The Druid Who Swallowed Mother Nature - Chapter 95



Only Krnovel

Episode 95. That’s it for now

Paaang!

“What are you doing now!”

“There’s a hole in front!”

“Aren’t you going quickly?!”

I covered my ears with loud shouts.

These are the citizens of the city who lived far away from the word control.

District 4 has been under the influence of gangs for a long time, while District 5 has been away from the administrative power of the city government.

They only blocked traffic for a short time by going out onto the road, but there was a loud protest.

“I will demonstrate first, so please follow along.”

Taylor stood firm despite the torrent of criticism.

The way they confidently crossed between protesting vehicles as if they were going to ram them was admirable, if not old-fashioned, as was their courage.

“What are you guys?”

“This is the police station. We will be controlling the area for a while and conducting a search, so please cooperate.”

“A security checkpoint?”

The driver’s eyes were narrow, visible through the half-rolled window.

“How can I trust you guys to be the police or the Nabal?”

“This is the conquest of the police station.”

“Okay, I’m busy so get out now. I’m really unlucky.”

“Hmm.”

Taylor was perplexed by the reckless insistence of his opponent.

Even the gangs that rule an area act like they are on a leash against the police officers who are scheming.

‘You don’t know the fear of the police.’

That’s because we rarely come into contact with the police in our daily lives.

They think they can ignore it because they often turn a blind eye to serious crimes such as murder and kidnapping.

It was your own fault.

“This is an official notice from the city government, so please cooperate. We will need to inspect your belongings and search the interior, so please open the car doors.”

“I said I don’t know!”

It didn’t seem like the inspection would proceed normally like this.

There’s nothing I can do.

I sighed and stepped out.

“… … Come back for a moment.”

“Oh, okay, I’ll do it.”

“If you work like that, when are you going to inspect each and every one of them? Didn’t you learn from your superiors how to inspect?”

“I did it according to the textbook.”

“If the police department had followed the principles, the city’s security wouldn’t have been in such a mess.”

“… … .”

If you follow the principle, it was like that.

Rather than just standing by and doing nothing under the pretense that it had no influence on the city’s upper echelons, even petty criminals should have been tracked down and thrown in jail.

I silenced Taylor, pushed him away, and leaned against the vehicle.

“What are you?”

“Give me three seconds. Come out.”

“what?”

“Three seconds have passed.”

I put my hand through the half-open window.

The driver looked bewildered, as if he had little grasp of the situation.

He grabbed me by the collar and roughly dragged me to the window.

Kwajik!

“Cough!”

“What are you doing!”

There were screams and scoldings as the driver’s forehead hit the window and it shattered.

I spoke into the driver’s hunched face.

“This is your final warning. Open the door and get down.”

“I’ll get off, I’ll get off!”

“Don’t just talk about it. Get moving right now.”

Kkudangtang!

When your throat is choked, your breathing becomes impossible.

When your breathing is interrupted, your brain shuts down and your judgment becomes clouded.

The driver opened the door in a hurry without even being able to move his body, and then fell to the floor.

“Now that you’ve been dragged out, let’s inspect your belongings and check the inside of the vehicle.”

Since the table has been set, it’s your turn to eat.

“What on earth are you doing… … .”

Taylor muttered blankly.

Looking down at the driver whose nose was bleeding profusely, as if it was broken.

“This is how you do a search.”

Are you shocked or something?

It wasn’t my job.

The commission I received wasn’t to take care of Aesongi.

“Why, did you draw a picture of them laughing and cooperating nicely with each other?”

“That’s not it, but… … .”

“It’s a police checkpoint. If they don’t listen, you can beat them and threaten them to make them cooperate. They’re carrying out their official duties to catch criminals, so it’s right to achieve their goal by being coercive.”

Rather, there was no one who would listen to nice words.

Shooting people with guns and disposing of their bodies as an example was just an accident that happened quite often during the process.

He was shot dead as he was suspected of suspicious behavior.

It was a universal excuse used in the police department.

“… … I will check your belongings.”

“Yes, yes.”

The driver submitted to the inspection obediently.

Unfortunately, illegally modified implants were found in the trunk.

The driver forgot that his face was covered in coffee and washed his face dry.

“Nothing much. Let’s move on.”

“But there is a risk… … .”

“It’s not related to terrorism. If we confiscate them one by one, it will only cause trouble.”

Inspection is a means, not an end.

The main focus was on cracking down on terrorists, so there was no need to increase the workload unnecessarily.

This was a common practice in checkpoints in the first place.

The driver must have been unaware of this and had been driving with his feet still numb.

“Of course, there’s no reason to pretend not to see it.”

I extended my hand to the driver.

His pupils fluttered for a moment, but then he seemed to understand my actions and started rummaging through his pockets.

“This is all I have right now… … .”

“passing.”

“thank you!”

The driver ran away in a panic, probably worried that he would be caught again.

“What is it?”

“A small amount of gratitude.”

“… … It’s a bribe.”

“If you express it without emotion, it will become a word like that.”

It’s not like I’m just going to eat it all up.

I was satisfied with just a little bit of sincerity.

“There’s no need to reject it, I’m just suggesting that we use our wits to reduce the hassle for each other.”

I stuffed half the bill into Taylor’s pocket.

He fidgeted as if he had been covered in something dirty, then let out a sigh of resignation.

“… … You know more than I do. Have you ever worked at the police department before?”

“People are all the same wherever they live.”

Taylor didn’t ask for details.

I didn’t have the heart to go into detail about it either.

At this point, we’ve pretty much shown you a demonstration.

“Go to work now.”

Your work doesn’t look bad, so I’m sure you’ll do well.

***

It’s been a week since the inspection began.

The inspection, which started on a neighborhood scale, expanded in scope over time and soon reached the point where it controlled all five districts.

Indeed, only a very small number of members were caught during inspections, making it difficult to tell whether the internal structure was actually comprised of a guerrilla organization.

That’s also a story I’ve heard from time to time.

Taylor and I have been having a blast.

“I am here.”

“Yes, please pass.”

“thank you.”

The only achievement so far has been to improve Taylor’s interrogation skills.

Even now, they are quick to take bribes and send vehicles.

‘Those who bribe from the start are actually not suspicious.’

It was a survival technique to get through the hassle.

The ones who should be suspicious are those who go a step further and ask for the circumstances.

‘Because they’re dirty bastards trying to confirm whether the search was aimed at them or not.’

Taylor quickly understood and put it into practice.

Once you teach something, you don’t forget it and quickly learn it, so it was an efficient investment that paid off in one day’s hard work.

“… … It’s ambiguous.”

“Did I do something wrong just now?”

“No, I didn’t mean you.”

It’s already been a week.

The results of the investigation were minimal and no information was extracted from the organization’s members.

The sheriff’s plan is to get the sheriff, but I’m not sure.

‘If it was going to be successful, it wouldn’t have taken a week.’

Sheriffs aren’t just chosen for their brute force.

In addition, he was considered a high-level human resource who had to be skilled to be considered as having the minimum qualifications.

A week would have been enough time to see results if the sheriff had made his move.

And yet, the higher-ups at the police department remain silent.

‘It’s not a foolish organization.’

It is a terrorist organization that operates systematically.

It was a rare occurrence in Galaga City.

If you have the ability to do that, it’s much better to hire yourself as a mercenary for a company and sell your skills.

‘It doesn’t seem like a request that can be resolved just by trusting and leaving it to me.’

Rather, if you let your guard down, you may end up in trouble.

Terrorist organization.

If they had the ability to escape the clutches of the Police Department, it wouldn’t be strange if they tried to toy with the Police Department instead.

‘I think I’m starting to get a feel for what this incident was about.’

There were still not enough clues.

But considering that it wasn’t a simple incident at face value, there were a few things that came to mind.

The reason I can’t come to a conclusion is because there are still parts of me that I’m mistaken about.

In order to find out this, we couldn’t just blindly stick to inspections.

I took out my phone and sent a message.

When I contacted a virtual contact who didn’t actually exist, a message automatically appeared on my phone screen.

“How may I help you?”

“Connect to the CCTV screens in District 5.”

“All right.”

Numerous images appeared and disappeared repeatedly on the small cell phone screen.

The falcon’s eyesight, synchronized with that of the sentinel, scanned them accurately without missing a single one.

There were some suspicious figures in the quickly passing video.

The police will also be reviewing the CCTV footage.

“Mark the squares on the map of District 5 that are not visible on CCTV.”

So what I’m interested in is the other areas.

A place outside the CCTV surveillance area and not overlapping with the checkpoints.

The number was surprisingly not small.

This is because some CCTVs do not actually work.

Still, it was worth seeing everything in less than half a day.

“From now on, I will move separately.”

“Huh? Suddenly?”

“You can do the search yourself anyway. Did the police department tell you to stay by my side and help me with the search?”

“That’s not true.”

“Then I can move by myself.”

I left after giving notice unilaterally.

From now on, the places to be searched did not allow for regular checks.

Of course, there was no contractor who deliberately brought along luggage that would only be cumbersome in actual combat.

All those contractors would have lost their lives long ago.

***

Whioooo!

Her hair was blown by the strong wind.

Among the tall buildings, even the wind couldn’t escape and just kept going around in the same place.

The police checkpoint was the same.

They took up positions at every corner of the path, forming a net that would not let even a single ant escape, turning it into a spider web.

Having personally traveled through the five districts, I could feel the tight personnel structure firsthand.

A mere terrorist consumed by petty anger cannot escape from here.

So the fact that we haven’t found a single clue yet paradoxically speaks to their competence.

“The whisper of Mother Nature has been activated.”

The system message sounded as we were passing a huge skyscraper.

The whispers remembered by Mother Nature conveyed someone’s voice to my ears.

It was a faint but distinct sound with a clear direction.

‘If it’s around here… … .’

There was also a blind spot in this area that Beta had indicated.

I walked along the map.

“I feel a strange sensation as if the World Tree is tickling my skin.”

The spirits hesitated and couldn’t find their way, but they barely managed to follow me.

A wide, eight-lane road.

The intersections connecting one district and another were deserted.

Even the traffic lights were not working properly and were blinking at the same time.

It was quiet, but somehow it gave off the impression of being chaotic.

A turbulent atmosphere reminiscent of the environment just before a typhoon strikes.

This was clearly an atmosphere contagious from a group occupying the center of the street.

“It’s amazing how you can occupy the street knowing that there will be a security checkpoint.”

The whispers of Mother Nature were coming from them.

“Inevitable complacency, the darkness under the lamp must have been taken advantage of. Since the CCTV and the traffic lights were broken, it was a good place to exploit a weak point.”

They slowly got up from their seats and made excuses in a friendly tone.

“I think you misunderstood. We just took refuge for a moment because of the commotion caused by the unexpected inspection.”

It wasn’t even funny.

“You’re thick-skinned. Do you think you don’t know that I’ve cast a spell to trap people in the building?”

If they had performed the ritual on themselves, they would have been suspected by the police during the search.

I used my head to use magic on buildings, which had an indirect effect.

It’s a crime prevention measure that companies can easily use, so it must have been passed over by the National Police Agency.

“It was a mistake to think that they would try to escape when a checkpoint was established. They had decided to hide inside, so it would have been impossible to weed them out by forming a siege net.”

The direction was wrong.

They didn’t want to survive.

“It’s a terrorist attack while the security bureau is conducting a search. It must have been intended to shake the entire city beyond the upper echelons.”

“… … you.”

Thanks to seeing through each and every one of their intentions, they stopped their pointless denial.

“How much do you know?”

“That’s it for now.”

I took the gun out of the holster.

“I guess I’ll have to hear the rest from your own mouths.”