Life in North America, you call this an autopsy officer?!
Chapter 358 - 224 Malice, A Bet

Chapter 358: Chapter 224 Malice, A Bet

Iona Lake:

(In Chapter 223, the last paragraph, and Police Officer Shara’s description of the missing case—specifically, the latter part of the second-to-last paragraph—underwent minor changes. There’s no need to revisit them intentionally; the content below will briefly describe the changes.)

...

"It must be a coincidence.."

Brian retracted his gaze from the promotional billboard for a campsite by a lake that resembled "Friday the 13th."

In reality, he had never heard of any supernatural events, nor was there likely to be a Crystal Lake or an Undead Jason. It was probably just that the geographical environment here was very similar in many respects.

After all, even in the world of movies, the locations didn’t match up.

Brian walked along a small path towards the lake, pondering the information he had gathered.

According to the description by Police Officer Shara, the disappearance took place at a campsite near another lake some twenty to thirty kilometers away from this one.

The subsequent disappearance of five police officers also happened there.

What was peculiar was that during that time, someone found one of the missing officer’s police uniforms on the surface of Iona Lake which was twenty to thirty kilometers away.

Continuous disappearances + peculiar circumstances.

Under the frightful atmosphere, Chief Flory, the responsible case officer, had no choice but to seek outside help while arranging divers to search Iona Lake—located in the city center—for any possible underground waterways.

Actually, this move was quite correct.

The disappearance occurred at a campsite by a lake in the suburbs.

Like I mentioned before, even with the combined populations of the major cities, there were only about seven hundred thousand people—sparse in comparison to the land, and beyond the cities, the suburbs were scarcely populated.

Once faced with danger in those places, humans felt enormous pressure.

Iona Lake was different; it was situated within the more populous parts of the city, and the investigation here was not like the wilderness—there was not as much psychological pressure.

After all, even if an incident occurred, a large number of armed reinforcements would arrive promptly, which instinctively brought a sense of safety.

..

Pondering.

An old man wearing a police uniform, holding a cigarette, suddenly burst out of the trees by the road.

He glanced at Brian and asked, "An outsider?"

Brian nodded. "Yes, I came from Los Angeles to find Chief Flory. Shara was supposed to welcome me, but she brought me here and left straight away."

"I am," Chief Flory replied somewhat haughtily with a nod. "Shara can be unreliable. I only just received her call and found out you’ve arrived."

Saying this, he extended his hand to Brian. "The moment I saw you, I knew you were going to be of help. You can call me Flory or Chief; I prefer the latter."

"Brian, I’m an Autopsy Officer by profession," Brian also briefly introduced himself.

"Autopsy Officer?"

Chief Flory was slightly confused.

He had suspected that a Mutant might be behind this crime, prompting a request for special assistance from the county. However, the county’s special organization also suffered heavy losses and had to continue seeking outside help.

Now the outside help had arrived.

The guy looked decent enough.

The question was, why would an Autopsy Officer come?

"Yes, an Autopsy Officer, but I have some knowledge of gun skills and close combat, so I won’t be a burden. Tell me about the situation, Chief Flory."

Brian pushed up his Sven glasses, smiling amicably.

Chief Flory sighed inwardly.

What a sham of outside help this was.

He lacked spirit and motioned for Brian to follow, "Did Shara tell you about the case?"

"Just a brief rundown."

Brian recapped what Shara had told him.

Chief Lorry nodded.

"It’s about right.

The disappearances happened a week ago.

The initial missing were children from a nearby town, a total of three, the oldest eleven and the youngest eight.

I am the town’s chief of police.

After the families reported it, I led the officers to the missing point to search.

That area is somewhat secluded, but there are some citizens living there, and with a children’s summer camp nearby, clearance of wildlife hazards was frequent, and there had been no incidents of wild animal attacks in the past several years.

But this time was different.

After we arrived and met up with some volunteering residents, we began an immediate search and finally found one of the missing children’s shoes.

The shoe was floating at the edge of the lake.

There were no traces of flesh residuals and no signs of crocodile activity.

Oh God!

We suspected they had drowned.

So we sent officers to search underwater, but again, nothing turned up.

Here’s where the strange part begins.

After returning,

we discovered that one officer was missing.

This was an abnormal incident.

Our financial situation isn’t great, so including myself, the town’s police force consists of only three officers.

Three officers, two cars.

It wasn’t until after we returned that we realized someone was missing from our group.

Mr. Brian, can you imagine our feelings at that time?

We even began to suspect that some Demon had erased our memories."

As he recounted the past events, fear inadvertently showed on the old chief’s face.

Brian’s interest was piqued.

This case was intriguing.

He curiously asked, "What happened next?"

To date, five officers had gone missing.

And this was just the beginning.

...

Chief Flory took a deep breath.

He slowed his pace and pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it up, taking a deep inhale.

Finally regaining some composure with the help of nicotine, he continued: