Chapter 79 - What happened to them?

"What's your deal? That one might not be right in the head, but there's no fire without smoke. Why did it come to this?"

Vern barely suppressed the rage that bubbled from within him. He would've been killed in cold blood without even getting a chance to appeal simply because he possessed a gun. What the fuck kind of logic was that?

If the policeman had something wrong with his head, why was he allowed to be in this position and given control over other's lives?

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But all this could wait. He wasn't completely in the clear just yet. Not bothering to mask his anger, he recounted the situation.

After showing the man his Coven's badge, he pulled the edge of his coat to one side, and the metallic revolver peeked through the holster. This time, however, the man opposite him had a realistic reaction.

"So you're saying it's a prototype gifted to you by Von Industries to provide feedback?"

Vern nodded, not feeling even a hint of guilt for lying about it. Not that it was entirely untrue, anyway. But the man didn't seem persuaded with just his words, so Vern continued. "If you're still suspicious, I can do a little demonstration of my skills."

The commander looked at him with a side-eye, "What demonstration?"

Vern pointed at the rifle on the ground, "I can fix it. Right now."

"Without any tools?"

Vern smiled, "Won't need them for something so simple."

The tall man seemed to consider his words for a while before he walked over to the rifle and held its muzzle up in the air. With a strong grip, he pulled the trigger.

CLICK

As expected, nothing happened. Vern had destabilized more than a couple mechanisms, after all. At the start, when he made up his mind to come clean about his vapor blaster, he had only destabilized a small section of the rifle as a precaution. But it soon became clear that his paranoia wasn't unfounded.

When he noticed that the policeman was hell-bent on peppering him with holes, Vern went ahead and destabilized the whole thing so it wouldn't work no matter what.

The commander walked back with the muzzle of the rifle pointing downward. Shoving the tip in a corner, he held it from the stock and looked at Vern, "Fix it."

Vern didn't mind this. This was at least a reasonable situation. Though he would have to ask De Flanc what the hell to do about situations like these in the future. He would rather not be captured by the police of the city when he was literally about to be in the same line of work as them.

Except, I won't be raring to murder innocent people at the drop of a hat.

Shaking his head, he knelt down and began fiddling around with the weapon. He had enough know-how to act like he was actually doing something.

With his head facing the other way from the commander, he traced the structure of the gun with his hand, and the very next instant, the world took on shades of gray.

The broken and misaligned lines of the structure within the gun that he had induced just a second ago became clear for him to see. Removing one component after another, he fiddled around with them.

He could honestly have fixed this without using his Vision, but what would be the point of that? He had experience fixing thousands of mechanisms but very little doing that with his Visions.

So, he imagined how those structural lines would have to bend and connect to go back to their prior state.

Stability Inducement.

Surely, a ring appeared in his eyes as lightning crackled in his Thought Space. A set of notions that perfected his crude imagination ran through his mind, and the broken mechanism seemed to have gone back in time—as neat and pristine as it had been a couple minutes ago.

"All good to go." Vern refitted the components back in their position and patted the muzzle one last time before getting up.

The commander still seemed to hold his doubts. Nonetheless, he aimed the rifle in the air, and Vern clamped his ears—

BANGG

A flash appeared from the firearm's muzzle and the fog was sliced through in a neat line upwards.

"That's indeed something only a fundamentalist can do." The commander looked back towards the other two police officers. Vern's assailant sat on a barrel as the squad leader poured water down his face, pointing towards Vern. The mad policeman stared at the ground, trembling violently.

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The tall commander sighed again, "I guess it's time I apologize for my subordinate's mistake." Putting away the rifle, he stated, "We already don't have enough Fundamentalists around, and my stupid man would have taken another one from mankind."

Then, he took off his hat and bowed, "Please accept my sincere apologies, Mister fundamentalist. My men are currently under a little too much pressure and are going on for days without any rest."

"I understand that it doesn't excuse the behavior and attempt at your life, but I hope you can find it within your heart to let this go. All of us have lost a lot, and many have left or disappeared from our ranks, so we have had to make do with whoever answered our call."

Vern held the man's gaze, not really sure how to go about dealing with this. The apology was a little too sincere, and it was clearly coming from someone of a grand station.

He was never really in any danger except the possibility of being put in jail, so he didn't know if there was any point in trying to escalate this. There was no way general courts had the time to deal with something like this. Neither did he, for that matter. He had better things to do.

Vern looked at his aggressor. The man had fallen off the barrel and held his head, huddled in a corner. Even Vern was quite surprised at the turn of events. That man had looked very normal and upright just a while ago.

There really is no telling what's going on inside one's mind.

Obviously, that man was dealing with some issues. So, not taking the edge off his voice, he made his first demand, "I sympathize with your cause, officer, but I can't accept that you let men like him roam the streets with guns in their hands."

Then, with his best frightened look, he lamented, "Lady had blessed me with luck today, for this rifle was busted. Or I would've survived the culling only to die at the hands of a traumatized man who needs help."

Not waiting for Vern to continue, the commander shouted, "Arthur, Fine the man three hundred crowns and demote him to ground staff. Transfer him to the port offices outside the city, and make sure he gets a doctor, not a rifle!"

The squad leader turned around with a start and saluted back, "But, sir, we're barely fulfilling the Duke's minimum quota as is."

"I'll deal with that."

"As you command, sir!"

The commander turned towards Vern and asked, "Anything else, Mister fundamentalist?"

Vern pondered for a while before sighing as he pointed at his vapor blaster, "Can I get a permit to carry this around so next time I can show that first?"

"That should be easy. You were headed towards Ferrovane Heights, right? I can get you one at the hub in Mosaic Miles in a jiffy. Please walk with me," said the commander as he led the way.

Clearly, the commander wanted to wrap this up as soon as possible. Even though he managed to scare away the people on the streets, there were still many eyes watching them from beyond the curtains in the houses.

Vern looked at his aggressor one final time, who seemed to have calmed down a bit and left it at that. What else was he supposed to do? Go kill him for having a screw loose in a fucked world?

This should be fine. It was an acceptable balance of punishment.

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Following the tall man in his dark uniform gilded with badges on his epaulet, Vern cleared his mind.

In no time, they crossed the Timekeeper lane in apparent silence when the commander spoke up, "Nowadays, it's rare to come across a Fundamentalist. Would you mind if I asked where you live? The city can always use some help from your expertise in these trying times."

But these words confused Vern beyond measure. It didn't make sense. So he asked, "Rare, you say? How could it be hard to find Fundamentalists in the month of the Annual conference? Even if many of us were culled just like everyone else, how could there be a shortage?"

"Tch." A flicker of realization dawned on the man's face as the corner of his lips twitched imperceptibly. It seemed he had unintentionally let on some information he wasn't supposed to.

"Well?"

After a while, he sighed and replied, "It's…complicated."

This didn't bode well.

"Could you please elaborate? If it's related to my very life and death, I really would rather not be in another situation where I'm at the mercy of some lunatic or the like."

That last remark caused the man to wince as he seemed to consider Vern's words. After they crossed another intersection in this foggy ambiance, the man spoke, "It is my observation that more fundamentalists disappeared in the Duskfall of sorrows than anyone else."

Huh?

Why would that be the case?

If Vern remembered correctly, he had conjectured that those with the willpower to hold on in that horrifying landscape were the ones who managed to survive the culling.

By that logic, Fundamentalists should be leagues better than ordinary people. They handled hundreds of bizarre sights when they delved into Fundamentals. There was no way they would be done in where weak-minded people like those in his hotel had managed.

This didn't make sense.

"Are there any more such patterns? Is there anything connecting these special cases?"

The man nodded, "It is no secret, but we've lost more than two-thirds of the kids in the city compared to the general trend of one-third of the population disappearing."

He followed it with a dry chuckle as his shoulders slumped, "I guess I lucked out by not having kids of my own. Don't know how everyone is holding it together after losing their children."

Vern looked up at the sky beyond the fog.

He remembered. Master's son was quite a naughty one but a little too smart for his own good. He would have survived, right? What about Gestalt? His senior in apprenticeship had recently become a father, too.

I guess I lucked out, as well.

"For fundamentalists, however, I guess there is more than just that. They disappeared in places that were found to be anomalous anyway."

Vern reeled his distant thoughts in and asked, "Anomalous, how?"

"I can't provide many details, but in certain places within the city, no one survived. Not a single person. While in all other situations, one-third of the people perished, in these specific locations, there were no survivors—only the remains of those who vanished."

Taking all this information in, Vern couldn't help but ask, "What are these places?"

"Can't tell you. They're being handled by even my superiors. So, if you really want to know for your safety, you will have to file a petition at the head office. And I can assure you it'll be a long while before you'll get an answer."

Well, he could just ask a different set of people. But this was some damning information. The fact that more children died than adults was in line with his conjecture that it depended on one's willpower to survive that terrorscape.

But that didn't explain the disappearance of everyone in so many unrelated establishments.

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Wait.

That's when a familiar possibility reared its ugly head, and a shiver went down his spine.