Chapter Thirty-Eight: An Impossible Death

As the lullaby echoed in his ears, Kadar began to struggle frantically, but he found that the figure behind him seemed to possess an otherworldly strength. With a single hand, the person pinned him to the bed, making escape utterly impossible.

As he flailed his arms and legs, Kadar realized that his movements had knocked something to the floor. He instinctively glanced down and was instantly overcome with terror.

The bed, which had appeared perfectly normal, had transformed into a pile of goods stacked from bags of white powder. He didn’t need to look twice—he knew these were the drugs he had sold.

These goods flowed from this small town to several nearby cities, adulterated and diluted before reaching the hands of users. But from the color he saw now, Kadar knew these were pure, uncut—of terrifyingly high concentration.

“Be good, little one. Uncle will feed you now…” Freddy grinned menacingly, grabbing a handful of drugs and holding it before Kadar’s eyes.

Crunch. Kadar heard a horrific sound from his own jaw, and his mouth opened against his will.

“Eat up, eat up. I have plenty, enough to make you full!” Freddy rambled on ceaselessly, stuffing the powder directly into Kadar’s mouth.

Never had Kadar imagined his mouth could be forced to hold so much at once. Freddy’s stuffing far outpaced his ability to swallow. The powder in his mouth grew and grew, so much that his cheeks tore open from the pressure.

“Mm…mm…” Kadar whimpered, his voice fading as his struggles weakened. Before long, his limbs ceased moving altogether. He lay atop the pile of goods, eyes wide and lifeless, no breath left in his body.

“Already dead? After eating so little? What a pity~” Freddy muttered, like an actor bowing after the final act, skipping away into the surrounding darkness.

...

In the real world, several dozen minutes later, when the monitor noticed something amiss and pulled back the covers, he found that Kadar had already grown cold—and the expression on his dead face was one of twisted agony.

Upon discovering this, the supervisor wasted no time in summoning Guda.

Dead? Dead?!

Guda stared at the corpse, unable to believe it. He had just found a lead on a shortcut to success, and now the key figure was dead?

Seeing Guda’s darkened expression, the monitor panicked. “Captain, he overdosed on drugs, that’s how he died. I didn’t have any drugs on me, not a trace.”

“Overdose? How much are we talking about?” Guda’s tone was icy. They had frisked Kadar earlier and found nothing—how could he possibly have hidden such a large quantity of drugs?

“An absolutely outrageous amount.” The forensic examiner rose from the body. “And the purity was extremely high. Judging by his condition, I estimate he ingested over a kilogram at once.”

As he spoke, the examiner gestured, “Also, his jawbone is shattered, and both cheeks are severely torn. I believe the killer used some tool to break his jaw, leaving his mouth permanently open, and then forcibly stuffed a massive amount of drugs down his throat, making him swallow it all… But…”

“But what?” Guda pressed.

“But if that’s the case, he should have died immediately from suffocation, and I found no drug residue in his throat or windpipe. Even if the killer cleaned up afterward, it’s impossible to clean those areas so thoroughly without cutting open the neck. Yet from the state of the body, it’s as if he died exactly that way. This is an impossible event—the evidence completely contradicts itself!”

The examiner was at a loss. Temporarily seconded to the Supernatural Response Unit, he’d spent over a decade with his original team and had never seen a corpse this strange, one that gave him not a hint of a clue. He couldn’t even imagine what the autopsy would reveal.

“You’re sure this is a supernatural event?!” Guda suddenly grew excited.

The examiner hesitated, a bit puzzled. “If ‘supernatural’ means an impossible method of murder and scene, then yes, it is.”

Hearing this, Guda could barely suppress a smile. Excellent—he’d found a clue to a supernatural event. Though it was a shame Kadar was dead, the man hadn’t dropped from the sky. Kadar had lived in this town for years; there were bound to be more clues, perhaps even other people in the know!

“Team One, bring in everyone who’s had direct contact with Kadar, including the deputy chief. Team Two, reinforce the cordon with Team Three. Team Four, check for any suspicious funds connected to Kadar and conduct a full search of his residence! Everyone, move!” Guda barked out orders rapidly.

As soon as Guda’s people began to act, word reached the military—both sides knew the other would have eyes watching nearby. Any big movement would be immediately discovered.

Discovered or not, Guda managed to act just ahead of the others, rounding up all the relevant people onto his own turf. The only slow-going part was the search—military interference was constant and relentless, short of outright gunfire, they did everything possible to impede him.

The reason for not opening fire was simple: none of the opponents were ordinary civilians without powerful backers. If a gunfight broke out, it would stir up too much attention, possibly drawing in those pulling the strings—someone might even lose their position. No on-site commander dared to order the first shot.

Things were far from quiet on Elm Street, and things inside S.H.I.E.L.D. weren’t much better.

Natasha wiped sweat from her brow as she looked over a list Nick Fury handed her after a meeting.

As a seasoned agent in her eighties, Natasha knew full well that collecting information about Elm Street inside the Agency was bound to lead to leaks—no, not just likely, but inevitable.

She still went ahead with it, hoping to fish for clues, to see how many people around her were tangled up with outside forces, to gauge just how much attention outsiders paid to these matters, and, incidentally, to assess her own value.

But the scale of the reaction far exceeded Natasha’s expectations. These people were brazen, reckless, and their numbers had exploded. It was clear that Fina’s upcoming investigation would be unimaginably difficult, and even her personal safety might be at risk.

What was supposed to be a simple favor might now end up making an enemy.