“You didn’t even tell Mr. Roland?”
The heavy door shut with a soft, dull click, sealing out the noise from the hallway.
Only then did Deputy Director Taylor let out a sigh of relief. He took a somewhat hesitant half-step forward and asked in a cautious, hushed voice.
Ms. Cecil didn’t answer right away. She walked across the soft, thick carpet toward the liquor cabinet.
With a gentle sweep of her sleeve, she picked up an elegantly crafted cut-crystal glass.
Her slender fingers grasped the dark oak cork and gave it a gentle pull. With a soft pop, the bottle was opened.
A rich, dark red liquid, carrying the earthy fragrance of oak-aged barrel maturation, poured smoothly into the glass.
It was the Kingdom of Velen's famous Red River wine.
The mellow aroma of the wine drifted through the room, easing their tightly strung nerves, if only a little.
“Not yet,” Ms. Cecil said.
She walked back to the desk with her glass and sat down gracefully. Her cool voice was entirely devoid of emotion.
Taylor watched her slowly sip the blood-red liquid and couldn't help but murmur, “You’re drinking at a time like this?”
Ms. Cecil’s gaze drifted to Taylor’s face.
“If I don’t drink now, I’m afraid there won’t be anything fit for consumption left in Hastings Port soon.”
“And that includes information.”
Taylor offered no response to that, instead pulling a case out of his briefcase.
It was an alchemy recording case, containing the dispatch and review files from the battle of Hastings Port.
As Taylor turned the knob on top, a pleasant whirring of gears echoed from within. The locked lid popped open, revealing a thick stack of carbon copy papers inside.
Taylor placed the recording case on the desk and pushed it toward Ms. Cecil.
“During this sea-folk invasion, we were indeed a step behind,” he summarized with a touch of bitterness. “At every critical defensive node where a decision had to be made, we were fatally late by a few minutes.”
Taylor tapped his finger firmly on the top sheet of paper.
“When the East Bank defensive line was ambushed, the First Tactical Team, which we had mobilized for support, was urgently rerouted to an empty warehouse midway. The reason given was a suspected spiritual bomb ambush.”
“Second, the mystic squad responsible for site cleanup and pollution containment evacuated a full twelve minutes early.”
“Third, the spirit-measuring alarm at the harbor clock tower.”
“Ten minutes before the massive spiritual tide of the sea-folk breached the harbor, the clock tower’s alchemical sensors had already reacted violently.”
“Yet, the alarm level was downgraded by two tiers by the staff on duty, classifying it directly as a standard fire.”
“And here—just ten minutes before the battle began, our cloaked surveillance team stationed outside the Wayland Shipping office happened to receive a temporary order from the wartime dispatch desk.”
“The entire team was rotated out during those crucial ten minutes, leaving us completely blind to Wayland’s core movements.”
Ms. Cecil flipped through the records on the desk. As her eyes scanned the cold Runic symbols, her brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
This was absolutely no ordinary mistake. It was a well-planned coordination.
“Whose hands did these orders pass through?” she asked, looking up, her voice tinged with displeasure.
Instead of answering immediately, Taylor pulled out several distinct, light-blue carbon sheets from the recording case and spread them out on the mahogany desk.
“That is precisely the problem, Special Envoy.”
“They didn’t come from the same person,” Deputy Director Taylor explained.
“The rerouting order for the East Bank reinforcements came via an urgent fax from the field communications room.”
“The early rotation and evacuation of the containment squad was authorized by a temporary special approval from the pollution control unit.”
“The downgrading of the spirit-measuring alarm came from the harbor clock tower’s night-shift scribe.”
“And the withdrawal of the surveillance team was a temporary annotation from the wartime dispatch desk.”
He paced back and forth across the spacious suite, his leather shoes making a dull rustling sound against the carpet. It seemed this physical movement was the only way he could soothe the growing unease in his heart.
“Viewed individually, each of these looks like an unavoidable compromise made in the chaos of a disaster, entirely reasonable.”
“But when chained together, they ensured that we were late at every single step.”
Ms. Cecil lined up the record sheets on the desk.
“In other words, someone didn’t issue a direct command. Instead, they gave a gentle nudge at every single link in the chain.”
Triggering a systemic collapse through minute interferences, while wrapping themselves in rogue logic to appear as a moral paragon—this method was outrageously sophisticated.
Faced with this exquisite infiltration that exploited the vulnerabilities of their administrative system, Taylor could only offer a noncommittal, bitter smile.
“Where is Director Breed?” Ms. Cecil asked, looking up at Taylor.
“The Director is currently at the Harbor Authority, holding a meeting with Wayland’s post-disaster representatives, the city hall, and Chester Works to discuss priority transit for reconstruction supplies.”
Deputy Director Taylor sighed.
“The arguments over there are incredibly fierce. Director Breed can’t pull himself away at all right now.”
Ms. Cecil nodded as she flipped through the report.
“We’ll start by holding the easiest department to influence accountable,” she said with resolve, setting down her wine glass and pointing to the carbon copy sheet regarding the alarm downgrade.
If the spiderweb was delicate, they would start with the crudest, greediest node, ripping its threads away one by one.
Ten minutes later.
When the night-shift scribe from two nights ago was brought into Ms. Cecil’s suite by two investigators in black trench coats, he was utterly dazed and on the verge of a breakdown.
He was a thin man wearing a pair of crooked, round glasses. Out of sheer terror, his body trembled violently like chaff in the wind, and he could barely stand.
He repeatedly insisted that he had only classified the spirit-measuring alarm as a standard fire according to protocol.
“Special Envoy!”
“I was just following the rules!”
“The regulations state that if there is only thick smoke and physical combustion, the municipal fire brigade takes priority! I was truly just following protocol!”
“Who told you to do it?” Ms. Cecil asked coldly.
She sat upright in her chair, a chilling light glinting in her eyes.
Cold sweat poured down the thin man's forehead, dripping off his glasses onto the floor. His face was deathly pale.
“It was the people from the Blue Sail Trading Company!”
“It was their manager, Manager Luther!”
Without the slightest hesitation, he sold out his accomplice, laying out the entire sequence of events clearly.
“Before the battle, he said there was a kerosene leak in their warehouse causing a fire. He begged me not to sound the highest alarm, so that Wayland’s military supplies wouldn’t be seized on the spot by the military.”
“I saw that the spiritual reaction on the sensor was indeed mixed with self-combusting coal tar, so I thought it was a false alarm and changed the level...”
“A false alarm?”
Standing to the side, Deputy Director Taylor sneered with deep contempt.
“Since when does the Harbor Authority listen to trading companies to interpret spirit-measuring instruments?”
“Since when does a manager of a mortal trading company override the alchemical defensive line established by the Seventh Agency??”
Under the dual pressure of supernatural power and official authority, the night-shift scribe’s mental state collapsed completely. He slumped onto the carpet, weeping.
“I was wrong!”
“Manager Luther slipped me fifteen gold crowns! He only asked for a favor to help prioritize their cargo trucks leaving the harbor!”
“Fifteen gold crowns was enough for you to suppress a spirit-measuring alarm?” Ms. Cecil asked, her voice dripping with unvarnished disgust.
Fifteen gold crowns could buy out a city's defenses. In this world infested with monsters, stupidity and greed were indeed far more lethal than the Hand of Necromancy of any cultist.
He wept, desperately banging his head against the floor.
“It wasn't suppressing, it was changing the classification!”
“I really didn’t know there would be a sea-folk invasion afterward, ma'am!”
“I thought it was just a kerosene fire, Special Envoy!”
“Take him away,” Ms. Cecil waved her hand, too tired to look at the miserable wretch any longer.
She turned and instructed Taylor, “Have someone retrieve the post-disaster transit records for the Blue Sail Trading Company.”
A few minutes later, the transit records of the Blue Sail Trading Company were delivered in haste.
However, once the records arrived, the mystery only deepened by another layer.
“Something’s wrong,” Deputy Director Taylor muttered, his brow furrowing deeply as he stared at the approval log, his voice heavy.
“The Blue Sail Trading Company didn’t just have a release slip from the Harbor Authority. They also had a priority transit pass from the Seventh Agency's temporary dispatch desk.”
He pointed at the complex anti-counterfeit rune watermark, his voice dropping low.
“This isn't something an ordinary trading company could ever lay its hands on.”
“This belongs to a special command pass. By regulation, only high-level directives or hand-signed approvals from those at the deputy director level or above can take effect at the dispatch desk.”
At this moment, facing this unknown shadow lurking within their own defenses, Taylor’s eyes held a trace of unspeakable wariness.
“Who handled it?” Ms. Cecil glanced at him.
Taylor flipped through a couple of pages of the raw, bottom-level logs, his fingers tracing quickly over the annotation symbols.
“There’s no signature, only a serial number.”
He looked up, his expression somewhat strange.
“Check the number,” Ms. Cecil commanded coldly.
Taylor immediately signaled the investigators under his command to cross-reference it in the confidential archive room.
The door shut once more, and dead silence returned to the room.
Ms. Cecil massaged her temples, her gaze cold.
The situation in Hastings Port was indeed far more complex than in Hope County.
Back in Hope County, no matter how grand the scale of events, the clues had at least been traceable.
If only the moles here could be like that narcissistic Luke, leaping out of the dark corners on their own—that would save so much effort.
At least she wouldn’t have to sit here like this, searching for a needle in a haystack amidst a mountain of confusing official papers and convoluted bureaucratic processes.
But based on the current trail of breadcrumbs, she already had a faint suspicion.
The mole in Hastings Port held a significant rank and possessed the authority to mobilize strategic passes. They were certainly not some insignificant nobody like the night-shift scribe or Luke.
To be able to quietly pull strings across four critical defensive nodes simultaneously, their position had to be exceptionally high.
Thinking of this, Ms. Cecil sneered, a cold glint flashing through her eyes.
Not long after, a series of hurried footsteps echoed down the quiet hallway.
The investigator who had been sent out stood at the door, looking travel-worn.
“Special Envoy.”
“We have a lead.”
Rate on N.U.
