Memory Reaper's Ascension

Chapter 243: The wall Report

The door of Ishiki’s office opened and Shiro entered, closing the door behind him without using his hands.

Well, both his hands were occupied by stacked files. Ishiki straightened and took a deep breath as Shiro placed two large stacks of files on his desk. Now, his desk was filled with three different hills, made by archived files.

These were the activity records of, Ward 7, 8 and 9. These recorded all the Dusk events that happened in the past year, what was the follow up? All the wall breaches, that happened around five hours after the dusk event and mainly, any mentions of Tainted demon or Eclipsed demon spotting in these three wards.

He was going to conduct a full blown research within these three wards for any clue to Kenji. He had determined that the guy was a far bigger nuisance and needs to be eradicated before he gets more powerful.

His attention, briefly, was on the ceiling.

Then he lowered his eyes and picked up the first report.

Shiro sat opposite him with a notebook open and a pen in hand, ready but not rushing him. It was one of the reasons Ishiki had kept him here, in the office, instead of sending him back to the outer desk: Shiro knew how to put together a very reasonable amount of notes.

“All right,” Ishiki said. “Let’s build it.”

They started with Ward 9.

By midday, the Ward 9 and 8 stack was sorted into three neat piles on the right side of the desk and both of them were looking at three pages of report that Shiro had prepared with the help of Ishiki.

“I didn’t see any specific pattern in our ward… and most of the cases were all under you.” Shiro commented, as he crossed his legs.

“Yes… that is true,” Ishiki agreed. “We only had two abnormal cases in the last year. The first was related to a scenario completion where a guy was corrupted… he soon gave in and turned into a full Tainted demon. He is reported dead later, and this case had three causalities. The other one was the recent one with a body shifting demon who has gone missing.”

He tapped the second stack — Ward 8.

“These are worse,” he said.

There were three incident reports, six months apart and had the same odd line in their post-action notes: Synth energy was inconsistent in accordance to the Xenon population that were visible.

On two of them, a harried field captain had scrawled in the margin: Probably lingering trace from previous event.

On the third, somebody had actually underlined the phrase and written: Check with Registry? and then never followed up.

Shiro read that one twice and asked curiously. “Who was the captain on this one?”

“Yoshida,” Ishiki checked with the files and confirmed. “Ward 8 wall response team. He died in the next breach three months later.”

“So the note went nowhere with him,” Shiro pointed. “And how did a captain die in a wall breach?”

“Yes,” Ishiki agreed. “A captain must at least be at Adept level… then how the hell did he die by the hands of Xenons.”

Shiro exhaled once. “Furthermore… there was no mention of any demon during that breach.” He looked at the report again. “I would say… this report is false.”

Ishiki narrowed his eyes and let his thoughts wander. ’That is a possibility… there is no ruling out the fact that a tainted demon might have joined the government ranks. After all they look exactly like humans… well they are humans to start with actually.’

He sighed at that eerie fact, but it doesn’t matter. It was the truth… they were just humans who had given in to their desires and let the corruption take over. He wondered, what would happen if he desired so badly for something…

’Yeah, no. That only goes on to prove how close we are to becoming monsters…

’ He thought with a grimace.

“All players walk on a thin Ice… that might shatter the moment they put some force behind their steps.”

“Heh… feeling philosophical suddenly.” Shiro chuckled.

Ishiki blinked a couple of times, and realized that he had said that out loud. Well, thanks to his corruption.

So much to prove the point.

“So, maybe a Tainted demon was involved?” Shiro said, changing the subject back.

“Maybe,” Ishiki shrugged. “Maybe not. I am not a charlatan.”

Shiro frowned slightly. “You do talk like one.”

“Ahh, yeah… you are going to see a ghost in your house tonight.” Ishiki said pointing to the next set of documents… those related to the ward 7.

—

By evening… the files related to ward 7 were also completed.

And to Ishiki’s horror… It was much worse than he had thought. He was sitting alone in the office now, as Shiro had gone to pick up Nina from school and leave her at home.

Ishiki spread the map out on the desk — the printed ward layout with its sectors, the wall line, the urban density gradient from center to edge. Then he started marking.

“Every Dusk Event in the last year within five kilometres of this section,” Ishiki said, circling the northern wall segment. “There are very suspiciously less investigated and the reports are incomplete as well.”

According to the files, 13 Dusk events had happened in that area alone and out of them 4 were marked as either false synth energy fluctuations or no Xenons were found at the spot.

What made it more fishy was that almost every single one of the person’s responsible for these events had died or gone missing. Gone missing in the sense that maybe they had gone inside a scenario never to come back out.

But how could that happen to almost 10 different people.

There was something very fishy about this area. Furthermore… there were sightings of two Tainted demons and a very abnormal looking demon with a black arm.

Ishiki knew very well… who that was.

He had found his prey.