“Come on in.”

Just like the magical ‘open sesame’ words, Carol’s invitation encouraged Tina, or whoever was pretending to be her, to push the doors open.

Yet, as the young woman stepped inside, she looked like an entirely different person from who Leo encountered a mere hour ago.

‘What the hell is with this image change?’ Leo thought, almost gasping for air.

Just a bit over an hour ago, Tina was dressed in clothes… Clothes that tethered on the thin line between skimpy and outright law-breaking. And while whatever little material they used covered the most important parts… They were also tight enough to perfectly emphasize the sizeable curves in all the right places.

The closest comparison Leo could produce in his mind when it came to Tina’s last appearance would be to those risque cosplayers who, rather than focusing on the quality of their outfit, would opt to expose as much skin as they could to vie for publicity and audience.

This time, however, not only was Tina wearing ankle-long and slightly baggy, dark-blue pants, but she even covered close to three-quarters of her entire body in a heavy, thick coat!

Stepping through the doors, Tina looked around, her eyes only resting when they locked in on Leo’s face.

‘Did something show on my face?’ Leo thought when Tina’s stare lingered on him a lot longer than it naturally would, only for her expression to then quickly turn sour.

“To think you would show this kind of face when I’m overdressed rather than when I actually made an effort to look sexy…” Tina muttered under her nose, averting her eyes not to avoid Leo’s puzzled stare but to express her discontent.

And yet, with all of that in mind, there was just one question that Leo simply couldn’t find an answer to.

‘I know it’s still late spring and not even early summer… But isn’t it relatively hot outside?’ he thought, gulping his saliva as he imagined the ordeal this poor girl had to go through when walking through the heat in such heavy clothing. ‘She has to be swimming inside of that suit of hers…’

“Tina, dear, it’s actually perfect that you are here,” Carol, either by an accident or by sensing the weird atmosphere in the air, decided to join in. “We were just wondering, what would be the government’s response to what’s going on. Do you have any clues you could share?”

‘Hmm?’ Leo squinted his eyes a tiny little bit. ‘And what does it have to do with…’

As if reading into Leo’s earlier concern and somehow taking Carol’s words for a green light, Tina sighed and pulled down the zipper of her coat, revealing a short-sleeved police uniform, exactly the same as the outfit of the policemen Leo watched die to the grotesque monster in a portal just fewteen minutes ago.

‘She’s a cop?!’

While not inherently antagonistic towards the police, Leo never really considered it to be something… natural.

Just like all the other proud owners of the uniforms, they appeared like an entirely different breed of people. And while he was aware all the policemen, firemen, medics, or the likes were still, ultimately, just humans who picked this kind of job over the others…

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‘It’s weird, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for her to become an officer, I guess?’

“So you became a police officer, huh?” Leo muttered upon realizing that the revelation left him stunned for a bit.

Yet, his words only served to put a frown on Tina’s face.

“Do you even…” the young woman spoke out, her face turning slightly reddish, only for Tina to hold herself back, close her eyes, and shake her head a bit. Then, as she opened her eyes again, “Do you dislike the police or something?”

‘That’s not what she wanted to say at first,’ Leo took a note before shaking his head himself.

“It’s not like I have anything against the police in general. I was just surprised. Still,” Leo shook his head again only to finally wrestle himself free from the comfort of the simple, cheap cushions of the chair he was sitting at before approaching the young woman and giving her a light tap on the shoulder. “Good job. I bet it wasn’t easy to join the force, so you must’ve worked hard to get in. So, belated as it might be, congratulations.”

At first, Tina looked up at Leo’s face, her cheeks slightly blushed and a hint of confusion in her eyes. Then, as the blush on her cheeks intensified, she turned her eyes and her chin down before softly muttering, “Thanks.”

Clap.

Turning his head, Leo saw Carol with her hands clasped together… and a hint of silent fury on Mark’s face.

“I know you two have yet to catch up, but Tina, we don’t really know what’s going on so there’s no saying whether we have the time to talk at length or not,” Carol shook her head, right as Leo lifted his hand from Tina’s shoulder and retreated back to his spot in the chair. A moment later, Tina followed up, seating herself down directly on the floor, by the side of Leo’s chair.

“Clues for government reaction that I can share,” the young woman muttered, shaking her head to get rid of temporarily putting all of her boiling feelings aside as she focused on the topic at hand. “They didn’t really restrict any of the information back at the department, so it’s not like I cannot share what I know. The problem is…” Tina looked up, only to quickly avert her eyes to the side. “I don’t really know all that much. Oh,” she lightly jumped, only to bring her knees up and wrap her hands around them, holding her legs close to her chest hidden in the baggy top of the policeman’s uniform.

“We were asked not to investigate on our…”

BAM!

The entire building trembled as if someone drove a car at a high speed right into its bearing wall.

‘What the…” Everyone, save for Leo, jumped up to their feet.

A shake like that would be enough to put everyone on the edge during a normal day, but with how everyone was already on tenterhooks, the sudden shake and the noise was merely the trigger to everyone’s tension and anxiety.

Bam!

The building shook again, this time slightly weaker.

And then it shook again.

‘A fight?’ Leo thought, trying to read his surroundings by spreading the mana in the air… Only to realize that in a magic-less world like Earth, doing so came at a much greater cost than it would back in the world of the portal.

And it was within this momentary gap of Leo’s awareness, that the doors to the apartment suddenly burst open, splinters of the broken, wooden piece flying all across the corridor and even swarming into the living room where they were all gathered.

“Kheee….” A dull, pained moan followed, right before a group of three ragged men made their way inside, with the man at the front dragging a half-conscious, middle-aged policeman by his collar.

“Wha…?!” Tina, already on her feet, didn’t hesitate even for a second to reach for her gun, nor did she wait for the other party to get any deeper into the house before actually pulling it out and taking aim.

Her eyes darted to the policeman those three dragged. The moment she saw the man’s bloodied face, her eyes twitched, only to quickly move over to the leader of the invaders.

“Werber,” Tina spat out the man’s name, her thumb flicking the safety switch on the side of her handgun’s body.

“There you are, you little bitch,” the massive, burly man openly grinned when his eyes laid on Tina before swinging his left arm forward and throwing the now unconscious policeman over into the living room before raising up a bloodied mace in his right hand up and then resting it down on his shoulder.

A small flicker in the air just ahead of the man caused Leo’s eyes to twitch a little.

“Here,” Werber called out with the same, satisfied grin on his face right as Tina’s fellow policeman crashed down on the floor. “I’ve caught a stalker that was following you,” the grin on the man’s face only grew wider while his knuckles turned white from just how strong he was gripping the handle of his bloodied mace. “Now, put down that silly gun and get on all fours and I will consider sparing your snitching ass!"