Chapter 297: Back to the Start

Harvey had stopped moving forward, frozen like a statue, not entering his room and not turning back around. The others hadn't noticed; they were still talking amongst themselves, getting to work.

Eventually, he started to rub his index finger across his thumb, doing it a few times until he turned around with a smile on his face.

"Newbie, is it?" Harvey called out. "I can't remember your name. Was it something silly like Cookie or something?"

"Calner, sir, but you can call me Cookie if you wish."

"Alright, Cookie, since you are new here, you can go on your first trip with me," Harvey explained. "After the group digs up some information, we will be heading out to the sites to investigate in pairs, and you can have the honor of going with me."

"Thank you, sir. I won't let you down!" Cookie said, his face flushed slightly red.

"Alright, you guys, get to work, and get as much information as you can on the Dark Magus," Harvey ordered as he went back to his office and clicked his fingers. The enchanted glass covered the room again.

"Whoa, I don't know if going with the captain is going to be good or bad for you," one of the officers said, and soon, all of them got to work.

They continued to research the Dark Magus files, in particular, they were looking at details of events that had occurred near the area they were in. For many of the officers, looking into the details of the Dark Magus was quite shocking.

"Hey, did you hear about this event?" one of the officers said, pulling up the file. "The Dark Magus, they say he took out one of the police bases that were here before. It started because an officer seemed to have seized a storage unit that belonged to the Dark Mage."

"Wait, so because the police were doing their job, he attacked one of the units, like this?" Another officer asked.

"Well, not just attacked, he got rid of the whole unit. There are quite a few cases like this as well."

"I've found some other reports stating that he attacked quite a few facilities as well. All of them had links to illegal drug production, though."

"Yeah, but did you see, they were small-scale places, none of the large ones. It doesn't seem like he was doing it out of the good of his heart. He attacked multiple of the large facilities that were producing a number of drugs that were illegal and used to save lives with diseases as well.

"So it seems the Dark Magus was just being the Dark Magus, taking out medical facilities and causing disruption."

"Doesn't it make you wonder, though? We are looking through all of these files, and the Dark Magus had done a lot of bad things, we all know that. Yet what about his origin? With his death, shouldn't there be an official file?

"Shouldn't he be in a system of some kind? We should know his real identity and find out why the Dark Magus did these things or why the Dark Magus became the Dark Magus."

"Are we teachers now? Are we his parents? He is a criminal at the end of the day, and our job is to catch them, end of story. We can't go looking into preventing these things, and I'm sure you have seen drastic cases like the Dark Magus.

"There are those raised in the perfect environment, loving family, and a number of things, yet they still do the inevitable."

After compiling a list of reports, it was time for the officers to take action. Thankfully, the world of Alterian, at least to the general public, was a safe place. At least in the post that they were at, there weren't multiple calls during the day, giving them a lot of free time to look at other things. With no calls being brought in, it meant they could act quite quickly on the task that had been handed to them from above.

"Officers, we will travel in pairs!" Harvey announced as he had put them all together, and by his side, there was Officer Cookie. "Remember what I said before, that anything you find, do not upload it to the central database, and that it should go through me first."

With that said, the group split up to all of the different sites across the city, in particular districts. As for Harvey, the site that he had chosen was a personal one and the one that interested him the most.

The night sky was out, and the neon lights shined across the entire city. It was almost impossible to see a building without lights on the outside. But in the city full of night lights and large skyscraper buildings, there was almost a gap. An area that stood out because it was shrouded in darkness.

"So we are finally here," Harvey said with a smile.

In front of him, there was a thick blue barrier that covered the area. It was to block access for the general public and other mages. Of course, a mage with some strength could break down the barrier, but if that were to happen, then an alert would be sent, and in an instant, several forces would be there to stop the attacker.

As for what was behind the barrier, it was a site, or what was left of a site. What was once a large building, along with the other skyscrapers, was now just a large mound that looked to be black in color. There was still some of the steel frame that could be seen, but large parts of it had melted down. There were also a few of the building structures that were left here and there, but it was nothing like it once was.

Walking up to the barrier, Harvey pulled out a round metallic object, in the center of which was a large orb that had a crystal inside it. When he placed the object, it somewhat stuck to the barrier, and shortly after, a part of the barrier changed in color.

Immediately, Harvey walked through the barrier, and following after him was Cookie. After that, Harvey took the device back off, and the barrier returned to normal.

"So what is this place, boss? You didn't really give me any information," Cookie said as he quickened his pace to catch up with the captain, who had already dived right into the scene.

"This place, you mean you don't know? I thought the information was released to the general public. Didn't you look at the files?" Harvey replied.

While looking around, it felt like there wasn't much to look at or find. Nearly everything had been burnt to the ground by a powerful fire spell. It had burnt most of the scene that they could have had from around them, but there was one thing that Harvey was wondering.

"There's almost no other damage other than that which is from the fire. Sure, the fire could have cleared it up, but shouldn't there be lingering magic, or at least some sign of other spells?" Harvey commented. "And to answer your question, this is the site, the area where the Dark Magus was said to have lost his fight. His body burnt to a crisp, leaving nothing behind it."

It was a story that Harvey had been following well, to the point he realized that the site of the Dark Magus' death was never revealed to the public. As they thought it would become a tourist destination for others and they didn't want the site to be ruined. Yet it was also the reason, or part of the reason why Harvey thought that it might just be the case that the Dark Magus was still alive.

"Until I see the body myself, I won't believe that he has passed," Harvey commented.

"Well, if the Dark Magus was alive, then it would certainly bring terror to everyone. We would need the help of the Grand Magus again to stop him if that happened," Cookie commented.

After looking around for a while, it was quite clear that they weren't going to find anything, or anything that the officers would be interested in.

"I guess there is nothing for us to report?" Cookie asked.

"I have found out one thing," Harvey said as he turned around.

The two of them were standing in the center, what looked like a dark pit surrounded by the destroyed buildings on all sides that covered them from the outside buildings and areas.

"There is a group that worships the Dark Magus. Have you heard of them?" Harvey asked.

"A group, that really exists? I thought the Dark Magus was a solo person," Cookie replied.

"Oh, he is," Harvey replied. "But there is a group that is trying to follow in his footsteps, to help his goal. They call themselves the Dark Guild, and it seems that they are operating right here at the moment."

"Right here? How did you find that out, captain?" Cookie asked.

"Ah," Harvey stopped rubbing his index finger and thumb at that moment, and magic started to swirl around his body. It was Dark Magic, which reached grabbing onto Cookie's legs and arms. A large shadow figure held Cookie right in the air.

"It's because I'm a member of this guild, and as a member, you need to be punished for the words you said," Harvey held out his hand, facing out.

"Dark Pulse." An attack left his hand, striking right in the center of Cookie's heart, and his head fell down, looking at the floor.