***
Even on the November Continent, drugs were illegal. However, like all crimes in the shadows, there are more fish that got away than fish that were caught.
Since tracking was difficult from the re-education center, Chris decided to completely change direction. Rather than chasing the tail of addicts, he wanted to meet those who arrested them.
Chris, who received the contact information of a police official cooperating with Northern Light, headed to the largest police station in Aurum City during business hours.
Seeing it was an old building, it appeared to be one of the few intact structures remaining from the old era. The antique yet shabby-looking exterior seemed to symbolize the antiquated order of the November Continent.
“I’m Chris.”
“I’m Marchi Joyce.”
The officer who had been waiting in advance shook hands with him lightly before guiding Chris inside.
The inside of the police station was honestly a mess. Petty criminals being temporarily detained were banging on iron bars, a man responding listlessly to an officer’s interrogation, and administrative staff typing as if they didn’t even have the energy to react to the surrounding noise…
As if embarrassed to show Chris from the June Continent the current state of Aurum City Police Station, Officer Marchi quickly moved her steps to lead him inside.
Chris was guided to a room that couldn’t be opened without the officer’s biometric recognition code and password, even from the warehouse storing confiscated items.
Each steel locker had a name tag attached. The officer reached out and pulled out a box labeled “G. Delight.”
“This is called Guiding Delight.”
Officer Marchi took out a plastic bag containing confiscated drugs and spread it open as she spoke. The pills were an embarrassingly cute pink color. When turned this way and that, they sparkled like jewels and had white powder sprinkled on top.
They looked like candy or jelly dusted with sugar powder.
“It’s named that because it supposedly provides a sensation most similar to the pleasure Espers feel when receiving Guiding. It’s one of the drugs that’s relatively easy to obtain because it’s the most common and cheapest.”
Guiding Delight—certainly one of the names of Guiding drugs Andrea had mentioned. But Chris asked with a deliberately calm face.
“Does it really have a Guiding effect?”
“Of course not.”
The woman shook her head.
“It’s a name created for drug branding. If there were a drug that could actually substitute for real Guiding, it couldn’t be this cheap, right?”
According to Andrea, Guiding drugs were practically classified within Northern Light too. Among the drugs called urban legends or such by Team Crow members who frequently dispatched outside to places like the Winter Continent, could one of them, ‘Guiding Delight,’ really be this pink pill right in front of him?
There was no way Guiding drugs distributed in hushed whispers would be circulating so obviously and commonly. It wasn’t like that old-era fairy tale where you search everywhere for the bluebird only to find it was at the home you first left…
Chris pointed at the plastic bag and asked.
“May I open it?”
“Yes. It’s fine since it’s not an inhalant type but an ingestible drug.”
He’d thought it looked like jelly or candy, and it really was a product for oral consumption. Some people might crush this into powder and inhale it through mucous membranes, but for now it wasn’t in powder form so it should be fine to check the smell.
Chris opened the plastic bag and smelled the Guiding Delight.
Chris, who had received related training to track drug dealers, knew the smell of all drugs that survived after the fall of the old era and were still distributed, so that’s what he wanted to confirm.
Cannabis? Poppy? Coca?
It was a scent that didn’t correspond to any of these. Then it must be a synthetic drug, but this scent didn’t exist anywhere in his olfactory palette.
Rather.
Rather, would it feel like this if someone sliced a Guide’s flesh and sprinkled blood on top to prepare a sacred meal?
Chris felt his vision swim. His vision shook as if riding a car running on a rough road. This wasn’t a real Guide, nor was it Guiding. His keen sense of smell could tell how cheap this drug was, what a fake synthetic it was.
Nevertheless—
‘It’s sweet.’
It’s definitely incomparably vulgar and cheap, but this…
‘It’s a drug that can mimic Guiding, at least partially.’
“You said this is the most common drug?”
“If you go into back alleys, there’s enough to trip over.”
Chris worked hard not to harden his complexion.
Though called a synthetic drug, it’s not methamphetamine either.
Nor could it be heroin or cocaine.
Poppies, coca leaves, and marijuana have something in common. They generally grow in warm regions. Especially coca trees are cultivated in places with heavy rainfall. Places like the July or August Continents, for instance.
The November Continent is called the ‘Winter Continent’ because it’s cold enough, lacks sunlight, and is a place where snow falls instead of rain.
As someone who had personally run across ice sheets with layers of snow that wouldn’t melt to devote himself to searching for Aparna and Gillian, Chris couldn’t figure out what the raw material of this Guiding Delight was.
If there’s something all drugs have in common, it’s that prices vary wildly depending on transportation distance and smuggling difficulty. But in a situation where both air and sea routes to and from the Winter Continent are under strict surveillance, if they have to smuggle in even the raw materials, Guiding Delight should be able to name its own price.
As Officer Marchi Joyce said, it can’t be the most common and cheap item in back alleys. For drugs, unlike other necessities, price competition was meaningless. Because there exists a loyal customer base called drug addicts.
No matter the price, addicts buy drugs. If it’s expensive, they buy it fearing the price will rise even more, and if it becomes cheap, they buy it intending to stock up.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
Having finished his inspection, Chris returned the drug to the officer. She carefully put the Guiding Delight back in the steel locker, then escorted Chris outside the station.
Returning to the street, Chris boarded a tram heading to the abandoned factory district in Aurum’s 13th Ward. He could see old scenery passing by the window. Rather than newly constructed buildings, remnants of the old era, half-crumbling and dilapidated, were packed densely.
Somewhere around the corner of those alleys, behind windows without lights, drugs were circulating among the crevices of people living day to day.
Ironically, the one trying to root this out was the ruler of the November Continent, Yuri Sobolev, and Chris was chasing after that mafia.
He felt like a villain.
Getting off the tram, Chris walked with long strides. Entering the abandoned factory district, he headed straight for the back alleys.
To avoid standing out, he deliberately didn’t enter on his first visit. Such places tend to be closed off and outsiders stand out quickly. He filtered out the faintly permeating sweet scent mixed in the air.
It was truly extremely faint. If he were transformed into a wolf, he could distinguish it more clearly, but since a beast couldn’t suddenly appear in such alleys, it was better to follow even faint traces in human form.
Chris pulled his coat close as he headed into the back alleys.
While many old-era buildings remained, some had collapsed and were blocking the path. He moved along the side where brick debris and such were scattered particularly densely, as if people crossed over at appropriately slanted angles.
Sometimes he felt signs of people in the sparse darkness of the alleyway. But Chris moved without hesitation in the direction guided by the scent of Guiding Delight.
A man’s thick arm blocked his path. He was holding a jackknife. On his hairy skin, a blue spiderweb tattoo was engraved.
“Who are you?”
“Where’s the merchandise?”
Question with question.
Since it was his first time here, there was nothing good about getting caught up in the other’s way.
Chris’s face was clean-cut and his attitude was composed. Though he was slightly hunched over, when he lifted his head a bit, his height was overwhelming enough to intimidate the man.
The spiderweb-tattooed man frowned at the sense of pressure.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I heard I could meet a guide if I came here. Am I wrong?”
Chris asked back.
This was a very remote place even in the complicated alleys behind the abandoned factory district. It meant you couldn’t come here unless you had a purpose. The man’s wariness also lessened partly due to Chris’s utterly calm attitude, too composed to be some random person who accidentally wandered in.
The man watched the darkness behind Chris before whistling. A boy wearing a cap pulled down tight popped out.
“Kid, did you see him?”
“First time today. He came straight from the entrance without stopping.”
Though the knees of the pants he wore had turned white and had holes here and there, and his shoes were bigger than his feet, he didn’t make a sound. Chris knew he was one of the many gazes that had been watching him from the darkness of the alley.
Probably a pickpocket kid living with this back alley as his base. He was protected by doing errand work for rough gang members who lived parasitically in Aurum’s darkness, like the man before his eyes. Money earned from begging or pickpocketing would be extorted under the pretext of tribute, and when outsiders appeared or police came out for crackdowns like today, watching and giving advance warnings was also part of their role.
Chris hesitated.
