Using the MC system to pretend spiritual revival

Chapter 202 150,000 vs 100,000
It was exactly eight o'clock in the morning.

Sunlight streamed in at an angle, and a bustling crowd could be seen outside the window.

"Beep—~"

An electronic notification sounded, and inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department headquarters, a young police officer stepped off the time clock.

With a bright and energetic look on his face, he had just pushed open the glass door of the office when a heavy file folder was shoved in his face.

"Yamen, please take this document to the logistics department for me."

"...Um...okay, okay! No problem."

The young police officer, who was stopped as soon as he entered, turned slightly to the side and saw that behind the documents was a middle-aged woman in a business suit with a team leader's name tag on her chest.

Seeing the other person's arrogant expression, Yamen wanted to refuse to leave, but after thinking about the fairly generous salary, he could only reach out and take the documents.

"I'll go right away, Team Leader Tamura."

After saying that, he turned around and walked to the other side of the corridor.

However, before he had taken more than a few steps, a slightly shrill voice called out to him from behind.

"Wait! Remember, from now on, you only need to address them by their job title!"

"Also, there will be a meeting in the first conference room in a little while. The director requires everyone to be present."

Before Yamen could turn around and respond, the sound of high heels hitting the floor quickly faded away.

When he turned around, he only saw a back view and the office door slamming shut behind him.

"This... sigh..."

Yamen wanted to say something, but in the end he just sighed silently.

He walked briskly and skillfully took the elevator to the top floor, then knocked on the door of the director's office.

"Knock knock—~"

"Director, there are documents from the Information Department..."

"…Enter."

……

after an hour.

Located on the third floor.

The largest group meeting room in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

"Gah—~"

The door was pushed open.

Amen, panting heavily, walked in with an apologetic expression.

Amidst the astonished gazes of various department leaders and colleagues in the room, I carefully bowed and made my way to the last row, where I settled into my assigned seat.

Noticing the mocking or disapproving glances directed at him, he could only manage a helpless, bitter smile.

He had just run an errand for a senior colleague in his department, delivering materials to another block.

Even though I took the familiar back roads, I almost got stuck in traffic.

Just then, while everyone had turned their attention away from the meeting, Yamen took out his phone and glanced at the time.

9: 03.

Phew~ thank goodness~
I breathed a sigh of relief; thankfully, I returned in time, with just over ten minutes left before the meeting started.

Looking at the large area of ​​seats directly in front, there was still no one on the stage. Clearly, the bureau chief, who was troubled by the three highs (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol), had not yet arrived.

This also means that at least I won't have my bonus deducted this month because I'm late for the meeting.

In the time that followed, no one took the initiative to talk to Amen, who was a newly appointed junior police officer.

So, Amen picked up the documents on the table in front of him and started flipping through them, trying to understand what the meeting was about to discuss.

After all, he, as a junior police officer, had no right to know the content discussed in previous high-level meetings.

"Wow..."

As the file folder was opened and the papers were turned over, some case records, reports, and pictures came into view.

Before he had even read a few lines, Yamen's brows furrowed tightly.

"This is……"

"At 23:07 on May 18, an unidentified sea monster attacked the tourist area of ​​Ine-cho, a coastal town, on its open night, causing several injuries and property damage amounting to 350 million yen..."

"At 11:26 AM on May 24th, an anomaly was discovered in a mineral container at the Osaka Port cargo terminal. Nearby security personnel rushed to the scene and, after a search, found a large number of insects hidden within the ore. Several officers were injured..."

"May 30th, 01:40, Gono City..."

"..."

"At 3:13 AM on June 20th, in the Odama district of Tokyo, a company employee was subjected to a bizarre attack. A passerby witnessed the incident and called the police. No other injuries have been reported..."

Reports and files were reviewed one by one, the earliest records dating back to the beginning of last month, and the most recent being from yesterday.

Yamen's hands moved faster and faster, and even the sound of the papers folding attracted strange looks from some of his colleagues nearby.

However, at this moment, he was in no mood to care about any of these things.

Instead, he stared intently at every word in the report and the few blurry photos tucked underneath.

The first file shows a sea corridor and platform pieced together from docks.

He recognized the place; the school had even organized group trips there when he was in school.

However, the photo looks somewhat distorted, as if it has been edited in post-production, and appears entirely in black and white.

As mentioned in the file just now, it must have been because the filming took place at night.

What caught his attention most were the silvery-white tendrils that had torn apart the wooden stakes of the corridor beneath the panicked crowd in the photo.

In this night vision footage, those thick limbs, which are as tall as a person, appear to be glowing.

In the picture, the whole thing appears as a glaring silver-white.

Tracing the tentacles downwards into the water, one can vaguely see, through the image, a huge, elongated body that also radiates a translucent white hue.

It must be the tentacle that broke off the pillars of the dock corridor.

Because it was too blurry, it could only be roughly identified as three clumps, which may indicate that there was more than one of these unknown marine creatures.

Of course, that's nothing compared to what they've seen. After all, living on an island surrounded by the sea, what kind of enormous marine creatures haven't they encountered?

It was just a soft-bodied creature larger than a person; he had seen squid even bigger than this in the news, so it wasn't too shocking.

However, the next picture shocked him and challenged his worldview.

The image in this photo is much clearer, and it was taken during the day.

Judging from the angle, it looks like footage captured from a surveillance camera.

A group of police officers, dressed in uniforms similar to their own, ran in panic in all directions.

Meanwhile, in several open containers placed on the ground, a huge number of giant gray worms were ferociously attacking the terrified people who were fleeing.

The footage even shows some police officers who have collapsed and are groaning, with insects wriggling and burrowing into most of their bodies.

Even though it's a still image, staring at it for too long gives the feeling that it's about to twist and crawl out, which looks both horrifying and disgusting.

The more Amen looked, the more distorted his expression became. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he flipped over the image and began browsing the rest.

The next six pictures were all pretty much the same.

Although they occurred in different places and at different times, the only thing they had in common was that they were all transportation hubs that allowed them to connect with the outside world, such as ships and coastlines.

Some caused only minor harm and then disappeared, while others appeared multiple times in the records, causing casualties and incalculable economic losses.

Finally, there is a photo that was also taken at night, and it is somewhat dark overall.

The difference is that this picture only shows the figures of two people.

One of them, at a glance, was the company employee mentioned in the report. He wore glasses, was balding, had heavy dark circles under his eyes, and was dressed in a cheap suit that looked unbearably hot.

The person in the picture is lying on their back with a terrified expression, staring straight ahead.

Opposite him, his gaze fell upon a dark silhouette mostly shrouded in shadow.

And it's impossible to see any features clearly.

Even so, the more Amon stared at the photo, the more eerie it seemed.

Based on his fairly excellent criminal investigation theory, and estimating from the height of the person next to him in the picture, the blurry figure was at least two meters tall.

This is quite unusual for Japan, where the average height has only recently begun to increase.

Even if it was a foreigner who committed the crime, the man's features didn't look quite normal.

Exceptionally broad shoulders and head, and arms about the same width as the shoulders.

Although the structure of the other half of its body is not visible, its appearance alone suggests that it is unlikely to be a human being.

Unless it's some kind of pervert wearing a leather suit and wandering the streets at night.

However, considering the incidents mentioned in previous reports, if they really were common cases of perverted stalking...

Even if the person in question is a middle-aged, balding, greasy office worker, they shouldn't be placed on this conference table.

If he continued thinking about it this way, Amen felt that he vaguely guessed the reason for this large-scale meeting.

Although he had been unaware of these strange events occurring throughout the country until now.

However, these issues have been discussed on various secret forums around the world for over a month.

Especially in the United States, which receives a lot of attention, various information about vampires and werewolves has been unearthed on the dark web.

There are even eyewitness videos and pictures, which have spread like wildfire.

Although I haven't seen it with my own eyes, it has planted a seed in the hearts of many young people surfing the internet.

Now, suddenly encountering these unusual events, Amen felt not tension or fear, but rather a faint sense of anticipation.

Since entering the police academy, he has always touted himself as a partner of justice.

I believe I possess the intelligence and wit of the protagonists in many creative works.

With this somewhat immature mindset, Amon successfully entered the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department as the Chief Superintendent with outstanding grades.

However, in the following two weeks...

The various tasks handed over to colleagues, along with the pressure and isolation from superiors and seniors, successfully extinguished his nascent youthful fervor.

This has caused him to feel somewhat depressed these past few days.

And now, these cases and reports on the table, with their plots resembling those in anime stories, have reignited his dream of being the protagonist.

Amen completely ignored the increasingly strange and disdainful looks from his colleagues.

His face was filled with undisguised excitement as he flipped through the few pages of the brief report again and again.

He tries to be like the protagonist in many stories, directly discovering the key to the problem and making a name for himself.

He didn't even notice that the door creaked open not far away.

A short, stout, balding man wearing a police officer's shirt, resembling an upside-down light bulb, staggered in.

As he turned his head, a pair of small eyes, visible through the fat on his face, glanced sideways at the quiet meeting room.

I glanced at it almost immediately.

He then noticed a young man sitting in the last corner of the row who wasn't looking at him but instead kept looking down at something.

A hint of dissatisfaction flashed in his eyes, but he still swayed as he walked to the back of the podium in the center of the room.

"...Sizzle...Sizzle..."

He first tapped the microphone to confirm that the equipment was working properly before clearing his throat, opening the documents in his hand, and announcing the start of the meeting.

"Ahem! You should all be somewhat familiar with the topics to be discussed in this meeting."

"On the table in front of you are the case files related to the topic of this discussion."

"First, yesterday, the country's highest governing body, after deliberation, passed a new proposal, thereby opening up the entire national police system to the right to know and access certain confidential information..."

After delivering this set of formal, businesslike opening remarks for the meeting.

Behind the lectern, which was more than a meter high, the seemingly small Director-General waved his hand, and those sitting in the front row immediately stood up to await orders.

"Tamura, go and project this information onto the screen."

"Yes!"

The middle-aged woman responded attentively and quickly performed the operation.

Soon, on the huge projection screen in the center of the meeting, some files with pictures and text and marked with secrets appeared.

At the same time, the short, stout, balding bureau chief continued his explanation in his somewhat high-pitched voice.

“Some of you should have already learned about this from the internet before.”

"Located in the interior of the Bald Eagle, it has witnessed many events and creatures that are related to legends or film and television works."

"But there are many conflicting opinions on the internet, and now, as police officers of the great Sakura Country, you will have the right to know all of this."

"I can tell you definitively that over 70% of what's circulating online is true!"

These words were accompanied by a buzzing sound from the loudspeaker.

The large conference room, which could hold hundreds of people, immediately erupted in exclamations, questions, and hushed discussions.

But in stark contrast...

The leaders of various departments sitting in the first two rows, although their expressions changed, did not show the same disbelief as the grassroots employees and clerks behind them.

Clearly, they had already received some prior information.

However, the noise quickly subsided under the pressure of the short, stout director's hands pressing down on the stage and his commanding gaze.

Gradually, the entire conference room fell silent again.

After doing all this, the short, stout bureau chief spoke again:
"You will all need to sign a confidentiality agreement before leaving the meeting room regarding the above information."

"And promised the Emperor that he would not reveal a single word of this meeting to anyone other than those who have the right to know."

As he spoke, he glared at everyone in the opposite seats with his small eyes, making a piercing stare. Only after confirming that no one had any objections did he continue speaking.

"...Not only the Bald Eagle Kingdom, but also the ancient country across the sea from us—the Sin Kingdom—has experienced a large number of unusual events."

"They just have a tighter information blockade, but thanks to our country's powerful information gathering capabilities, we were able to uncover some information..."

As soon as he finished speaking, the images on the projection screen behind him switched, and a huge map spanning Asia appeared.

A winding curve encompasses a large area of ​​land and sea.

"...From our eastern coastline to the Siberian forest border of the Bear Kingdom in the north, and in many other places, anomalies of varying degrees of threat have been detected, and they are becoming more frequent over time."

"Within its territory, through some covert intelligence gathering and observation, several large-scale abnormal events were also detected."

"Just the day before yesterday, a satellite from our country detected that a city the size of Osaka or Tokyo was one-tenth destroyed overnight!"

These words caused another round of gasps, but thanks to the previous build-up, the noise quickly subsided.

This scene made the short, stout bureau chief, who was pressing his palms down, nod with great satisfaction.

"The unusual events in the Bald Eagle Kingdom are vampires, werewolves, and a group of people called the Chosen Ones."

"...while in the Land of Salvation..."

He paused for a moment before speaking.

"...These include cultivators, vengeful spirits, extraordinary individuals, immortals, and demons whose upper limits could not be determined..."

"The average statistics were based on coastal cities with complex populations and easy access to information."

"The number of superhumans there is even tens of thousands more than the total number of all able-bodied members of the Self-Defense Forces in this country combined..."

(End of this chapter)