Chapter 126: No Case

"This ain’t a holiday, my friend. I was investigating something."

Remzi spoke in a measured tone as he crossed his legs, supporting his chin under the right hand that was placed on the side of the sofa.

"Hm? A new case. But don’t the other agents do the field work?"

Arnold asked curiously.

"No. There’s no case."

"Then?"

"There being no case, is the biggest case for me."

"Huh?!"

Arnold wanted to maintain the seriousness of the situation, but Remzi’s reply made him unable to do so.

"Tell me? Maybe I can help."

Remzi thought for a moment before turning his attention towards the auction below.

"Something is brewing in the empire. Something big."

Remzi paused, his mind churning through all the possibilities that he had come across.

"Our department is given cases when they surpass the limits of what local authorities can do. But nowadays, the number of such cases has been reduced to a near negligible level."

"So what’s bad about that! Enjoy the vacation until you have it."

Taking a sip from the glass of juice that was placed near him, Arnold glanced at Remzi.

Remzi didn’t speak for a moment before looking into Arnold’s eyes.

"The cases that our department has been given recently are all simple ones, where with a few moves the culprit is caught and punished. The real ones—those for which we have to employ the power of the empire’s major combat assets and a vast intelligence network—have vanished into thin air."

"..."

"It’s like the criminals have become incapable of committing any serious crimes."

"Dude! Chill out. Why are you freaking out if the number of criminals has reduced? That should be a good thing, at least according to how I view it."

Arnold thought Remzi was being excessively paranoid.

If a problem was solved, there was no need to dig further. Better avoid trouble instead of knocking at its door.

"The criminals have reduced, not the crimes."

This time Arnold couldn’t brush off the statement.

"So does that mean..."

"They are hiding their tracks far better than before. If the local authorities can’t detect the crime, then there’s no way we will work out to find a non-existent criminal."

"A non-existent criminal, huh."

Remzi went silent after the explanation.

"So, found anything yet?"

Arnold leaned towards Remzi, staring at his face up close.

Remzi, ignoring the antics, shrugged his shoulders.

"No, I haven’t."

Arnold raised his brow at the statement.

It was weird for Remzi to back off from something he was invested in.

"And you didn’t try to dig further?"

"No."

"Why?"

"All these things happening could just be my own hypothetical point of view. And if the criminals aren’t being visible before the world, it’s not like I will work more than my pay just to find them out."

Remzi had already returned to his carefree attitude.

Though his words sounded like he had given up, Arnold knew better.

Whenever Remzi spoke like this, it always meant that he was too invested to speak about the matter with anyone.

Remzi was someone who talked with everyone, had good relations with everyone, but trusted no one.

In his eyes everyone around him was a culprit, and every culprit was a victim.

He judged the world through a neutral lens while being biased at the same time.

Remzi’s brain worked totally differently, but it was this uniqueness that made him the best.

Arnold was surprised that Remzi even told him about what his mind was currently occupied with. It was far rarer for this guy to discuss any topic of actual interest with anyone other than himself.

But that just went on to show the seriousness of the situation.

"Fair enough. No use in whooping your ass if the wallets don’t get filled enough."

"Damn! Look at you being all philosophical. Tsk, tsk. I will have to book some ladies—lest you take all of them."

"Fuck off."

Remzi chuckled, diffusing the previously tense situation.

"Let’s see what we have here."

Remzi had shifted his entire focus to the auction below—or at least that was what he had shown on the outside.

In his mind Remzi was still calculating every possibility about the reduced crimes that were happening all over the empire.

From the last month or so, Remzi had noticed this problem for the first time, since most of the time he was always involved with advising the royals and other higher authorities about the various things the empire should do on the world stage.

He had always been invested in global politics, which had led him to neglect the things that were happening inside the empire.

It was only when the situation outside had become boring that Remzi had returned to his duty as the empire’s case cracker.

And that had led him to discover the anomaly in the empire.

The moment he noticed it, Remzi began to work on the case that he had already formed in his mind.

He skimmed through all the previous records that were available in the central database.

Every file was turned upside down, and that was when Remzi narrowed down the timeline.

It was only between the last two years that such things had begun to occur across the empire.

First the scale of the disappearing criminals was low, but then as the months passed, more and more criminals—and the cases that their crimes led to—had begun to disappear from the logs of the authorities.

The average crime rate had begun to fall, leading to the reduction in the overall budget and forces that were allotted to the intelligence department.

Even the other forces involved in the civilian military were transferred to the border areas in order to bulk them up against foreign invading forces.

The fall wasn’t dramatic.

The number of criminals was reduced bit by bit, in such an order that no one would find it suspicious.

Even if someone cross-checked everything, they would simply assume it as the result of— the authorities doing their jobs well enough to discourage any criminals from going rogue.

Everything...

Remzi found all the events planned thoroughly. It was as if the force behind everything knew how the empire thought.

But...