Chapter 186: The Critical Problem Lies in... the Quantity?
Unlike the numerous missing person cases from before, this time the Higher-ups were already aware of the existing danger. At this very moment, there were no fewer than a dozen surveillance devices focused on the area around Emiya.
On the bustling streets where people came and went, not a single ordinary person noticed that the cameras above their heads had unconsciously focused on an inconspicuous corner, peeking into the unpredictable darkness within.
The happiness of "ignorance" was highlighted to an exceptionally obvious degree at this moment.
However, even in a highly modernized district like Shibuya, there were inevitably many dark zones that lights and surveillance could not reach—an essential part of any society.
In dark areas like these, which are typically only used as trash collection points, it wouldn't actually be a good thing if secret monitoring facilities were installed.
For example, in artistic works like doujins or adult anime... don't they love to set their main locations in these dim areas that are remarkably close to crowds, yet go completely unnoticed?
"How is it, Emiya-san? Did something happen on your end?!"
Seeing Emiya's expression, which clearly indicated he had discovered something, an inquiry immediately came through the comms.
"Yeah... I'll just share the visuals with you."
As he spoke, Emiya lightly tapped a mechanical device strapped to his wrist like a band.
Usually, mechanical equipment is easily interfered with by "curses" when facing curses or cursed spirits, so the college never required sorcerers to carry such devices, as it was considered a redundant effort.
However, after being modified by Romm, similar mechanical devices could obtain a small-scale force field to resist the erosion of cursed energy... provided they weren't being specifically targeted, of course.
Before Emiya entered the Shibuya District, the other party had specifically brought this device, saying they wanted to test its practicality in passing.
In addition to functions like positioning and photography, it could transmit captured images in real-time to a distant receiver. Of course, the decision to turn these functions on or off rested with Emiya himself.
As a miniature camera slowly extended from the wristband, the scene inside the alley was simultaneously shared with the base several kilometers away.
This place wasn't exactly filthy or disorganized, because no one was even willing to go to such an unvisited location just to dump trash.
People with manners will walk any distance to throw trash in a bin; people without them will just toss it by the roadside. Scenes of corners piled with trash almost only occur in places where there aren't even trash cans.
Facts prove that removing street trash cans doesn't make the environment better, so which "genius" came up with the rule that trash cans aren't allowed to have trash in them?
However, precisely because this was a spot few people noticed, a visible layer of dust had accumulated on the ground and walls, recording everything that happened here with crystal clarity.
Without needing any meticulous investigation, Emiya could conclude that the sorcerer had suddenly been transported from this spot to an unknown location, because the footprints visible in the dust stopped abruptly in the middle of the alley.
Unless that sorcerer could silently fly straight out from above the alley, this was the only remaining possibility.
"A temporary comparison has been made; these footprints indeed belong to the missing sorcerer. However, we'll need an on-site inspection to confirm the approximate time range."
Within a few seconds, an accurate analysis and answer came from the other side of the comms. With modern technology, filtering and analyzing this information was effortless. It was only because of the interference characteristics of cursed energy in the past that such techniques were hard to utilize.
"Whether that's clear or not doesn't matter much. The most important piece of intelligence should be..."
As he spoke, Emiya strode forward, his swift movements even stirring up quite a bit of dust floating in the air.
Emiya didn't care if his actions destroyed the intelligence at the scene, because such things were the least important when every second counted.
After a quick observation of the environment where the footprints vanished, Emiya lightly wiped some dust from the wall and rubbed it between his fingers.
"There are no signs of a struggle at the scene. This means the enemy's strength is either far beyond expectations, or it's a pure barrier or capture-type curse."
Normally, someone who becomes a Grade 2 sorcerer, even if they aren't "battle-hardened," has handled at least a dozen individual commissions. Maintaining constant vigilance while on duty is a basic survival skill. Even if one or two happened to be careless, could all twenty-plus missing persons have been the same?
The former possibility existed, but an enemy with that kind of strength wouldn't need to make things so complicated; it would be more normal to just hijack all the crowds and sorcerers in Shibuya directly.
So, after an on-site investigation, the probability of the latter has actually increased?
Then the current question is: what exactly is the judgment mechanism for this "curse's" selection?
"How long have I been in the Shibuya District now?" Emiya suddenly asked into the comms.
"The timer just passed exactly five minutes sixteen seconds ago."
The other side of the communication device answered truthfully.
"In that case, is the possibility of using time as the judgment criterion also very small...?"
No other sorcerers had entered before Emiya, so the time should have been in an "idle" state. But if a five-minute interval doesn't work, does the time have to be pushed to six minutes, seven minutes, or even ten?
But the number of missing people so far is twenty-eight. To use such a time interval to deduce the situation, it would have taken at least three hours or more to reach this stage. Therefore, the possibility that the "curse's" condition is a temporal sequence can basically be ruled out.
But if it's still not time, how exactly did that "curse" select the top-ranking sorcerers individually?
In every sense, a "curse" as a phenomenon shouldn't possess the capacity for thought.
Or was it that something completely outside everyone's cognitive concepts was achieving all this...? But that was clearly getting a bit too fanciful.
Next, in order to investigate clearly—or rather, to trigger that "curse" himself and enter the predicament where the missing persons were—Emiya tried investigating several other locations where missing sorcerers were last seen.
However, aside from a few spots that were too far from the actual disappearance point to be inspected, the remaining disappearance sites were just like the first one: the missing persons had vanished without any warning.
The instant they left the crowd and could not be observed by anyone, they vanished without a trace.
Emiya was unable to capture any useful information at the scenes; he couldn't even see a single shred of Residual Dregs. it was as if those sorcerers had truly evaporated into thin air.
Crucially, by the time Emiya finished inspecting these locations, about twenty minutes had passed. The "time" possibility could now be completely discarded.
"It's very strange. Why hasn't the curse mechanism been triggered after so much time... So, is the cause of all this really a curse?
Or rather, does the location of the curse shift?"
Even if Emiya was determined to solve the problem, if he couldn't even get "selected" himself, how was he supposed to track something that left no clues?
"At least the latter is impossible, Emiya-san... So far, there has never been a type of curse that actively transfers itself; only curses attached to an object will move as the object shifts.
If the cause of this phenomenon really is a curse, then there probably isn't any object that could withstand a curse of this magnitude... Therefore, the greatest possibility is that we haven't found the correct method."
The other side of the comms provided information in a timely manner.
While Emiya was the front-line operative, the people in the rear were naturally working hard to analyze everything happening in the field.
The tragedy, however, was that all the knowledge they had previously learned regarding Jujutsu and curses could not explain the scene currently taking place. They could only try their best to provide basic support so as not to be completely useless.
"But the trigger method shouldn't be very difficult. After all, so many sorcerers met the conditions without exception. There's no reason only I can't..."
One couldn't say that even a curse is a bully that picks on the weak, refusing to act because it felt Emiya exceeded the range of what it could contain, right?
"Curse, curse, curse...
Wait, could it be... the key point lies in the quantity?!"
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