章節 19: Investigating the Situation: Where is Jeanne?

'Big brother is a bit more stressed lately, especially after we discovered the orphanages yesterday. He kept mumbling how he hopes it is not as he thought but at times like this Big brother's instincts are on the mark just like it has been when he already knew Big sister will be doing something that night at the laboratory'

Shirone was currently standing in front of the house near one of the old raided houses, the reason Masaru sent her here was to avoid the police who were investigating the recent raid.

Soon the door open and an old lady who appears to be living on her own looked at Shirone with surprise wondering why a child would visit an old lady like her, Shirone already detected this lady was an ordinary human without any dark aura on her so it was safe to start so she used the hypnosis technique Akeno taught her and began to ask,

"Auntie, do you know what happened to that Orphanage?"

Despite being under the hypnosis fear was evident on her face,

"I have not seen who it was but I know it was people with strange animals who raided that Orphanage when I told it to the police they thought I have gone senile! But I knew what I saw, there was something. One of them yelled something about a puny human should not dare to raise their hands towards a devil"

After trying asking other questions Shirone realized this old lady did not know anything else so she cancelled her hypnosis and said her goodbyes, she moved on to the next house. It was quite strange how every single house apart from the old lady had no recollection of the incident as if it was wipe from their memories.

'This is strange... Even if they are amateurs they will not forget the most obvious place to erase memories, why would they ignore the old lady?'

Feeling curious Shirone went back to the house but this time she entered from the back yard to avoid being detected, but a strange pungent smell of rotten flesh lurking in the backyard yet there were no signs of its source.

So Shirone went to the entrance once more and questioned the old lady under hypnosis but apparently the old lady's dog died recently and because she struggled to dig a grave for the poor dog since she had no one who was willing to help her which was why the body was rotten before she managed to bury it.

But the thing that bothered Shirone was the fact the smell did not smell like animals but since the old lady was under hypnosis she took it as the truth and left this time towards Masaru.

The old lady watched Shirone's back with a stern expression and wordlessly entered her house.

>\/<

Masaru was currently sitting at a near Cafe' that was near the Orphanage where he can monitor from while reading his book, it has been half a day so far and there were no signs of movements. The strange thing was the fact the number of staff he saw moving out and in of the building did not match the life detection result from yesterday's scan, in fact, the number of children increased by two.

'Ever since we came here I felt this town is strange, the police are not making active movements and I have not detected any skilled human investigating, just from the event that happened they have to at least enter this building once a day to confirm the situation but there is no one coming in.'

Sitting in between a Rock and a Hard place, Masaru felt he could not make movements because of insufficient information.

Shortly afterwards Shirone arrived, she ordered a drink herself and started to give her report. Although there was no proof Masaru still felt the old lady was suspicious, there was the problem with Hypnosis which means if she was truly under hypnosis could it be she does not recognize the difference in smell?

"Well let's put that old lady on hold, I will be camping here tonight so later I want you to head over to Everest and support her"

Shirone nodded while she got the drink the Waitress brought for her.

Meanwhile, Everest was feeling something strange was going on, there was no police but the number of people coming and going from this small orphanage was simply too strange.

She even secretly used her dragon aura to scan the surrounding of the orphanage, she found nothing amiss at all. Except for one strange thing that bothered her the most was when she realized, it was the friendly manager they met yesterday was quite aggressive towards the children yet every single adult that visit did not say a thing about it.

'Just what is going on here?'

Without Masaru's order she will naturally not make a move, but watching all these strange things she could not help but feel repulsed towards these people as if they are not humans but something else that is looking at the children as if they are breeding cattle.

It was later when Shirone arrived when everything around the Orphanage turned back to normal like how they first came here when Shirone heard this she felt confused.

'Nothing is making sense with this orphanage at all, the moment Shirone arrived next to me. Did everything turn back to normal, could it be this orphanage is under the control of someone?'

Suddenly the two girls shivered when it felt like something was watching them from a distance, and when they looked in the direction the presence was felt they looked into the eyes of the Manager who gave them a sweet smile.

But for them, it felt like they were looking at a monster enjoying the sight of it's preys playing around its territory.

"This is strange... and creepy"

Shirone felt bothered, she naturally did not fear the manager to fight, but the way she acted reminded her of the old lady. It was simply too similar.

"Should we contact Masaru?"

Shirone who heard Everest's opinion agreed to it, this was something out of their control so they needed his opinion and order.

>\/<

When Masaru heard this began to try compiling everything he learnt so far, he was not sure what was going on but two things he was certain of. The Old lady and that small orphanage are suspicious, but what bugged him was the fact the orphanage he was in charge of was simply to silent as if they were not placing the incident in their eyes like they were invincible or something.

"We have to carefully thread around from now on, I want you two to disappear from the Orphanage, change your appearance and monitor it from a different direction. Try to see if whatever that Manager is if she can recognize you base on your mana"

Everest affirmed his orders and cut off the communication,

'If they can sense us according to our mana it will be problematic because we are in the church territory the number of movements we can make is limited and reinforcement is close to impossible since that will make the church discover us'

In order to make a risky move Masaru disappear from the Cafe after paying for the drinks, he came close to the orphanage and used mana waves to scan the orphanage in order to experiment if they can detect mana as well since he could not write off the possibility of each orphanage having different kinds of possible enemies like warriors in one and mages in the other. The result was this Orphanage was clean, not even that black aura he experienced was detected either.

Since he confirmed it should be fine he chose to make a reckless move and walked towards the undercover police vehicle, he discovered this car which was constantly looking at the Orphanage like he does without moving. If it was not the police then he might get even more detailed information if they were scouts,

"Good morning, sorry to bother but do you know the direction for...."

While he was talking he cast hypnosis on the two men, he even scanned their brain waves to make sure they are indeed hypnotized.

"Tell me why are you monitoring the Orphanage?"

The man had a blank look before answering

"Our captain ordered us to monitor the orphanage for the next three days while he will monitor the other remaining orphanage personally"

Masaru felt something was wrong with this statement as he remembered Everest said there was no police or anyone who appear to be skilled in the vicinity,

"Why are you not investigating the other raid locations?"

The man continued

"Because the captain said she already finished the interrogation"

'Huh? Already finished the interrogation? But Shirone said the people appear to have no memories of what happened. how is everything connecting? It feels more like a messed up puzzle. The Orphanage, the old lady and now the Police Captain? Need more information'

Masaru asked more questions but could not get any more information from this man so he cancelled the hypnosis and bid farewell after thanking them for the directions.

Masaru contacted Everest,

"How are the results?"

Everest had a troubled expression

"I am not sure how to take it, the manager still looked at us but the look she gave us is different. So it's hard to say whether she detected us or only felt our gaze on her"

Masaru thought for a moment and decided

"Alright let's end the investigation here and meet at the Hotel"

"Alright, see you soon"

>\/<

Later afternoon in the Hotel, Masaru shared his findings with the girls while the girls shared theirs. Masaru took out the bag Elizabeth gave him and started to divide the consumables including the potion and poison he got form Circe.

"The both of you will be working solo, you will only be monitoring the two Orphanages. No matter what you will not enter or go even close by. I will infiltrate that Old lady's house tonight to investigate her first as she is the easier target"

"Big brother, those people are strange"

Shirone felt bothered about the fact certain people shared similarity movements and reactions which was simply creepy,

"That's why I want you two to only monitor the orphanages, the moment you feel something is wrong escape immediately. There is no time for Hero playing, with all honesty it's dangerous as we don't know what kind of enemy we might face but I am certain whoever is behind this has the girl I am looking for. Do the two of you understand?"

"Understood"

Shirone took her part and went into the bathroom to get dressed in her combat clothes and the hooded Jacket Jacob gave Masaru.

"Honestly, I feel like I was watching a different race instead of humans treating children like cattle or something they want to cultivate and multiply"

Masaru nodded at Everest's opinion,

"That is why I want to investigate that Old lady's house fast before we move towards one of the two orphanages. But the Police Captain will be the most difficult one to investigate since we might attract other faction's attention like the church so be on your guard tonight"

Everest nodded before taking her share and joined Shirone to get dressed,

'three suspects but only two suspicious locations...'

Masaru took a deep breath before he took got dressed in black combat leather outfit with the hooded jacket over it, Hrunting is attached to his back and a pouch with the toys of Elizabeth was attached to his hip.

'Well no use thinking about it, I will find out what is going on before I lose my chance of getting a great knight at my disposal'

>\/<

It was close to midnight, Masaru followed Shirone's direction she drew on the map to arrive at an old house. The first thing he noticed was the light was on in the room on the right first floor, it seems to be the old lady was still awake watching television at this time of the night.

Thinking for a moment, he decided that the front door was a no go, Masaru silently yet swiftly moved towards the backyard where he too smelled rotten pungent smell lurking around the yard.

'Why has no one complain about this smell?'

He leapt over the wall, the backyard was quite well maintained, the grass was short and there were no signs of fungi or weeds. Because there was no place to hide if someone comes out, Masaru started to move fast through the yard towards the house wall, he sticks close to the wall for a minute to make sure if he was not spotted before he began moving towards the door.

He pointed his right index finger at the door as a dual-layer magic circle materialized in front of it, the first layer was an unlocking spell while the second layer was a silent area spell which prevents sounds from leaving within the radius of a meter domain.

The door was unlocked so he slowly opened the door peeking inside to ensure no one was nearby before entering, he only turned his view towards the door for a moment when he closed it back when he turned back to look at his surrounding everything was different.

The once clean kitchen was replaced with a dirty kitchen smeared with blood and rotten meat were scattered all over, but the most repulsive thing was veins similar to blood veins were all over the room pulsing as if it was alive.

The other strange thing was the fact he could now sense several presences which he never felt from the outside even when he was at the door, two of the presences felt Human so he thought one of them should be the old lady since it was in the direction of the room that had it's light on while the other was towards the underground, the other three presences were dark and murky similar to the aura he once sensed from the aeroplane.

'Just what is going on here?'

[Goodness boy! What are you trying to do!?]

the sudden voice in his mind caused Masaru to flinch entering combat state but soon cursed this dragon

'You bastard! Pick a better time to talk!'

[Who cares, why the hell did you go near those creatures again!? No this is even worse! You entered their domain!?]

'Well I was investigating a raiding case and this old lady was suspicious, I did not expect her to be of those creatures...'

Masaru moved silently to the stairs leading to the underground since the creatures he sensed were on the second floor,

[These veins have that black aura flowing within it in a concentrated liquid form, so be safe make sure not to accidentally pop one or your dead]

'Understood'

There was not enough space to step on with the veins grown all over the place, the rotten smell was growing faint and instead, the smell of blood became more prominent.

When he reached the underground floor what he noticed was several cages that were empty but traces of blood were all over the place as if whoever was doing this did not bother cleaning it up, or more like no one who entered ever came out alive after all.

>\/<

Shirone arrived at the Orphanage where Masaru was monitoring earlier today, there were no changes and it seems everyone in the orphanage was sleeping so she jumped onto one of the building roofs where she could hide while still have a perfect view watching over the area.

She spotted a car that appears to be parked a distance from the orphanage as if it was monitoring the orphanage, from the looks of it was two men. Since Shirone could not sense them from the distance and Masaru's orders were not to get too close, she never realized the two officers she spotted were both actually killed.

One was strangled from the back while the other was stabbed through the seat from the back to death.

Everest returned to the Orphanage seeing that things were quite normal compared to what she experienced earlier today, there was no movement from the surroundings and she selected a place that was easy to monitor and also easy to escape from should something happen.

Out of the three locations, this place was supposed to be the most suspicious but tonight it was completely quiet with no signs of any activities at all.

>\/<

[This place is giving me the creeps even though I am a weapon and a dragon at that]

Masaru nodded, he too could not entirely handle the feeling of being in this place. He once tried to scan the veins to see if he could use Worthless to alter it or perhaps if lucky destroy it, the worst part was the scanning result was too loaded with the information he could not understand but for some reason, his instinct told him even if he nullifies one it will not do a thing towards the vein.

It was similar to scanning a cheat character and see him having at least 1000+ cheat skills, even if you remove one it will only be but a drop compared to the ocean.

There is some text written in blood on the walls, one of them said

"Beware the Old Ones will come"

"Beware the Raven Gate is about to open".

Masaru made sure to record this information, even if it seems to be written by madmen it might prove to be useful information, but the last message he noticed it said:

"Humans stand no chance alone against them".

Two of the messages appear to be a warning while the last one felt like a combination of a warning and a prophecy,

'I better find some time to investigate this'

Faintly the sound of rough breathing could be heard a bit further, Masaru believed this should be the human presence he detected so he moved closer. When he peeked into the last cage, the woman who was cuffed onto the wall was the last person he thought would be here.

'Fate truly is mysterious'

He thought