Loren sat before a giant book pile, his eyes unfocused. He tried to read the book carefully, sometimes taking notes in his personal notebook. Despite his efforts to focus on reading, he was too distracted to do so.
It has been more than 2 weeks since he took this job and since then he hasn’t done anything at all. Besides the daily gun training and library learning, he was free. Yet the freedom makes him even more worried, who would pay for their employees to do nothing?
Loren has asked this question plenty of times to Allein, but all he got in response was “that’s just how the job goes”. The lack of activities make him even more worried about this mysterious and dangerous job despite learning more about the anomalies through the books.
He took a glance at his buddy Jack. Unsurprisingly Jack was also buried in a mountain of books, similarly distracted.
He could have never guessed that today will be very different from the usual.
~•~•~•~
“A job?” Asked Nanako.
“Yes.”
“An official job?”
“From the higher ups.”
Loren couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A real job? Finally? The others were also excited, it was as if they were back to their first day.
“Here, read this report first.”
Allein threw a few reports on the table, attracting the attention of the trio. Loren and Jack gives the report to Nanako to speak out loud for all to hear.
“Reportings of the incident on X mountain:
On the 1st of October, researcher A filled in a leave request to visit his hometown, a rural village on mountain X.
On the 5th of October, the researcher left work and traveled to his hometown.
On the 7th of October, the researcher established an emergency communication line. Despite the line being connected successfully, no sound could be heard from the other side. Trying to text messaging only resulted in a sound recording of static noise.”
“On the 8th of October, the Order committee was informed about the problem. They sent 3 death row prisoners out to check the situation, each equipped with a camera. The recorded footage could be access in the files sent to the leader.
On the 9th of October, all the prisoners were confirmed dead. The recorded version was altered from the live version despite showing no signs of tempering. The audio is entirely gone with the occasional mutters of the sentence “it’s windy here...” spoken by a metallic voice. Recorded footage was also a lot more blurry and sometimes even showed a blank screen...”
A sense of horror crept into the heart of the people in the room. Only Allein was unbothered, opening up a video for the others to see.
“Take a look.”
The trio surround the monitor despite their fear. It was like watching a horror movie, they couldn’t help but look to see more.
The video was static for the first 5 seconds, showing nothing but a black screen. A prisoner soon appeared on camera along with 2 others, the background was now that of a forest. The tree branch was swaying intensely, displaying the bad weather. There was no sound and the video was dark, making it hard to make out the prisoner's face.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
They moved around with difficulty before one of them opened their mouths to speak. Yet the only sound they could hear was a quiet and cold voice.
“It’s windy here...”
The sentence was soon repeated continuously, like a shaman repeating a curse.
“It’s windy here...”
“It’s windy here...”
“It’s windy here...”
The sentence was meaningless yet each time they heard it, something uncomfortable took hold of their heart. They had a sudden urge to visit where the mountain was, forgetting what was happening around them.
Bong... bong...
A bell resounded in the room, snapping the trio awake. Their confusion lasted for a second before being replaced by fear.
Allein put the bell down and pointed back to the screen, urging them to continue watching. The three could only swallow their saliva before looking back at the monitor.
Allein walks forward and clicks on a timestamp, skipping past 3 hours of footage. The video now shows the prisoners walking up the mountain. A flash of white entered the screen for a brief moment before disappearing.
Suddenly, the camera cuts to black! The empty and silent black screen tightens the heart of the trio watching the video. If it was a horror movie, a jumpscare would have appeared by now.
The footage returned to normal and now the camera was weirdly shaped, shooting the ground.
“Huh?” Loren whispered.
A red line interrupted the screen, blurring the already fuzzy footage. He soon realized it was no video error, the video recorded accurately. It was blood that had covered the camera lens! The screen didn’t show anybody or any gruesome beast, only the blood was the evidence that something terrible had happened. Soon the footage cut out again but was paused by Allein. He looks at them with indifference.
“What do you think?”
The question wasn’t directed at anyone in particular yet it was also directed at everyone in the room. Loren felt the cold sweat on his back, his heart beating ever more rapidly. Allein also knew he wasn’t going to get an answer like this, thus he changed his question.
“What will we be dealing with in our job?”
Nanako has now recovered from her previous shock and was the one to answer his question.
“... supernatural entities and occurrences?”
Allein nods. He continues.
“And how will we deal with them?”
“Through knowledge and experiences.” Jack answered.
“From the footage and the reports, guess what we’ll be dealing with.”
Loren has also recovered and was now looking through his notebook. He tried comparing the anomalous behaviors of the incident with the things he had written down. Perhaps its luck but it didn’t take long before he found a matching result. He spoke hesitantly, afraid he would make a mistake.
“SEnO 076?”
Allein nods once more, giving Loren the necessary courage to continue.
“...SEnO 076: The northern wind.”
“SEnO 076 changes between 2 states. The first state, 076 is not much different from a normal windstorm, alternating between medium and high wind level. It is often accompanied by a thick fog. The wind always blows north.
The second state, 076a will appear inside 076 range. 076a are masses of wind clump together, moving at incredible speed. Their highest recorded speed is 519 km/h. Simply being graze by one will be lethal. 076a will only move north, making it possible to anticipate their arrival.
Both 076 and 076a do not exhibit intelligence. Recording of 076 should only be watch under surveillance. For the sealing method please refer to the team leader.”
Loren, who was finished with the notebook, looked at Allein carefully. He was afraid he might have missed a detail somewhere.
“That’s good enough. Don't worry about the sealing method. If you want to know them, you would need to finish 3 cases.”
“Since this is your first time dealing with a SEnO, you’ll have to listen to my order fully. You aren’t allowed to make any extra actions outside of my order, got it?”
“Yes sir!”
Allein put on his black trench coat, his gun hidden neatly inside. It was time to do his job.