Detective Dustin arrived at the Orphanage soon after the call, pulling up in a brand-new car. “The Deputy Chief allocated it. Don’t ask—it’s not something to celebrate. He just dumped a pile of crap on me.”
Detective Dustin tossed a stack of files onto the dining table. “This morning, a colleague told me about a case in Lowend District. A shooting.”
“That shooting can wait. We’ve got a bunch more right here that need handling.”
Finnian pinned down Detective Dustin’s hand as he reached for the files, utterly sincere. “Look, can you… persuade the Police Station to issue an order that boosts the area’s cultural level? Targeted at a specific group? The mandatory kind?”
“…” Dustin, sporting two black eyes from exhaustion, stared him down. “I’m so beat I could drop dead right now. I used autopilot the whole way here. Can you say something I can actually understand?”
He glanced around, hoping for someone straightforward. “Hastur?”
Hastur silently dipped into the lake water. His invisible tentacles nimbly dodged Finnian’s grab and shoved Finnian forward toward Detective Dustin.
“…” Finnian inwardly cursed Hastur for turning their two-man plan into a solo suicide mission.
But with everyone else down, he had no choice but to grit his teeth. “When you came in, did you see those two shipping containers by the entrance? Inside are Valtad and…”
Finnian gave a quick rundown of the past half hour, then cleared his throat.
“That’s the gist of it. So… can you?”
“…” Dustin’s face went blank as he looked from Finnian to the containers outside the window. After a long pause, he said firmly, “I’m dreaming.”
“I must’ve dozed off at the office. How else would I dream this up? Half an hour ago, the Deputy Chief shoved the station’s anti-gang task force on me—work the branch hasn’t finished in decades. And now I get handed a gang gift-wrapped on a platter.”
He nodded confidently. “Nope. This isn’t the kind of luck that happens to me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be homeless, crashing in the patrol car.”
“Ah, I really need to get some proper sleep. Goodnight, dream Finnian. Goodnight, dream Hastur. Oh! Ithaqua, could you sit next to me? That’d be super rude in real life, but… maybe I can lean on you in the dream?”
Ithaqua, eyed once more for his fluffy fur: “…”
Ithaqua silently blew out a gust laced with ice and snow, instantly freezing awake the yawning detective who’d cozied up on the table.
All three “people” present spoke up at once:
Ithaqua & Finnian: “Homeless how?”
Hastur: “Snap out of it. You’re not dreaming.”
The gap in empathy between humans and non-humans was plain as day.
Facing the shocked, accusatory stares from his adopted son and employee, Hastur had no choice but to play by human customs. “What’s this about being homeless?”
“…” Detective Dustin didn’t look so much frozen awake as frozen solid.
Stiff on the table, he squeezed his eyes shut in shame, trying to deny reality.
The non-human grabbed Dustin by the collar without mercy, shaking him like a long tube sock. “Wake up. Why are you sleeping in a patrol car?”
Dustin chose “embrace the shame” over “strangle to death.”
He kicked free, coughing as he straightened his collar, mumbling:
“Well… You know Phoenix District has crap insurance? Lots of victims get saved but go bankrupt. So I… donated what I could? To people who really needed emergency funds?”
Hastur looked at Dustin like he was the universe’s one and only unicorn, on the brink of extinction. “What do you mean ‘a bit’? How many people?”
“Not… a ton? Just some savings, a house, a car…” His voice trailed off under Finnian’s prehistoric-monster stare. “The number… I can’t remember? Oh, I can check my work logs. I kept records for each victim—”
“Each?” Finnian couldn’t help yelling it back. “Every single victim?? Dustin, why are you a cop? You should go to heaven and be God. Even God wouldn’t look after his people like you these days, or the world wouldn’t be the rotting mess it is.”
Hastur glanced left and right, baffled why Finnian was mad at Dustin.
After all, by his understanding of humans, doing good deeds might get you killed, but it was still… uh, a good thing. More importantly, he wanted to skip this and tackle the real issue:
“The Orphanage has tons of dorms. Detective, you can stay here—no room fee.”
Cherish the big-spending producer. Free treatment warranted.
Hastur switched back to business. “You said your Deputy Chief dumped the district’s entire anti-gang workload on you?”
Dustin’s mind lingered between “Hastur! So kind!” and “Is this really okay?”, but he answered on reflex: “Theoretically, yeah…”
He snapped back to attention, wanting to politely decline but realizing this wasn’t the time for small talk. Duty pulled his focus to the matter at hand. “I do have the authority to sign off on that gag order. But… isn’t this gag order a bit too strange? Releasing it publicly would definitely draw attention from all sides—”
“No need to publicize it,” Hastur said.
As long as it existed—even as a hidden rule in the game world—the System should recognize it. “Draft it up here first and give it a try. Then, what were you about to say regarding the shooting?”
“…” Dustin felt like a passenger who couldn’t keep up with the ride.
He was still trying to untangle his tie from the train doors and sort out the previous question when the train whooshed forward to the next stop.
He’d barely steadied himself on the platform when it whooshed off again.
He couldn’t help recalling the educational videos he’d seen on Joey Street. Besides the egg yolk jellyfish, there had been ones on squid and octopuses, mentioning that octopuses had nine brains.
Dustin suspected Hastur must have that many brains too, given how quickly his mind raced:
“The case itself is pretty ordinary. A strung-out junkie passing by a rich guy decides to rob him on impulse, but his finger slips and pulls the trigger.”
“The only unusual part is the victim’s identity.”
Dustin flipped open the file. “Colleagues from the Lowend District Sub-Police Station investigated and confirmed the victim was the Cradle Cult’s current Pontiff—the highest religious authority.”
Thanks to the crash course, Hastur finally understood his follower’s position. “In other words, he should know all the intelligence on the Outer Gods?”
“Uh—” Dustin hesitated in his reply, “probably. But that’s not the main point I wanted to make.”
“Don’t you think it’s suspicious that the Pontiff died like this? We’d only just started uncovering leads on the missing Cradle Cult followers, Hastur had manifested in front of all those people, and now the Pontiff gets shot by some two-bit vagrant?”
Hastur raised a mental tentacle, then retracted it. He could guess that the suggestion he wanted to make wouldn’t sit well with Detective Dustin.
That human knows all the intelligence on the Outer Gods. You should find him. Find his body.
A serpentine whisper slithered through his mind:
Resurrect him! You’ll have all your answers!
Hastur calmly reviewed all the prerequisites he needed:
First, he had to evade the detective and retrieve the Pontiff’s body.
Second, if operating in the city, it was best to wait until he could freely shrink his body.
He had chased this truth for decades. A little more waiting wouldn’t hurt.
~~~
Waiting made time drag on, and work only amplified that.
By the time the last day of October passed, Hastur’s body had finally returned to normal size, and he resumed his regular duties.
On the first night back at work, he donned the holographic helmet once more.
The long-unupdated login preview flashed before his eyes, and he soon reentered the familiar orphanage.
【November 1st · 9:00 p.m. · Phoenix District Orphanage】
Hastur opened the game interface. His eyes immediately caught two new boxes below the status panel.
【Faith: 3% (A few followers witnessed your manifestation firsthand, leading them to devoutly believe in you)】
【Fear: 20% (A few people saw your manifestation with their own eyes; others read of your legend in the papers, filling them with dread)】
【*Note: Faith and Fear will both provide you with buffs. Buff strength: Faith/Fear % × 50%】
Hastur didn’t check these often, since they were tough to build up.
If he went around manifesting everywhere, G8273 would deem it “interfering with normal human development” and pick a fight. Who rushed into a no-save-scum boss battle without full preparation?
Either way, faith or fear both gave buffs, so it didn’t matter.
His gaze shifted upward to the core status panel he actually cared about.
After a month of passive development, it looked impressive now!
【Character: Hastur
Mental/Spirit: 55 (Faith and Fear nourish your body every second)
Intelligence: 3 (You have a brain, but not much of one. Even with clues dancing right in front of you, you’d only see empty air)
Strength: 40 (You’re strong enough to tear down a wall with your bare hands—like ripping apart a wafer cookie!)
Life: 40 (Click to view details)
Defense: 40 (Hopefully you never get appendicitis, since no bone saw in the world could cut through your skin anymore!)
Agility: 40 (You’re the Phantom of the Opera)】
Hastur didn’t click on the Life detail, since he’d closed it himself. Expanding it would reveal the game’s biting sarcasm:
【Next time you flirt with an enemy, you can last a bit longer. Why not give it a shot?】
Hastur saw that kind of pimping as sexual harassment.
He closed the status screen and switched to the map. After confirming Detective Dustin was resting in the second-floor dorm, he silently drifted out toward the office door.
Warm yellow lamps hung in the hallway.
Hastur tilted his head slightly and could still see the glow of evening study lights spilling from the school windows into the corridor.
The passage echoed with the gang kids’ listless recitation:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate…”
They were reciting the first line of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18—about as useful as memorizing the alphabet.
“AF48, the Ghost War erupted, leading to the founding of the Netinfo Department…”
That was from the “Netinfo Department Recruitment Exam 300 Essentials.”
“Please, let me copy yours! I wanna hit the sack early tonight…”
Someone was begging to copy homework.
But Hastur had just used October’s tuition and dorm fees to buy robot tutors a few days ago, so such misbehavior would soon be nipped in the bud.
Taken from the students, used for the students—what wasn’t virtuous about that cycle?
Hastur swiftly floated out of the corridor and left the orphanage, heedless of the Nirvana Gang thugs drowning in their woes behind him.
The Babylon Company hovercab he’d booked last night was already waiting outside. He drifted inside promptly:
“Keep the headlights off. To the Lowend District Sub-Police Station.”
There had to be a case closure report on how the Cradle Cult Pontiff’s body had been handled.
“…” The hovercab was as silent as if its engine weren’t running.
“…?” Hastur gradually straightened up. “Smart assistant?”
“Bzzzt.”
Lights came on up front, illuminating the ghostly figure in the passenger seat. “Good evening, Hastur.”
G8273 glanced up lazily through the rearview mirror, flashing Hastur a perfunctory smile. “I’m here for our prior appointment. And… what are you doing heading to the sub-station?”
Hastur: “…”
The hem of his yellow robe stilled.
He quickly simulated what bringing G8273 back to the orphanage might entail:
He’d lead G8273 upstairs, past Detective Dustin’s dorm, into Ithaqua’s room.
The detective would inevitably wake, chat with the ever-truthful G8273, and learn that Hastur had slipped out alone late at night, called a Babylon hovercab to the Lowend District Sub-Police Station—without headlights.
“…” Hastur decisively changed plans. “Come with me.”
G8273: “…? What?”
Hastur gripped the front headrest and leaned toward the driver’s console. “I said, if you want to know what I’m doing, come with me to the Lowend District Sub-Police Station.”
Cheerful startup music filled the cab as the smart assistant’s voice returned: “Welcome to Babylon Company…”
“I know. Stop the ads.” Bathed in tacky disco lights, Hastur quickly set the destination. “Depart now.”
G8273’s smile didn’t waver as he slapped the start button. “This isn’t on my schedule for tonight.”
“…”
Hastur turned to face G8273’s inorganic glowing green eyes.
This model of hovercab wasn’t spacious—just fast. The cabin was probably smaller than old-era taxis.
Half his body vaulted over the front seatback as he twisted around, practically pressing against G8273’s ghostly form.
“You mean you’re planning to get out now, go to the orphanage to rebuild Ithaqua’s body, and let me go to the Lowend District Sub-Police Station alone, no matter what I intend?”
Under the hypnotic disco lights, the front of Hastur’s yellow robe nearly overlapped with G8273’s silhouette.
He watched G8273’s pupils dilate slightly as his mental tentacles gently wrapped around G8273’s right hand on the start button. “Change the route for me, Mr. AI.”
