Chapter 61 Escalating Disorder

The perspective of Angelo:

“Leave whenever you want to—it’ll be open, okay?”

“Yes, yes,” let out a woman from a distance as I closed the door after myself.

Typical routine—residual loneliness.

I really need to stop this habit of mine…

Paying for affection is just so much easier, though—no commitment, no effort into being anyone I’m not, just a mutual exchange that benefits both parties.

Got to the headquarters…

“Angelo, yaho—we got news,” stated Fisk giddily.

“Pale men?”

“Correct!!” loudly…

Then from the side, Scar replied in his stead, “seems like there’s trouble… these so-called ‘pale men’ have been murdering not only System Users from our city, but also outsiders from every surrounding town.”

I sat down as his words progressed.

Fisk then took over the dialogue, “the surprise is that the Allure Empire is requesting our assistance—they’ve been having some heat with them, so the development is certainly quite interesting I would say.”

“So, it’s true that they’re after MANA then, or what?” I added.

“Well… about that…”

Fisk’s voice got softer… and cheeky, you could say…

“…they seem to be devouring people as well.”

A quick chill ran down my spine, my shoulders momentarily rose in discomfort.

“D— devouring?” I whispered, almost too quietly for anyone to overhear.

I could see a grin pop up on both Scar’s and Fisk’s face after that—why are they taking pleasure in something like this?

“According to their intelligence, just ‘assistance’ ranks at the minimum as S-,” stated Scar.

“Did they give any demands on whom to send over?”

“Hah, yes—they explicitly want one of the Guardians.”

Immediately, I sighed. “Are any of them even present right now?”

“Deat’s present—as usual, probably spamming Clarity in some alleyway arguing with a homeless man.”

The irony is that there’s no homeless people in the Im City…

I rolled my eyes then replied, “get him then, I guess—that unemployed bum needs some proper work already.”

“Yes, sir!” answered Scar as he raised his hand for me—in respect.

“Did you hear about the System Killer, by the way?” inquired Fisk; he was taking his leave, this time clonelessly.

“Oh—cought and killed, right?” I wasn’t especially focused on his words this time—just slop dialogue over a finished deal.

“Heh,” he immediately let out as his giggle faded—even his voice matched his disappearing stature.

“Also, Angelo…”

“Yes?” I replied to Scar.

“These ‘pale men’ most definitely connect to the Ariel incident—upon further investigation, similarities began matching.”

“I see.”

“They appear to have regenerative abilities, increased physical prowess, and be highly infectious over manual conversion,” Scar’s voice dimmed this time.

“And the monster library?”

“Their MANA reading gives most of them a High Expectation Alarm by the System—initial analysis gave a simple ‘human with abnormalities’ label.”

Afterwards, Scar took a gulp and continued.

“Even after a library edit, they didn’t unconditionally adopt the new title—most of them retained the abnormality label, meaning they’re not exactly monsters but more of humans with change.”

“The amount of assistance requests last night…” I said as my tone began swimming in astonishment—this is undeniably related to them.

“Yes—the pales seem to be taking a highly active role as of yesterday, contrary to their previously resigned position; nearby towns aren’t yet elucidated on the circumstances, but the spike in deaths is causing alarm in a simultaneous fashion everywhere.”

Hearing his words, my chest started feeling hollow—a bad feeling, an omen, hinting at something uncomfortable materializing here.

“The Guardians— I want at least half of them in Im City within three days,” I stated apprehensively—it was no small request nor matter.

“Yes, sir.”

“Lower level Players can be sent out for assistance—we need to tighten our defenses as fast as possible.”

“Feeling a bit odd about the situation?”

My eyes consequently went over to him…

“You know the history of infectious monster outbreaks, right?”

Scar immediately chuckled. “Obviously—this is a topic we don’t gloss over in the academy, for a good reason,” then, he added, “that said, I don’t believe the pales would do anything to Im City—they would have to be highly MANA-deaf to do that.”

“Isn’t that why they’re tampering with Allure?” I quickly answered, they weren’t genius words or anything.

“Wise words, Angelo,” Scar replied.

During the day, repeatedly we received more assistance requests from nearby towns and Players—we weren’t getting overwhelmed just yet, but it was becoming tedious and intrusive for the matters of Im City.

“Ah… I’m exhausted,” I let out as I leaned back on the chair—closed my eyes in tiredness, after a long day of coordinating.

“Shift’s almost over—hang in there, bud,” stated a colleague.

I glanced at him, and as I did that, a certain jester came in…

“Elou!!” he greeted everyone with a childish grin.

“Morning, Fisk,” I replied—it was nearly 10 PM…

“How’s it going?—increase or decrease in our new friends?”

Rather than replying with my words, I did with my eyes—gave him a glare of great playfulness, typically one he’d give me.

“Ouuu— that bad?”

Then suddenly, a man barged into the room—unusual, as any news would follow the procedure of arriving through our tools rather than manual word-of-mouth.

“Hello— I’m Boro from the Investigation Headquarters, I’m here in regards to the System Killer.”

“System Killer?” some colleague said while on his chair.

“Yes?” I added my piece.

“Seems like he has struck again—three victims this time, all half-cannibalized and left in a highly grotesque manner.”

Before I could react to this, someone else did in my stead…

“You— you gotta be shitting me,” Fisk said with a subtle smile and a drop of sweat dripping down his face.

It isn’t particularly surprising he’d react this way—according to Smile, he personally handled that matter and annihilated the killer; the witness confirmed it was him, so there was no mistake.

“What does the Investigation HQ think of this?” I said without a stutter, calmly and concisely.

He raised his hand and replied, “the only answer is that the witness either misidentified or did not see his real face during the initial encounter—both roads complicate the investigation, so I was sent out here to request assistance by the Players for patrolling.”

Instantly, I released a sigh and put both of my hands over my face—everything was quickly devolving into a mess.

“I guess, we’ll be working overtime…”