Vin moved slightly backward before flipping over the board and revealing the set of leads, images, and information like a whole wide web of data had been put in a single panel.
"You might think this is progress but we absolutely have zero clues as to how the disappearance is working. Though there's a suspicion that this is being done by a Heretic,"
'Heretics…'
Cesar couldn't help but rember the word as if it was already etched at the back of his mind. After all, these are the kinds of people who had a perverse kind of thinking, to the point that they worshipped Nightmares as so sort of god.
Heretics are a nefarious group of believers who regard Nightmares as the saving figure who will save the world… from the sa Nightmare. In a way, their thinking put people's lives at stake which made them enemies of humanity. In fact, they are hardly regarded as dangerous individuals, knowing they involved themselves with Nightmares.
There are no good Heretics, that's what everyone was being reminded of when they t one. Either they escape from their clutches or do the deed themselves because they will always and will be hurting normal civilians.
For whatever reason it was, one might not even know.
From the side, Chin raised his hands up and questioned, "May I know how are we going to take the investigation? Now that we're talking about the Heretic, will we focus on it?"
Vin stared at Chin, his eyes cold as usual before answering, "That's what we're going to discuss now, Corporal Chin. To start, we're going to do a strategy that heavily relies on tracking and searching. These people are going to work the hardest while searching every nook and end of the street."
Cesar and his squad, including Alms and Chin, observe Quentin with his face grimly watching the board, not wanting to glance at anyone in his group.
Vin added, "But if this strategy doesn't work, then we'll do a more risky approach. We're going to turn this place upside down. We'll search around the places we don't usually search. I know this sounds confusing since we could've already done the preliminary search but there are certain places that have already been plagued with Corruption,"
Cesar and the rest who was first ti hearing such thing couldn't help but widened their eyes. Alms and Chin appeared less surprised, knowing so of their mission had exposure to Corruption.
On the other hand, this will be the first ti the cohort will be experiencing real-ti Corruption viewing. With careful handling of themselves, they will be able to see one of the types of how corruption works which will be vital to their learning and their future work.
'This is why deploynt venture is good. I'll be able to learn a few things with this,' Cesar mused inwardly with mirth.
"Now then, we aren't done yet," Vin halted, "There's a third and final piece of this plan, sothing that can be described as an act of desperation if both the options available aren't working. This plan relies on sothing that we currently possess and do not have at the sa ti,"
He then revealed after a brief contemplation, "We will gamble that sothing will happen on the 30th day of the month when every missing person disappears. We'll then move… and see what happens,"
…
As of now, it is the middle of month six, June 15th, of the Nightmare Calendar which is basically just twelve months derived from the normal days and months of the past.
Hence, when the desperation plan was ntioned, Cesar knew he had over two weeks to gain a lead or clue that would help them in their investigation, possibly even rescuing the missing people.
Since judging the way Vin hinted at the third option earlier, it seems that sothing will likely happen on the thirtieth of June.
He didn't have any ounce of curiosity to wait and let it happen, obviously. The better the mission was finished, the earlier they would return to the academy and prepare for another set of deploynts.
''Let's hope we don't co to that point,"
Cesar whispered which was perceived by the person walking beside him. Reyna who returned her gaze up front while they followed the person in charge towards the corrupted area, voiced out.
"Yeah, let's not really hope," Reyna sarcastically repeated before chuckling, "Are you nervous captain that you started talking to yourself?"
"I'm just talking. I didn't notice that I blurted it outwardly," Cesar replied evenly, "How are you holding up? Are the changes making you guys feel apprehensive?"
Hearing that the questions weren't exactly just pointed out to Reyna alone, so rely ignored it while giving him gestures that it wasn't really affecting them that much. The only ones who answered were Reyna and Joshua.
"I'm good. This kind of change suited . If you're worried, be worried about yourself." Reyna chuckled, "Although I'm pretty nervous about the incoming sight-seeing. It is a corrupted area after all!"
Joshua, on the side, interjected while having the sa opinions as Reyna, "I definitely feel the sa thing. We only heard things about corruption in the books and the mouths of our teachers that we believed to be true, but it is still different when looking through the real deal. Speaking of being apprehensive, I'm actually good,"
"Okay, here we are,"
After finally roaming around through the guarded streets and obscured roads, the group landed on one of the very few corrupted areas in the City of Wheels.
Observing the surroundings where the area was heavily quarantined, their eyes set foot on the solid ground that was emitting black smoke. The very ground itself was covered with a deep, burnt-black floor that looked so fragile as if a re step would break it.
The houses inside the corrupted area were decaying at a very slow rate but instead of disappearing into thin air, they were forming powdered grains of black sand that rely stayed in its place, forming mounds of them from a few distance away and ever staying.
That wasn't the only weird thing about the corrupted area.
The wind inside appeared to be howling… low whispers that were trying to escape and stretched onto them but never appeared to reach even a single hem of their clothes. Though they were indescribable voices on them that one shouldn't even peer through, less they get infected on whatever affecting the corrupted area is.
However, there's the weird attraction that captivated so of the n which their partners helped them snap back to reality.
"This is one of the four corrupted areas. There's no official na given yet to this area but the n here liked to call it Low Whispers. Even if you didn't enter the area, you'll get srized by the indescribable words it speaks. Thankfully, its area of effect is quite small and whatever power it stored wasn't strong enough to put a great distance to avoid it."
Vin briefly inford them about what to know about Low Whispers but it all leads down to the question of never entering it no matter what the circumstances. Nobody dared or was challenged to do the darest thing in their lives just to test so stupid theory that might be exchanged for their lives.
And they wouldn't want to be the first ones to know.
"Let show you the other three areas. While we do, morize every corner in this city since it might help you overco challenges that might happen later on. I don't have ti to teach you nor soone will hence morize it on your mind for a day. Because tomorrow, you'll get assigned to your tasks,"
Everyone respectfully saluted to the captain in charge to show so respect to his authority before they went sightseeing more of the corrupted area which Cesar and others learned a lot from them.
Even the newcor figures, Alms, and Chin, were learning as well.
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