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Cop Craft Volume 4 Chapter 4 Part 2

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“Translator: ClefRunner”

“Editor: Weasalopes”

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For better or for worse, O’Neill only broke a few ribs, and that was that.

While they were carrying him on a stretcher in the elevator, he regained consciousness. Matoba started shouting in his ear.

「O’Neill. There’s something that I want to ask you」
「Oh… dear God. I am now in the middle of the worst nightmare. A dream with soft, fleshy road rollers. Please take this fear away from me. Despite the fact that the woman’s name is a blasphemy in and of itself, I only gave it to her because I thought it was a little funny… no, are you perhaps angry at me? I will reflect. I will reflect. But I can’t take this anymore. Please forgive me, please forgive me, please forgive me…」

O’Neill looked up at the elevator’s ceiling, and started sweating profusely, while muttering deliriously. He was talking quite a lot for someone with a few broken ribs.

「O’Neill, there’s something I want you to take a look at」
「Oh… well if it isn’t Detective Matoba. Are you one of the guardsmen in Hell? This is quite the obvious choice of casting, but I do not have any bribes on me that I could pay Satan with… You can just fade away! I belong in Heaven. But not that old fashioned Heaven where a fanfare resonates as you enter, I would rather arrive at a Heaven where a funky groove is constantly playing. Oh… I can see it. Bootsy Collins sporting beautiful wings on his back, dancing in the middle of a blinding light」

What was he even saying at this point? Was it because they had to sedate him with some weird drug?

「O’Neill. It’s about that lead you gave me. You told me that two smugglers were having some private conversation with each other, right? I wanted to ask you about their appearance and—」

And right then, the elevator arrived on the upper floor. The ambulance paramedic interrupted Matoba.

「Mr. Detective, the patient is in pain. Please stop」
「Isn’t that why he’s high in the first place? It’s important, just give me a little time」
「But—」
「He won’t die anyways! Hey, please」

He realized that what he was saying sounded awful, but going along with O’Neill in the ambulance until he arrived at the hospital was something he could not do. Just that would cost him several hours.

「In any case, O’Neill. Those two smugglers you saw are the issue here. What kind of guys were they?」
「Uugh… Will I be able to go to heaven if I answer that question?」
「Are you kidding? There’s no way someone like you would ever be able to go to Heaven… no, I’m sorry. You’ll get to go, you’ll definitely go. You’ll be a First Class guest when you get to go there. 」
「First class? Seriously?」
「Yeah. You’ll be able to drink as much extremely expensive wine and cognac as you wish」
「Ugh… but I said that I don’t want to drink alcohol ever again…」
「It’s fine, just answer the question already, you drunk bastard!」

The paramedics who were standing right there stopped Matoba from grabbing O’Neill forcibly by the neck.

「Please calm down, Mr. Detective」
「Yeah yeah, just shut up and let me go」

An affair that normally should have been dealt with with only an email ended up costing him over an hour because of O’Neill’s stupid stunts. And on top of that a lot of completely incomprehensible stuff had been going on for the past day and it was driving him crazy.

「In any case, O’Neill, look at this guy!」

He pushed the image he had loaded on his phone right in his face.

It was a picture of CBP Investigator Hernandez from his personal profile. The file was extremely easy to find for someone in Matoba’s position, but leaving aside his personal work experience and history, what he really wanted O’Neill to see was his face.

「Do you remember ever seeing this guy before? Was the man that met with the dealer back then this guy by any chance?」
「Oh… hm… oh」

O’Neill kept nodding vaguely, and looking at the picture half mindlessly.

「It’s true that… it was this gentleman indeed」
「Alright!」
「I think…」
「What?」
「Probably…」
「Hey」
「No, certainly…」
「Hey, that won’t do it for me. If you don’t manage to say something a bit more clear cut— hey, O’Neill?!」

O’Neill opened his eyes wide, and started trembling uncontrollably. He started saying something in a language Matoba had never heard before— it was probably Latin, or something similar—. O’Neill kept muttering as his hands and feet trembled slightly.

「Are you happy now? We’re taking this man」

Said the ambulance paramedic. This time clearly starting to get fed up with him.

「Please wait. A vague answer like that won’t…」
「No. Are you going to take responsibility if this man happens to pass away? No matter how much you want to talk to him, it’ll have to wait until he gets to the hospital.」
「There’s no way he will die from something like that. In any case—」
「Hey, he’s hyperventilating. Mr. O’Neill! Please calm down, don’t worry! You’ll feel better soon, you’ll see!」

The paramedic pushed Matoba out of the way and carried O’Neill away. He tightened the bands around the stretcher, covered his face with a paper bag, and slapped his own freshly shaven face a few times.

And simply took him away just like that to the ambulance waiting on the back. Then the annoying sirens started sounding just as the vehicle started moving. Matoba stood dumbfounded and watched as the ambulance drove off.

「What in the world, for fuck’s sake…」

Well, he had been partially responsible for the whole thing in the end.

「Hey Kenny, do you know the girl O’Neill went on a date with two or three days ago? She may remember the face of the guy that was meeting with the smuggler」
「Ah, yeah. I know her」

Kenny, who was also standing on the road dumbfounded, nodded

「It was the girl who was in the kitchen earlier. The dominatrix who looked like a queen. That’s her」
「Ah, so she was here」

He was happy to be able to finally save some time. Though if he had known about it from the start, the entire bothersome ordeal would have been dealt with far quicker.

「Ah… wait. That queen lady was sticking her head inside the fridge earlier, right?」
「Was she?」

Matoba only hoped she had not frozen to death.

~o~O~o~

Despite driving around in a big hurry, Cecil could not afford to drive like those reckless drivers from action films. If anything, she could even end up getting her license suspended for ten years, so she had to drive as safely as possible, especially considering she wasn’t particularly fond of thrills to begin with. On top of that, the road on their way there was considerably crowded and they ended up running into some heavy traffic.

“are you really hurrying driving like that?!”

Questioned Tilarna while they were waiting for the traffic light to change back to green. Apparently she had managed to remember how to type the “?” and “!” marks on her keyboard at some point. If she really wanted to, it felt like she could even learn how to type using greek letters at this rate.

「And we are in such a hurry. Ah… but I really don’t want to drive past the traffic light. A friend of a friend got pretty badly injured just by doing that this one time. I’ll try to drive a little past the speed limit, though. You shouldn’t be making such a fuzz, anyways」
“let me drive”
「As a cat?」
“ah youre right…”
「Besides, Tilarna, even if we started driving recklessly on public roads like these, our time of arrival probably wouldn’t change by much. We would barely be able to get two or maybe three minutes earlier at most. There are plenty of studies on the subject」
“thats valuable time!”

Tilarna (the cat) typed one character at a time.

Well, I kind of get her. While we’re doing stuff like this right now, the garbage truck could very well be emptying its contents into an incinerator somewhere. It was unavoidable that Tilarna would start freaking out.

「You don’t have to worry that much about it. If we can’t get you back to normal, then I’ll just take care of you!」
「Nya—?!」
「I’m joking. Look, we’re almost there」

The GPS was telling them that they would be arriving at the office in about a hundred meters.

It was located on the southwest side of New Compton, right next to the boroughs of Seven Miles and Helfarth. Small factories were lining up next to each other. Surrounded by cheap looking fences covered in graffiti. The workers of one of the nearby factories were eating happily while on lunch break outside.

They were getting closer to a large chimney that kept getting larger and larger as they drove.

Seemed like the office itself was located in the same place as some incinerators. Despite it being named after the New Compton borough, the place seemed to be in charge of the trash that would get picked up from the neighboring southern borough of Helfarth (it said so on their website). In that case, the area their garbage trucks covered had to be huge.

In the short time it took Cecil to drive her car into the parking lot, they saw several garbage trucks heading straight to the incinerator. They were very large vehicles somewhat resembling military trucks. They were orderly moving with their insides full of all the garbage they had picked up.

「Okay, let’s go」
「Nyaa」

She stopped the car at the parking lot, embraced Tilarna (the cat) in her arms, and started walking towards the office.

However, upon walking into the prefabricated office, they were greeted by absolutely nobody.

「Ah, crap!」

Right next to them was a buzzer marked with a “dear guest, please push this button” sign. She pressed it several times. Then waited for about a minute. After starting to get truly impatient, a slender older woman came out to greet them.

「Yes?」
「Ehm… I am forensic investigator Cecil Epps. I spoke with Mr. Gordon on the phone earlier. About well, how this important evidence got picked up by mistake, you know? And about some way to perhaps get it back or…」
「Gordon?」
「Yes. That’s what he told me over the phone. Mr. Gordon」
「Gordon. Gordon, right…? I don’t know any Gordons…」

The older woman looked down apathetically, and then sighed somewhat bothered.

「I don’t think anybody named Gordon works here to begin with」
「No way…. I am sure that’s what he said. Based on his voice I would guess that he must have been a white guy, probably in his thirties or older. Is he not present?」

Cecil strongly withheld her will to shout at the woman, and instead filled herself with patience.

「But even if you say that… Gordon, right? Did we have a guy named Gordon?」
「Please, I’m begging you… look, I’m in a hurry. In any case could you please get somebody who might know something?」

Looking somewhat hurt by her comment, the older woman looked at Cecil with disdain

「What is with that attitude? I don’t care if you’re a forensic investigator or a septic investigator or whatever, don’t come around with your arrogant intellectual attitude. I don’t know what grandiose school you graduated from, but you do as I say around here」
「Huh? Ah… yeah, got it. I get it, so please could you call Mr. Gordon for me?」
「I don’t know that man」

The woman said sharply.

「This is why I hate intellectual women like you. You know why? I’m sure you have no clue, right? First of all, there are the many shit faced detestable women I’ve met in my life. There’s Jane, this girl I absolutely despised back in middle school—」

The woman started talking profusely about the many detestable women she had met in her life, and she kept talking and talking nonstop. Cecil couldn’t afford to stay there and listen to something like that. But before she could start yelling at the woman, Tilarna (the cat) jumped straight at her face.

「Nya…!!」
「Wha…?!」
「Nyaa! Nya nya nyaaa!! Nya Nya, Nya nyaaaa!!」

The black cat seemed to be cursing at the older woman. Probably something like “My life depends on this, yet you… what are you bastard even doing with that attitude of yours? Die, just die already!”, or something similar to that.

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