2026-11-10 21:44:27Bolting out of the hospital room a second time that day, Cassius didn't hesitate for a second: he skipped the packed reception area entirely, climbed out a second-floor window, and tore off at a dead sprint toward the Oddity Cleanup Bureau.
Since taking Mira out of there was off the table, that left exactly one choice: get to the Oddity Cleanup Bureau this instant and report in — then bring back whoever could handle that "runaway Contaminated"!
Maybe his nerves were wound so tight that time seemed to slow, or maybe "running to the Oddity Cleanup Bureau to report in" counted as job description too, and picked up a boost from the [Employee, Money-Back Guarantee] badge.
Cassius, who hadn't slept all night, was dead tired — and yet he was far faster than last time, and before long he was skidding to a stop below the Oddity Cleanup Bureau's building.
But when Cassius, enduring the furnace-burn in his lungs, staggered into the innermost office, all that met him was a bare, empty room.
Where is everyone? Why is there no one here?
Peering through the window at the already-dark sky, the frantic Cassius finally realized with a jolt that it was long past public servants' quitting time — that cagey red-haired woman was surely long gone.
This is bad... Should I try searching the building first, see if anyone's on the night shift?
Having come up empty, Cassius gritted his teeth — and just as he was about to leave the red-haired woman's office, a heavy thud sounded behind him, like something solid hitting the carpet.
Cassius turned in surprise and found a goat-head ornament fallen off the desk. Too rushed to care, he was about to walk off when the thing eerily squirmed a couple of times and turned itself face-forward.
Under Cassius's astonished stare, the goat head — its mouth sewn shut — rolled its eyes, then glared at him, vicious.
?!
A dim corridor, an ornate and bizarre office, and a goat head with its mouth sewn shut in red thread glaring at you, face full of menace...
'What the hell are you staring at?!'
A voice thick with fury sounded in Cassius's ear, wrecking what had, frankly, been a pretty chilling atmosphere.
After several rolls across the carpet failed to set itself right-side up, the Soot Bishop settled for glaring at Cassius and "speaking" in a vicious snarl:
'Are you just going to stand there? Hurry up and set me upright! Back when yours truly was still an archdemon, a clueless little thing like you would already have been slapped dead!'
A archdemon...? That Soot Bishop? It's barely been an hour — how did you wind up as just a head?
"You... hello there!"
Once he recognized it as that very Soot Bishop, Cassius — anxious about his sister's side of things — took a deep breath and asked straight out:
"I think I just ran into the runaway Contaminated — it's at the hospital three streets over. Is anyone still on duty at the Bureau right now?"
Like hell there is! If anyone else were in this Bureau, do you think you could've just strolled in like that? Those lunatics would've taken you apart already!
Just as the Soot Bishop's eyes rolled back for another "verbal" barrage, Cassius — a master of dosing the medicine to the patient — hastily added:
"Just help me find someone! I'll buy you cigarettes! A pack of 'Old Crows'! No — two packs!"
'...'
Two packs, huh... tch... yours truly is such a softie — never could stand seeing the little people suffer — so helping you out isn't impossible. It's just that...
'Haaah...'
Under Cassius's tense stare, the Soot Bishop first sighed, then shook its head, a touch regretful:
'Let's call the deal off. Yours truly is a demon of his word — I don't take payment for jobs I can't manage. The Bureau's been empty for ages; even if I wanted to help you, I couldn't.'
Empty?
At that, Cassius couldn't keep the panic out of his voice:
"A whole building this size, and not one single person on the night shift?"
'And whose fault is that, if not that red-haired broad's?'
The Soot Bishop said, looking thoroughly put out:
'It's all because her work's so sloppy that her mission reviews always come out low. She got scared she wouldn't survive the year-end review, so last month she shipped everyone out to pad the numbers — now the Bureau's so empty you could race rats down the halls...
'Let me tell you, kid — don't let that pretty face of hers blind you!
'Sure, she's a looker — she'd give full-blooded succubi a run for their money — but the woman drinks like a fish, worships money, sulks over nothing, and has zero personal hygiene. Yours truly has even caught her behind a locked office door secretly picking at her toes! That damn broad is basically a—huh?'
Right in the middle of its tirade, it seemed to spot something; the Soot Bishop craned its neck around to peer east, then split its sewn mouth into a faint grin and gave Cassius a little heh-heh.
'Lucky little punk, aren't you — scoring a merit bonus your first day on the job... Move it! Pick yours truly up and carry me! Someone who can actually work is back, and I'm taking you to her right now to square this away!
'And don't forget the cigarettes you promised me! Two packs, non-negotiable — short by one and I'll kill you!'
If you can actually fix this, forget two packs — I'd get you two crates!
...
Hearing things take a turn for the better, Cassius was overjoyed. He scooped up the goat head, hurried out of the Oddity Cleanup Bureau, and — following its directions — ran nearly two streets east, until at a corner he finally cut off a tall woman wrapped head to toe in bandages.
"You're... hm... so the Bureau actually took on a rookie."
After one glance at the goat head in Cassius's arms — apparently receiving a whole dossier straight from it — the tall, bandage-wrapped woman smiled, held out her right hand to Cassius, and said warmly:
"My name is Agnes. I've been with the Oddity Cleanup Bureau six years now, and I'd say I'm fairly familiar with how the place runs. If there's ever anything you need a hand with on the job, please just say the word."
"O... okay..."
When he'd first cut off this strange woman covered in bandages, Cassius had assumed she'd be another "personality-plus" oddball cut from the Soot Bishop's cloth — never expecting to hear such a "functioning member of society" opener.
Still... she seemed pretty easy to work with?
With the hospital on his mind, Cassius immediately shoved down his misgivings, gave the bandaged woman's hand a hasty shake, and said, a little urgently:
"The hospital..."
"I'll go. Just not right this second."
The bandaged woman smiled gently and said, unhurried:
"Per the Bureau's four-step operations protocol, we should first observe carefully, establish the type and danger level of the anomaly, and the identity of the runaway Contaminated;
"then, going by the condition of the victims, make a preliminary guess at the Contaminated's ability and its effects, and judge what damage it might do;
"next, find targeted tools and special items, confirm our own condition, and draw up a complete action plan;
"and only then move — controlling or eliminating the target with the fewest casualties and the least impact, and completing the cleanup."
Watching Cassius, who'd gone a little glassy-eyed, the bandaged woman reminded him kindly:
"The sun's already down. Our mobility drops when our sight is blocked, and once the sun's suppression is gone, most anomalous objects grow more active at night — this is not a good moment to act.
"Also, I've only just wrapped up a two-and-a-half-month mission. My stamina and condition are at their limits — I'd need at least a week's rest to guarantee proper focus — so I'm in no shape to take on a new job of unknown danger right away.
"So the correct plan for now is for us to head back to the Oddity Cleanup Bureau and hand this mission to the Director when she's at work tomorrow. Which means we should really..."
'There you go with this routine again...'
Stunned by an attitude this professional — bordering on cold — Cassius was momentarily at a loss for words, while the goat head in his arms twisted around and grumbled, openly annoyed:
'Your Director's already off to Wales on business. There's no way she's back inside three days — are you seriously planning to wait for her?'
"I'd still rather wait for her to come back."
Facing the sudden change in Cassius's expression, the bandaged woman — Agnes by name — gave another gentle smile and said, a hint of apology in her eyes:
"From your face... do you have family in that hospital?
"I'm sorry. I have a reason I have to stay alive no matter what, and unless I can be certain something is absolutely safe, I will never act rashly, whatever happens. So please — give it three days!"
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0017 He Really Does Deserve the Stew
You're fucking overdue for the stew, is what you are! Using every last ounce of strength he had, Cassius clamped the Soot Bishop's mouth shut, stuffing its torrent of filth right back down its throat. Then he looked up at the red-haired woman — still smiling sweetly — scratched the back of his head, and said, more than a little awkward: "So, um... Director, my sister got badly shaken up yesterday, and she's still laid up in the hospital. If there's nothing else, could I take the afternoon off?" "Mm-hm, go on! You just finished a cleanup job that dangerous — you've earned some rest." She approved the leave with a smile, and waited until he'd hurried out with the squirming goat head tucked under his arm. Then the faint smile slid off the red-haired woman's face. She laced her fingers together, leaned back to stare up at the aging ceiling, and sank into thought. Something was off... She'd veiled Cassius's memory — made him temporarily forget everything about t
0016 Don't Tell Me There's Another Twist?
"Heh. YOU can forget about forgiveness — but the new hire's off the hook, absolutely!" Giving Cassius a once-over that was almost admiring, the red-haired woman's sharp edge softened a touch, and she said, warmth in her voice: "Cassius, don't sweat the intel. You reported the Contaminated the moment you spotted him, you won over that troublesome demon, and you got it to lead you to Agnes. "Then, when Agnes got pinned down, you took out the mission target with one shot and got her out — and along the way you saved a few hundred people from losing too much of their life force. "For a rookie who joined the Oddity Cleanup Bureau only hours ago? More than good enough. As for the intel — that was just an accident nobody could have prevented." "No, hold on! Yours truly pulled off a feat here too! Do you HAVE to play favorites this hard?" Before Cassius could answer, the Soot Bishop — inflamed by the brutally lopsided treatment — burst out: "HE was the one who
0015 The Reward
"Send it to the kitchen to be stewed." Under the Soot Bishop's stare of maximum possible shock, the red-haired woman closed the case file marked [Bellfounder Memorial Hospital Incident], then picked up the goat head, tossed it to Cassius at the desk, and instructed, perfectly breezy: "We share a kitchen with the Police Department. After you drop this thing off, tell their head chef it's goat-head soup this time — same requirements as the last few rounds. "No ginger, no onion — extra rosemary and juniper. Double the dark ale to cut the gaminess, plus a pinch of white pepper and a splash of that Worcestershire sauce shipped in from the East. We're adding a special dish for the branch at lunch today. Off you go." "Wa... wait a minute! You bastard!" It had pulled off a genuine feat of merit, and this was its reward. The Soot Bishop's rage shot straight up past its brows as it lay in Cassius's arms, arguing its case on the merits: "Hes... you stinking woman! Thi
0014 Turning It Back Around (2-in-1)
MIRA!!! The moment the frail girl dropped, Cassius — watching through his scope from the building diagonally opposite — went cold from the inside out, like he'd fallen through ice. His brain hadn't even gotten as far as the concept of death. His consciousness just blanked. His heart felt clamped in a huge invisible fist, the blood supply to his whole body seemingly cut on the spot, and his hands and feet went stiff and numb, frozen solid. The whole world went dead quiet in that instant. Everything in it froze on one small, pale face — thin lips pressed tight, falling, helpless — and the only thing left that Cassius could do was watch, powerless, as his sister tumbled from on high, despair brimming in her eyes! "BOOM!!!" An ear-splitting roar rolled down most of the street. Hard on its heels came the wide crackle of shattering glass, and the low, grating shriek of metal warping under monstrous force. More than half the hospital's windows blew out from the sh
0013 A Sharp Turn for the Worse
Fresh off earning his new badge, Cassius split from the bandaged woman and, without a moment's rest, hauled the "sniper rifle" at a run into the department store diagonally opposite the hospital, making a beeline for the shooting spot he'd picked out — while across the road, Bellfounder Memorial Hospital had already turned into a picture straight out of hell. In the ground-floor lobby, which should have been buzzing with foot traffic, most of the crowd had been swallowed down into the cold tile. The patients, too weak to move, didn't have a prayer of pulling themselves free — all they could do was thrust their arms helplessly up toward the ceiling. Look anywhere you liked, and the whole lobby seemed like concrete mixed through with countless people writhing and struggling in agony — arms shot up desperately on every side, jutting out at every height, groping and clenching without stop. It was a living fresco of hell. Perhaps because of the carpeting — no direct contact
0012 Your Art Style's All Wrong, Isn't It?
Just as Bellfounder Memorial Hospital — something having gone wrong inside it — began devouring its patients bit by bit, Cassius, who had arrived nearby, felt a stab of pain in his eyes, and found the whole world before him going black. "Wait! Don't go in yet!" "What is it?" The bandaged woman, arm caught, turned back in puzzlement — and was startled to find that, as if blinded by some searing light, both Cassius and the Soot Bishop in his arms had their eyes clamped shut, tears even streaming from the corners of Cassius's eyes. "This hospital is alive!" Gazing up at the black flames towering skyward in his soul sight, Cassius — whose "eyes" had been scorched by their glare — explained through a burning, stinging pain, still gripping the bandaged woman's arm: "Just now — the instant you started to walk in — it was like it got some kind of signal. Suddenly it had a soul of its own, and... it's about as strong as several hundred ordinary souls!" The entir
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