CHAPTER 418: CHAPTER 33: SOLVE THE CASE IN 33 MINUTES

"Hello," Nora greeted him politely.

"Angel’s Light?" Isaac the detective frowned. "Honestly, our community is already chaotic enough, we don’t need some variety show actors coming here to shoot a detective series."

"We are not here to film a series," Eleanor spoke up. "We are here to solve the issue of the missing people in your community."

"Then I have to ask, Lord Knight of Dawn," Isaac’s address darkened Eleanor’s expression. "Do you have a detective license?"

"What?"

"Do you have relevant work experience? Have you caught any criminals trying to cover up their crimes?" Isaac the detective asked coldly. "If you are not professionals in this field, what makes you think you are here to help us instead of causing more trouble?"

"Heh," Aske, who was at the back, laughed. "We indeed are not good at finding people."

"But we excel at killing people."

"Even if you find the mastermind, do you really believe you can handle them?"

"We have guns," stated Isaac the detective, unfazed.

"Guns are not omnipotent," Aske said.

"It sounds like you know something about the murderer?" Isaac the detective’s gaze sharpened instantly.

"If we didn’t know, why would we interfere in this matter without a hiring contract?" Aske’s words were measured, clearly not his first time dealing with such people.

"Who hired you?" Isaac the detective pressed quickly.

"We are professional mercenaries," Aske calmly refused.

Professional mercenaries, of course, would not easily reveal the identity of their employer.

"Then how can we be sure that your real mission is to capture that murderer and not to pretend to kill them, but actually to rescue them?" Isaac the detective asked again.

"If that’s what you suspect, it’s simple," Aske said. "Just hire us."

"Mercenary Groups might lie to fulfill a mission, but they never betray the mission itself."

Isaac the detective: ......

That statement wasn’t problematic. After all, these days, business is about credibility. As long as a hiring relationship is established, a renowned Mercenary Group like The Azure Longsword would not destroy its credit for a bit of money.

However, if their original employer’s task was indeed to catch the murderer, then giving them another sum of money from the Yousi community... wouldn’t that be foolish?

"The one who hired you, is it a significant figure from the Venice Council?" Isaac the detective asked abruptly.

"You can guess," Aske said expressionlessly. Whether you guess right or not, we won’t answer.

This guy is tough to crack! Isaac felt somewhat speechless.

After a brief moment of contemplation, the detective finally made up his mind.

Hire them!

The reason was simple; since it was from the community’s public funds and not his own money, the safer, the better.

After an urgent consultation with the Yousi Mansion Committee, Isaac the detective returned to his office and offered a price to The Azure Longsword Mercenary Corps.

silver marks.

It wasn’t much money compared to the tasks everyone had done before, certainly not a significant amount.

However, given that it was essentially free money (even without this payment, they would still have to find the murderer), Aske eventually bargained the price down to 80 silver marks.

"Alright, now you’re our employer," Aske concluded. "Bring out all the materials related to the missing person case."

"Here are the details of the recent missing persons," Chief Isaac said, emerging from a side room with a stack of files three minutes later.

"That many?"

"Actually, that’s fewer than expected," Isaac replied. "We’ve only counted the cases reported by the victims’ families, and I’m afraid this is just the tip of the iceberg."

"It seems that the victims are mostly young women and children, with the incidents occurring mainly in the early morning and at night."

"We can’t pinpoint the exact locations of the incidents. If we knew where they disappeared, perhaps we could narrow down a rough area..."

"Isn’t there a record of the missing persons’ residential locations?" Thira suddenly asked.

"Residential locations?" Chief Isaac furrowed his brow.

"Yes," Thira said. "The structure of the Yousi community makes it impossible to have any convenient transport. And considering people would mostly walk, an individual’s activity area wouldn’t be far from their residential range."

"Hold on," Isaac promptly pulled out a large three-dimensional map, pinned it onto a whiteboard, and started marking the homes of the missing persons on the map.

About ten minutes later, with more and more points appearing on the map, everyone realized that these standalone points were extremely scattered and inconclusive.

"Don’t separate them like that," Thira instructed. "Only mark the residential locations of the victims who disappeared in the evening."

"You mean, those victims were probably at home in the evening, and in the morning..." Chief Isaac also caught on quickly.

"They were likely to go out to buy groceries for lunch," Thira nodded. "Therefore, even victims originally outside the target area could enter and disappear within it."

Miel also came over to help, and about ten minutes later, she and Isaac had drawn a new map.

This time, the positions of the points on the map started to converge, but they still could not discern a clear pattern.

"The architecture here is multilevel," Thira noted again. "Separate the positions by floors, with one map per floor."

"Can’t you just state all your requirements at once?" Isaac was slightly annoyed.

"I’m not the chief," Thira retorted.

Chief Isaac was left speechless.

So, they separated the maps by floors, and about ten minutes later, they finally made a breakthrough.

Most of the points were on the 13th floor, while the number of points on the 12th and 14th floors was only a third of that. Additionally, the points on the 13th floor were dispersed across the whole floor, whereas the points on the other floors were concentrated around certain locations...

"This location is the stairwell!" Isaac slammed his hand on the whiteboard. "That means the perpetrator lives on the 13th floor and uses these stairs to hunt victims on other floors!"

"We still can’t confirm exactly where they live on the 13th floor," Thira was saying when Isaac abruptly cut her off:

"But we can lock down the 13th floor and start a door-to-door search centered around this stairwell entrance!"

Lock down a floor? That seemed rather drastic. The ladies started to sweat as Chief Isaac took swift action.

"Horowitz, gather your armored team members! Since The Azure Longsword has spoken, our opponent is certainly no ordinary criminal. Be ready to take lethal action against any suspicious individuals at any moment!"

"Revi, take my signed authorization and go to the warehouse to retrieve weapons and equipment!"

"Dahan, you come with me to the mansion committee. I need to apply for a 24-hour emergency firing order!" Chief Isaac clenched his teeth as he uttered the last sentence, his expression murderous.