Chapter 130: Cleanup Squad |
Ma Cidi felt incredibly depressed.
The counselor who initially recommended he join the Anomaly Management Bureau clearly told him that this was a career path with limitless potential...
Touching the completely unresponsive work device in his pocket, Ma Cidi sighed. Instead, he pulled out the Employee Handbook, sat down on a tree stump, and reread the preface introducing the scale and strength of the Bureau, trying to numb himself with a grand sense of mission.
But then again.
Was not performing work related to anomalies just another job?
Furthermore, his salary had been delayed for two months, and several colleagues around him had already disappeared without a trace...
The Bureau was not going to go bankrupt and shut down, was it?
Although he had not joined the Bureau for a high salary and lived an excessively frugal life, the anxiety of potentially losing his job still affected Ma Cidi.
Standing in place and tilting his head in thought, he noticed a figure walking toward him from a distance along the narrow field path.
"Ma Cidi?"
The moment the man opened his mouth, his Dongli dialect carried a distinct taco-flavored accent, almost making Ma Cidi burst into laughter.
"You can just use World Language. What should I call you, buddy?"
"Jack."
The two shook hands.
Jack's knuckles were prominent, and his physique was even thinner than Ma Cidi's.
Considering that temporary workers were talents selected from all walks of life who had to undergo long-term observation before becoming regular employees, Ma Cidi guessed that Jack had not been chosen for his physical prowess.
He never expected that, as an Class-E Personnel intern of the Containment Squad, he would actually run into a total rookie who did not even qualify for an E-class ranking.
Ma Cidi faintly felt that something was wrong.
"How come you walked here too? Did they explain the situation to you? Did you bring your equipment?"
"What equipment? They just told me to come over and help, they did not say anything else. So, are we going on patrol or what?"
...
"...Great. The two of us are going to use wooden sticks for purging Distortion Phenomena."
The mission location was in the Small Village at the foot of Old Temple Mountain. This was the kind of declining village where only nostalgic elderly people remained. Large tracts of farmland were uncultivated and uncontracted, left entirely vacant and abandoned. Aside from the two of them, there were almost no pedestrians on the road.
The small building where the Distortion Phenomenon was located sat on one side of the village, right next to the dirt road. The main entrance was less than ten meters away from them. It looked... ordinarily gloomy.
Realizing just how unreliable his backup was, Ma Cidi felt even more depressed.
Since his superiors had not issued an order to retreat, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and read the mission briefing from his phone to this Jack.
"A week ago, a paranormal live stream host broke into this house. He performed some Summoning Ritual in there to play the ghost, but he accidentally caught a figure outside the third-floor window on camera—probably right around that spot."
Jack—or rather, Shi Rang, who was borrowing Jack's name—followed the other's pointing finger, his gaze landing on the nearly dust-sealed glass window.
It was pitch black behind the glass.
Through Sensing, Shi Rang determined that there was indeed a Distortion Phenomenon here, but the energy source he detected... was the entire building.
"After the Customer Service Department noticed it—"
"Customer Service Department?" Shi Rang could not help but ask.
He had never found a department by that name in the Terminal Station.
"It is the Normalization Information Gathering Department. We just call them the Customer Service Department or the Monitoring Department. Anyway, they repaired and compared the image of that figure, ruled out the possibility of special effects, shut down that guy's live stream, and hauled him in for interrogation. After all that, this Distortion Phenomenon fell into our laps. Our task is... you do know the procedure, right?" A trace of suspicion still hid in the depths of Ma Cidi's eyes.
"I know. Gather intelligence, submit clues, and wait for the Intelligence Department to issue the Records. Then we neutralize the phenomenon based on the response method—oh, right, the connection code for this operation is D2CC17. I should have mentioned that from the start, I forgot." Shi Rang nodded at him apologetically, his words filled with the humility of a temporary worker.
Hearing this, Ma Cidi finally let down his guard.
"I do not have a Communication Device, so waiting for the intelligence will take even longer. If you have no objections, as the highest-ranking employee present, I will command this operation."
Shi Rang naturally had no objections.
His entire understanding of purging Distortion Phenomena came from Agent Kyle's reckless, rule-breaking operation—incidentally, the latter's glorious deeds seemed to have spread throughout the entire Anomaly Management Bureau.
"Well then... it is currently five-forty in the afternoon. It should be dark in about half an hour, and we will begin our operation then. If an emergency occurs, we will handle it according to the steps in the handbook."
"Understood, Captain Ma."
Nobody disliked hearing compliments. Although Ma Cidi was a little surprised by the nickname and did not say anything on the surface, he still revealed an unconcealable sense of pride.
Shi Rang had actually learned this trick of changing titles from Deacon Huo.
And so, a Cleanup Squad consisting of a Class-E Personnel intern and a temporary worker was thus formed.
Seeing that there was still some time before the mission began, Ma Cidi, who did not know exactly what he should be doing as Captain, simply handed his Employee Handbook to Shi Rang. He casually told him to read it over, then sat back down on the tree stump to rest. He was pleased to see Shi Rang holding the handbook and studying it earnestly. He felt that although this person's fashion sense was poor and his hairstyle was weird, his attitude was quite serious.
Shi Rang was indeed reading the handbook—which was unavailable on the Terminal Station—with an insatiable thirst. For the first time, he learned the specific work procedures within the Anomaly Management Bureau.
He memorized the entire process, from "purging Distortion Phenomena" to "how to connect with a senior Containment Squad upon discovering an Anomaly Project," gaining even more inspiration on how to exploit loopholes.
Sure enough, taking the initiative yielded abundant rewards.
According to the Bureau's regulations, they generally would not destroy an Anomaly Project, but a Distortion Phenomenon was a lower-tier "Anomaly." Because their power was weak, purging Distortion Phenomena did not pose any risks—from another perspective, it was actually a way to preemptively eliminate the hidden danger of them mutating and upgrading.
But at the end of the day, this was also due to limitations in funding and capabilities. If they had to provide containment for Distortion Phenomena, whose numbers far exceeded those of Anomaly Projects, the Anomaly Management Bureau would go bankrupt on the spot.
Having resolved the doubts in his heart, Shi Rang could not help but inquire about other matters.
"Captain Ma, did your salary from last month hit your account?"
"Not yet." Ma Cidi kept his head down and kicked a small pebble away. "The higher-ups said they will gradually make up for it starting next month, but I doubt it."
"What exactly happened?"
"Financial fluctuations, limited resources—but most people privately say it was caused by the mosquitoes."
"Mosquitoes?"
Seeing Shi Rang's bewildered expression, Ma Cidi became interested and shared, "Did they not tell you anything at all? A few months ago, there was a mosquito swarm at the border with the Third District. Rumor has it that it was a bunch of mosquitoes that flew faster than cars. They could smoke insecticide like cigarettes, could not be hit, and could not be poisoned. At first, there were only a few, but then they suddenly reproduced into hundreds of thousands. It got so bad that the Mobile Task Force had to go over and help. I heard the losses were severe, and even issuing salaries was affected."
'The border between the Second District and the Third District?'
'They deployed the Mobile Task Force?'
A map popped up in Shi Rang's mind.
'North of the Second District is the Third District, and near the eastern border of the Third District is Facility 031. Further east is the Tenth District...'
Combining these keywords, Shi Rang thought of the report following the Containment Breach incident at Facility 031.
It mentioned that the Mobile Task Force "Pyromaniac" stationed at the facility had been urgently deployed to execute a mission to exterminate a "mosquito swarm," so they were not inside the facility when the incident occurred. The nearest base of the Mobile Task Force "Gardener" was some distance away from the facility. This was what gave Director Bjorn an opening, leading to a series of subsequent losses.
'Could it be that the Ascension Society did this?'
'Is this mosquito swarm some kind of biological weapon created using an Anomaly? To provide Director Bjorn with a window to defect?'
'Given their attitude toward the use of Anomalous Effects, it is highly possible.'
'I can try asking A Piao about this later.'
He quickly completed his speculations. Noticing that Ma Cidi was still waiting for his reaction, he hurriedly put on an exaggerated expression of disgust. "It is better if these kinds of mosquitoes go extinct as soon as possible."
"Tell me about it. Mosquitoes are the most annoying things." Ma Cidi swatted and killed a mosquito that was resting on his arm sucking blood. He glanced at the darkening sky and stood up from the tree stump. "It is about time. Let's go inside and see if that ghostly figure floating outside the window has come out yet."
Shi Rang followed behind Ma Cidi. As the other man pushed the door open, he took the opportunity to look up at this five-story small building, feeling somewhat troubled.
'The entire building is the phenomenon. How are we supposed to purge this?'