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As the clock struck noon, the main door of the store was pushed open along with a ringing sound from the chime hanging behind it.
“Pardon me Miss, is this Ms. Luminosa’s store?”
In the doorway stood a middle-aged man with an upright posture in a trench coat. He took a glance around the interior, finding nothing more than a desk between two opposing chairs in the centre of the blank white space. The chair furthest from him was occupied by a blue-haired girl.
“Good afternoon, may I know if you’re ‘Mr. Chong’?” asked Kou politely from her seat behind the desk.
“Yes I am.” The man addressed as ‘Mr. Chong’ nodded. His muffled, husky voice indicated that he was the type of person who would often strain his vocal cords during work.
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Eternity, Ms. Luminosa’s assistant, who's been in contact with you through email.” She stood up and went for a handshake as she spoke.
“The pleasure’s all mine.” Mr. Chong shook her hand politely, yet put on a puzzled face when his palm let go of hers and questioned, “And here is…?”
“Our office. Is there something strange?” Kou replied calmly.
“Ah, not really…I was just thinking that it looks much more simplistic than I expected.”
“We spend most of our time working elsewhere, hence the minimalistic design of this place.” She gestured him to the empty seat as she explained. “If there are no other questions, let’s get started, shall we?”
“May I know where Ms. Luminosa is?” Mr. Chong asked right after taking his seat.
“She won’t be physically present for this meeting, but worry not - she’ll be observing throughout the entire conversation,” Kou explained in a calm fashion as she always did.
The title Assistant Manager is not in vain, given how good she is at conversing with others professionally on business matters. I’m still miles away from catching up to her standard.
“Then how am I supposed to believe in her existence?” Her words, however, did not seem to convince him.
“I’m assuming that you already trust that she’s real, otherwise you wouldn’t have come to us in the first place, nor attended this meeting, isn’t that right?”
“Haha, guilty as charged.” Mr. Chong, who seemed to have a nice character, let out a soft chuckle. “I just wanted to be sure, as this request isn’t some minor favour to ask for.”
“It’s fine, I understand.” After the doubts had been cleared, the duo got down to business. “Let me confirm again a few things: You would like us to execute, banish, or otherwise eliminate all vampires in the city, correct? First of all, where did you learn about the existence of ‘vampires’, and secondly, what’s the purpose for this request?”
“Let’s be frank here. I’m actually a member of the police’s special task force that’s in place to investigate unsolved cases. According to our past records, there are often peculiar occurrences of missing persons who reappear after a couple years, as well as those of average civilians being assaulted with unknown weapons in the middle of the night and eventually succumbing to death due to excessive blood loss. We don’t think these are done by humans, nor have we been able to come up with a reasonable explanation for this chain of events.” In response to Kou’s que“Are you a cop?” Kou asked, astonished.
I, too, was shocked. Prior to this meetup, I had been under the assumption that he would be an administrator of a certain supernatural forum online who sought our help in the hope of deciphering the viral ‘vampire’ rumours.
A cop, huh? Who would have known that our client would actually be a member of the government? This isn’t some kind of sting operation, is it?
“Precisely.” Mr. Chong gave a firm nod, retrieved his warrant card from a pocket of his coat and placed it on the desk. “Here you go, you may check for yourself.”
“Thanks, it’s verified.” After a fair while of careful inspection, the card was returned to its owner. “But Mr. Chong, as a member of the police force, why didn’t you make this clear in the first place in the email? I’m guessing you’re here as a government representative to seek our help, however requests we take in are mainly private. We don’t want to get ourselves entangled with those in power.” Kou put up a serious tone.
My thoughts aligned with hers in this aspect.
My identity as a mageka had always been kept secret, and I only wanted to take in private requests under the table as of that moment. Having the government as my client would sort of defeat the purpose and put the secrecy of my identity at risk, plus god knows what they would do with this intel. It gave me the creeps just thinking about it.
Besides, there had been nothing pleasant with this government so far. I was all good with the former one led by a chief executive promoted from a public servant position, but then this new guy took his place as the successor. He was found having associations with triads before being appointed as the new chief executive, and he’d been seen discharging his own teammates at the advantage of their scandals within one week of his appointment. Besides, he was elected with votes down to six hundred and eighty nine only. He was also a short-sighted, foolish, yet arrogant person when it came to handling political affairs.
All in all - a person who cannot be trusted, and there’s no way in hell that I’m working for him.
“This is indeed my fault. In fact, there were disputes within the department regarding whether to send in a request. Therefore, my supervisor asked me to kick-start the process by connecting with you on my own behalf, and to then file an official request in the government’s name once this is approved.” As he began to sense Kou’s intention to withdraw, Mr. Chong tried to talk his way out. “Please understand that I didn’t mean to sound rude or anything. The decision to make this official was delivered only this morning by my superiors while I was on my way here.”
A smile hung beneath Mr. Chong’s cheeks to cover up his embarrassment - it appeared to me that what he said was true.
They reached the conclusion on his way here? Must have been a dreadful situation for him. Couldn’t his supervisor and colleagues be a little more considerate about this?
“I understand now.” Kou pondered for some time and replied, “I’ll first seek Ms. Luminosa’s opinion on this matter and get back to you after, yet I can’t guarantee if she'll accept the request. Now back to the particulars: How are you certain that ‘vampires’ were the cause behind all those cases?”
“The creatures portrayed as ‘nocturnal devils with a thirst for blood’, aka ‘vampires’ have been mentioned in legends around the world, including in our country. We’ve noticed that the peculiar features of these unsolved cases very much resemble those described in the vampire legends, which draws us to this conclusion. Of course, we also consulted different professionals in this regard before doing so.” Mr. Chong breathed a sigh of relief that Kou was willing to move on and discuss the particulars of the request - it seemed like the position he was in had brought him this crushing burden on his shoulders.
“Really? For the police to go as far as to accept the involvement of unknown creatures? Is this some kind of excuse you come up with to deal with the public because the real cause remains a mystery?” Kou boldly presented her doubt.
“If that were the case, I believe there wouldn’t be a need to reach out to you both. A press conference would have worked, wouldn’t it?” Mr. Chong was not triggered by Kou’s scepticism. In return, he responded with another rhetorical question.
“Even if you held a press conference, could you be certain that the public would trust what you said? And at that moment, wouldn’t you think having professionals in this aspect, such as magekas, shed light on the presence of these unknown creatures would make the whole speech more convincing?”
“But for that to happen, you would have to have found some clues about what’s going on while working on the case, right?” He pointed out the hole in Kou’s deductions.
“Leaving aside the validity of ‘vampires’’ existence, to achieve the result you desire, all you’d need to do is to lead us down the wrong path and give us the wrong message, right?” Kou hit the nail on the head about the situation. “Clues we discover is one thing, while us being misled and having our conclusions purposefully taken out of context midway is another.”
“That would be a lot of work, and we don’t have the time and effort to scam people. We are the police - we don’t lie,” Mr. Chong explained.
I simply could not hold back my laughter at what he said.
It’s 2013. Who would still fall for this blatant lie?
“Forgive me for being blunt, but did you just say the police don't lie? I’m not a kid, you know. Please don’t expect me to believe this.”
We had pretty much the same thing in mind - only that she was presenting it in a more respectful way.
What an icon.
“There’s a black sheep in every flock. I can’t deny the fact that there are rotten apples in the force, but I can guarantee you that for everything I’ve just said, I did not say a single false word about ‘vampires’. Now why does it sound to me that you’re trying to prove that I’m a fraud? Any more of this criticism, and I’ll leave.” To our surprise, instead of getting infuriated by Kou’s harsh words, he admitted the current state of the police force was as described.
He appears to be an honest man from the way he acts - though I guess it’d be hard for him to get a promotion easily with this uprightness.
Thinking that, I began to feel sorry for him.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr2DYt6euuF
“Haha, I was just testing you to see if solving the case is indeed the purpose of filing this request.” Upon his reply, Kou changed to a bright smile on her face. “I can tell you’ve spoken whole-heartedly throughout our conversation. Please accept my apology for any offence.” 109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6BSQfBGqe7
“It’s totally fine as long as you’re really able to resolve the case. Let’s continue with the discussion.” Mr. Chong let out a smile and politely shook his head.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMBoGRGT99a
“Sure thing. I have a question before we move on though: Who are the people you addressed as ‘professionals’ earlier?”109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY6aJbCvtWo
