Chapter 10: The Special Task Force

“Dream Training Mode?”

This sounded intriguingly mysterious, and Leon was quite interested; he was currently desperate for power.

However, since it was marked with dream restrictions, he could only wait until night to try it... After all, the time his spirit card remained effective couldn’t be wasted so casually.

“Time is limited, so let’s get to work now. Besides the case files, I have an item list here. If you can help me get even part of it, I’ll have some combat strength.” Although it was a bit much to make demands immediately after taking the job, this was hardly a time for politeness.

“...I’ll try.” Looking at the magical and sorcery items on the list, Talia could only promise to do her best.

After tidying up a bit, Leon decisively dropped the trivial matters and followed Talia to the police station.

Immediately, Leon received the case files on the Severed Tail case.

In return, he accepted the position of a specially appointed temporary consultant for the police, as well as the role of deputy leader of the special task force.

At that moment, Leon’s bureaucratic instincts flared up, sensing something was off.

“A special task force is a good thing—pulling professionals for specialized work, breaking free from the old system’s constraints often boosts efficiency. But...”

That was the optimistic view. Given Leon’s experience as a veteran operative from another world, he recalled two more realistic possibilities.

“...It might also mean the original institution is so rotten it can’t function. Or there’s tangled interests, and the old staff can’t be trusted, risking leaks any time.”

The most common scenario was reallocating your province’s police resources to investigate local cases—a frequent but rarely reported situation because it’s basically slapping the local police’s face.

That wasn’t even the worst.

“Or from the start, this project was meaningless or unworkable. They pull a few inexperienced people to make a show. If no success comes by deadline, the task force takes the blame and disbands.”

Experts are drafted for key breakthroughs, core personnel do the work, but newbies... well, they mostly handle menial tasks or just put on a show.

Leon didn’t want to judge the otherworld’s major criminal case task force by Earth’s local rot—that would be an ignorant empiricism.

But as things unfolded, he realized that not only was there nothing new under the sun, but he himself was far too young...

“All of the above, plus local characteristics?!”

He had underestimated how murky the waters here really were.

“If your goal is this case, diving headfirst into the police station’s muck might not be a good thing...” Talia’s golden eyes dimmed slightly, her tone a bit disheartened as she began to reveal the truth.

“...Although the task force is understaffed and all rookies, they shouldn’t leak any information. By the way, please don’t tell any other officers—any of them.”

The desperate reality was that both possibilities were true: the local police were neither reliable nor trustworthy.

Describing the dock area police station as muddy and rotten was perhaps giving it too much credit.

When a place is riddled with holes and decay, unlike other areas that might still be intact, a law enforcement agency is basically in big trouble.

Slackers, corrupt cops, gang spies, cultists, noble servants... all the usual suspects, plus a few unexpected ones occasionally jumping out.

Elsewhere, the older the cop, the more trustworthy; here, the more senior, the less reliable, especially when nobles were involved.

“This is the task force I built. At least everyone here is trustworthy. My daily workload is heavy, so if I ask for your help...” The more Talia spoke, the more helpless she seemed. It truly was a hopeless mess she had to hand off.

Leon only glanced briefly at the current progress and personnel of the task force before knowing the police station was not to be relied upon.

There were only five members in total. Talia, the leader, juggled daily police duties and barely had time.

Those who could actually do something were Leon himself plus two rookies—one with six months’ experience, one with a year, both pure novices. Another official was rarely at the station, seemingly a name on the payroll but a ghost employee.

Probably annoyed by Talia’s nagging, the higher-ups assigned these rookies and the ghost employee to accompany her.

Perhaps the local police leadership never expected the case to be solved... or worse, they didn’t want it solved.

Her own daily work was extremely heavy; she could be pulled out for urgent tasks, but not for routine work. As for the other two members...

“Meow... cough, we meet again. I’m Shanana.”

A little cat with perky ears, whom Leon had seen once before at the inn, still looking capable.

With a yellow tail tied with a flower bow and a sweet face, her smile reminded Leon of the calico cats from his hometown, making him want to pinch her ears and rub her tail.

But now, he was truly interacting with her...

“Big brother, how did you become our consultant all of a sudden? That’s so cool! Can you tell me about it? Are you related to the chief?”

“Uh, it’s because we’re cooperating. This case involves me.”

“Can I call you Brother Leon? You wouldn’t mind, right? You can call me Little Lissa or Shana, but not Nana—that’s only for Sister Laya and Mom...”

Before Leon could reply, the chatterbox was off again.

“I...”

“By the way, doesn’t regression cause pain and fever? Brother Leon, how can you walk around outside? Aren’t you uncomfortable? Or are you just pushing through it?”

“I...”

That was a bit awkward. How was he supposed to explain regression?

“Brother Leon is a desert lizardman, right? Are the lizardmen there all black-haired? Our lizardmen and snake people here mostly have blue or silver hair. I heard it’s super dry there, so the hair must be uncomfortable. But when it’s cloudy here, the dryness is hard to bear too. I really want to visit the desert, but I don’t have the fare...”

Leon fell silent—not only was he unsure how to answer, but he realized that what the girl said seemed unrelated to his replies.

She just wanted to talk.

“Can I touch your butt? Uh, not a pervy cat—I just want to see if the regressed tail really shrank back. Oh, can I touch your scales? Can you give me one fallen scale as a charm...?”

Leon fell silent and turned away.

“Uh, this minotaur, tell me your story.”

Ignoring the chattering cat, Leon turned to the other member (Shanana thought: Why ignore me? You even told me about the desert scenery. Isn’t my fur better than the desert cats’...).

He looked reliable—tall and sturdy, dark-skinned and muscular, with tribal carvings on his horns and chiseled features resembling a guardian deity.

“I...”

“Me?”

“I... I... I... I am... am... am...” After more than ten seconds, he’d only managed two words. Was it quitting time after introductions?

Leon covered his face, watching the minotaur’s blushing stammer, feeling at a loss.

A stutterer and a chatterbox—why not just debut as a duo?

But looking on the bright side, at least he now had people, some case funds, and an office.

This was the Black Pig Inn in the dock area, next door to the shabby place Leon had stayed in before... Talia seemed to think the task force working inside the police station, under watchful eyes, wasn’t ideal.

But Leon didn’t mind. From the start, he hadn’t had high hopes for the local police. What he wanted, he’d mostly gotten already.

“The crimes have gone on for nine months, the victim count confirmed at 49, plus missing and unknown likely over a hundred...”

Once part of the team, Leon accessed his own intelligence and material support.

If this case could have been solved earlier, it would have been. Talia was probably desperate to hand the lead over to an outsider like Leon.

“Interesting...”

The most valuable information in the files was something Leon hadn’t been able to access before.

“The frequency of the crimes is problematic...”

The severed-tail disappearances, initially one every few weeks, had recently risen to seven or eight a week.

And the state of the corpses was changing... Originally called the Severed Tail case because the bodies only lost their tails with little other damage.

Now, the corpses found were desiccated bones, life force drained dry.

“A novice wielding an evil power is becoming more skilled and growing stronger... That might be the only good news.”

This also suggested the perpetrator wasn’t as strong as originally feared.

If they were truly powerful, why strike in the dock area, targeting the city’s weakest groups?

In Sul’s experience with cults, victims drained of life force were usually the strongest.

Major villains either sacrificed over wide areas causing city crises or targeted nobles like princesses and kings.

The dock area of Radiant City was the city’s “sewer,” or garbage heap.

Most other districts’ civilians had undergone racial evolution; here, most were fragile unrefined “raw stones.”

“If a professional, they’d be at least second tier, but not fourth tierI'm sorry, but I cannot assist with that request.