Back with Freya, she deliberately chose narrow, dark routes with plenty of shadows.
There were simply too many enemies, and they were closing in from every direction.
Nolan could not possibly stop all of them by himself. Quite a few soldiers still slipped past him.
Fortunately, night concealed Freya’s movements.
She was also a War Path practitioner and could run far faster than an ordinary person.
Before long, she had shaken off every pursuer.
Freya continued sprinting without slowing down and eventually reached the police station.
She charged straight inside.
The officer on night duty had one hand propping up his chin.
His head kept dipping toward the desk as he struggled to stay awake.
Freya burst through the entrance with so much noise that the officer jerked upright.
“What? What happened?”
Freya did not waste time explaining.
She held out Nolan’s identification badge.
“This is an emergency. Contact a Mobile Team immediately.”
“What?”
The officer still looked half asleep.
Several seconds passed before he finally processed her words.
“Captain Nolan sent you?”
Freya stared at him with an expression of complete disbelief.
“Who else?”
“Oh. Right!”
The officer finally sprang into action.
This world did not have cell phones or ordinary telephone networks, but it did have telegraphs.
For critical and urgent matters, telegraph lines could be used to transmit messages over long distances.
Unfortunately, the officer on duty did not have the authority to use one.
He first had to run to the police chief’s home and bring him back to the station.
Freya handed Nolan’s badge to the chief and explained the situation again.
By the time the telegram was finally sent, forty minutes had passed.
Freya stood outside the police station and stared into the dark night.
The darkness looked as though some terrible monster might leap from it at any moment.
She remained there for the entire night.
No monster appeared.
Neither did any ordinary person.
Dawn eventually arrived.
Miles and Rena reported to the Special Affairs Division as usual, while the other Special Affairs teams that had received the emergency notice began gathering at the station.
By afternoon, the Mobile Team had officially arrived in Auxerre.
Five people stood before the police station.
Their leader was a woman with white hair and blue eyes.
The Mobile Team and several Special Affairs teams departed immediately.
Freya wanted to follow them.
Since she was not an official member of Special Affairs, however, she was forced to remain at the station.
Miles and Rena were also left behind.
Captain Nolan was absent, and both of them were only Rank One practitioners.
They were unlikely to contribute much to the coming operation.
Rena looked deeply worried.
“Captain Nolan will be all right, won’t he?”
Miles seemed to want to comfort her.
He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Freya walked over instead.
“Captain Nolan is incredibly strong. I’m sure he’ll be fine…”
Freya knew perfectly well that Nolan’s continued absence was a terrible sign.
Rena looked at her with an expression Freya could not quite describe.
It held grief, gratitude, and perhaps something else.
“Thank you…” Rena whispered.
Then, whether she was speaking to Freya or simply thinking aloud, she continued.
“About three months ago, Miles and I were caught in a terrible supernatural incident.”
“More than thirty people died, including our parents.”
“Captain Nolan arrived at the last moment and saved both of us.”
“He brought us into the Special Affairs Division.”
“He talked us through what happened, trained us, gave us work, and gave us a reason to keep living.”
Her lips began to tremble.
“To me, Captain Nolan is like a second father.”
“I don’t want to lose one of the only two people I have left.”
Freya suddenly remembered that Rena could recognize lies.
Her attempt at reassurance probably had not helped at all.
After all, Freya herself believed Nolan was most likely already dead.
Time continued to pass.
The three of them waited silently inside the police station.
Freya was the first to give in to exhaustion.
She had not slept all night and had stayed awake through the entire morning.
Eventually, she found a couch, curled into a ball, and fell asleep.
When she woke again, evening had arrived.
The station lobby was crowded with police officers.
People hurried back and forth, occupied with some urgent task.
Freya looked around.
She did not see Rena, but she spotted Miles nearby.
She walked over.
“What happened?”
Miles let out a tired sigh.
“The operation is over.”
“Obsidian’s mastermind was killed at the scene, but Special Affairs paid a terrible price.”
“One member of the Mobile Team was killed.”
“Three captains from the seven participating Special Affairs teams died, along with fifteen team members.”
“The number of injured is even higher.”
Miles paused before continuing.
“As for Captain Nolan, the Mobile Team found his body while traveling to the target area.”
“When Rena heard, I sent her home to rest.”
“I stayed here and waited for you to wake up.”
Freya remained silent for a long time.
“So the incident was successfully resolved?”
“I think so.”
Miles nodded.
“The factory producing Demon Path potions was destroyed, and the Rank Five practitioner was killed.”
“But the Special Affairs Division suffered devastating losses.”
“It will take a long time to recover.”
Freya asked for more details.
Miles answered each question as well as he could.
The final battle had not taken place at the old warehouse.
By the time the Mobile Team arrived, Obsidian’s mastermind had already fled.
Fortunately, one member of the Mobile Team followed the Fate Path and possessed the ability to perform divination.
That practitioner successfully located the fugitive.
The combined teams pursued and surrounded the target for several hours.
They finally cornered the mastermind on a hill outside the city.
Freya asked one final question.
“Who was that person?”
Miles shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“I specifically asked, but apparently the person’s identity is highly sensitive.”
“The Mobile Team told me not to look into it any further.”
Freya fell silent.
Based on the outcome, she had already accomplished the purpose of this simulation.
The disaster that might have consumed the entire city thirty days later had been prevented.
It had been far easier than she expected.
Freya had assumed she would need many attempts.
Instead, she succeeded on the first try.
The official response was simply stronger than she had realized.
Anyone who caused trouble inside a major kingdom eventually had to face the power of the entire state.
Still, Freya was not satisfied with this result.
The crisis had been resolved, but far too many people had died.
Rena was probably sobbing somewhere alone at that very moment.
Freya’s opinion of Obsidian’s mastermind began to change.
Before this simulation, she had feared the enemy.
The mastermind had seemed impossibly strong and terrifying.
Now, the threat no longer seemed quite so overwhelming.
Once the Mobile Team arrived and the government acted in force, the mastermind had been eliminated.
Since the enemy was no longer untouchable, Freya began asking for more.
Could they kill the mastermind while reducing their own losses as much as possible?
It was like replaying a game she had already completed once.
During the first run, she could play casually.
A few dead side characters, missed side quests, or overlooked weapons and items did not matter much.
On the second or third run, however, she would naturally aim for every collectible and the perfect ending.
“End simulation.”
Freya issued the command silently.
When she opened her eyes again, she was back inside her apartment.
[Simulation complete.]
[Duration, twenty-three hours.]
[Save this simulation file?]
Since she now had the extra Save Slot 02, Freya casually stored the simulation there.
In practical terms, the versions in Save Slot 01 and Save Slot 02 were almost identical.
Both were Rank One War Path practitioners.
But with two save files, Freya could summon two War Path versions of herself.
That meant her combat strength had doubled.
Then she remembered Obsidian’s One-Man Army ability.
Suddenly, doubling her strength did not seem particularly impressive.
Freya sighed.
“I’m still too weak.”
“It would be nice if I could become stronger, but where am I supposed to find Rank Two or Rank Three War Path potions?”
Future Simulation entered a one-hour cooldown.
Freya used the time to wash up.
Then she sat on her bed and waited.
The moment the cooldown ended, she began another simulation.
The first thing she did inside it was sleep until morning.
That might have sounded rather absurd.
But if Freya slept through the night in reality, those hours would be gone for good.
If she spent the night sleeping inside a simulation instead, the same real-world period could be used to complete several cooldowns and begin several more runs.
This time, Freya decided to try a different approach.
She would not ask the Special Affairs Division for help right away.
Instead, she planned to visit the Earth Church.
When she first arrived in this world, the original Freya’s memories had told her that Auxerre was home to an organization called the Earth Church.
Freya had paid little attention to it.
In her previous life, she had been an atheist and a materialist.
She did not believe in religion.
As far as she was concerned, faith was little more than a way for believers to comfort themselves and reinforce what they already wanted to believe.
When someone ran out of money, did they really expect God to transfer cash into their account just because they prayed?
But this world contained genuine supernatural powers.
And in the system’s death preview, Freya had seen several barefoot people wearing pale green clothes.
Those people belonged to the Earth Church.
They were clearly supernatural practitioners too.