Gaston left the Rook Squad immediately after he got off their cruiser transport. He called Constable Yu, got him to get transport from him, and found a police transport waiting for him in the helipad in the Hamamatsushi Shibo.

His destination was Neo-Tokyo.

Gaston watched the scenery pass by. He took a nap while keeping his firing hand in his pocket, just in case he needed to pull it out while he took a rest. Fifteen minutes later, he heard the semi-familiar noises of Neo-Tokyo. Constable Yu waited for him in his sleek black suit, hands shoved in the pocket while keeping his half-squinted eyes trained on Gaston.

He approached. Gaston watched him for a second before saying. “I’ll be honest with you, Constable,” he operated his wrist-pad. “People rarely deal with the UEDF because of the problems they think that an organization actively suppressing the ichorium fields is ‘heinous’ and ‘selfish’. Then again, those who work with us are after something or need our help.”

“Identification code, and ID please,” Gaston said like a machine.

“B150011,” Constable Yu handed his ID, which Gaston scanned with his head interface. “Constable Yu, IC checks out, and ID is clear as well.”

Gaston handed the ID back. “I have to make sure that you are the real one. Now, one last thing, I need you to hand me proof my handler would give you.”

Constable Yu showed a picture. In the picture was a sentence. “Al jorn del judici parrà qui avrà fet servici.”

“Good. We are working for now. If she told you, then better delete that now.”

Constable Yu visibly deleted the file from his mobile device. Gaston looked at the high-rise buildings of the city before eyeing the pilot that took them. “He is part of this?”

“Sato-san will be our pilot and driver for the rest of this cooperation.”

“Have you checked him out?”

“I have. Sato-san is clean.”

“Good. I don’t want the person transporting us to be a good listener.” Gaston didn’t look pleased. His face remained stoic. “I assume that you have your leads? Although you might have found nothing back then, I doubt you found nothing as well.”

Constable Yu looked around before handing the paper. Gaston checked the paper, reading the lines, and then noting the phrases that were underlined by Constable Yu. A pen scribbled the printed paper down. It was honestly so messy that it made Gaston question why he took the time to do it.

“Shells of Ahra, and how did you find this?”

He handed another printed paper. Gaston looked at the paper that said where the findings were. It came from a place that was a two-story apartment building near a park called Ganseki, Chiba City’s Choshi.

There was a basement containing the meeting room of the Shells of Ahra. They were recruiting Peels they could include in their cult. One of the ‘Peels’ that joined them had said in the paper that a ‘Husk’ named Mary initiated them to their group by introducing them to the beliefs of the cult.

“So we have something to do,” Gaston said. “We will find the Husk named Mary.”

“That’s the gist. So, will they ask around about you missing work?”

“They won’t ask because I’ve been in two accidents since coming here. I’m taking a paid leave. I was planning to use my paid leave for something else, but this matter handed down by Janna, I need to do this.”

***

Gaston left with the Constable to the city of Choshi by helicopter. There was no place that they needed to go, so they immediately went to the two-story apartment where they found the clues. They had no insights, no clues, and nothing to go for other than this two-story apartment with old vacuum tube televisions in the front and ancient gaming consoles. He even found an old Gameboy found in e-shops. He doubts he could find them outside of those online shops.

Gaston entered first while keeping his bioshield generator operational. He scanned the first floor and found nothing other than parts scattered on the left side of the floor. The bathroom smelled awful. The room was musky, and that there was simply no way that this shop could have attracted any customers. It was awful for a business front, and even if they were trying to make it look like one.

“Checked any readings here?”

“Ah, the Sitra Ahra Factor?”

“Yes, so did you?”

“We did, two hours ago.”

“No wonder it smells awful here.” Gaston skimmed his hand on one shelf. “But considering that you guys have bare minimum knowledge, then this is understandable.”

The two moved to the second floor. Futons strewn and rolled to the side. There was a stack of blankets near the sliding door, and it looked to him like a sweatshop’s room. He entered inside while still shielding the Constable with his bioshield-protected body.

“Hardy-san, why are you shielding m—”

An arrow answered his question. A hand-crafted arrow made of ichorium. It was good enough to cause a twenty-meter explosion. Gaston grabbed the tip and squeezed the arrowhead and the end of the arrow between his palms. Electricity ran over his palms and there was a tiny bang that was heard in his palms.

“What was that?”

“A small arrow, it’ll open a split-realm and summon a Type-2 that will then cause an explosion.”

Gaston threw the remnants of the arrow onto the ground. “Please stay behind me, Constable. I believe they did not equip you to handle the traps set by the cult.”

“And you are? I have my bioshield generator here.”

“I know. Just don’t argue with me about this. It takes a lot of time. I’m not an expert, but I at least know how to do this.”

“Strange. She said that you were inexperienced about the cult as well.”

Gaston kneeled on one leg. “I am. But I have my run-ins with them. They do their rituals differently, but there are similarities, such as how they construct their traps.”

“We made initial scans today. How could they have set up a trap like this?”

“They have their way of making sure that they can do this. So it’s not that strange that they can make it so that the trap would activate only when there is an intent. It’s a strange thing, no? A trap activated by the second or third group that comes.”

“Nothing here is of importance," Gaston declared. "We should head to the basement and see if there is anything worth looking at.”

Gaston and Constable Yu moved to the basement.

It was a large basement filled with wideband radio. He recognized one of the equipment in the basement. It was a ‘AN/PRC-77’ manpack radio that was heavily customized to their liking. Other than that, there was a database system attached to a cooling device on the ground. Gaston walked around the long table in the middle and started typing on the keyboard. He took out a flash drive, inserted it, and ran the cracking software on the operating system.

He got in.

He ejected the flash drive and ran an indexing search with the keywords ‘Ahra’ and ‘Husk’ in the search terms. He waited and searched the basement for additional clues. Constable Yu also looked around the basement, but he mostly stayed close to Gaston while keeping notes of the basement.

Gaston shook his head at that and turned off his electronic devices except for the bioshield generator. “It’s impressive how they are using the manpack radio to act as a communication node. Not that new, but still impressive. Just imagine what their tech-level are.”

Constable Yu nodded. He took something out of his pocket and took a picture of the qliphoth tree. He then focused the lens of the camera to the left corner of the room. Gaston scanned the area and ran his gloved hand along the wall until he found something.

It was a micro-camera that he had seen before. He pinched the camera with his fingers and crushed it with his gloved hand. Looking back at the database query he made, there were four thousand search results that had the terms ‘Ahra’ and ‘Husk’. He matched the case and filtered through the rest.

The search resulted in two thousand documents that had any relation to the files. “Too easy,” Gaston said. He looked up the storage that most of the files were in, and found them. “Constable, do you have any burner drives? A laptop as well if you please.”

“I have.”

“Tell Sato to come here,” Gaston said. “Tell him to bring them here so we can check this out. After this, make sure that he carries a bioshield generator and make him guard the front of the store while we’re here.”

“Got it.”

Constable Yu turned on his communication device and told Sato to bring the equipment. Sato arrived moments later, armed to the teeth, and carrying with him the burner drive and laptop.

Gaston took the drive and laptop. He then searched the room, took one of their adaptable cables, and started transferring everything that he looked up to on the burner laptop. “From now on, you’ll be using this laptop while working on this matter. Don’t connect any devices that have use for you and don’t even connect it to the net just to be safe. Janna told you that my role is only to assist you, but I will not fully involve myself in the operation, considering that the Ahra Cult is not exactly the people you want to contend with directly.”

“They are a problem that needs solving.”

“I couldn’t agree more, but the Cult is vast. It must have recently expanded to this sphere of the world, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t have ways. They will know what you are doing. And since I requested information from them, then it’s not that hard to make it known who the person who I am working with is.”

It was easy to guess why a person who requested information about the Ahra Cult is seeing a constable directly investigating the cult.

“So your best bet for now is to study the contents, and find us leads while you’re at it. “

“After that?”

“Pray that they don’t get to you first, Constable. I know you are wary of them. They just caused a storming event that almost drowned an entire region with monsters but if you want to uproot this cult from your homeland, then it would be best if you do it slowly and thoroughly.”

Constable Yu nodded. He was eager to get them out. That was something Gaston was sure about him. “Again, you’re not the first one to take a shot at the Cult. Even abroad, they are infamous for their crimes. We even believe that the new mutates were results from their experiments. They might be sloppy here since they have just entered the region, but they wouldn’t be, eventually. I can say this because they could create a district-wide storming event. Unfortunately for them, the USS Sable was around to help.”

“Do you think that the storming event won’t happen?”

“They probably have. This is merely a test from them. I don’t have the certainty that this will end up well, but if they are just testing what they know, then it would be truly best if you can act mindfully. I like to help you, because Janna said that I should. However, I will not act until we have something to go with. Just look at this place, even if they are luring us into a trap, and make it easy for us. And what you can find in these documents is not enough to spend the resources that the police have to investigate this case.”

Constable Yu looked bothered. “So, what do you suggest?”

“Keep it down, mislead them into thinking that we are figuring out who placed those ichorium-drive engines in the Ward. You’ll make it as a cover, while you gather more evidence that will actually justify spending the resources. Because honestly, what we have here only amounts to a conspiracy and a rambling of a group of people who believe that the cult exists. They won’t believe in it, Constable. That’s why we need proper evidence.”

The laptop finished transferring everything to the drive. Gaston faced the laptop, took out the same flash drive he used, plugged it in, and ran a cracking software. He then auto-played another software and installed a countermeasure. “This should keep it locked, but I should warn you again to avoid using anything that might sniff you out.”

Constable smiled wearily. “And here I thought we would work immediately.”

“We would have if you had any leads than this. We can’t just produce clues out of our asses now, can we? For now, focus on what we have, then another until we have solved enough questions that we can start with another question. We peel them off layer by layer, so until then we need patience.”

Gaston closed the laptop and handed it to the Constable. “So keep me posted, Constable.”

“I will.”

“Good, because you can say that I have some qualms about them as well. So this is a good excuse to find them.”

Gaston disliked the cult, and if he could find a way to mess with them.

Then he at least would gladly oblige.