SCIAW: Chapter 523/524

Chapter 523: A Slightly Stunned Older Sister

The issue of Uniqueness was quite important, and based on Ren's judgment, that clay slime's personality was definitely on the lively side, most likely a mischief expert.

If it was that lively, he would just let it out for some fresh air often in the future.

Ren made up his mind.

Then he turned his gaze to Akemi. The younger sister's matter was resolved, so what about the older sister?

Noticing Ren's gaze, Akemi smiled sheepishly, then took out a bottle of potion.

"I'll have to trouble god for a bit too. This time, I also obtained the potion for advancement."

Akemi didn't gain much, but for her, this gain truly and substantially enhanced her current abilities.

Sequence 8 Listener, compared to Sequence 9 Secrets Suppliant, had a significant increase in spirituality, and the number of ritual spells that could be used also increased considerably.

Of course, the probability of a Listener going mad also increased significantly compared to a Secrets Suppliant.

It was just that there were no high-level and completely insane True Gods in this world. Otherwise, Akemi would have had to consider how to digest the potion and advance faster before her promotion.

"Hmm, that's a good thing. Listener has a significant increase in ability compared to Secrets Suppliant."

Listener was much stronger compared to Secrets Suppliant.

Some ritual spells also started to become offensive, and one could even obtain magical abilities by listening to the whispers of higher existences.

It was just that this ability wasn't very applicable in this world.

Ren really couldn't imagine when Akemi would need to listen to whispers to gain abilities. If it came to that, just make a phone call—it was much more convenient than listening to whispers.

"Are you mentally prepared?"

"I am."

When she touched the Sequence 8 potion, Akemi had already prepared herself mentally.

"Hmm, then let's begin."

"Calm your mind. Drink the potion only after your spirituality is stable. Just like the first time, you need to feel the reaction of drinking the potion yourself. I guarantee you won't experience corruption or madness."

"Okay."

Akemi slowly regulated her breathing. After feeling her spirituality sufficiently stable, she picked up the potion bottle, pulled out the cork, and drank it in one gulp.

The moment the potion entered her throat, everything in her sight twisted.

"Hoo..."

Akemi already had one experience, so she naturally wasn't as nervous this time.

In a completely chaotic world, she needed to stabilize her spirituality again and bring her consciousness back to normal. This was what she had to do.

The current situation was a normal reaction after drinking the potion.

She tried hard to construct an image in her mind, then used her spirituality to stabilize it repeatedly, and the distorted parts in her vision gradually began to recover.

However, during this process, Akemi clearly felt herself growing increasingly tired, and her mental state worsening.

But this was not an unbearable situation.

In fact, as her spirituality was consumed and her mental state gradually deteriorated, her focus became even more concentrated, and images of the god kept flashing through her mind.

With each breath, the images in her mind became clearer, and the excessively consumed energy and spirituality slowly began to stop.

Slowly, Akemi finally allowed her eyes to refocus, and the first thing she saw was the god standing before her.

"Oh, my god…"

Just as Akemi was about to get up, a wave of dizziness made her lose her balance.

A pair of hands suddenly reached out, steadying the unbalanced Akemi.

"You've worked hard. You've successfully advanced to Sequence 8 Listener."

The gentle voice in her ear brought an inexplicable sense of security, stabilizing her condition. She only managed to stand up again with the help of the god.

However, Akemi still felt the world spinning.

She knew this wasn't an error in her consciousness, but rather that the advancement process had consumed too much energy, leaving her feeling very drowsy and her spirituality correspondingly weak.

Ren, who was supporting Akemi, could see the languid state of her spiritual body.

Advancement really does require a more stable state. Next time others advance, it's best to do so when their mental state is full.

However, without the stimulation of corruption and madness, advancement is much easier than under normal circumstances.

"Akemi, please go back to your room and rest for a while."

"Don't talk about anything else today. Your advancement speed was too fast, and your mental state isn't particularly stable, which is why your current condition is so terrible."

In that case, it was a good thing that Miwako didn't get the Sequence 8 Constable potion. She also needed some time to stabilize her condition.

But seeing Akemi wobbling, unable to even stand steadily, he shook his head slightly, took a step forward, and directly picked her up.

"After this, advancement still needs to consider time and the body's adaptive state."

Akemi, who was suddenly picked up, was clearly a bit dazed.

By the time her brain quickly registered what was happening, she saw that the god had already carried her back to the room she shared with Shiho.

She then saw Ren place her on the bed in the room.

As her mind processed everything, she saw that Ren had already walked to the door and was talking to her sister.

She subconsciously pricked up her ears to listen.

"Shiho, your sister needs time to recover her state now. The rest is up to you."

After the instruction, Akemi saw Ren leave the room, leaving only her sister still inside.

It took a while for Akemi to recover from her groggy state.

And when her mind registered, she saw her sister lying by the bed, looking as if she was watching a good show.

"Oh dear~ Is big sister's brain feeling hazy?"

Her voice was full of teasing, and she clearly saw her sister's lips, which she could barely keep from curving into a smile.

A strange sense of shame welled up in Akemi's heart.

"When the god picked you up, did your brain lose the ability to think?"

Indeed.

When she was picked up just now, perhaps because she had just finished advancing, her mind was still blank, and all her thinking abilities had stopped.

Akemi admitted that her thinking ability was usually not as good as her sister's, but this temporary shutdown was a first.

"Is it because of the god?"

It must be.

Akemi almost blurted it out, but seeing her sister's teasing smile on her face, she instantly pulled the blanket over her head.

"I don't know, I'm sleepy, I'm going to sleep now."

Unsure how to answer, she simply chose not to answer.

Looking at her sister acting like an ostrich, Shiho shook her head slightly. She knew her sister hadn't given a direct answer.

The weight of gratitude was great, but the charm of Ren was not small either.

(To be continued.)

Chapter 524: Let’s Get Sherry Back First!

At the same time, in an unknown bar, a group of people with liquor code names gathered.

The man in the lead, dressed in black clothes and a black hat, exuded a chillingly oppressive aura.

At this moment, the man codenamed Gin was in an exceptionally foul mood.

Seeing his boss's unstable emotions, Vodka, as his subordinate, lowered his voice slightly.

"Big brother, all the dead guards have been sent to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. They've increased their security and restricted entry and exit, so our people can't get in."

After Vodka's report, the chill around Gin grew even stronger.

But he also understood that the Police wouldn't be so careless this time, and it was probably impossible to retrieve any of those bodies.

"Don't even think about it. The situation inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is much more troublesome than we imagined."

As one of the intelligence team members, Amuro Tooru leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

"Due to the APTX drug leak, the security measures within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department are much stricter than expected."

"There are no clues or leads regarding the 213 bodies, and Shirohato Pharmaceutical has also been heavily sealed off. The Police have now completely taken over."

"The only information I could get is that the Police have been dragged into this because of the large number of American firearms found in that pharmaceutical factory."

Listening to Bourbon's report, Gin only felt that everything had turned eerily strange.

"What about the crucial Sherry?"

Facing Gin's question, Amuro Tooru merely spread his hands helplessly.

"Not just us, even the Police are dispatching large numbers of officers for investigation. Especially concerning the recently arranged identity documents. The Police have more advantages than we do in tracking her down, but those who have made such arrangements recently are almost all out in the open, and there's still no news about Sherry."

"I think the reason the Police are so eager to find Sherry is probably because they've already discovered the secret of that drug."

Hearing this, Gin's expression grew even darker.

Things had indeed spiraled out of control, but what first went wrong wasn't Sherry—it was her nearly useless older sister.

First, she contacted Akai Shuichi, and now she was entangled with some inexplicable third party.

"Bourbon, I don't ask you to get those bodies out, but find out what happened to them."

"Do you know the cause of death of the eight members of the special operations unit who died at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department?"

Amuro Tooru nodded slightly.

"The cause of death of those people is indeed a bit strange. Their heads were shattered by a single punch, and they had penetrating injuries throughout their bodies. It was confirmed that these injuries weren't caused by sharp objects but by someone bare-handed."

"However, because the condition of the bodies was very unusual, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department publicly announced cremation, but the bodies are actually still being preserved."

"I suspect that the deaths of those people are directly related to the situation of those guards."

Hearing Bourbon's analysis, the faces of the members present all showed disbelief.

"Hey, Bourbon, you're not joking, are you?"

"Heads shattered by one punch, and penetrating injuries to the body? You're not seriously saying those dead cops were taken out by one punch from our peripheral members, right?"

Amuro Tooru didn't respond, only glancing calmly at Chianti, who had spoken.

Although Chianti was usually loud and often looked down on Bourbon from the intelligence team, she still recognized his capabilities.

But this time, the intelligence sounded too absurd, making her unable to resist refuting it.

However, Bourbon's calm expression only made Chianti feel more uneasy.

"Are you serious?"

Amuro Tooru took a deep breath and finally explained helplessly,

"Unfortunately, I am serious."

"The 213 bodies that were strictly sealed off could be hidden, but the bodies of those deceased Police officers required family confirmation, so information about them was difficult to completely restrict."

"It was through this less strict control that I obtained specific information about the bodies. Of course, because of the strange causes of death, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department still made the families sign a series of confidentiality agreements."

"It's precisely because of these bizarre deaths that I believe the Police felt the 213 bodies of Shirohato Pharmaceutical's guards required such strict protection."

"There are probably still some residual effects of the drug remaining in those bodies…"

"And this drug is linked to that unknown third-party organization."

These words completely silenced everyone in the room.

The bizarre deaths of the Police officers, the sealed bodies retrieved by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, and the mysterious third-party organization.

Amuro Tooru wanted to investigate further, but even the Police had restricted access, which proved that the issue with those bodies was enormous—so enormous that even the Police couldn't fully intervene.

"Why is the third party targeting us? What kind of drug are they researching? These are still unknowns."

Amuro Tooru now had a pounding headache. The organization's internal problems weren't even solved yet, and now an even bigger crisis had appeared.

What was even more frustrating was that this third party had absolutely no traceable intelligence, as if they had appeared out of thin air.

Of course, the organization's current situation was also extremely complex.

Sherry's disappearance, Miyano Akemi's disappearance, and the APTX drug leak.

Amuro Tooru was very eager to uncover the secret behind the APTX drug.

However, it was clear that the secret of that drug was tied to matters far beyond his clearance level, and as a Police Inspector, he wasn't qualified to know.

Throughout the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, only Superintendent General Hakuba should know the truth behind the drug.

Besides that person, the only ones who held the secret were the third party who took Sherry and Ren.

"It's also because of the intelligence that the third party might possess that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is actively searching for them."

"So, what should we do?"

"…"

Gin didn't immediately respond.

This matter was far too serious—it wasn't a decision they could make lightly.

"Bourbon, keep a close eye on the Police's intelligence."

"Have Rum use his connections and find Sherry as quickly as possible. The most important goal right now is to get Sherry back."

(To be continued.)