Genius Engineer in the Labyrinth - Chapter 37
Only Noblemtl
Whistle (1)
Alan and Dennis headed to the police station next to the fort.
Because of its location, the police station building resembled a castle. The high walls and automatic turrets installed on top added to the menacing feel.
A police officer standing guard at the main entrance blocked my way and asked what my business was.
“What’s going on?”
“I have come to report a dispute that has occurred in the labyrinth.”
“I’ll contact the strong-arm squad, so would you please wait over there?”
The place the police pointed to was an empty lot. A sign that read ‘Labyrinth Explorer Waiting Area’ caught my eye.
Dennis, who had thrown the cart and prisoners into the open space, sat down on a long bench.
“Ha. I can live now. You stop muttering and sit there.”
“That cop didn’t even blink an eye when he saw the body.”
“The Maze City Police Department is known for being a tough job. But working right next to the labyrinth? Needless to say, this empty lot was even designed with this kind of situation in mind.”
Alan nodded. It was strange that he brought in so many bodies and yet he wasn’t arrested at the front gate.
Besides, it was impossible to just bring the bodies into the police station when the case hadn’t even been reported.
The atmosphere inside the police station was similar to the outside. It was filled with a stiff and strict atmosphere, and none of the police officers passing by looked easygoing.
As I was sitting on the bench catching my breath, a dapper detective from the police station appeared, accompanied by another officer.
The hairy detective frowned as he looked at the corpses and scabbed prisoners loaded onto the cart.
Unlike the beastmen who had animal bodies based on human appearance, they were a race of Lycans who appeared to be animals that walked on two legs.
The detective was a cute otter lycan, so his expression didn’t seem threatening like the other cops’. The detective unfolded his police officer ID card and asked Dennis.
“First of all, this is me. Are there any other people involved in the case?”
“I went to the hospital because I had a friend who was in critical condition.”
“Then let’s take a look.”
Detective Otter, not wanting to look easy, made the most grumpy expression possible and quickly removed the sheet covering the cart.
He put on latex gloves and examined the facial features and wounds. As expected of a police officer working in Maze City, he was very courageous and handled the body as if it were a log.
“Did you use fire magic or a bomb? You’re grilled like a steak. You guys, come here.”
The prisoners pretended not to hear the otter’s pointing finger. Or maybe they were exhausted from not eating after the battle.
The detective took a deep breath and pulled the rope that bound the prisoners. Three people were dragged in at the same time. Despite their cute appearance, they still had the basic strength of a Lycan, who was known to be strong.
The otter dragged them away one by one, took a picture of their faces with a device that looked like a barcode scanner, and rubbed it against his chest where Manaheart was. His artificial eyeball blinked blue.
“They’re not even registered in the database. They were probably trying to make a name for themselves as the city’s lowest-level troubleshooters. And then they ended up in the maze. Oh my.”
The otter shook its head and struck the prisoners with its palm. It was an action that showed it knew who the perpetrator was without even properly investigating.
One of the prisoners, staggering from the handcuffs, groaned.
“Are you crazy? Is it okay for a police officer to beat up a person? Ouch!”
“what?”
“We have human rights too, but when the police beat people. Ugh!”
“You have to speak in human language. You won’t understand if you growl like an animal. And remember this clearly: You don’t have human rights.”
“···I meant, can you hit me without any evidence?”
Only when the prisoner spoke politely did the otter stop its violence.
“Need proof? Just look at it. Two unregistered people and one is from Roman Company. The combination itself is too suspicious. Hey, come here.”
“Did you call?”
At the otter’s call, a young police officer, presumably a rookie, came running out of breath.
“Handcuff these guys and put them in the cage, and keep the things on the cart in the freezer.”
“all right.”
As the subordinate disappeared, the otter came with a perfectly good cart and sat down. Then, he tapped his left forearm, and the skin opened and a square screen appeared before his eyes.
“Let’s stop here without going into detail. Would you like to hear more details?”
Dennis explained the incident that had occurred. Although I didn’t know the exact time of the incident, he organized it in chronological order so I had no trouble understanding it.
The otter just listened. He, too, had undergone brain expansion surgery, so he typed what he heard onto the screen. He didn’t have to bother typing on the keyboard.
“Then let’s check the identity of the dead party member. What is his name?”
“Celine and Otto···.”
“What the f**k···.”
“Why are you suddenly swearing? I put up with shitty things happening to me down there, and now even the police are getting into trouble.”
Dennis, who was stressed out, immediately took on a grim expression. Alan, who maintained his usual expressionless demeanor, stopped him.
“That’s because our names are the same. Didn’t you see my civil servant ID card earlier?”
“Really? I was out of my mind… I’m sorry.”
Otter Man, Detective Otto scratched his head and unfolded his civil servant ID again. It was exactly the same as the dead male magic user’s name. Even the spelling.
Otto, who had suddenly died, bowed his head slightly, realizing his mistake.
“Um, I’m sorry. My name was suddenly mentioned, so I lost my temper… The other colleagues took the injured person to the emergency medical facility. Then you two can go.”
I thought he would at least be incarcerated for being involved in a murder, but he was released more easily than I thought.
As Dennis left the police station, he looked at Alan as if he knew what he was thinking.
“That’s because we’re both members of Breaker. Even if we’re not directly under each other, we’re strict when it comes to personnel management.”
Alan shrugged. Partly because he was a member of the Breakers, but also because he had become too accustomed to death itself. Especially for the Maze City police.
“But I won’t just leave it alone. Look over there.”
“It’s a surveillance flying golem.”
On the tree that Dennis pointed to, there were two golems that looked like sparrows sitting. The cameras attached to the golems’ eyes continued to follow Alan.
“I heard that if you have a criminal record, you’ll be kicked out right away. We won’t be like that, right?”
“How is self-defense a crime? Stop worrying about useless things.”
“That would be fortunate. Has Breaker had tight personnel management from the beginning?”
“That’s Chairman Marshall’s policy. The first thing he did after taking office was to weed out the explorers. He kicked out the problem children and those who had no desire to improve. Thanks to that, we ended up becoming the most trustworthy and excellent company among the explorers’ associations.”
Despite Dennis’s passionate explanation, his face was somehow empty. The dead man must be hovering in his mind.
Alan stared into his eyes. His pupils continued to shake. The pain would remain in him until the passage of time blurred his memories and emotions.
I knew that fact all too well, so I deliberately kept talking to him.
“What are you going to do now? I plan to spend my time repairing, researching, and studying as usual.”
“I should do that too. If the police contact me, I’ll either show up or wait and see what happens to Kakda.”
“I hope Manahat is safe.”
“You can just reattach the tail, but it’s hard to do that with Manahat.”
Artificial Manahearts also exist, but if you are a Kakda who dreams of becoming a true magician, this is the magicware you should stay away from as much as possible.
It is difficult to instill a will in an artificial mana heart, and if there is a lack of will, the power of the magic is likely to be halved.
The same was true for the magic engineer. If the runes were not properly infused with images when carving them, their power would be weak.
If Alan from the Novak Clinic days and Alan now were to carve [Flame] in the same way, the difference would be about the size of a lighter and a small bonfire.
As soon as the story of Kakda came up, Dennis took out a whistle from his bosom as if he had just remembered it.
“While we’re on the subject, let’s visit the emotional center. If there’s a tool that summons the goalkeeper, it’s definitely Ooparts.”
“Oparts?”
“It must be Oparts. It will definitely have a high valuation, and it will help with Kakda’s medical expenses.”
Alan looked at the white whistle. Dennis was excited by the thought of it being an Ooparts.
It was different from the last time I saw the bird’s soul stone and intuitively knew it was an Ooparts. It was just like seeing a broken magical tool abandoned on the street.
‘The gold in the soul stone was beautiful at that time. Unlike the white star letters, the gold powder shone brightly…’
Still, I couldn’t pour cold water on the excited Dennis, so I kept my mouth shut. I left it to the Breaker’s appraiser to make the right judgment.
“If you sell the whistle and the loot, you’ll get quite a bit even if you divide it into eight equal parts. It won’t be enough for the families of the dead Celine and Otto, but it will be a consolation.”
Dennis slumped his shoulders as he spoke his last words. He was not sure whether he was saying the word comforting.
Alan kept changing the subject to get Dennis’ attention. As they continued their small talk, they soon arrived at the area where the Breaker buildings were gathered.
The two who entered the appraisal center met an elf appraiser. He was a professional appraiser with over 50 years of experience.
A room filled with wooden furniture that gave off a sense of the passage of time. The old elf sipped the steaming tea and was handed a whistle.
“Where should I look···”
The old man’s artificial eye popped out like a folding telescope. He held the corner of the eye with one latex-gloved hand, and with the other hand he rotated a whistle in front of the lens.
There was silence in the room. The old man, who had been observing for a while, looked at Alan and Dennis with his good left eye.
“Do you know what material the whistle is made of?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s a bone. It’s a human bone. I tested it and it’s not an Ooparts. There are slight traces, but there’s no magic flowing through it right now.”
“Look closely. The maggot that had it blew the whistle and the maze gatekeeper appeared.”
“There’s an energy flowing through Oparts like a magic stone, so how could I not know… Wait, the gatekeeper has appeared?”
The old man felt it again. After looking at it for about ten minutes, he tapped the telescope-like eye and put it back in place.
“But I don’t see any special structure or technique···.”
“Could it be because it was damaged by the goalkeeper’s light?”
“Eye laser? Oh, no. Old habits… It’s unlikely that it would have happened since it was hit directly by the eye beam and it looks fine. It seems like it lost all of its original abilities after summoning the goalkeeper.”
Dennis went into detail about how the whistle didn’t originally look like this, but it didn’t change the appraiser’s judgment.
Rather, Dennis and Alan quickly left the room, looking at the conman in their eyes. The two of them left the emotional center and avoided the sun in the shadows of the building.
“It wasn’t originally white, but covered in a black substance. Was it disposable? If it wasn’t an Ooparts, then it was made by someone on Earth. Right? So these are human bones?”
“Using human bones, it must be some sort of black magic. Who on earth could it be?”
“I think of witchcraft, but I think it’s more like black magic.”
Unlike magic that uses magical power as its raw material, black magic uses people as its raw material. It could be said that the entire human being, including the body, emotions, and soul, was the raw material.
That doesn’t mean that wizards don’t do human experiments. Depending on your perspective, there are times when they are just that.
When expectations are high, the reaction is also high. The heart that has shrunk to the max is expressed by slumped shoulders.
“If this is the case, we should get a good price for the loot.”
Dennis looked at the cart as he spoke. Inside was the battle-damaged body of the goalkeeper. It looked like scrap metal, and it seemed unlikely that he would get a fair price for it.
“A useless whistle.”
Dennis’s built-up anger and stress were focused on the whistle. He raised his hand in the air to throw the whistle to the ground.
chin!
Someone grabbed Dennis’ wrist. Gray hair, black cloak, and a badge shaped like broken glass. It was a familiar orc male. He looked more gentle than the average orc, and seemed like a half-orc.
“That whistle. Can I take a look at it for a second?”
“uh···.”
Dennis’ thoughts seemed to pause for a moment at the sudden appearance of the orc.
Alan raised his head slightly and looked at the emotional center. The blinds in the room where the elf emotionalist was were going down.
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