Mr. Rat of the Steam World

Chapter 68 Police Station Horror
"Dane was arrested?"

Lu Ran was both surprised and delighted to receive a notification from the rats stationed at the Black Gold Factory.

After leaving Dane's house, he deliberately lurked in the shadows and observed for a long time until he saw the police knocking on the door before quietly leaving.

This was also a variable that Lu Ran had considered from the beginning.

In this era, there were no telephone lines, so if you wanted to report a crime, you would have to go to the police station yourself, and the nearest police station was about two or three kilometers away.

When the gunfire first started, most people were probably too afraid to go out and check the situation.

Even if Lu Ran had checked, he could still use deception magic to cover it up a bit, so after the gunfire stopped for a while, someone would likely try to run out and call the police.

This delay meant that the police arrived just after Lu Ran and his group had completely evacuated.

Of course, even if the police arrive early, at most Dane's house will only have a few things moved. The larger hamsters like Bella will definitely have left early, and the remaining hamsters can stay until the very last moment until the police knock on the door before leaving.

Lu Ran initially didn't intend to tell Sheriff Edwin about this idea, mainly because he wasn't sure if he could find any substantial evidence at Dane's house, or if he could successfully deal with the cat.

Therefore, he prepared several plans.

Kill Dane at the factory, kill Dane on the way home, or simply wait for him to come home and kill him... these are all methods that do not rely on the police.

Then it's up to Sheriff Edwin to decide what to do after receiving the message, since Lu Ran had given prior notice to bring more armed officers.

A carbon-based life form whose senses are not even capable of detecting a mouse tracking it has no chance of being immune to thermal weapons.

Whether Sheriff Edwin arrested the man on the spot or not, Lu Ran had follow-up plans.

Now that the former outcome has occurred, the best remaining plan is naturally to use someone else to do the dirty work.

A factory manager who died at the police station needs official confirmation of the case to provide some explanation to the workers who were previously harmed.

Otherwise, if Lu Ran were to carry out a silent assassination, and Dane died without knowing why, the factory workers might still be reminiscing about the former factory manager without fully understanding the situation, which would add a lot of pressure to Lu Ran's cleanup work.

Just by looking at the way the experimental worker died, Lu Ran was certain that Dane would never be so kind as to give the worker any real miracle cure.

The medications given to those workers were either pain suppressants or things that would overwork their bodies.

This crisis must be triggered dramatically before Lu Ran takes over, so that after he takes over the Black Gold Factory, a bunch of workers suddenly have problems due to the aftereffects, and it becomes his problem.

It's not that Lu Ran is cold-blooded; there's nothing he can do about it. He can't bear the blame for the health problems of so many workers.

Whoever did it should take responsibility.

……

night.

The ventilation ducts in the police station were filled with a thick layer of dust. Lu Ran suppressed the urge to sneeze and carefully made his way through them, glancing down at each grille opening. If it wasn't there, he continued searching.

After crawling for an unknown amount of time, a faint light shone through a grille exit ahead.

Lu Ran looked down and saw a police officer on duty dozing off against the wall at the bottom of the passage. His head was slipping little by little until he was jolted awake by a feeling of weightlessness. He looked around, then leaned back against the wall, repeating this process over and over.

Leaning against the wall of the corridor outside the thick iron gate of the detention area was a middle-aged police officer, his police cap askew, obscuring half of his face. He had his arms crossed, his body slightly slumped, and he would open his eyes every now and then to take a look, occasionally yawning.

Lu Ran's claws groped along the edge of the grille and found the rusty screws used for fixing it. His strength was different now than before. He slowly unscrewed them and slid them into the gap with a whoosh, then landed easily.

Not far away was the heavy iron gate of the detention area. Lu Ran's gaze passed through the fence, and Dane was curled up on the wooden bed in the detention cell, snoring softly.

A young police officer in charge of guarding the cell sat on an old wooden chair about five or six steps away from the cell door. He was fairly lucid, but perhaps he was too bored, as his eyes seemed somewhat unfocused, though thankfully his hand remained on his holster.

Having identified his target, Lu Ran quickly approached with his crossbow on his back, slipped through the gap in the prison's iron gate without any hindrance, and stopped half a meter away from Dane, using deception magic to minimize his presence.

He raised the crossbow, glancing at other places out of the corner of his eye. He didn't immediately stare at Dane, mainly because he was worried that his killing intent or other senses might alert Dane and wake him up.

Three...two...one!

Lu Ran abruptly turned his head, and as he clearly saw Dane's location, revealing his killing intent, he raised his crossbow and aimed. The next moment, the crossbow string emitted a taut, almost inaudible click.

Whoosh!
The poisoned steel needle traced a path almost imperceptible to the naked eye in the darkness, piercing Dane's eyelid with unparalleled precision. "Ah!!!"

Dane suddenly let out a painful scream, as if he had a nightmare, and sat up abruptly in bed. Still a little dazed, he subconsciously raised his hand to cover his eyes, but instead forced the last bit of the needle in.

"Ahhhh!"

His body convulsed violently, and the next moment, as if he was enduring the pain, he slightly tightened his jaw muscles, as if he had crushed something.

"Wh...what's that sound?!" The young police officer opposite him snapped back to reality, jumped up from his chair, almost instinctively drew his gun and gripped it tightly, then nervously rushed to the cell door and peered inside.

Upon seeing Dane's obese body curled up in pain on the ground, the young officer frantically pointed his gun at him and shouted towards the duty room:
"Something's wrong! The prisoner...it seems something's happened to the prisoner!"

He didn't dare open the door, only remembering what Sheriff Edwin had said: if he noticed any abnormal reaction, he could shoot and kill on the spot.

That's the correct instruction from his superiors. But when he actually saw the prisoner kneeling on the ground in pain, without making any aggressive moves, he didn't dare to act on his own.

The gun was fired, and the leader denied it, saying that kneeling on the ground was not an abnormal reaction, and that he had been ordered to fire...

Click... thud...

A sickening sound, like bones being dislocated and then forcibly reset, suddenly rang out from the cell... The young police officer broke out in a cold sweat.

At a time when he was under great tension.

"Shoot!"

A voice, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, suddenly rang out, carrying an unquestionable air of command, almost instinctively—

boom!
There was no time to think about who gave the order! Pure nerve reflex made him pull the trigger instantly!

The gun barrel exploded with a blinding flash of light and a deafening roar!
The first bullet tore through the air and slammed into Dane's chest, spraying a cloud of blood! The expected scene of him falling to the ground did not occur. Instead, the fat man simply raised his head fiercely, one eye bloodshot and the other staring venomously at the young police officer.

"Crap!"

This was the reaction after being shot; the young officer could sense something was wrong without needing further prompting.

Meanwhile, other police officers who had been awakened nearby also began to rush towards the scene.

"Shoot! Shoot now! Something's wrong with this guy."

Boom!

Bang bang bang!
……

Watching Dane being gradually destroyed under the barrage of fire, Lu Ran, who was observing from nearby, breathed a sigh of relief and quietly left when no one was paying attention to him.

The young police officer who fired the shot continued frantically and futilely pulling the trigger until the magazine was empty. His heavy breathing caused his chest to heave violently. When he finally came to his senses, he realized that the cold sweat on his back had soaked through his shirt, leaving it icy cold against his skin.

Suddenly, it was as if she remembered something.

"Just now..." The young police officer wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his voice filled with lingering fear after surviving the ordeal.

"Who shouted 'Fire!' right?" He glanced around at his still-shaken colleagues. "Thanks to his reminder, I'll have to treat him to a good meal."

"I don't know, it's not me."

"It's not me..."

The night shift officers looked at each other, stunned for a moment, and then all felt a chill run straight to the top of their heads.

The young police officer at the beginning was deathly pale.

"Stop joking, who is it?"

Nobody's talking? Then this is truly a ghost story in the middle of the night.

(End of this chapter)