Liam didn’t waste time.
He found the TV station’s equipment and started playing the footage he had recorded the day before.
The moment James heard that Liam had captured something interesting, his earlier sluggishness vanished.
He pulled up a stool and sat in front of the television.
There was a lot of footage, enough to fill several videotapes.
Fortunately, Liam was a skilled cameraman.
Even while running and fighting, he had managed to keep the camera relatively steady, making the footage surprisingly easy to watch.
The two of them spent the entire morning going through it.
At first, James was relaxed enough to offer a few professional pointers.
“This is a good shot. It has a cinematic feel. During a chase, keeping more of the ground in frame gives a stronger sense of speed.”
It wasn’t until the helicopter crashed that his expression turned serious.
“Good news footage. I told you, you should be working for the news channel.”
Then the enormous footprint appeared on the screen, and James’s brow began to furrow.
By the time the footage reached Liam smiling as he shot the forest ranger, followed by the Skinwalker’s final crushing attack, James shot to his feet.
“So you were telling the truth! Something as unbelievable as the Skinwalker actually exists!”
He grabbed Liam by the shoulders, his eyes bloodshot.
“But you can’t show everyone the whole truth. This isn’t like running into some murderer. That’s nothing compared to this. If you release this, you’ll bring serious trouble down on us! Do you understand? The kind of trouble that could make both of us disappear without a trace!”
Liam understood perfectly well.
If he actually released all the footage as it was, he could practically guarantee that several men in black would be standing outside his door the very next day.
James released him and paced irritably around the room, then tugged in frustration at what little hair he had left.
“No. I can’t have footage this explosive in my hands and just dump it in storage. That goes against everything I stand for professionally.”
After thinking for a moment, James turned to Liam.
“I have a way to turn this footage into a proper program we can actually broadcast. It could make you famous, too.”
This time, Liam was the one caught off guard.
“Director, you have that kind of influence? You can bribe the censorship department and the national security agencies?”
James chuckled.
If I had that kind of power, this little dump of a TV station would’ve become a global media empire years ago.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“Give me the tapes. I can turn them into a perfect program that won’t cause a panic.”
“No problem.”
Liam handed them over without hesitation.
He had backups anyway, and these copies had been intended for the station from the start.
“Come back in two days.”
With that, James gathered up the tapes and hurried away.
He didn’t even bother asking why Liam had brought a bear to work.
Liam watched the station director rush off, shrugged, and headed into his studio with the bear cub.
Small local TV stations usually recorded an entire week’s worth of children’s programming in a single session, then aired the episodes one by one at the same time each day.
But now that he had a new member of the team, Liam decided to record a new opening.
“Hello, kids! Welcome back to Exploring the Truth. This time, I’ve got a new friend with me.”
Liam picked up the bear cub and held its fluffy face toward the camera.
“He’s a friend I met in Freetown Forest, and a genuine expert on the wilderness. From now on, he’ll join me as we explore even more of the world’s hidden secrets.”
“He has an incredibly sharp sense of smell and a powerful body, making him my best assistant. You can call him Watson.”
Once the recording was finished, Liam returned to his apartment, satisfied.
He didn’t waste his free time over the next two days either.
He still had plenty of letters left to investigate.
None involved Class C incidents, and the improvements from most Class D and E incidents were almost negligible, but the incidents themselves were still worth looking into.
Liam referred to these kinds of incidents as urban legends.
Some were harmless misunderstandings or childish pranks, but others could develop into serious crimes if no one stepped in.
Previously, he had investigated everything by himself.
Now that he had Watson, the bear cub, his efficiency improved dramatically.
A brown bear’s sense of smell was far superior to a dog’s.
With the wind in its favor, it could detect scents from dozens of kilometers away.
In a single day, Liam solved two mysterious incidents.
One turned out to be a prank by some children.
The other involved a habitual thief hiding in a residential neighborhood.
After turning the thief over to the police, Liam gained a slight improvement in finger dexterity.
It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
After all, his physical abilities had only grown far beyond those of an ordinary person through countless small improvements accumulated over time.
Early on the third morning, Liam was still asleep when the telephone woke him.
I fucking did it!”
James’s excited cursing came through the receiver.
Liam knew the main event was ready.
When he arrived at the TV station, he found James with heavy dark circles under his eyes, gulping down coffee.
The moment James saw him, he grabbed Liam and dragged him over to the video equipment.
“Come take a look at my handiwork.”
Curious, Liam looked over.
The original seven or eight hours of raw footage had been cut down into a two-hour special.
He inserted the tape into the player.
Right at the beginning, a caption appeared.
“This program was filmed entirely on location with real people.”
Then a polished announcer’s voice began speaking.
“Deep within the vast forests lie secrets unknown to the world. Now, our finest field investigator, Liam, will lift the veil and reveal the mysteries hidden within.”
From that moment on, the entire tone of the footage changed.
James had transformed the genuinely dangerous scenes into thrilling action sequences through rapid editing and tense background music.
Whenever Liam fired his gun, James had added heavy flashes to the footage, dramatically reducing the visible gore.
Much of the Skinwalker footage had been cut, which only made the creature seem even more mysterious.
The tedious stretches of walking through the forest were broken up with serious educational segments about nature.
At the end, the shot of Liam covered in blood and waving at the camera had been turned into behind-the-scenes footage.
After watching the entire special, even Liam had to admit that once the horrifying truth was stripped away, it looked almost exactly like an entertaining educational program about wilderness survival.
By the end, Liam found himself genuinely impressed with the man beside him.
In this era, editing was entirely physical work.
Film had to be cut and spliced together piece by piece.
Producing something this polished was practically an art form.
Liam sighed in admiration.
“Director James, you’re incredibly good at turning black into white.”
James took a smug gulp of coffee.
“That compliment sounds a little strange, but don’t underestimate the traditional skills I’ve spent decades perfecting.”
Then he added, “Your idea of making this a children’s program really was a good one. Once I cut out the overly bloody parts, I realized the footage was actually perfect for an educational show.”
He glanced at Watson, the bear cub.
“So that’s the orphaned bear, huh? Good idea. The kids are going to love him.”
“The program’s finished now, so go ahead and air it. Praise President Reagan for handing censorship authority over to the individual TV stations.”
With that, James finally reached his limit.
He slumped back in his chair and fell asleep.