Chapter 3: The City of Troubled Night Rain (2)
The overcast sky hung like a heavy leaden curtain low over Kent Harbor.
In front of the gates of the containment zone, ranks of uniformed police stood ready for battle; the entire county police force of Kent Harbor was present.
This time they had even deployed mounted police; the sound of hoofbeats echoed along the empty streets.
Liz and Booker stood at the very front of the formation, facing a human wall composed of equally numerous and aggressive members of the gang.
These gang members wore fine coats and elegant ties; their attire was even more respectable than that of Booker, who was a supervisory official.
Vigilance and hostility showed in their eyes; the air was thick with the scent of gunpowder.
The name of the gang was the Iron Spear Society; it held considerable prestige locally.
Its predecessor had been the Adventurers’ Association of Kent.
Seventy years earlier, various decisions made by Queen Christine had caused relations between the Northern and Southern Continents to deteriorate extremely.
The headquarters of the Adventurers’ Association in the Southern Continent had withdrawn its managers from the Northern Continent, and the dozens of northern branches had fallen into chaos.
Over the course of seventy years they had either become mercenary organizations or formed gangs within the cities; the Iron Spear Society was one of the latter.
The leader of the Iron Spear Society was a man in his sixties surnamed Dewitt, standing at the very front of the crowd.
His eyes were as sharp as a hawk’s as they swept across the members of the Cerberus Bureau opposite him—that was the steadiness and experience possessed only by an old knight who had long been tempered on the battlefield.
Beside old Dewitt stood an orc man whose green skin was especially conspicuous; from time to time he whispered in Dewitt’s ear as if seeking instructions.
Claire dragged a large black bag and stood a little farther away, quietly observing everything.
She disliked occasions of this kind of negotiation; she generally left such scenes to Liz.
Liz stepped forward and faced the members of the Iron Spear Society; her voice was firm and powerful.
“Last night our Cerberus Bureau apprehended a werewolf who had escaped from the containment zone. We discovered that he had suffered severe abuse. According to the Regulations on the Administration of Alien Affairs, we have the right to enter the containment zone to conduct an investigation in order to ensure that the rights and interests of all demonkin citizens are protected. We request your cooperation.”
At once the gang members began to clamor.
“Step back! This is not a place you should come!”
“Don’t think those regulations let you do whatever you want. This is the territory of the Iron Spear Society!”
Azog stepped out from the crowd and waved a hand backward to signal his colleagues to quiet down; his voice carried a trace of dissatisfaction.
“The Kent containment zone has always been a stable and harmonious demonkin community. That werewolf was my neighbor, Mr. Byron; he even greeted me yesterday morning. For you to claim he suffered abuse is pure nonsense!”
Claire gave a cold smile, walked out from the crowd, and emptied several bloodstained shackles from the large black bag onto the ground.
Those shackles were heavy and ice-cold; undried blood still remained on them, making them especially shocking to the eye.
“Physical evidence is right here,” she said coldly. “Mr. Azog, do you not feel ashamed for concealing the fact that your own kind are oppressed in order to curry favor with humans?”
Azog’s face instantly turned iron-blue; he had no words to reply and could only step back and whisper a few sentences to Dewitt.
Dewitt sighed and shook his head.
He waved a hand, signaling two subordinates to open the gates of the containment zone.
As the gates slowly opened, a salty, damp atmosphere rushed toward them.
The Kent containment zone had been built near the harbor; the main work of the demonkin residents was processing the seafood brought in by fishing boats returning to port.
It was only early morning, yet the demonkin residents had already been driven by the whip-cracks of the Iron Spear Society to the busy docks to begin their heavy labor.
They wore tattered waterproof clothing and stepped into the bone-chilling seawater, sorting the various kinds of seafood that poured down from the fishing boats.
The stench of fish mixed with the saltiness of the seawater formed a suffocating atmosphere that filled the entire sky above the containment zone.
As the investigation team gradually advanced deeper, the muddy dirt road was covered with puddles of varying depths; rotting fish scales and residual limbs could vaguely be seen in the mud, emitting waves of nauseating stench.
The outer walls of the giant residential buildings were peeling, exposing mottled brick and stone; wooden boards had been nailed haphazardly onto the tottering walls in an attempt to support these age-old structures.
Horned demon half-bloods fled in panic from the sight of the investigation team; orc residents in the dilapidated residential buildings, upon seeing the team, hurriedly closed their windows tightly.
Several orc corpses with covered heads hung in the central square of the containment zone.
Their limbs were bound by thick iron chains; their bodies were covered with labels written with their crimes—theft, intent to escape…
These crimes would at most have resulted in a few years of imprisonment in a human court of law, yet in the containment zone they were enough to cost one one’s life.
In the center of the square stood the management office of the Iron Spear Society within the containment zone—a building whose style was similar to that of the municipal hall and which stood in stark contrast to the surrounding dilapidation.
Walking through that rust-spotted main door, the narrow space had been rigidly divided into three areas; the air was filled with a stifling atmosphere.
In the entrance hall several desks were scattered at random, like corners forgotten by time.
A thin layer of dust covered the desktops; occasionally a few yellowed documents were lightly lifted by the wind and then slowly settled again.
Cabinets storing the files of the demonkin residents stood askew to one side, their doors half-open, revealing the disorderly piles of documents inside.
On the surrounding walls several rifles hung alone; the barrels gleamed with a cold light, as if silently recounting the violence and chaos that had once existed here.
On the right several prison cells were like the gaping maws of monsters, emitting a nauseating odor.
Bloodstains on the iron doors had already dried; the cells were dark and without light, only faint moans occasionally leaking from the cracks of the doors, making one’s blood run cold.
On the left a carved wooden door was tightly closed, forming a sharp contrast with the surrounding dilapidation—this was old Dewitt’s office.
Pushing the door open, an atmosphere of luxury rushed toward them.
The interior of the office was decorated with extreme refinement: soft leather sofas, an exquisite carved tea table, and expensive oil paintings hanging on the walls—everything displayed the master’s status and taste.
Yet the most eye-catching item was the set of steam armor from the Southern Continent standing in the corner, like a steel behemoth that had walked in from the battlefield, quietly occupying one corner of the room.
The main body of the armor was composed of deep ink-black steel plates; the surface was covered with fine scratches and rust left by the erosion of years, yet none of this could conceal the cold radiance it had once emitted.
On the back of the armor intricate copper pipes wove into a network; though they had fallen silent, they seemed ready at any moment to once again spew forth a storm of steam.
Claire’s gaze lingered for a long time on this set of steam armor; her heartbeat could not help accelerating, and a deep sense of fear arose spontaneously.
The sea of fire in her memory once again surfaced in her mind; she involuntarily took a step backward, both hands tightly clenched into fists, nails digging deeply into her palms as she tried to use pain to dispel the fear in her heart.
Liz patted Claire’s shoulder; Liz’s gaze was gentle and firm, as if using this method to silently tell Claire that they were each other’s support.
“Oh, that,” Dewitt glanced at the steam armor and said lightly, “is merely one of my collectibles. It has long since been scrapped.”
Liz’s attention was drawn to an inconspicuous hidden door inside the office.
That door was tightly closed and stood out incongruously amid the luxurious decorations surrounding it, as if concealing some unspeakable secret.
“Mr. Dewitt,” Liz stepped forward, her voice firm and powerful, “according to the relevant provisions of the Regulations on the Administration of Alien Affairs, we have the right to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the containment zone. May I ask what place lies behind this hidden door?”
Dewitt’s expression changed slightly, but he quickly recovered his composure.
“That is merely my bedroom, a private residential area,” he said lightly. “There is nothing worth investigating inside.”
“A private area?” Liz raised an eyebrow.
“I am afraid the statutes do not grant you the right to refuse investigation.”
Dewitt was silent for a moment, then finally sighed helplessly.
“Very well,” he slowly walked toward the hidden door and took out a string of keys from his pocket. “Since you insist on looking, please go ahead.”
The hidden door slowly opened, revealing a narrow staircase leading to an unknown basement.
Claire and Liz exchanged a glance and descended without hesitation.
The basement was not large, containing only a small bedroom and some simple furniture.
Yet when Claire’s gaze fell upon the documents on the table, her pupils contracted sharply.
Those documents densely recorded detailed information on the buying and selling of demonkin residents: the personal data of those who had been trafficked, the locations where the sellers had obtained them, carefully planned shipping routes, and even forged customs documents.
Everything formed an impregnable chain of evidence.