“Chief, this is it.”
The security officer led the Chief to a room on the basement floor of the Public Security Bureau.
Here, numerous extraordinary items and Law objects were contained, collectively referred to as “Containment Objects.”
Although extraordinary items and Law objects appeared similar—both being things with miraculous effects—their essences were fundamentally different.
Extraordinary items were mostly man-made. While they possessed extraordinary qualities, they were essentially designed, with their strength tied to the creator. Only a small portion had growth potential, and their power levels were generally not excessive.
After all, as long as they weren’t created by a Law Contemplator, they posed little threat to the Security Bureau.
But Law objects were a different story.
Most of them were not man-made products; no one knew exactly how they came into being.
However, the principle behind their creation was quite simple.
[Objects that practice the Law]
That was the official definition of Law objects.
For some reason, like Law Seekers, they embarked on and practiced the path of the Law.
In essence, they were Law Seekers existing in the form of “objects,” possessing a certain degree of biological characteristics—they had a mind, could think, and could be killed.
The storage room door was pushed open, and the security officer walked in along with the Chief.
The room wasn’t particularly large, lit by a few dim oil lamps.
Inside were several cabinets, their doors made of some translucent material—not glass, but an alchemical creation designed for easy observation.
As long as a Containment Object wasn’t particularly sensitive to light, it was stored in such cabinets.
At the center of the room sat a table, on which rested a red object enclosed in a transparent box.
A rust-covered shell, a red base, and a handset that could be picked up.
It was also a telephone.
The Chief stepped forward, staring at the telephone.
He didn’t know what a telephone was, so this endlessly ringing thing put him on guard.
Just as the young security officer had said, in their understanding, something that kept ringing nonstop was either about to break or about to explode.
He hoped it was the former, but he couldn’t rule out the latter.
The telephone had appeared suddenly on the Security Bureau’s lobby table this morning, so in his view, it was entirely possible that someone had planted a bomb.
And the thing’s shape did vaguely resemble a bundle of explosives.
He drew his pistol from his underarm holster and aimed it at the landline phone.
It was a handgun engraved with many symbols.
He had paid a hefty sum to have a mystic scholar inscribe those symbols. He didn’t know if they worked, but at least they gave him peace of mind.
“Hey, stop fucking ringing,” he attempted to threaten the Law object.
But the telephone ignored him completely, continuing to ring incessantly.
“Tch... damn.”
The Chief wasn’t sure what to do anymore.
He used to be just a thug. Fighting he could handle, but dealing with these things was way out of his league.
The ringing grew louder, and the handset vibrated more intensely.
With his keen eyesight, the Chief could clearly see the handset trembling slightly under the violent vibrations. He guessed there was a speaker hole underneath, and those ringing sounds were coming from it.
After a moment of hesitation, he tucked his cigar case and slightly flattened silver flask into his pocket, tentatively reaching his hand toward the red telephone.
His instincts told him that the handset might be the key.
That was the intuition from his Law Mark, “Savage.”
His hand paused in midair. He turned to signal the young security officer to leave, telling him to close the blast-proof room door on his way out.
The young security officer didn’t refuse. He immediately obeyed, backing out of the room and closing the door behind him.
Watching the young security officer leave, the Chief finally lowered his outstretched left hand, gripped the handset, and lifted it from the base.
Click.
The ringing stopped abruptly.
“Oh, so that’s how you use it,” the Chief remarked.
Most of the current members of Branch Three were his former gang buddies. None of them knew divination, which was a real hassle.
If anyone in the bureau knew divination, he wouldn’t have hesitated for so long.
The previous batch had an old man who could divine, but he had retired.
Casually running a hand through his messy hair, the Chief heard faint voices coming from the handset’s earpiece.
At first, it was just faint static hiss, like the crackling of an old telegraph machine with a poor connection. But soon, human voices began mingling with the static. Fragmented, heavily distorted, as if coming from an extremely distant place.
“…elcome to… fzzzt… please…”
Frowning as he thought it over, he raised his left hand and brought the handset closer to his ear.
In an instant, he felt his thoughts grow hazy. His attention was completely drawn into the handset, as if he couldn’t think about anything else except analyzing the words coming through.
“Welcome to Liant Town… please…”
But he quickly snapped back to reality. Realizing what was happening, he bit hard on his tongue. The sharp pain and metallic taste of blood exploded in his mouth, allowing him to refocus.
But it was too late. The surroundings twisted and warped. He immediately threw the handset down and stepped back.
Clang.
He bumped into something made of iron.
It was a red iron door.
His environment had changed. It looked like he was trapped in a cage.
But he quickly noticed that the “cage” around him wasn’t locked. At the same time, he noticed the rules posted on the telephone’s housing.
[Public Telephone Usage Guidelines]
[1. Public telephones are public property for all citizens. Any form of damage is prohibited.]
...
[8. No matter who you wish to call, you must know their telephone number. Public telephones cannot deliver your message to the recipient out of thin air.]
[9. Please remember that public telephone booths are gray, not red. If you notice a telephone booth is red, it is likely due to light reflection.]
“Public telephone? Delivering messages? Oh…” Connecting it to the voices he had heard from the handset earlier, he quickly figured out what this thing called a telephone was used for.
“A telegraph that transmits voices?” he summarized in a metaphor that made sense to him.
Turning to look at the booth’s door, he raised his hand, opened it, and stepped out.
Then, he realized he had left the Security Bureau and appeared in a plaza.
“Ah…” He couldn’t help but open his mouth and let out a long sigh.
“This is really bad.”
His eyes darted rapidly in their sockets as his gaze swept quickly across the surroundings a few times.
He quickly assessed the situation. Instead of holstering his pistol, he tucked his gun-wielding hand into his pocket, adjusted his clothes, pinned his badge—identical to a police officer’s—onto his left chest, and blended into the crowd with a normal expression.
No one paid special attention to the police officer who had just stepped out of the telephone booth.
The badge on his chest glinted in the sunlight, displaying his name.
Grelle Irrot.
Soon, moving to where the crowd was gathering, he noticed the notice board and its content.
[Liant Town Living Rules]
[Attention, citizens. Recently, ten dangerous criminals have infiltrated Liant Town. To ensure your personal safety, property safety, and mental safety, please strictly adhere to the following terms and abandon your useless confidence...]
[Note: All rule interpretations belong to the Enforcement Team.]
This made him scratch his head in irritation.
But he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Instead, he blended back into the crowd and disappeared.
...
Boom!
The sound wasn’t particularly loud—more like the dull thud of a large iron barrel being violently kicked from the inside—but because it happened so suddenly, it was especially jarring on this relatively quiet street.
A red telephone booth on the roadside suddenly erupted with a violent commotion.
It had been just one of countless unremarkable municipal fixtures, but now it instantly became the center of everyone’s attention.
But it didn’t put on any captivating show—it just exploded.
The booth’s top was knocked off by an invisible force, flipping open like a lid and landing on the ground beside it, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Inside the booth—theoretically only able to fit one adult, or maybe one more umbrella—stood a knight clad in golden armor.
The knight was over three meters tall, nearly four meters counting the helmet and the scales adorning it. He wore retro golden armor, thick and heavy, embroidered with the royal family’s crest. The armor bore many patterns, predominantly gray and red, engraved with unknown runes. A gemstone was set into his chest plate.
How he had been crammed into the two-meter-tall telephone booth was anyone’s guess.
The knight still held a telephone handset. Looking down, he gazed at the booth’s door, then crouched slightly, gripped the handle, and pushed it open.
He didn’t really need to open the door; jumping out would have been far more convenient.
To be honest, he hadn’t meant to cause such a commotion.
But he hadn’t expected the entrance of this [Law Narrative Point] to be barely over two meters tall, not even three.
Even if he had known, he couldn’t have done anything about it. He would have had to blast his way in anyway.
As he suddenly appeared inside the telephone booth, his helmet slammed violently into its ceiling.
The tremendous force triggered the armor’s defense runes, registering it as an “attack.”
The massive repulsive force instantly blasted the booth’s top off.
With the telephone booth destroyed, the knight felt something settle over him—like shackles, like a gaze.
The commotion quickly drew the attention of the citizens.
Nearby residents turned their eyes to the armored giant, at a loss for what to do.
Some immediately slipped away to report him.
The knight watched them leave.
He didn’t stop them or make a sound. He simply watched in silence until the last figure disappeared around a street corner.
The golden knight stood silently, observing the surrounding citizens, then took out a small box and opened it.
It was a palm-sized square box, apparently made of some dark wood, with no decoration on its surface, only an inconspicuous latch on one side.
Click. The box opened.
A faint white mist immediately poured out, enveloping him.
It wasn’t a smoke bomb. The white mist didn’t spread outward—it only surrounded him alone.
A breeze blew. The white mist dispersed, taking the knight with it.
By the time the “police” arrived, the golden figure was already gone from the area.
Fortunately, plenty of people had seen the golden knight and could testify, so the person who reported it wasn’t punished.
“I know, I know—a big guy, clearly an outsider.” Grelle, summoned by the onlookers, raised both hands to chest height. “Of course, I believe you, but you’ve seen the notice board. You should go to the city’s Enforcement Team… yeah, I’m from a different department.”
A few minutes later, another group arrived.
They wore light armor and carried standardized weapons like spears and swords.
Seeing the actual law enforcement officers arrive, Grelle casually grabbed his badge and once again melted into the crowd, disappearing.
“Cordon off this area. No one is allowed near. Notify the city hall and have them send someone skilled in divination.”
“He damaged public property, so he must have left traces.”
Grelle heard that line.
Another person who had entered around the same time as the Sacred Law Knight was far more composed, going completely unnoticed.
There were many telephone booths in this city, and occasionally they would appear and disappear without warning.
In another part of the city, a red telephone booth silently materialized.
The booth’s door opened and closed, then it vanished without a trace.
No one noticed who had stepped out.
…
Falson followed behind Samuel, watching his back as thoughts raced through his mind.
He seemed… to be having fun?
Falson stared at Samuel’s light footsteps, a thought flashing through his mind.
But even he couldn’t believe it.
Still, it was just too strange.
He looked down at his own hands.
As Samuel had said, going to report him right now was the optimal choice.
But he truly didn’t dare.
He wasn’t a saint. He wouldn’t throw his life away just to keep someone’s secret. If he had to choose between himself and another person, he would definitely pick himself.
He might feel guilty, he might hesitate, but he would never choose to sacrifice himself so someone else could live.
But he was afraid that he would be killed before he even found the Enforcement Team.
He had no concept of just how strong a “Law Seeker” could be.
Moreover, the announcement only said that reporting someone would grant “safe passage”—it didn’t guarantee that he would actually get to leave safely.
Luckily, his answer seemed to have put the other man in a good mood.
Was it because of honesty?
He instinctively felt that wasn’t it.
There had to be a deeper reason, but he simply couldn’t figure it out.
Surely, it couldn’t really be because it was “fun,” as the man had said?
That was a bit absurd.
What kind of person would keep a potential threat by their side just because they found it fun?
That was just too unrealistic.