The clone was nowhere to be seen.
Even after forcefully interrogating the housekeeper and the contact who had worked under Fran, they all persisted in saying they knew nothing.
One of his subordinates had suggested that perhaps there had never been such a thing from the beginning, but Shedia did not listen.
She had to catch it somehow. Only then could she receive her performance bonus from the state.
The mission Shedia had received from the higher-ups was to capture Fran and thoroughly dismantle his organization.
To do that, she had to capture and deal with every last one of them. But to think she might not be paid because she failed to catch a single clone?
Nothing could be more infuriating than that.
Shedia bit her lip hard and glared at each person passing along the street as if shooting lasers from her eyes.
The citizens deliberately avoided her gaze.
If she had been an ordinary woman, they might have simply ignored her without hesitation, but since she had a police uniform draped over her shoulders, it was awkward to speak to her carelessly.
“Mom, that person is glaring at me.”
“Shh. Be quiet.”
A young mother hurried away, pulling her daughter’s hand firmly.
Shedia watched them silently, then let out a short sigh.
“Haa, I do not even know what I am doing.”
Self-loathing washed over her.
To think she was going through this much hardship just to find a single clone.
If she simply gave up on the performance bonus, she could be freed from this troublesome work in no time.
However, if Fran’s clone caused another troublesome incident, everything would become her responsibility, so she could not carelessly give up either.
As it was, Shedia had once been denied promotion to Senior Investigator solely because she was too young.
She was trying to complete this mission to prove herself to the higher-ups, but since the target was nowhere to be seen, as though it had vanished into the sky, her patience was gradually reaching its limit.
“What are you doing here?”
A familiar voice came from beside her.
When she cast her gaze over, Darius Valen, a fellow officer from the PMI and also her colleague from the same intake, was standing there.
“Why are you here? This is not even your jurisdiction.”
“I was assigned here recently. They said something about having to strengthen security throughout the town now that dark mages are running rampant.”
“Perfect timing. If you have nothing to do, help me with my work.”
“Why should I?”
“You are weaker than I am.”
Darius Valen looked at her with an incredulous gaze, then handed her a photograph.
“Never mind that. You take this too.”
“What is this?”
The photograph showed a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties, wearing silver cross earrings.
Darius Valen spoke.
“He is someone the police have been paying close attention to lately. His name is Shuran, and he attacked an entire village by himself, absorbing three hundred years’ worth of lifespan all at once.”
“Three hundred years?”
Shedia repeated, as though she could not believe it.
In all her time working as a police officer, she had only once seen a dark mage with more than three hundred years of lifespan.
And now a man with one hundred years more than that had appeared?
As a police officer, this was absolutely not a matter she could overlook lightly. Shedia finally understood why Darius Valen had been assigned here.
“Who is investigating this?”
“They said the officer who had been investigating it died, so it was handed over to someone else. I have not heard the details either.”
Darius muttered with a cigarette in his mouth.
Shedia stared blankly at the photograph again, deep in thought.
‘Do they mean to have Rud catch this dangerous man?’
Rud was ideal for catching dark mages.
But he was a rookie police officer who had only just turned eighteen.
He himself must have accepted this when he joined, but he likely never expected to receive a mission like this less than a week after beginning his work as a secret police officer.
It was a situation an ordinary police officer could not even dream of facing.
Shedia remained silent for several seconds with a worried expression.
Darius, who had been watching her from the corner of his eye, asked probing,
“Why? Do you have some idea?”
“No, not exactly……”
Shedia deliberately cut herself off.
Perhaps she was worrying for nothing.
Gared had not pushed through such fierce opposition and brought Rud into the secret police for no reason.
He must have had some other thought in mind.
Shedia decided to put it out of her mind and focus only on her own mission.
“I was just thinking how much I would hate to do that work.”
The corpses were buried in their graves again.
Rud had taken the unconscious Darren back to the village where he had originally been staying and was walking around the area, but the way people looked at him was extremely sharp.
They seemed wary of him as an outsider. If he made even the slightest suspicious movement, they looked ready to skewer him on the spot.
Perhaps it was because he had not left the village.
Since the neighboring village had been attacked by a dark mage only a week ago and everyone there had been killed, it was perhaps only natural for them to be cautious of him.
“Mr. Loeb, Darren has woken up!”
While Rud was loitering around the village, a voice came from the house that had agreed to look after Darren for a while.
Rud hurried to see Darren.
Darren was sitting upright on the bed, though he had not fully come to his senses yet.
He looked as though he was searching through his memories.
Starting with why he had been lying here, and then what had happened before that.
Darren glanced briefly at Rud with eyes drained of emotion.
“What did you do with Uncle Murray……?”
It was the one question he finally asked.
The man named Murray had been a corpse for a long time already.
Though it was difficult to say whether he had saved him or killed him, Rud answered as kindly as he could.
“I released the dark magic.”
He said nothing more than that.
Darren did not answer Rud. His gaze was still lowered.
The shock must have been great.
He had lost everything in an instant, so from Darren’s perspective, the reality before his eyes must have been impossible to believe.
But that was none of Rud’s concern.
He had gone through something similar himself, but the more one tried to run from the truth, the more clearly the misery would reveal itself.
A heavy silence flowed through the room.
From behind the door, the house owner’s wife secretly peered inside.
Rud paid no attention to that and spoke in an expressionless tone.
“So, can you tell me in detail what happened a week ago? This may sound cruel, but in order to find that person, it is absolutely necessa……”
“What will change if I tell you?”
Darren sharply cut off Rud’s words and spat out his own.
“What will change if I tell you? Will the dead come back? Will my dead mom and dad come back to life?”
“They will not be able to return alive, but at least their grudge can be settled.”
“Grudge? Their grudge? Who are you to say something like that? Are you some great mage?”
His voice gradually grew fiercer and more agitated.
His mind was beginning to fracture.
The house owner, who had been watching from behind, hurriedly tried to stop Darren, but Rud raised his arm and held him back.
“I am not a great mage, but at the very least, I can gather the people who can catch him.”
“Then why has the bastard who killed the village still not been caught? Not a single word was printed in the newspaper, and there has been no word from the police at all! How are you going to explain that?”
“An investigation is not something that can be completed in a day or two, unlike what you may think.”
“Who does not know that?!”
Darren twisted his face and got down from the bed.
“I know that much too. I know! Then they should not have promised from the start that they would catch him quickly! What am I supposed to be, waiting endlessly like this?!”
“Hmph. Do you think the police will consider the circumstances of a child like you?”
“What did you say?”
“And if you do not cooperate with the investigation, another victim will appear somewhere else. You should give up early on the idea that you are the only person in the world who is suffering.”
“Shut up―!!”
CRASH!!
Unable to suppress his emotions, Darren struck the vase on the shelf beside him with his fist and shattered it.
“Ah, that was the one I gave my wife as a gift……!”
“Shh!”
At some point, the woman had secretly entered the room and covered her husband’s mouth with her hand.
The water inside the vase spilled onto the floor. Darren’s hand was red and swollen.
The broken shards also had to be cleaned up quickly.
If things went wrong, Darren might step on them, which was dangerous, but judging from the cold atmosphere that had settled over the room, no one could move carelessly.
Rud and Darren glared fiercely at each other.
In the hostile confrontation where neither yielded an inch, the house owner was at a loss as to whose side he should take.
THUD THUD THUD THUD!!
Then a violent knocking came from the front door.
“Who is it?”
No one was supposed to come.
The house owner exchanged a bewildered glance with his wife.
“Who is it?”
As if deciding to go instead, the wife walked toward the front door.
Her husband followed her as well. Rud only watched silently.
“Hello. Is Darren inside, by any chance?”
At that moment, Darren’s eyes widened at the woman’s voice from outside.
In truth, Darren was only staying here temporarily until another guardian arrived.
When the house owner opened the door, a woman in her early thirties stood outside with a red cloak draped over her shoulders.
‘That is……!?’
Rud’s expression rapidly darkened.
That red cloak was unmistakably the garment given only to mages affiliated with the Praid Magic Association.
This was the worst.
If she had been a mage affiliated with the police, he might have been able to reason with her to some extent, but he had never imagined he would run into someone like this here.
The house owner cautiously asked,
“May I ask who you are?”
“Ah, I am Letra, Darren’s aunt. When I asked people, they told me the child was here……”
The moment Darren saw Letra’s face, he rushed toward her and clung tightly to her leg as though it were precious.
“Waaaah, Aunt Letra!!!”
Then, as if releasing all the emotions he had suppressed until now at once, he forgot what had happened earlier and began to cry sorrowfully.
Darren was only a ten-year-old child.
Though she was not his blood relative, she shared the same blood as his mother, so he seemed to feel a yearning for her.
“You must have been so scared. I am sorry. I could not do anything for you.”
“Waaaah, Auntie! Mom, Mom……!!”
As Letra gently embraced Darren, the sound of crying that filled the house grew even louder.
Rud watched the scene silently without saying anything.
“……?!”
Then Letra’s face abruptly darkened, and she glared fiercely in one direction.
He did not know why she was suddenly acting like that.
Darren looked up at Letra with a confused expression.
The house owner and his wife were the same.
Rud also narrowed his eyes, wondering what was wrong, when Letra urgently shouted at them.
“Everyone, get inside quickl……!!”
BOOOOOM!!!
Out of nowhere, an unidentified thunderous roar erupted from outside the house.
The startled villagers hurried outside.
“Wh-what was that sound?!”
“Something fell from the sky!”
“Look at that. There is something like a person inside……!!”
As the thick cloud of dust gathered in the air scattered and vanished in the wind, a person with gray skin stood inside, staring fiercely in one direction while exuding murderous intent.
“What is this? What is happening?”
“Letra, sis…… No, Darren!!”
Before Letra’s hand could reach him to stop him, Darren stuck his head out past the front door.
Darren’s body flinched violently.
Before his eyes,
The figure of a woman who had changed horribly, like a single demon, pierced into his pupils.
“Mom……?”