A Core Ship From The Start Chapter 715

Chapter 715: Chapter 525 Mysterious Disappearance_2 Chapter 715: Chapter 525 Mysterious Disappearance_2 Not to mention that the bizarre warning letter didn't even have a name written on it, so many people didn't associate this with it at first.

However, after a week, another warning letter appeared on the bulletin board, followed by another student not showing up for school the next day.

It was then that everyone realized that something was awry, and some people in the Math department were on edge. In fact, within the Royal Academy now, some students were privately discussing a story–someone dead was masquerading as a living person in their school, issuing warning letters and then murdering people.

As Mary was a History department student and was either training with Lorena or busy with classes and visiting Shirley each day, she didn't pay much attention to these rumors. It wasn't until last week when she was having tea with Asherica, noticing her troubled expression, that Mary asked her about what had happened.

At the time, Mary thought it was just a joke and consoled Asherica not to take it to heart.

But… this morning, the same warning appeared in the History department's bulletin board.

So Mary could no longer sit still and decided to find Duanmu Huai.

“This sounds like a campus ghost story. Didn't you notice anything unusual?”

“Sorry, I've been so worried about Shirley that I hadn't paid much attention. And I haven't encountered any especially strange people or things in the dormitory.”

This was why Mary hadn't noticed there was a problem. Furthermore, the History and Math departments were in different buildings. Everyone in school knew that students rarely wandered around outside the familiar places they were accustomed to, much like animals marking their territory, each person sticking to their familiar territory and infrequently venturing elsewhere.

Some people spent three years in high school without knowing anything about places outside their own classrooms!

So, Mary was not aware of the issues that had surfaced at the Math department. If Asherica wasn't in the Math department, she probably would still be oblivious to all this.

“…Hmm…”

After hearing Mary's account, Duanmu Huai furrowed his brows and looked towards Mary.

“Do you think this incident is related to the previous cases?”

“I… do think so…”

“Hmm…”

Duanmu Huai nodded and began to ponder. At present, it's not impossible. After all, cases of 'missing people nobody seen alive, dead bodies no one saw' are not particularly unusual. But why issue a warning before committing a murder?

Could it be because Fog City is Sherlock Holmes's hometown, and the criminals here all wanted to create a sense of ritual?

Sick minds!

“I'll check it out to see the situation.”

After all, there were still two people who hadn't been caught. According to the rules of the Capek Research Society, if the first one died, the next one would take their place. Capek was already dead, so it indicated that the next person should be taking his place.

However, this person was going off the beaten path. If he wanted to silently kill a few people, Duanmu Huai might not have discovered it, and it could have passed under the radar.

Now this person was issuing warnings and creating ghost stories… It seems like he wanted us to know?

Now Duanmu Huai understood why the police in Conan hated the Phantom Thief so much. In his case, he would not hesitate to shoot such shameless bastards with a Bomb Gun, then use the Chainsaw Sword to finely mince them, not leaving a hint of fat!

After sending Mary off, Duanmu Huai immediately called Chief Reschdorf to ask about the situation.

“Regarding the disappearance case at the Royal Academy?”

Chief Reschdorf was surprised at Duanmu Huai's question.

“Could this also be related to the U-level cases?”

“Do you really not care?”

Duanmu Huai was also surprised by Chief Reschdorf's reaction.

“Well… to be honest, we believe it's just a case of running away from home.”

After Chief Reschdorf explained to Duanmu Huai, he finally understood the situation. According to the Chief, they had received a missing report from the parents and had also investigated the Royal Academy but didn't yield any results.

They had checked the surveillance. The missing students indeed made it to the Royal Academy and didn't seem to leave. At least the surveillance at the entrance only showed them entering and not leaving.

Of course, considering the nature of the Royal Academy, the police had sent a considerable force, even crime dogs, searching for them but found nothing. The investigation later inclined to… they might have simply run off.

This happens quite often, considering the hotheadedness of the younger generation. Running away from home due to minor issues isn't implausible.

“And what about the warning?”

“The warning? Ah, we presume they're behind that hoax, though we didn't find any helpful clues or marks in those strange warning letters.”

“So are you suggesting that you believe the two missing students have run away and those warning letters are just a blind?”

“That's basically it.”

After all, those warning letters were vague, nothing specific was mentioned, such as the arrogant knight… who knows who it's talking about. To the police, this just seemed like bored teenagers making up stories.

But there wasn't much the police could do given these circumstances. There was no evidence since no bodies were found; thus they had no leads. Unlike previous serial killers who left bodies behind, minor disappearances like this usually wouldn't make headlines.

Therefore, they could only categorize them as missing without digging too much into it. If Duanmu Huai hadn't called him to ask, Chief Reschdorf wouldn't have paid much attention to this.

Normally, when people hear about missing person's cases, they'd instinctively assume it's a major case, which the police would doggedly follow on. But, in reality, 140,000 children go missing in this country every year. That's around 400 missing children every single day, not to mention adults. In a city with over one million residents, the real number of disappearance cases is overwhelming, some due to temporary loose contacts while others never resurface.

So, even when the entire police force of Fog City was multiplied a hundred times, they still wouldn't be able to solve all the missing person's cases.

Even according to the “All Murders Must Be Solved” rule, not all murder cases can be necessarily solved, let alone disappearances cases where neither living nor dead bodies are found.

Therefore, Fog City Police station could only collect, archive, and record these cases, then wash their hands off it.

They merely didn't have any leads.

And that indeed was the case.

The case file that Duanmu Huai got from Chief Reschdorf was very simple.

Firstly, both the missing students were from the Mathematics department. The first victim was relatively well-known, a star of his department who excelled in academics and was also socially adept. The second victim was quite the opposite. According to the police report, he was really introverted, hardly interacted with others. His family reached out to his school after several days of his disappearance, only then the school realized he was missing… mainly because he barely came to school and had very few close friends.

In a nutshell, other than this, the only commonality was that both were brilliant Mathematics scholars and members of the research society–like it was mentioned earlier, only those approved by the professors as Bachelor degree students are eligible to join the research society and become one of the great and glorious research dogs.

These two students were no different. After their classes, they would go to the research society for their own work, and usually, they wouldn't leave the school before eleven or twelve o'clock.

And here lies the problem.

All the surveillance footages captured them entering the Royal Academy but not leaving it. According to the police report, other students and teachers of the research club also confirmed they did participate in the research meeting, completed their tasks, and then left to go home.

So, if the words of the research society are to be believed, both students disappeared between leaving the research meeting and exiting the school gates.

So……
After reviewing the case, Duanmu Huai took a moment to think before making a decision.

Wait until the evening, and pay a visit to the Royal Academy.

Chapter end

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