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Cop Craft Volume 4 Chapter 3 Part 4

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“Translator: ClefRunner”

“Editor: Weasalopes”

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The buzzer rang, and the lock that closed the iron-barred entrance opened up. The floor and the elevator looked unclean and there was always a slightly bitter scent lingering all over the place. The buttons of the elevator had always been broken, so Matoba went straight up towards O’Neill’s apartment on the sixth floor. The door wasn’t locked.

「Hey, I’m coming in」

He knocked on the door to let them know he was there, and immediately walked into the entranceway. He instantly felt the strong smell of alcohol. Beer, whisky, vodka, rum… their scents all blended together, on top of the smell of cigarettes, vomit and cheap freshener, creating a strong scented cocktail.

「Ugh, what’s this…? What happened here?」

The floor was all messed up with what seemed to be Christmas Tree decorations, and an unknown man was snoring in his underwear underneath a mountain of cheap golden lace.

「Hey, boss」

Kenny came out of a dimly lit living room wearing his heart pajamas. Yet he was a very stern huge black man.

「Kenny… what’s with that outfit」
「What about it? I always wear this when I go to bed. I can’t sleep if I’m not wearing my pajamas.」
「And what about the man lying there?」

Matoba pointed at the man lying beneath the lace with his chin.

「Well, actually I don’t know. Who is this guy? He wasn’t here yesterday」
「…. okay then. Where’s O’Neill?」
「I can’t find him anywhere… I can only remember until I drank this cocktail of Vodka, Ketchup, Tabasco and Soda, and then I started shaking my hips against the table…」

Matoba ignored all of the junk on the floor and moved on to the living room, which was again in a completely horrible state.

There were countless alcohol bottles, and some partially scorched furniture. A sign of the neighborhood’s liquor store. For some reason someone had brought a doll of a mascot from a famous steak chain inside, covered it with a jute bag and hung it from its neck. There was a goat inside the bedroom. A real, living goat. And on top of the goat’s head there was a well crafted high quality crown.

「Where did you find it, the goat?」
「No clue… I’m also completely lost here」
「Holy shit」

Even for the day after a rave party, this scenery was a bit too much.

There were about four or five remaining partygoers from the previous night. They were all sleeping. An old man wearing a pink bodysuit was hanging from the ceiling bound by his hands and feet to a hammock. And a female dominatrix had stuck her head inside of the fridge and seemed to be sleeping. A middle aged woman of about 200 kilos was sleeping on the sofa, squeezing what seemed to be a framed portrait. There were also all sorts of different things all over the place.

「O’Neill’s not here」
「Are you sure the goat didn’t just gobble him up?」
「They’re herbivores. Besides, not even a lion or a grizzly would want to eat O’Neill」
「Ah… boss. I’ve been drunk for almost two days now. There’s no way I’ll even get what you’re saying」

Said Kenny languidly right before coughing violently several times.

「Nevermind that. Anyways, did he go somewhere? There’s something that I want to check with him」
「No, I’m sure he must be around here somewhere. Ugh… I don’t feel very well…」

Matoba ignored Kenny who was looking ill, and instead started walking around the different rooms in his search. For some reason the goat had somehow become attached to him and now it was following Matoba all over the place. It kept sniffing him closely from behind, and it was starting to become annoying.

「Oi, could you cut that out?」

The goat would let out a sad cry everytime he pushed its snout away.

The bedroom, the bathroom, the balcony. He was nowhere to be found.

But at least Elvis Presley was sleeping inside the empty bathtub. It definitely was Elvis Presley himself. Gold chains were hanging from his neck down his bare chest, as he was wearing a white jumpsuit. He had his hair styled in a retro pompadour, adorned with long sideburns. He was hugging a Gibson guitar almost as if it was a woman he was cuddling with.

「Hey, Kenny. Elvis is right here?!」
「Eh?」
「Elvis Presley. Woah, that’s awesome. He looks just like the man himself」
「What are you talking about, it is him」
「Yeah, as if. Elvis died a long time ago」

Back in 1977, if his memory served him right. His memories were somewhat hazy, but it had been a similar cause to Michael Jackson’s death. It was pretty common for the most popular singers for some reason.

「Boss, that was just a false rumor spread by the government. Elvis was just a CIA agent, so they faked his death and had him fight communism with rock music. Everybody knows that」
「In that case, then why is that very agent right now, half a century later, sleeping in this shithole apartment’s bathtub? With a cigarette in his mouth, and stinking of alcohol on top of that. The real Elvis didn’t smoke or drink alcohol now, did he?」
「You’re very well informed, boss」
「In any case, where did O’Neill go? Or rather, would you just do something about this goat already?!」
「Ma-a-a~~」
「Ah… shit!」

They left the Elvis impersonator behind and kept investigating the remaining rooms. They looked inside the cabinets, behind the furniture, and every place where an adult man could fit, but O’Neill was not there.

Despite there even being a goat. They had even brought the mascot from that steakhouse, and left a horse mask soaking in wine in the bed. Within all of that madness, there were no signs of that makeshift reverend (or priest, or father, or whatever he was), no matter how hard they looked. Even Matoba himself thought he was going insane.

Matoba was shouting angrily all over

「Where are you, O’Neill?!」
「Uuu…gh」

O’Neill’s voice came from somewhere. Kenny knitted his eyebrows

「Boss. Did you hear something…」
「Shh」

They strained their ears. However, even after trying to focus, all they could hear was some snoring, restful breathing, and the goat sniffing away. O’Neill was nowhere to be seen.

「O’Neill?」
「U,,,gh」

It was O’Neill’s voice again. He was right next to them. Probably somewhere within that very same living room…

「O’Neill」
「Oh… dear Lord. Please forgive me, for I am now surrounded by bountiful crops… somewhere soft, and white, and sparkling. It’s hard to breathe. Extremely hard to breathe. And drowning in this bountiful meat, I am now heading towards your heavenly realm steadily…」

He figured out where his voice was coming from. It was from the living room’s sofa, directly from that two hundred kilogram woman. O’Neill was lying below her, looking almost completely crushed.

Looking at it carefully, his arms and legs were visibly poking out from below the chunk of meat. His brown head was also there. He was breathing shallowly, repeatedly gasping while opening and closing his thick lips.

「No, I am dying. Oh lord, I will be leaving this world soon. If possible, I wish to avoid meeting such plentiful and large women in the next world」
「So there you were, fuck’s sake」

Matoba tried pushing the woman out of the way, but it was completely impossible. But she would not budge even after shaking her slightly.

「Hey, lady. Please move. O’Neill is going to die.」

The woman only snored slightly louder, but she was not waking up at all.

「Wake up! Despite me thinking that this is a fitting end for a guy like this, there are still some things I want to ask him before that」
「Ugh, help me…」

The woman was not waking up. And no matter how hard Matoba pulled from O’Neill’s hands, she would only grumble loudly, opening and closing her mouth which bizarrely resembled Jabba the Hutt’s from “Star Wars”.

「Boss, it’s hopeless. Virgin Mary won’t wake up until noon when she gets like this」
「Virgin Mary?」
「That’s her name. I don’t know why, but everybody calls her that」
「She’s a hooker, right?」
「Yeah. One of the girls working at Madame Cinnamon’s. She’s pretty popular among the BBW fans」

Matoba knew Madame Cinnamon. She was the manager of a bizarre dating club for maniac customers. Tony and the others had dragged him there about two years ago.

「Help… me…」
「Fuck’s sake」

Matoba went to the kitchen, and poured some soda, vodka and Mary Sharp’s (really spicy habanero sauce) into a random beer mug, and stirred its contents while holding it with both hands trying to do it the way a bartender would. Oh man, a Mary Sharp’s would probably have a good effect.

He picked up a funnel from all the kitchen utensils, and brought it along with the cocktail to the woman. Kenny, who had been observing the entire situation, changed his expression immediately.

「Boss. Are you serious?」
「I’ve had enough of this. Take this!」

He shoved the funnel into Virgin Mary’s mouth, and poured the makeshift cocktail into it without mercy. The snoring stopped right around the time the beer mug had become empty, and then for an instant, there was some unprecedented silence.

Matoba took a few steps back, and Kenny did so as well, a little later looking almost as if he had remembered something.

And right then, Virgin Mary spit out all of the cocktail out of her mouth into the air, almost like a fountain. She screamed in a way Matoba had never heard before, and jumped almost three feet in the air. And that was not an exaggeration, it truly was three feet.

「Woah…」

Virgin Mary had fortunately opened her eyes. However, her body was now falling thanks to gravity. From her position mid air, to the sofa and O’Neill as well…

It was a shrill roaring noise that came along with the complete fracture of the sofa’s legs, and the prompt spread of all the surrounding liquor bottles that came flying in all directions as well. Matoba even wondered if the floor itself was going to break below them, but there was no way that things would go that far, fortunately.

A hoarse shriek resonated through the room. The goat trembled in fear.

Virgin Mary pressed her throat and writhed in pain on the floor, rolling over O’Neill time and time again, back and forth. It was almost like being squished by a human road roller. If it were a cartoon, O’Neill would have been battered into a mushy substance similar to pie dough.

「Boss, this is terrible. You went too far」
「No… I never thought that… I just wanted to scare her and wake her up. I would’ve never thought she would fly up in the air and… hey, what’s with that look? It’s true!」

Matoba replied hastily after noticing Kenny’s judgemental gaze upon him. Even the goat right beside him was staring at Matoba resentfully.

「Would it be better if I just made an emergency call?」
「To whom?」
「An ambulance」
「Ah… yeah. That would be good, probably…」

Matoba pulled out his cellphone, having suddenly remembered something.

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