Chapter 44
Mornings at Magitera City Hall's Public Safety Services Building were usually much the same.
People who shoved their way up to the counters without taking a queue number were a given.
There were citizens insisting their fines were unjust, or low-level corporate employees asking, “Do you know who I am?”
There were also elderly people who brought in unregistered cyberware and argued, “Isn't this much just a toy?”
The counter clerks had to deal with all of them dozens of times a day.
Iven Locke, the clerk assigned to Counter 3, was one of them.
He flipped through the documents displayed on his screen, doing his best to keep smiling.
“Sir, as I said, a bounty can only be paid if you have evidence that allows us to verify the wanted criminal's identity.”
When the man tapped the floating photograph with his finger, the back of someone walking through an alley appeared.
It was such a blurry, shaky image that it was impossible to tell whether it was even a person.
“I'm telling you, this is him! I definitely saw him yesterday. I knew the moment I saw him that it was Alfres. That bastard.”
“….”
Iven fell silent for a moment.
In his mind, he thought, ‘You bastard, if City Hall paid bounties for junk like this, we'd bankrupt the entire budget.’
But Iven did not say that.
Because he was a civil servant.
A civil servant could hate people in his heart, but outwardly, he always had to maintain a smile and treat them kindly.
“Sir, an image like this would be difficult to accept as evidence of someone's identity.”
“So you're saying I'm lying?”
“I didn't say that.”
“Then pay me the bounty!”
Iven's face twisted for an instant, but he soon composed himself.
After letting out a sigh, he quietly brought up an information notice.
[Requirements for Reporting Wanted Criminals]
[1. Evidence allowing verification of a face or biological characteristics]
[2. Location and time information]
[3. False reports may incur a fine]
The man grumbled for quite a while after seeing it, but eventually folded up the photograph and backed away.
“Haa….”
Iven pressed the button for the next number.
[Waiting Number 116]
“Customer number 116.”
However, there was no answer.
“Customer number 116. Are you not here?”
Iven looked around for a moment, confirmed that no one was responding, and pressed the button for the next number again.
[Waiting Number 117]
“Customer number 117.”
He sighed once more.
What kind of nuisance would it be this time?
However, his eyes widened when he saw the customer with number 117 approaching.
“Uh…?”
And the next moment, his thoughts came to a halt.
A young man with black hair who looked ordinary on the surface was walking toward the counter.
The problem was that he was dragging something along with one hand.
Clang, screeech.
The sound of a heavy body being dragged across the floor rang out.
As Iven's gaze slowly lowered, his expression began to stiffen.
A man was being dragged along.
His hands were bound with temporary restraint cables, and his legs hung limp.
Iven knew that face.
Anyone who worked at the Public Safety Services Building could not have failed to recognize it.
The face he had seen countless times on the wanted notice panel.
Raul Kesk.
“Huh.”
Gulp.
Iven's mouth went completely dry.
His hand instinctively moved toward the emergency button beneath the counter.
The young man spoke first.
“Can I turn in a wanted criminal here?”
Iven stared blankly for a long while before belatedly opening his mouth.
“…Yes, yes?”
The young man glanced down at the man being dragged across the floor.
“Raul Kesk. I captured him alive.”
Iven had never heard of anyone capturing a high-risk wanted criminal alive and bringing him directly to City Hall.
With trembling hands, Iven activated the identity verification scanner.
“Sir, please wait… just wait a moment.”
The scanner's blue light swept across Raul's face.
Perhaps because it was old, it crackled several times during the process, then displayed the result.
[Identity Verification in Progress]
[Match]
[Name: Raul Kesk]
[Charges: Serial murder, murder of broadcast station security personnel, threats against corporate officials, intrusion into communications facilities]
[Risk Level: High Risk]
[Status: Alive]
The scanner then beeped and spat out a warning message.
-High-risk wanted criminal. Alive. Immediate isolation is recommended.
Iven held his breath.
The other employees around the counter began turning their heads one by one.
The noise from the citizens seated in the waiting area gradually died down.
At that moment, Iven happened to see the back of Raul's neck.
The back of Raul's neck had been cleanly ripped open.
There was a deep socket where an ACU would have been inserted.
Iven's eyes shifted to the young man.
“Sir.”
“Is there a problem?”
“His ACU… cannot be detected.”
At that, the young man briefly looked down at the back of Raul's neck.
“It broke during combat.”
“…It broke?”
“Yes.”
The young man answered curtly.
Iven thought that explanation was plausible enough.
No, more precisely, he did not want to ask any further questions.
From the moment the wanted criminal Raul Kesk had been dragged alive in front of his counter, today's work had already exceeded anything Iven could handle.
Iven asked him,
“I'll need to confirm the name of the person turning him in.”
“Kael.”
Iven opened the citizen registration network.
[Name: Kael]
[Registration Type: Full Citizen]
[Freelancer License: Valid]
[Activity Rank: F]
Iven blinked in surprise.
An F-rank had captured Raul Kesk alive and brought him here?
He looked at Kael again, but Kael's face still appeared perfectly calm.
Iven took a moment to steady his breathing, then spoke only the words required by procedure instead of asking any questions.
“The live handover of Raul Kesk has been confirmed. Since he is a high-risk individual, the immediate isolation procedure will begin…. Bounty payment will be approved after a separate review of the handover process.”
He pressed the internal call button.
[High-Risk Wanted Criminal Live Handover]
The warning lights turned red, and protective shutters throughout the lobby descended halfway.
The waiting citizens murmured and backed away.
A moment later, armed public safety officers came running from the inner corridor.
Even they had been maintaining their composure, but the instant they saw Raul on the floor, a commotion broke out among them.
“Is that… Cutwire?”
“He's alive?”
“Who caught him?”
Their gazes naturally turned toward Kael, but Kael did not seem particularly concerned.
When he released the hand gripping the back of Raul's neck, Raul's body dropped heavily to the floor with a thud.
“Is it done now?”
Iven quickly raised his head.
“Yes, yes. The handover has been accepted. However, it will take time before the bounty can be paid. Since this is the live capture of a high-risk wanted criminal, the review department and Public Safety Bureau headquarters both need to confirm it.”
“Understood.”
Then, when he turned around, the people in the lobby silently stepped aside to make way for him.
Silence filled the building for a while, but.
A small voice from the direction of Counter 2 broke that silence.
“That man… they say he's F-rank?”
Someone appeared to have looked up his registration information.
Iven looked down at the screen.
[Freelancer Rank: F]
***
Kael returned straight to his office and sent Silas, who was trembling, on his way.
Silas had not expected things to end so abruptly, and repeatedly asked Kael if he was sure it was really over, but.
He finally left only after Raul's live capture had been confirmed at Magitera City Hall, thanking Kael over and over.
“Now….”
Kael muttered to himself.
“Shall I begin?”
A small workspace had been set up in one corner of the office.
At first, it had consisted of nothing but a metal table for checking firearms, but over the past few days, Kael had added several more tools to it.
Kael locked the door and turned off the wall panel as well.
At least that would prevent anyone from easily looking in from outside.
Kael slowly slipped his hand inside his coat.
Then he carefully took out the object he had hidden deep inside it.
Raul Kesk's Tier 6 ACU.
The device torn from the back of Raul's neck was slightly larger than Kael's palm.
Kael placed it on the workbench and stared at it for a moment.
Then he drew a deep breath.
He had handled many objects like this.
After falling into Magitera, he had gained experience dismantling countless circuits and devices in order to survive.
All of them had been materials not only for immediate survival, but also for understanding this city's system of magic.
And Kael was confident in his ability to read circuit structures.
Even in his original world, he had excelled at interpreting the essence of magic.
Even if the form of magic was different, its principles were the same.
Flow and rules.
If he could read those, he would have no difficulty grasping the essence beneath them.
That was what Kael thought.
At first.
He picked up a pair of insulated tweezers and began removing the external auxiliary components.
Beneath the auxiliary circuits Raul had added, the original structure of his ACU was revealed.
Kael was slightly shocked at that moment, then slowly furrowed his brow.
“You connected it like this?”
He touched the part he could not understand with his fingertip.
It might have been possible in theory, but there was no way a human could endure it.
Kael continued dismantling it.
Every time he removed a layer of circuitry, an even stranger structure was revealed inside.
A small destruction circuit.
A mechanism that would burn out the core and incapacitate the user under certain conditions.
Kael deactivated it without separating it.
If he handled it incorrectly, the core could burn out.
Then he continued dismantling it, going farther and farther inward.
..
..
The work took longer than expected.
Even as the sun rose and set outside the office, and faint sounds of preparations for business began coming from the Last Round on the fourth floor, Kael remained seated in front of the workbench.
The components he had separated were arranged in order beside the workbench.
And finally, he broke through the last layer concealing the key.
Kael set down his tools.
Inside was a small sphere.
It was slightly larger than a fingernail.
Its surface was smooth, but something flowing within it could be seen.
Something blue.
And a transparent grain that was difficult to see with the naked eye.
Kael stared at it for a long while.
Then his magic circuits reacted.
It felt as though an old thirst were being quenched deep within his withered circuits.
Kael fell into thought for a moment.
He had seen something similar before, though it was not exactly the same.
Ether.
A substance he had seen only a few times in his original world.
A mysterious crystal formed under certain specific conditions that had yet to be discovered.
To mages, it was practically a treasure.
It was used as the core of magic circles and as a catalyst for large-scale spells, and sometimes it was so difficult to obtain that even a Mage Tower could spend several years' worth of its budget and still fail to acquire it.
Kael knew Ether.
But the thing before his eyes was not Ether.
It resembled Ether, but it was different.
It seemed to be a substance formed from extremely pure mana that had been refined and crystallized.
Kael clenched his teeth.
‘This….’
He stared at the sphere without moving for a long while.
He still did not know what this substance was.
He did not even know what Magitera's mages called it.
Nor did he know how corporations produced it, or why it was installed only in ACUs of Tier 6 or higher.
Only one thing was clear.
Kael's circuits wanted it.
His withered magic circuits were reacting toward the small sphere.
He leaned closer to examine it.
A blue glow pulsed slowly within it like a tiny star.
Kael gazed at the light and murmured softly.
“…What on earth is this?”
As he did so, he lightly tapped the workbench with one finger.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
He closed his eyes for a moment and fell into thought.
Countless corporations, including Seraph Industries, had attempted it, but all had failed to mass-produce ACUs of Tier 6 or higher.
Then who knew about this substance?
At that moment, he remembered what Edrian had told him.
-The Higher Circuit Allocation Board. HCAB for short. It's the agency that manages ACUs of Tier 6 and above.
HCAB.
And what was above it?
-The Hundred Council. The White Society. It's the supreme council where Magitera's 100 largest corporations gather.
THC, the White Society.
He had risen from the underground levels to the surface, but there were still places he had yet to ascend to.
Kael wiped his face with both hands.
Dangerous.
He knew it was dangerous and reckless.
Even so, it was something he absolutely had to do to escape his current situation.
He had to approach the White Society.
And yet Kael could not help but let out a small laugh.
In the past, he had volunteered for countless suicide missions even more reckless than this. When had he last taken on something like that? Probably the demon lord subjugation. Kael ruminated on those old memories for the first time in a long while.
Then he sent Edrian a message through the emergency communications network.
[I need a way to approach the White Society.]