"What?! Jack is missing?!"
Noid nearly dropped the cup in his hand. Just a few hours ago, the boy said he would be home late because he was going out to play with some friends.
Mr. Takagi's face was extremely serious: "Not just Jack, the kids he was with are also missing."
While working at the tomato garden, Jack had made friends with a group of kids his age. Today, they had planned to have a day off to play, but unexpectedly, all of them had gone missing.
At first, Noid felt something was strange. With the stamina of eight and nine-year-olds, they couldn't have gone far. Plus, in this wartime era, there was no such thing as an amusement park. So the places they could go were very limited.
Noid immediately closed the coffee shop, put on his windbreaker, and went out to report it to the police.
"Thank you for reporting this. We will do our best to find the children."
The police tried to reassure and promise, but he only became more anxious. He didn't want to just sit around and worry. He pulled a tranquilizer gun from his system's storage and put it in his pocket.
To find the children, running around randomly was like looking for a needle in a haystack. He first had to find where the children were before they went missing.
Noid knew of two most likely places. The first was a park, and the second was a house not far away. It was originally an orphanage founded more than ten years ago. After the doom invasion, the area fell into chaos. The orphanage was converted into a medical center. But after the city of Rorgh was built, the medical center was moved elsewhere, and this place was abandoned.
Although it had been abandoned for many years, there was still a children's playground in the orphanage's courtyard. The managers didn't dismantle it or redevelop it. On the contrary, they even put old toys in there so the surrounding children could come and play freely.
He immediately ruled out the park. Although it could be a place for children to play, the time of the disappearance was in the afternoon, a time when the streets were quite crowded. Compared to that, the orphanage was much more likely. Although it was in the open on the street, the building of the orphanage provided a shield. If a kidnapping were to happen inside, surveillance cameras would have a hard time catching it.
No sooner said than done, he rushed to the orphanage. Unfortunately, Noid didn't seem to have a talent for being a detective. After struggling from afternoon to evening for several hours, he found nothing.
"What on earth was I thinking?"
Investigating on his own sounded cool, but in the two years he had been here, besides the first few days when he wore an armor to fight with the doom, what he had learned was mainly to make drinks, farm, and cook. In his old world, he had been idle for ten years, so it would be strange if he could find any clues.
He could only leave with regret. On the way back, Noid did see a police car on patrol, which reassured him a little. It seemed the police were going all out this time.
He quickly ate his meal, but the food didn't taste good no matter what. Even though he tried to reassure himself that the children would be safe, the unease in his heart didn't disappear.
"Damn it."
He cursed softly, once again putting on his windbreaker and going outside.
Searching again, Noid was mentally prepared to come back empty-handed, but he didn't expect to find something unexpected. Because the orphanage area had no lights at night, and only a weak light from a nearby building shone over, Noid squinted and barely saw two figures fumbling near the playground.
At this hour, no one would come here just to play, let alone adults. Unless those two were like Noid, who came to look for the missing children.
For a moment, he decided to quietly follow them. He tiptoed closer, just enough to hear the two of them talking.
"You're really stupid. You made me come out late at night to dig through the dirt with you."
"Who... who would have known he had a pen on him?"
"Quiet! Hurry and find it! I'm sure it has to be around here."
The whole conversation sounded like one person scolding another for losing something. But Noid noticed something unusual about the phrase, "he had a pen on him." This was completely inconsistent with his preconceived notions.
To be sure, Noid waited a little longer. After ten long and boring minutes, one of them spoke.
"Here it is! We finally found it!"
"That damn little brat! You almost got away with it. I'm going to torture you when we get back."
"You shut up! You're lucky the police didn't get here in time. Let's go back. It's not good to get caught."
The two of them chattered on, completely unaware that Noid was hiding behind a wall more than ten meters away, recording their entire conversation.
His face was expressionless throughout the process, but his heart was burning with anxiety. He wanted to use his tranquilizer gun to take down the two men and then interrogate them for the children's location, but with his clumsy experience, Noid wasn't sure if he could get anything useful out of them.
Reporting to the police had also crossed his mind, but Noid wasn't sure if the two men had accomplices. If he handed them over to the police and the others found out, he didn't dare imagine what they would do to the kidnapped children.
They left, and Noid stealthily followed them. The two men expertly avoided surveillance, taking a winding route, and finally stopped at a small convenience store. The interesting thing was that this convenience store was in a secluded location, and all the houses near it were already dark, even though the evening had just begun.
Noid had never encountered houses with a habit of sleeping early, but if a whole area was like this, it was truly bizarre.
He unconsciously quieted his breathing and crept closer to the convenience store. Inside was a cashier. When the two men entered, the cashier nodded, so it seemed they were all in the same gang.
He peeked through the window and saw the two men go into the restroom and not come out again.
"It looks like my chance has come."
Whispering to himself, Noid stood up and calmly walked into the store. When the cashier saw him enter, he tried to reach for something under the counter, but was hit with a tranquilizer dart directly in the head. He fell to the ground without making a sound.
This type of tranquilizer not only paralyzed the body, but also sent an electric current to the brain, temporarily "shutting it down." The person hit not only became paralyzed but also passed out on the spot.
Having finished, he went to the restroom. He carefully opened the door and discovered it wasn't a restroom, but a staircase leading straight down.
Noid had a bad feeling. This didn't seem like a normal kidnapping. He sent a message to Sasha, then went farther away to call the police in the quietest voice possible. But he hung up before the police officer on the other end could answer.
Noid took a deep breath, didn't turn on his flashlight, and slowly walked down, his tranquilizer gun held tightly in his hand.