Pokémon Detective Case Files.

In addition, the agency's email address, which was originally kept by the detective, was now handed over to Azure—in other words, the password was simply given to her.

It was a mixed cipher consisting of twenty letters, numbers, and symbols. At first glance, it looked like gibberish text due to a programming error. However, according to Hugo's explanation, this line of symbols had no inherent meaning. It was simply the product of encrypting the number "123456" using the National Pokédex as a codebook.

"The privacy of clients is the conscience of a private investigator, and it is never too much to protect it. Therefore, email passwords must not be kept, nor can they be recorded in any way within the firm."

I remember Victor Hugo giving me those instructions back then.

"If you accidentally forget the password, just use your knowledge of ciphers and logical reasoning to decipher it again. Cracking codes is also one of the essential courses for detectives. Now that you know the principle, it is very simple to deduce the rules of symbol encryption."

"I'll never forget!"

Azure replied with such certainty, only to enter the wrong password the next morning.

The "Incorrect password" message kept popping up...

Bilan felt she hadn't memorized it wrong, and she had tried changing the capitalization, but she still couldn't log in to her email.

It took more than an hour to crack the code; if Pogaman, who was taken away by the detective, had been doing it, it should have only taken less than ten minutes.

Azure repeatedly compared the deciphered code with the password in her memory, and finally realized what it meant—

This was a good-natured joke left by Hugo, or perhaps a test.

The detective's cipher itself had a few digits of error; the true cipher could only be deciphered by following the deciphered encryption rules. If the detective didn't have the ability to crack the cipher, they wouldn't have entrusted their client with such important private information.

Another possibility is that Hugo himself forgot his email password, but this possibility is extremely small.

However, the chaos of taking over the firm ended there.

After overcoming numerous difficulties, Bilan finally opened the official email address of Hugo Detective Agency. Although it was filled with all sorts of consultation documents, they were no different from the cases Bilan usually handled.

While crimes may indeed occur frequently in the world, very few actually end up in the hands of private detective agencies.

The Hugo Detective Agency first gained fame in the detective industry due to the Aqua Team smuggling case. However, increased fame didn't necessarily translate into a flood of interesting and difficult cases. When people encountered real cases, they would only go to the police first. Only when it came to minor matters involving privacy or things the police couldn't handle would residents possibly remember the detective agency they had seen on the street.

After eliminating inquiries that were clearly outside her scope of business, Azure's inbox was left with only a few requests that required detailed investigation: a lost elderly person, a partner spirit that had disappeared without a trace, a background check on an unmarried person, and a spouse's recent suspicious activities.

Each task is very easy; even if I don't go myself, I can complete the mission by sending Eevee and Ditto... But don't rush, it's not time to go out and investigate yet.

Bilan reminded herself of this and decided to start with the highest priority case: missing elderly people.

Wasting time on pointless commutes is pointless, so the girl contacted her client before the formal investigation began.

Sitting in her usual office chair, Bilan opened a street view map of Feiyun City online while dialing her client's number.

The other party answered the phone immediately, seemingly very anxiously searching for their lost relative.

"Hello, this is the Hugo Detective Agency you consulted..." Azure said.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries and self-introductions, she inquired in detail about the missing elderly man's daily habits at home, his recent behavior, and the places he had searched for after he left. At the same time, recalling her experience in finding missing persons in Feiyun City, she tried to deduce several routes that the elderly man might have taken.

"Hmm... Based on the clues you've provided so far, I have three preliminary theories."

Azure slid the mouse, dragging the 3D image on the map, and marked her thought process with red lines.

"First, your search of the apartment was not thorough enough. Judging from the building structure outside, there should be a passageway connecting to the next building at the back of your unit. The old man may not have left the building at all and may still be trapped on the next floor. If possible, please send out a Flying-type Pokémon to scan the windows."

There was an immediate commotion on the other end of the microphone, with the faint sound of Pokémon flapping their wings. Azure waited for the chaos to subside before continuing to explain his reasoning.

"Secondly, I noticed that there is a children's park near your residence. In Feiyun City, there are usually street performers in such parks. The elderly may have followed the crowds into the park. Please send someone to investigate this place."

The client gratefully agreed repeatedly, but before the other party could finish speaking, Azure continued—

"Finally, there's another possibility. You mentioned you moved once, from the city center to the outskirts. I suspect the elderly person might want to return to their old address, which is why they left home. In this case, given their age, the most likely mode of transportation they would choose is public bus. Since the bus stop near your old home has been discontinued, the elderly person likely got off at the stop after their original address. Please search that area. You can also contact the Feiyun City Transportation Bureau; their staff can help you post missing person notices with bus drivers..."

Suddenly, another commotion broke out on the other end of the receiver. It seemed that the Flying-type Pokémon that had left the house had flown back—wasn't that a bit too fast? Did it check every single window properly?

"Oh, Miss Detective, thank you so much! We've found the old man! He seems to be sleeping on an empty floor in the building next door. Although he's been missing for two days, he seems to be in good spirits. I really don't know how he got in there... I'm going to take care of him now. Can I contact you later? Thank you so much!"

The phone call ended abruptly, and all was quiet outside.

Compared to cases solved by detectives, this kind of detective consultation doesn't even qualify as a commission. Even if the relatives didn't come to the detective, the hungry and cold old man wouldn't stay in that place forever; he'd probably be spotted by passersby soon enough while wandering around the building…

Bilan put down the receiver and stared blankly at the street view map on the screen in front of her, which was covered with red markings.

Although the case was successfully resolved... I didn't feel the immense sense of accomplishment that I would feel as a detective solving a case.

But for some reason, a warm feeling welled up inside me, making my whole body feel light and airy.

Chapter 194 The Daily Affairs of the Azure Detective

Following the request for help regarding the lost elderly person, Azure successfully handled the remaining consultation requests.

In the second request, the partner Pokémon that had disappeared was a Wheelball. This Pokémon, evolved from a centipede, has a hard shell and venomous spikes, and when startled, it spins like a tire at high speed.

Wheelball went missing while out for a walk. Its trainer seemed a little overly worried, insisting that his partner had been targeted by a haughty pheasant that had recently appeared in the neighborhood and had been carried away back to its nest.

However, as far as Azur Lane knows, no bird Pokémon would like a prey like Wheelball—this cocoon-shaped Pokémon is both tough and poisonous, and its average length is 1.2 meters. It's hard to imagine it being carried through the sky by a proud pheasant.

"My partner evolved earlier and is much smaller than other Pokémon. That big bird always stares at my Carabinth with a menacing look. It must have been planning to make it its lunch! Please save my Pokémon!"

—The client expressed his pessimism and confusion about Azure so loudly, his voice trembling with tears.

Despite the other party's earnest request, the female detective remained skeptical.

Now she has a fairly good understanding of the Pokémon ecology in Unova. The client's description of it as ferocious is probably just due to the gender difference of the Arrogant, right? Male Arrogant have a conspicuous crest on their heads, and such a large bird landing suddenly next to people can indeed be quite startling—but that doesn't mean it will have an appetite for Bulbasaur. On the contrary, Bulbasaur is more likely to run away because it's frightened.

After calming the client down, Azure opened the drawer that was originally kept by the Grass Turtwig and skillfully took out a map from inside.

Due to its unique shape, this Pokémon cannot move quickly without relying on terrain elevation differences, so it is not difficult to deduce where it disappeared.

After roughly checking the local terrain, Azure wrote down the information of all the shops at the end of the nearby downhill slope in her notebook, and then called them one by one to ask if they had seen any Pokémon running by like purple tires during the midday hours.

The subsequent investigation went relatively smoothly. After asking only the twelfth shop, Azure received a positive response: a cashier at a clothing store had personally witnessed the rolling wheel-shaped ball. The "purple tire" that was witnessed was not 1.2 meters long, but only the size of a soccer ball, which basically confirmed that it belonged to the client's partner who had evolved ahead of schedule.

At this point, the mission was essentially complete—Azure told the trainer the possible location of the Wheel Ball, and the trainer found a partner in less than half an hour.

The partner Pokémon eventually settled in the grass at the end of the slope, where it encountered a group of wild Pokémon of the same kind. Having never had any social experience before, it was very excited and happily played with its companions, even lingering for a while when the trainer came to find it... but that was no longer a topic unrelated to the request.

The third commission is the classic premarital investigation, which is also the most popular service in the firm. Hugo had already established procedures for handling similar commissions.

The first step was to use legal means. Azure skillfully filled out a fabricated consultation application and sent it to the email addresses of various public institutions within the alliance.

The United States' public institutions uphold the ideal of "transparent government," but the quality of their clerks varies considerably. Therefore, sometimes, with sufficient justification and earnestness, official information about the subjects can be obtained from them in writing. Furthermore, if the subjects' identities are fabricated, this round of investigation will also expose their falsification.

The second step involves a gray area of ​​the law.

At this stage, the detective agency will search specialized data-selling websites. These websites crawl data from the online platforms of government agencies and educational institutions in the United States, as well as from search engines themselves, and then integrate the obtained information to a certain extent.

Searching on such websites yields a wealth of personal information about the subject, including their school history, criminal records, work experience, and traffic violations. This information is extremely cheap on web crawlers; investigators can learn most of a subject's life for less than one percent of the commission fee. However, the information is often a mix of truth and falsehood, requiring secondary verification by detectives.

The idea that this information has already been leaked online by information traffickers before it can be searched, so there's no need to feel guilty about looking at it... is wrong!

Buying a citizen's privacy with money is itself an act of funding crime, no different from buying stolen goods from a thief.

However, the detective at the time said this—

"In that case, you can report these web crawler websites to the police's cybersecurity department after you've finished your investigation and feel guilty. If the police take action, the intelligence brokers will have to move their operations, which is a loss that several intelligence deals couldn't recover. This way, you can improve efficiency while also upholding justice and conscience—a perfect win-win situation."

I think your definitions of justice and conscience, and even win-win situations, are a bit too broad... Azure thought to herself.

However, no matter how much we repay kindness with enmity by reporting illegal websites, these information brokers who leak citizens' privacy will not disappear from the internet. After all, the vulnerabilities of various portal websites in the United Alliance are there for all to see; as long as one has the corresponding code for scraping data, such websites can be rebuilt no matter how many times they are destroyed.

Plugging all these network vulnerabilities is a massive undertaking, and the United States Alliance has neither the budget nor the motivation to completely resolve this threat. Therefore, it can only address the symptoms and leave the relevant police agencies to suppress the problem.

The reason why these websites can survive repeated crackdowns is that they always have a constant stream of customers.

Unlike individual users like Hugo Detective Agency, various commercial companies and intelligence organizations also purchase public intelligence in bulk from web crawler websites to create more accurate user profiles. On this basis, they recommend advertisements, sell products, analyze trends, and manipulate public opinion. It is said that Smura, one of the seven sages of Team Plasma, is a specialist in doing this kind of thing.

If online searches fail to yield useful information during background checks, there are third and fourth steps: tracking the target's social media accounts and offline surveillance, respectively. However, these methods are only used when investigating important cases; a simple premarital investigation wouldn't warrant such extreme stalking behavior.

As for today, after submitting the application to the consulting alliance, Azur Lane suspended the processing of the commission and decided to wait for a written response before proceeding with the second step of the investigation.

Just like a professional locksmith, finishing a job too quickly can frighten clients. In this case, you should learn from the efficiency of the United Alliance, pretend that this kind of information is hard to obtain, and deal with the client slowly. This way, it will be easier to collect the commission.

Yes, the world is not black and white, but is made up of large swaths of gray—Azure used "self-suggestion" on itself.

Finally, there's the most agonizing case: the infidelity investigation—a wife suspects her husband of having an affair and therefore requests a detective agency to investigate him.

Such cases are unlikely to have a satisfactory resolution.

The female detective rubbed her forehead and reluctantly found the client's contact information and dialed the number.

According to Hugo's statistics, in cases like these, where the situation necessitates a detective's intervention, the likelihood of one party actually committing adultery is as high as 70%. Even if the law firm finds perfect evidence, its significance is merely to make the divorce proceedings smoother. The broken marriage cannot be restored, and the shattered heart cannot be redeemed…

However, Hugo also once said this—

"The view that links marital happiness with life happiness is arbitrary. Divorce is essentially about getting rid of personal dependence on another person. Although it is accompanied by pain, it is like quitting smoking or drinking, something that should be praised and blessed."

...Does that guy not believe in love at all?

A woman's anxious voice came through the receiver. After learning that the detective who had accepted the case was a young girl, she not only did not give up on the case, but also began to pour out her grievances without any restraint, complaining heavily about her life and her spouse, and discussing her worries about the future.

If Hugo were here, he would calmly interrupt the other party and shift the topic to the commission. However, Azure was completely overwhelmed by the other party's aura. Not to mention interrupting, it was even difficult for her to interject and express her own opinion.

An afternoon flew by, and Azure finally hung up the phone after processing the combined time of the first three requests. Exhausted, she collapsed onto the sofa in the office, hugging her fluffy Eevee tail and basking in the warmth of the Pokémon world.

During that long period, the client meticulously described to Bilan the entire process of a relationship deteriorating and decaying, how a family gradually went from warm and beautiful to unbearable, to the point where every day felt like an eternity. Now, she just wants to find a reason to break up with her spouse, whom she can no longer stand. Ideally, Bilan would find concrete evidence of infidelity; if not, she would find other ways herself…

If one's spouse hadn't cheated, is it possible for the two to reconcile? — This was a question that Bilan simply couldn't bring herself to ask.

She could only recite the script: "I understand. Our firm will reward you with the truth in proportion to your commission fee."

Upon accepting the commission, Azure was greeted with a sigh of relief from the client, as if a heavy burden had just been lifted from their shoulders.

If you hear sighs like that every day, anyone would lose faith in love... Although she wasn't quite saddened by such things, the detective's mood became slightly heavy.

It was already past closing time, and according to the client, it was the perfect time to go out and investigate evidence of infidelity. Azure changed into an inconspicuous outfit, picked up her digital camera from her detective tools, and walked out of the gate of Feather Residence with Eevee, Ditto, and Archaeopteryx.

In terms of clues, the information provided by the client is more than enough; Azure is even confident that she can resolve this case before dinner.

...In the end, we didn't encounter a single real case today. The work that Azure did was no different from the tasks she was usually assigned in the agency.

This is the daily routine of detectives, not always glamorous, often skirting the line between morality and law. They don't need to command Pokémon in battles, but their minds still get tired. Sometimes it's exhilarating, sometimes it's frustrating. Bizarre cases don't happen every day, but the mundane details of life are endless. Sometimes, even after helping someone, they won't express gratitude; other times, even without doing anything, they receive heartfelt thanks from their clients.

But as a substitute detective, Bilan sometimes feels a sense of anticipation, wondering when her first case will finally arrive.

Chapter 195 The Case That Arrived at the Flying Speed

The client's husband and a young, beautiful woman got out of the same taxi and walked into a high-end Pokémon-themed restaurant one after the other.

They seemed to have made a reservation beforehand; after greeting the waiter, they went straight to a secluded seat deep inside the restaurant.

The two were chatting intimately, neither of them noticing the private investigator who had arrived earlier at the table in front of them.

Perhaps it was the partition screen in the restaurant that made them feel safe, because the two of them boldly sat side by side, and placed the Pokémon they brought on the seats at the other end.

The man's Pokémon is an Emolga, while the woman's partner is a Bubble Squirrel. The two rodent-like Pokémon hopped out of their Poké Balls and immediately snuggled together affectionately...

Sometimes things like that happen.

As if she had an eye in the back of her head, Azure knew what was happening behind her back and pieced together the details of the affair in her mind.

The bonds formed between Pokémon can also influence the life trajectory of their trainers. The friendship between two Pokémon brings together a man and a woman who were originally colleagues, and they develop a relationship that goes beyond friendship... If the man were not married, this would probably be a beautiful story.

However, it is too early to draw any conclusions.

The female detective was very professional, hypnotically reminding herself repeatedly that before reaching a final conclusion, a detective could prepare countless reasoning approaches, but must never let these preconceived subjective guesses affect rational judgment.

A married husband dining with a young woman does not necessarily equate to infidelity; there might be misunderstandings that the young woman is unaware of...

Incidentally, the client's husband informed his wife this morning that he would not be coming home.

The reason given was a company dinner.

Azure sipped the iced water brought to her by the waiter, stroking the red neck feathers of the Archaeopteryx while continuing to observe the situation at the table diagonally behind her using the reflection of the metal cutlery on the table.

—Ah, they kissed.

They started eating before the appetizers were even served.

It seems there is no misunderstanding.

Kissing is initiated by the man; the way he looks around before making a move is disgusting.

The Pokémon sitting opposite the two showed no surprise whatsoever, appearing completely unfazed... as if this was the norm for their interactions.

The image of the client's disheartened face seemed to float into her mind. Azure silently moved the spoon to another angle, no longer checking what was happening behind her.

A soft rustling sound came from the curtains beside her. Azure turned slightly, and a moment later, a small, entirely yellow insect crawled down from the crevice. It was a Ditto that had "transformed" into an electric bug—it was the key to this tracking operation.

Under the cover of its azure body, Ditto transformed back into purple slime. It spat out a black machine the size of a matchbox from its mouth—a tiny portable camera.

After regaining control of the camera that contained crucial evidence, the girl did not examine it on the spot but instead stuffed it directly into her pocket.