Chapter 68

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Search

In the early morning of Igewent, on the Apartment Building of Nanyang Flower Road.

Gregor, who had just climbed out of bed, got dressed and yawned as he pushed open the door. Entering the living room, he saw that his sister was not in the large room. He didn’t think too much about it and went to wash up before heading to the door to pick up breakfast prepared by Mrs. Hank downstairs.

After placing the breakfast on the table, Gregor casually ate a little, then prepared to go out. Before leaving, he knocked on Dorothy’s door and called out loudly.

“Get up, Dorothy! If you don’t wake up soon, you’ll be late!”

After shouting, Gregor waited a moment, but there was no response from behind the door. Seeing this, he turned the doorknob and opened Dorothy’s door.

The door was not locked, and Gregor pushed it open, discovering an empty room. The bedsheets were neatly arranged, the quilt folded well, the desk was tidy, and the bookshelves were lined with books. The clothes that had originally hung on the rack and her school bag were nowhere to be found.

“Hmm… has she already left? I see… she took two pieces of her bread this morning. This girl has been waking up so early lately. Is there something going on?”

After closing the empty room, Gregor returned to drink a glass of milk before heading out downstairs. He didn’t think much of the situation; mornings had been like this for the past few days. His sister seemed to have become quite diligent, waking up earlier than him and leaving in a hurry.

‘Maybe I’ll ask her about school tonight when she gets back to see if there’s something special happening.’

With this thought in mind, Gregor walked out of the Apartment Building and headed towards the city at a brisk pace.

After nearly an hour of walking, Gregor finally arrived at his workplace, located beneath a tall building at an intersection. This ten-story building, named Cedar Shirt Building, was common property of the Igewent city government and had originally housed the municipal government offices. After the government relocated, the building was rented to a few small companies as office space.

In fact, not all government agencies had moved; the Prit Special Agency and the Igewent Branch of the National Security Bureau were still located in the basement of this building.

“Phew… another day at work… I hope there’s no overtime…”

After exhaling, Gregor walked straight into the building, a scene that was observed from a high vantage point.

“You’re ten minutes later than usual… Gregor…”

On the rooftop opposite the Cedar Shirt Building, Dorothy sat behind a wall, observing Gregor enter the building using a Crow Doll standing under the streetlight below. She murmured to herself.

At that moment, Dorothy sat cross-legged on the deserted rooftop ground. Scattered around her were piles of paper, each with various designs drawn in pencil. Upon closer inspection, these were maps of the surrounding streets and many internal floor plans of buildings. Numerous points on these maps were circled and labeled.

Dorothy picked up the scattered maps around her and began examining them one by one, marking locations on each, such as the first and second floors of Cedar Shirt Building, the first floor and basement of Viken Building, Cedar Shirt Street, Blue Fairy Grass Street, and so on…

These maps provided detailed interiors and exteriors of the neighborhood and were drawn by Dorothy through blanket reconnaissance using the Animal Puppets over the past few days.

The purpose of these maps was to help Dorothy accurately locate the Igewent An Yin Bureau and all its entrances.

Indeed, to catch the traitor within the Igewent An Yin Bureau, one must know who is inside. The best way to do this would be to directly use reconnaissance puppets to infiltrate the Bureau, which, however, has considerable risks.

Dorothy reasoned that it wouldn’t be possible to have no counter-reconnaissance measures within the headquarters of an An Yin Bureau. If she controlled a puppet created as a supernatural means to enter, it could likely be detected by the Bureau’s counter-reconnaissance measures, which poses significant risk.

This line of thought was not unfounded. While occasionally spying on Gregor, Dorothy had seen the resource allocation reports within the An Yin Bureau, which clearly documented that the Bureau regularly purchased a certain quantity of “Lights” for spiritual reserves from the Church of Radiance. The stated purpose implied it was for internal counter-reconnaissance, so Dorothy speculated that the Bureau likely had surveillance cameras powered by “Lights” spirit energy, capable of detecting abnormal supernatural intrusions.

Although Dorothy possessed an Invisibility Ring, the “Shadow” spirit energy was quite limited. Who knows how powerful the “Lights” detection within the An Yin Bureau is? Locating the traitor is a long-term surveillance task, and Dorothy doubted she had enough “Shadow” energy, not to mention that using puppets with the Invisibility Ring could be a hassle.

For all these reasons, cautious Dorothy did not directly send puppets into the An Yin Bureau for investigation but instead adopted a relatively safe method that would take more time.

Holding the various maps in her hands, Dorothy slowly examined each of the marked positions, which indicated doors or staircases. These areas were all labeled by her as “entrances.”

“A block with three buildings and nine entrances… Heh… it seems that the security measures for the Igewent An Yin Bureau are not too shabby.”

Looking at the marked points on the map, Dorothy gently spoke. Based on her comprehensive investigation over the past few days, she uncovered the specific structure of the Igewent An Yin Branch.

The headquarters was located in the basement of the Cedar Shirt Building, with entrances disguised as ordinary doors scattered throughout the three nearby buildings, including the Cedar Shirt Building. All of them were on the first floor; once the doors were opened, they led to staircases downwards. The employees of the An Yin Bureau pretended to be ordinary people working nearby, using these hidden entrances to come and go daily.

Locating these entrances was not difficult. Dorothy just needed to use puppets to check every room behind each door in the surrounding block. Any that didn’t clearly match normal housing structures or appeared suspicious were problematic.

For instance, in a corridor lined with doors, if one door led to a staircase while others led to normal rooms, this violation of standardized construction would raise red flags. Dorothy could simply arrange her puppets to lie on the ceilings of the corridor, watching as passersby opened doors and taking advantage of that to discern what was behind them. Additionally, monitoring the building’s cleaners to see if they never cleaned certain rooms could also provide clues. Dorothy even sent her puppets into the building’s ventilation system to inspect which fake rooms were completely uncovered by it. There were many such methods…

By the way, due to the reason of enhanced control from the “Enlightenment” spirit, Dorothy had already become capable of controlling corpses of arthropods like spiders, although she still couldn’t control insects yet, but her reconnaissance capabilities had significantly improved.

In summary, after spending a substantial amount of time and energy using various means, Dorothy identified nine hidden entrances of the An Yin Bureau. She only needed to spend a few more days to maximize her puppet numbers to watch these entrances and record which personnel were coming and going to clearly understand who the members of the Igewent An Yin Bureau were.

And the traitor Dorothy was looking for was among them.