Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Suspect

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Meeting Room, Abyssal Disaster Management and Security Bureau, Yeqiu City

This was a department almost no one knew existed. Unlike the Magical Girl General Bureau—the Judgment Bureau—which enjoyed widespread fame, was filled with beautiful young women, fought on the front lines, and had countless fans, no one knew what this department did or where it was located.

Yet its responsibilities were no less important than those of the Magical Girl General Bureau. In fact, hidden in the darkness, it was sometimes even more notorious among the Abyss and the Witch Organization.

It was responsible for the safety of the entire population of Yeqiu City. Its enemies were not only Abyssal Disaster Beasts, but also the witches of the Witch Organization. It was also in charge of logistical support for the magical girls.

Inside the solemn conference room,

a group of people sat around the conference table.

There were both men and women among them. Most wore matching uniforms, though a few were dressed in the uniforms of other departments. They all looked quite young, mostly in their twenties or thirties.

A roughly seventy-inch LCD screen stood at the front of the room. Projected upon it were photographs taken at the scene of Bai Yuze's rampage a few days earlier.

There were many photographs taken at the scene, and the images were bloody and chaotic.

Unfortunately, there were no photographs of the killer. There had been no surveillance cameras at the scene, and any that had existed had been completely destroyed. That was precisely why so many ruffians and thugs had gathered there.

By the time Chen Yuyi, the person in charge of Wan District and Tianxin District, arrived, nearly everyone else was already present.

"I'm terribly sorry. Something came up at the school and delayed me."

When Chen Yuyi, the former head of the Judgment Division, attended meetings in the past, she usually wore a brown, high-collared trench coat. Her jet-black hair would be tied up, her eyes bright as stars, and a faint smile would play across her lips.

It was the smile of someone who believed she had seen through everything. She always gave the impression of being swift and decisive.

The Chen Yuyi of today, however, had a flushed face and was slightly out of breath. Her hair had been hastily tied back, with chalk dust still clinging to it, and she wore an emerald-green dress.

She looked as though she had just finished teaching a class and had rushed over without even having time to change.

"Not at all, Captain Chen. We understand that your teaching duties keep you busy. Besides, this matter was originally our responsibility. It was our fault for involving your people."

The elderly man at the head of the table chuckled amiably. He had a square face, slightly graying hair at the temples, a high, straight nose, and wore a gray tunic suit. His aged forehead was covered in wrinkles, giving him the appearance of a genial and approachable director.

"Please, there's no need to say that. All the departments of Yeqiu City should cooperate and help one another."

Though Chen Yuyi spoke politely, she chose a seat in the corner of the conference table.

Clearly, she had come merely to make an appearance.

"Are all those Judgment officers this arrogant?"

A woman in a pale yellow dress, slender and graceful, looked resentfully at the late arrival and muttered under her breath.

"Judgment officers are always fighting Disaster Beasts on the front lines, risking their lives every day. It's only natural that they might develop a little arrogance."

Peng Liang sat near the middle of the conference table, occupying a position of considerable importance within Yeqiu City.

"As if the rest of us aren't working ourselves to death."

After hearing Peng Liang defend the Judgment officers, the beautiful woman's complaints diminished considerably. Her soft, pale arm, white as lotus root, nevertheless came to rest lightly against the man beside her.

"Ahem. Mind your image."

Seeing the director's expression gradually darken, Peng Liang hurriedly lowered the hand from his shoulder and sat up straight.

The elderly director shifted his gaze back and signaled to the staff member beside him to begin the projection.

Once everyone was present, the meeting officially began.

The photographs on the screen showed the three people who had been decapitated by the Demon Princess Illusory Butterfly.

The victims' information appeared below:

"Huang Jincan, twenty-nine years old. A social loafer. Fond of gambling. He gambled away his house, after which his wife took their son and left."

"Peng Cheng, twenty-five years old. Dropped out after junior high school. Frequently involved in fights."

"Hu Wenxin, nineteen years old. A left-behind child. Often ran around with Huang Jincan and the others."

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"......"

The meeting room erupted in discussion.

A uniformed officer stood at the front explaining the case, while Chen Yuyi yawned below. When it came to murder cases like this, she avoided taking them on whenever possible.

Leaving aside whether such incidents might leave psychological scars on the magical girls, what would they do if they encountered a situation like this? And if someone with ulterior motives filmed it, edited out the context, and reported that a magical girl had injured someone, provoking public outrage, it would create yet another headache.

It was not as though such incidents had never happened before. It was only that, after the Disaster Beasts invaded, those conflicts had been buried beneath the larger crisis.

That was what she thought, and that was how she acted.

Throughout the entire meeting, she did not say a single word. She spent the whole time idly swiping through her phone with a Bluetooth earpiece in place......

Still, she caught fragments of the discussion now and then.

After all, the matter overlapped somewhat with the attack on Bai Youqing a few days earlier.

The young man speaking at the front was named Peng Liang. Clearly, this was not his first time addressing a meeting. His diction was clear and natural, and his voice was deep and resonant without being grating. Everyone in the conference room could hear him perfectly.

"Based on the clues collected at the scene, the killer wore size-thirty-eight shoes and stood approximately one meter sixty tall. The stride was short, and the footprints were narrow. The distances between them were often irregular, and the walking path frequently curved. The killer was not old, but a young person.

"The steps were disordered, and the distances between the footprints were uneven, suggesting that the criminal may have been exhausted or already injured.

"Traces of soil were mixed into the footprints. On summer or autumn nights, footprints left during the first half of the night often bear traces of insects crawling over them. Footprints left during the second half of the night, however, tend to have indistinct edges because the ground is damp and the soil breaks apart easily.

"Before the murders, the killer had walked along a dirt road. Finally, judging from the depth of the footprints, the killer was most likely a woman or a girl.

"The cuts on the victims' bodies were extremely clean. No ordinary person could have produced wounds like that.

"Thus, I suspect that the killer was very likely a witch. However, this is only my personal inference, and more evidence is needed to confirm it."

With that, Peng Liang returned to his seat beneath the admiring gaze of the woman beside him.

"Ever since the Abyssal Demon Princess disappeared, their traces vanished as well. Now they've appeared again."

"The villainous witches? Those vile magical girls have returned?"

The moment those words were spoken, the conference room once again grew noisy. A few people cast subtle glances toward the woman sitting in the corner, but nothing escaped Chen Yuyi, who was slacking off there.

Her expression remained utterly calm, showing neither surprise nor delight. The elderly director at the head of the table, however, clearly had no intention of letting her continue hiding in the background.

"Little Chen, what are your thoughts on this matter?"

At his question, everyone's eyes focused on the head of the Judgment Division.

"On the day of the murders, a Disaster Beast invasion occurred near Changhong Road. Our Judgment officers arrived at the scene immediately after receiving the report. The Disaster Beast then fled toward Wetland Park."

"Captain Chen, are you saying that the Judgment officers were responsible?"

"Let me finish. That Judgment officer was an exceptionally talented newcomer, with strength roughly at the Seed-Bearing level. Dealing with a Meteor-level Disaster Beast would have been effortless for her. But when she pursued it to Wetland Park, she discovered that it was a trap. An Abyssal Listener at the Setting Sun level was concealed there as well.

"By the time the other two members of my team arrived, the newcomer had already lost consciousness, and both Disaster Beasts were dead. Not long after they returned, the murder case occurred in Wan District, Yeqiu City. I then contacted the magical-girl captains in the surrounding jurisdictions. None of them had been deployed recently."

"At present, the only registered magic-users at Qiuyuan No. 1 High School capable of defeating a Meteor-level Disaster Beast and a Setting Sun-level Abyssal Listener within five or six minutes are myself and the deputy captain, the Violet Magical Girl, who has yet to report for duty."

"The Violet Magical Girl? I recall that before and during the middle of the Third Black Tide Crisis, she was active on the war front. But after the Disaster Beast Titan appeared, she suddenly vanished without a trace."

The elderly director pondered for a moment, then quickly remembered the little girl who served as a magic-user. Her physical characteristics were simply too distinctive.

He cut off the subject with a cough.

"All right, everyone, settle down. I have met the Violet Magical Girl. Er...... her physical characteristics do not match those of the killer."

Peng Liang quickly displayed the Violet Magical Girl's image on the multimedia screen.

In the picture,

she had large, clear black eyes, soft and full red lips, beautifully smooth cheeks, and a delicate, rosy face that seemed almost fragile enough to be shattered by a touch. Her eyes, bright as winter stars, shimmered with kindness and liveliness.

She wore an exquisite magical dress in pale violet. Her long, light-violet hair fell over her shoulders, framing a delicate and adorable face with red lips and pearly teeth.

Clusters of blooming violets formed her skirt armor and shoulder guards, revealing her flawless, fair figure to perfection. Pale stockings, thin as water, wrapped around her slender, graceful legs.

She was the very image of an unparalleled little beauty, breathtakingly beautiful.

Yet after looking at the image for a few moments, everyone understood why she was unlikely to be the murder suspect.

Her height did not match. She looked like a little girl who had only just entered junior high school.

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Chen Yuyi fell silent after seeing the image as well.

So this was the deputy captain assigned to her by the higher-ups?

Fine. Fine. So that was how they wanted to play it!

Was she the captain of the Sword Orchid First High School team?

Or the director of a nursery?

She withdrew her gaze and looked around. Quite a few people were still staring at her. Chen Yuyi understood perfectly well that even if she had not raised the issue herself, many people present would still have wondered whether the Judgment officers were responsible.

A magical girl had just finished dealing with a Disaster Beast and was heading home alone when she encountered several scumbags harassing her. She had lost control of her strength for a moment and killed them all.

During the Black Tide Crisis, incidents like that had occurred more than once. For the most part, the higher-ups had simply turned a blind eye. There was indeed no need to show mercy to social vermin.

Special times called for special measures.

But now that the Black Tide Crisis had ended, certain conflicts were inevitably surfacing once more.

People had refrained from voicing their suspicions only out of consideration for her reputation.

Since that was the case, she might as well raise the matter herself. More importantly, this had not been done by anyone under her command. She had no intention of carrying that blame.

The elderly director seemed to sense Chen Yuyi's displeasure and gave an apologetic smile.

"Yes, Little Chen, you've been very considerate. I will first confirm the matter with my superiors and see whether they have assigned any new Judgment officers to assist us. I will not allow the Judgment officers fighting on the front lines to be treated unfairly."

"Then I shall thank you on behalf of those little girls, Director Bai."

"Ah, sending young ladies who ought to be studying peacefully at school to fight on the very front lines...... We should be the ones thanking you."

The misunderstanding was resolved, and both sides looked considerably more relaxed. The director's office confirmed that the incident had nothing to do with the magical girls of Yeqiu City's Sword Orchid team, while Chen Yuyi successfully cleared them of suspicion and kept them from becoming tainted by such filth.

Having extracted the magical girls from the matter, Chen Yuyi was in an excellent mood.

She also posted the latest warning she had received during the meeting in the group chat, telling those girls not to go anywhere near that area for the time being.

The cleanup of the Witch Organization did not fall within the jurisdiction of the Judgment officers. It belonged instead to the jurisdiction of the elderly director who had spoken to her earlier.

What she had never expected was that Bai Youqing really did bring trouble wherever she went.

Chen Yuyi had only just told her not to go there, and the girl was already playing around in that very area. The Star of Ivy was still with Chen Yuyi, after all.

There was nothing for it. She could only send the other two girls over immediately. She also called the deputy captain, who had still not reported for duty, and urged her to make certain nothing went wrong.

If the director had not still been there, she would have flown over herself.

The meeting continued, covering a chaotic assortment of topics, and lasted for nearly half the night.

Then a phone call came in.

The elderly director's expression changed slightly after answering it. He gave Chen Yuyi, who had been preparing to resume slacking off, a bitter smile.

"Little Chen, it seems that it is not only our security bureau that will be busy lately. Your Judgment team has work to do as well."

"Director, what do you mean?" Chen Yuyi's expression turned solemn, and she immediately became fully attentive.

"Near the second village on Zhanfa Avenue, the special-security personnel and police cars have all disappeared without a trace. The four hooligans were found in an open lot not far away, reduced to nothing but a pile of bones.

"Samples taken from the scene indicate that the culprit was likely one of the Abyssal Demon Princess's subordinate creatures—the Golden Slime, known as the 'Love of the Abyss.'

"I sincerely hope that you can rescue the guards who went missing. Please, I beg you."

"Don't worry. We will find them alive or recover their bodies. Leave this matter to us."

Chen Yuyi took the missing-person reports from the woman in the yellow dress and flipped through several pages. Her brows drew tightly together as she returned to Yeqiu City No. 1 High School, her mood heavy with irritation.

She had originally thought she was merely attending the meeting as a formality. She had never expected another side quest to appear.

Why had the Abyssal Disaster Beasts and witches become so active lately......