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Kabul looked down on the weary-faced Law Enforcement Team leader with an air of superiority and sneered. “Hohoho… Has the cat got your tongue, sir?”

The leader of the Law Enforcement Team reached into his pocket for a cigarette, then struggled to light it with his slightly trembling hand. He exhaled deeply, releasing wisps of green smoke from his mouth and nose, but paid no attention to Kabul’s taunts.

Truth be told, this was not the first time he had encountered troublemakers like Kabul after so many years as the leader of the Law Enforcement Team. He had seen them cursing, creating a scene and threatening others. Nevertheless, getting the imperial family involved was a particularly troublesome situation.

He did not want anything to do with the imperial family. He just wanted to carry out his duties as the leader of the Law Enforcement Team. His daily routine consisted of patrolling the streets, humming to himself, stopping by his father’s butcher shop to buy two pounds of meat, going home to enjoy a delicious meal prepared by his wife, and then helping his daughter with her homework. He would listen to her talk about the interesting things happening at school, while keeping an eye out for any potential suitors. If there were any, he would discreetly get rid of them.

Having spent so much time in the peaceful Jeorgetown City, he had long passed the age where he yearned for excitement in his job. Peace had become ingrained in his very being, to the point where he questioned whether his hand was even steady enough to wield a sword.

With these thoughts in mind, the leader of the Law Enforcement Team formulated a plan in his heart. He snuffed out the remaining half of the cigarette then let out a long sigh that seemed to age him ten years.

“In that case, you may…”
“Sir!” Someone suddenly barged into the interrogation room, looking alarmed. “Bad news! Something big has happened!”
“What is it?”
“Some participants in the city had been poisoned!”
“Poisoned?”

The leader of the Law Enforcement Team was a bit puzzled. He could not understand why poisoning was being treated as such a significant issue.

After all, they had recently dealt with a case where someone had almost beaten a participant to death in a restroom. Not only that, a group of mages cast an illusion spell on that participant, causing him to strip and run naked through the city. Given these previous occurrences, the leader could not determine if the former incident was not severe enough or impactful enough.

If there were no fatalities, cases of poisoning were considered not newsworthy enough to be published in the newspaper the next day.

“Uh… There’s quite a number of people poisoned this time,” his subordinate stammered.

“Quite a number? Five or ten? Have you notified the medical team?” The leader of the Law Enforcement Team rose from his seat and retrieved his trench coat from the coat rack.

“Not five… or… ten… There’s…” The man looked at his leader like a frightened beast, and had discreetly started inching toward the door long ago. “More than ten thousand participants, even the saint-level Elder in charge of that area was alarmed and personally counted the number.”

“More than ten thousand… participants?”

The leader of the Law Enforcement Team gazed silently at his subordinate, his calm exterior concealing the turbulent emotions brewing within.

“A third of the participants got poisoned?”
“Y-Yes… Fortunately, the intention of the culprit wasn’t to kill, so things are still under control now. It’s not that serious, but…”
“But what?”
“The culprit used a potent laxative.”
“……”

After a long silence, the leader of the Law Enforcement Team once again lit a cigarette for himself and took a long drag before looking up at the ceiling.

Potent laxatives huh? The culprit is really a genius.

They managed to keep things under control while making at least ten thousand participants lose their strength, or even have no chance of competing.

Without much effort, thirty percent of the strong opponents had been eliminated.

Then again, how did the culprit manage to poison more than ten thousand participants at the same time?

“Kabul, do you know anything about this?”

“Uhh uhh…” Kabul, who was trying to sneak away from under the table, helplessly poked his head out. “You think too highly of me, sir. I’m only a laborer, what could I possibly know? You’ll have to ask Prince Yeager about this.”

“Never mind then. Return to your seat now.” The leader of the Law Enforcement Team knocked on the table. “I’ll question the Eighth Prince again later.”

From this moment onward, the leader of the Law Enforcement Team felt a fire burning again in his cold heart.

◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

“This is… a disaster.”

Elder Grez, the Third Divine Elder of Holy Dragon Empire, covered his nose and frowned at the building in front of him. He could not help but question if he was experiencing some sort of hallucination. The stench was so overpowering that not even his own domain could fully shield him from it.

The Reception Building, an important building accommodating participants of the Great Celestial Rite, was being cordoned off by orange tapes. Members from the Law Enforcement Team, wearing silver uniforms, had effectively barricaded all the intersections leading to this location, preventing irrelevant people from coming near to the area.

The members of the Oddities Response Team, dressed in peculiar balloon-like inflated costumes and wearing fully enclosed helmets, were wandering through the building. They carried a pen and paper, diligently tallying the number of victims in this incident. As they counted, the faces under the helmets grew increasingly grim.

Tens of thousands of people had failed to secure a restroom and pooped in their pants due to the effects of potent laxatives.

“Do we have a final count?” Grez asked the captain of the Oddities Response Team. The air around the captain’s inflated costume seemed to be distorted by some kind of odor due to his prolonged entry into the building. Grez silently strengthened the power of his domain field to the maximum and discreetly took a few steps back.

“The total comes up to 13,544 victims suffering from varying degrees of dehydration and experiencing stress response as a direct result of the potent laxative.”
“Direct? You’re telling me there are indirect results?”
“…Five individuals were severely assaulted by enraged victims just because they happened to be occupying the restrooms during the incident. One of them fractured thirteen ribs. Technically speaking, these were the people who suffered the most serious injuries in this incident.”

Elder Grez fell silent for a moment while stroking his beard, then continued to ask, “What exactly is this stress response you speak of?”

The captain of the Oddities Response Team reviewed his notes and responded, “Most of them share the same behavior as an ostrich, burying their heads in quilts or clothes, and avoiding exposure to light. They appear to panic when they come in contact with people, and in severe cases, they display slight suicidal tendencies. Interestingly, this symptom predominantly affects the women, particularly those who lost access to their restroom due to the men.”

“…..” Elder Grez pulled off the ninth strand of his beard today.

“Any luck finding out where the laxatives came from?”
“No, it’s not within my job scope. I did try to analyze the ingredients of the laxative, but I found that it was just a very common laxative. The one used to treat constipation in domesticated pigs.”
“……”