Cop Craft Volume 4 Chapter 2 Part 3
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“Translator: ClefRunner”
“Editor: Weasalopes”
Matoba half heartedly greeted his colleagues, and started bringing in the confiscated goods. There weren’t that many, but taking them all from the parking lot to the second floor got him some attention.
「This is some good silverware!」
Said detective Jamie Austin, one of his colleagues. She started inspecting the items without hesitation, almost like the tourists that went to Galacta city did with their souvenirs.
「And especially these little cups. I’d love to drink some Sake or something from one of these. And this bottle is really pretty as well」
「Is it? I thought you didn’t drink Japanese sake」
Said Matoba getting distracted from the report he was writing on his computer.
「Well I don’t hate it. It’s just that well… I like more gourmet stuff, you know? By the way, are all of these Semani souvenirs confiscated goods?」
「Yeah. Apparently some of them have some sort of magic or something, so they’ve been pretty annoying to carry around… but Tilarna wasn’t feeling well today, so they’re not properly sorted yet.」
「Oh Tilarna? That’s right, she seems to be absent today. What happened?」
「No, I don’t really know either. She seemed to be kind of sick so… well, she has a lot going on, I guess」
Matoba looked at her and shrugged. Jamie got closer to him, moving her cheeks by his neck.
「Make sure you take good care of her, okay? I’m sure you’ve been acting all cold towards her anyways」
「Huh? Why should I… ah whatever」
He proofread the mail he finished writing, and sent it over. It was a response to the County Police Department’s report, and then an explanation of the situation to Hernandez, along with some habitual paperwork here and there.
At the same time, he received yet another mail from the County Department.
The fugitives from the plane crash incident were still on the run. They weren’t caught by any of their patrolling officers, and asking around the area yielded no results either.
「Ah… for real…」
Matoba groaned.
That was just right for the countryside. He was sure that just by using some infrared sensors on helicopters and flying over the swamp in circles for a while, they were bound to find them eventually. But in that case, how had these mysterious suspects managed to run away? Or perhaps had they kicked the bucket already becoming part of the swamp?
「You look depressed」
Said Jamie
「Yeah… well. At this rate, if we don’t find the suspects, then there won’t even be a case to be raised in the first place. And then for what purpose was I even running around stuck in the mud in the first place…?」
「I heard about that from Tony a little earlier. But I know that you’re going to get this whole thing under control」
「Yeah… I guess…」
He was determined to get it all under control anyways. She didn’t have to tell him that.
「Did I say something weird?」
「Hm… No, not particularly…」
「Do your best, okay?」
Said Jamie in a gentle voice as she walked away.
Hm….
What a strange feeling. Of course I really appreciate her being this nice to me, but, how should I say it? For some reason I get the feeling that Jamie’s attitude wasn’t something that I should be making light of. If someone asked me whether I liked her or hated her, then I think I would have to say that I like Jamie. Her partner Cami is always pretty harsh, but Jamie has always been nice to me.
He didn’t mind Tilarna or Cami treating him roughly and being rude to him, but he was sure that if he ever saw Jamie behave like that, then he’d be doomed. For some reason he always felt that Jamie gave off a pretty intimidating feminine vibe.
He went and looked at the clocking list.
Tony hasn’t arrived yet huh…
I kinda felt like having lunch with him today. Not to complain or anything in particular, but for some reason I calm down whenever I’m gossiping with him about stuff. But then again, nothing I can do about it if he’s not here.
He called the Goranbitha County department. But even after exchanging a few emails with them, they didn’t manage to get anywhere.
Even the head of the police department came out and explained the current state of the search to him. They did not find anyone, or any bodies either. Seemed like they had not even been able to find a trace of the smugglers.
「Just between the two of us, could you tell me your honest opinion? So you think that those dead or missing suspects, I’m guessing there were two of them, have any chance of being found at all?」
「… Yeah well… I have been working on this swamp area for about ten years…」
Said the officer on the phone
「Completely escaping on foot from that swamp seems unlikely. However, it would be a completely different matter if they were assisted by someone. The most likely scenario is that they simply kicked the bucket at some point and are now sinking in the mud」
It would be good if that wasn’t the case.
Matoba said goodbye to the man and hung up the phone. Incidentally, he thought about giving Tilarna a call. He had rushed out in the morning so he did not even have the chance to check up on her, and it was bothering him.
But Tilarna didn’t answer. Her phone just sent him straight to voicemail. Maybe she was sleeping.
「Oh well…」
It was about time for him to take all of that junk to storage. He got some paperwork done, and then he asked some of his coworkers for help carrying it all.
~o~O~o~
Evidently, Tilarna did not have the time to answer Kei’s call or anything like that. And even if she had gotten around to answering, then she would have only been able to reply with a “Nyaow”
She was agonizing over her body still in Kuroi’s custody, who had not only made a mess of the bathroom, but also thrashed the kitchen and living room as much as she pleased. They were all in an awful state, almost as if a group of Obitha man-eating demons had just held a banquet in all of them.
Her first great challenge was undressing Kuroi who had soiled herself. Whenever she tried to grab her butt and take off her shorts she would send her flying away. One time she even bounced inside the washing machine and thought she was going to die. Somehow she tore the shorts off her butt and then took a wet wipe and— it was best not to go into detail. She didn’t even want to remember it.
After she managed to somehow clean everything up, Kuroi got hungry and started raging.
Kuroi wanted cat food, so she started prowling around the kitchen in circles while wearing only a camisole, with her lower half completely naked, crawling on all fours. The sight was a complete nightmare to Tilarna.
And on top of that, despite her actions being catlike, her body was human, so she was considerably strong. She managed to open the door of the fridge that she normally would have never had the strength to open, and after knocking the contents out, she did as she pleased with them. However, she didn’t manage to open the mayonnaise or the butter, so she got angry, irritably kicking and hitting their containers.
「Nyaa—! Stop it!」
But no matter how much Tilarna screamed, Kuroi wouldn’t stop.
Since the Yogurt was packed in a paper bag, Kuroi tore it apart and started licking its contents, then she skillfully took out the remaining bacon that was wrapped in plastic and started munching at it. The only thing Tilarna could do was nudge the fridge door shut.
I can’t take it anymore…
Tilarna collapsed with both physical and psychological fatigue, and she curled up in the living room. She placed the hand mirror that had fallen on the floor right against the sofa, and pointed it right at herself. Even though she had always thought that cats were not particularly expressive animals, that was completely wrong. She had never in her life seen a cat so deeply sorrowful and so tormented by shame as herself at that moment.
I need to get some help
And she had no time. That magical crossbow was still right outside inside the garbage container. If she remembered correctly, then the garbage truck would come sometime after noon.
After skillfully having her way with the contents of the fridge, Kuroi rolled herself up on the couch and weakly yawned. There was nothing Tilarna could do about her naked butt, but at least she would be quiet for a while like that.
An email, that’s right! I had forgotten about the email
However, Tilarna had never once sent an email since she had come to Earth. At first she looked down upon those frivolous Dorini tools, so she never took the time to properly learn how to use one, but now she was regretting that decision, as that was her one and only means of communication.
Tilarna paced around the rooms she had cleaned up, and finally found her smartphone below the dining table. It was upside down, so she struggled greatly just trying to flip it around.
「Nya… Okay…」
She pressed the home button with her front paw, and it went straight to the touch ID screen. She placed her tiny toe bean on the designated place and then
It won’t work…!!
She wasn’t even able to unlock her phone. Of course. Because she had paws. Tilarna knew at least as much as that. Her only choice was using the pin to unlock the phone, but she was not particularly confident she remembered it. Since she had gotten used to the touch ID, she rarely ever needed to use it in the first place. Even though Kei had told her time and time again to “get better at using her phone”, she never really listened to him seriously.
Why did you do something that stupid, me?
Alright… it’s either 0227 or 0228, or I think that maybe it was somewhere around that…
It was the date of the day she had gotten that smartphone. But she could not remember the exact date. She wasn’t even really used to Earth’s calendar system to begin with. A month was supposed to have thirty days in it, but some had thirty one, and some were completely different, so it was pretty inconvenient.
She tried several times based on her faint memories
0228, that’s wrong. Okay, 0229, that’s also wrong. Since she wasn’t used to her paws either, she would also press the wrong number frequently. Ultimately she entered a wrong pin five times, and a red notice appeared on screen. Well, with Kuroi’s eyes, it didn’t really look red. For some reason it was a shade of gray, but looking at the surrounding colors and comparing, she could tell for sure that it was red. After running around all morning, she had apparently gotten used to her new eyes already.
In any case, it was a security notice.
“Security
…
Data within the smartphone will be lost after entering your security code wrong ten times”
She had already entered it five times, so she still had five attempts left
What…?!
That sentence was something that even Tilarna could easily understand. It basically meant that if she got it wrong five more times, the phone would become completely unusable to her. In other words, she would lose her only means of communicating with the outside world.
「Hu… Nya… Uh… Nya…」
Her front paws were trembling with nervousness.
0230. That’s wrong. 0233. She entered it by mistake. 0022. Another mistake.
Calm down, calm down!
As she got it wrong each time, the security notice appeared again, each time with fewer attempts remaining.
「Nya… Nya… Ni…」
She could feel her toe beans getting moist. She was surprised at discovering that even cats could sweat, but that was not the time to be amused.
She had already used up nine of her ten possible attempts. There would be no more chances. Her breath became agitated. She started feeling dizzy, her sight was getting narrower, and it felt like vertigo had started to kick in.
She had already tried everything up to 0231, so the only number left was 0232, probably…
No, no! Calm down! Something’s wrong!
There’s no way that February has thirty two days in the Earth’s calendar. In that case, it must be the opposite. February is short. Yeah, that’s right… it only has 28 days! I was only getting used to my new life back then, so my memories are still hazy. So the day I got this smartphone back at the store downtown must have been…
Not on the final days of February, but on the first day of March…!!
She had decided. She entered the code hesitantly.
0301
The phone went dark instantly.
But right after giving in to her face, the phone moved from the locked screen to the home screen.
Success!
「Phew….」
Tilarna sighed in relief. Apparently cats could sigh as well. That was new.
No, nevermind that…!!
Despite encountering the most difficult challenge at first, she still had a number of problems left to deal with.
Next she had to write that incomprehensible thing called an email, and she had to find an address to send it to in the first place. And someone to write to. She absolutely could not bear the idea of Kei seeing her in that sorry state…
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