A Sacrificial Area
EX Graded Agents are monsters of their own rights. They are superhuman men and women who through the use of augmentation procedures and pacts with otherworldly beings grant them powers beyond what a humanoid can do: Supernatural strength, speed, endurance, and otherworldly powers.
Witnessed their work made me think again that one of them could have done much more if they had just come here earlier.
But they are expensive and their use of powers deprive them of something the OB and the Church don't usually tell us.
Great power comes with great cost. Some Agents sell their souls, and others have to be bound by certain rules and conducts they can't break lest they a taken away.
Agents who have these superhuman powers are required to be under the Bureau's Pact.
A pact that swears them to the protection of humanity that if broken. Would cast a curse on the pact-breaker and make the Bureau and the Church do everything they can to put the pact-breaker down.
These kinds of Agents and Hunters are the top fighters of humanity. Allowed in every country, and is capable of demands one usually would not have been able to have. Honestly, when you have monsters like them deployed in a fight. You’d be more worried if they somehow lose despite their abilities. If dragons manifest, then they’d be the one slaying them. If a devil enters the realspace, then you'll have these Agents waiting with holy relics and prayers of slaughter.
They are ones who purify gods, slay demons, banish devils, and purge the abominable from the world.
After they left a storm of blades and bullets here. The only thing left of the enemy is a limbless body with a sealing stake stabbed in the chest. The containment of the Dreadlord has been prioritized and after the Dreadlord was contained. The miasma centered on the control of the Dreadlord faltered, weakening the miasma to an extent it’s manageable to breathe the air and walk around the lanes without worrying about the miasma affecting your body.
Hazmat-wearing personnel. Containment experts. Contractors and Specialists in demonology and diabolists are eager to examine the Dreadlord. We fancy ourselves as Anomalous Experts, but truthfully we are more of an office where you can request data and information about recorded anomalies.
Kei’s interest was fully on the data regarding the anomaly. Others are usually unaware of it, but Kei and Eta have been around anomalies enough to understand how some of their warping abilities work and how sometimes can be solved through words and force. Kei only requested the field autopsy while examining the anomaly, but one look at the data she compiled made me once again understand why Sato and the 7S’s are so eager to affiliate with her despite being so young.
Machines can be trained. Perhaps one day she’ll be the model of an AI model specialized for anomalies. Kei’s comprehension abilities exceed everyone when it comes to anomalies. With Sato’s approval and the clearance of the Association we belong to, we have been able to gather data and extract information from the concrete man.
Kei, who is finishing her compilation on her field computer, turned towards me.
“Anything else we might have missed, Boss?”
“Depends on what you are asking for, Assistant. Our data’s feasible, marketable, and dangerous at the same time. Akun, do you know why the OB gives any Agent who is into augmenting procedures and supernatural enhancements a hard time?”
I look around. There is no person behind me. I wonder why she’s throwing me a random question. She looks at me tiredly.
“I’m talking about you, Assistant.”
“Guess that’s you're calling me now.”
“Yup. So, answer me, why is that the case?”
“Management. You don’t hand over a gun license to someone who can’t operate it properly.”
“And what if they are able to get it without the license?”
“Then they should know how to hide it well. Boss. Anomalies can grant strang power sometimes.”
“That isn’t new. Ever since the broadcast of the moon. There have been reports of supernatural happenings all over the place. From naturally strong bodies, and even now the permeation of sorcery from the ancient era said to have been lost in the library of Alexandria now is circulated to those who can manifest them.”
“Perhaps. But back then we knew nothing. The world hid the fact there are monsters. That a certain fuhrer held the spear of destiny once in the shadows of the world wars. How the occult is fighting for whatever magic there is they can find. It’s only when the world can't forget. When the broadcast of the moon landing went so wrong we now live in this kind of era. But we’re straying, I have a hypothesis, Akun. And that hypothesis is: What if there is a way to control the anomaly afflicting you and turn it into your powers?”
“Isn’t that the case with SP and UN graded agents? Might as well call them an anomaly for their powers alone.”
“Perhaps. But this would be a suitable explanation.”
She hands over the data. A closer look at the data heavily implied the concrete man was able to naturally ‘bend’ the concrete. Other than that data. We have been able to find the background information of the man. The DNA of the person who matched with him before he became the concrete man shows he is a simple man of a humble background. He’s not from the lanes. He lives just outside and works as a concrete finisher and has 40 years of experience. He has two children and a wife. Their socials also showed they live simple lives and had no qualms about their livelihood and lived normal lives until one day the concrete man left for a job as usual and never returned.
Further investigation revealed no foul play. He had no debts to pay. He had amiable relations and had little enemies. He simply changed into someone who can warp concrete into whatever he liked one day. Then his killing started and those who died were truly just unfortunate victims. The concrete man was warped into this murderous creature who made the lives of those who he encountered a tragedy.
He was just a normal working class man turned into this abomination with anomalous powers.
“It’s safe to assume the man lost reason. We can also safely deduce his powers came to be because of his experience as a concrete finisher.”
“Do we have records like this?”
“You didn’t take a peek?”
I never did take the time to read our office’s archives more than necessary because of how disorganized it is. I do remember reading some parts, but not all of them.
“Yes and no. Me and Eta have observed that anomalies usually warped based on its environment. The anomalies we encounter before you join our office are usually caused by the influence of the environment they are in and by the people around them. Like a warehouse manager who wants to get things done so he made puppets of his workers. The old lady who got too lonely and made friends shadows. And a fragment of a devil warped an entire block into a hellish landscape it wanted our world to be. In this case, we have a man who worked on concrete all his life gaining powers based on his profession.”
“Can it be really simple?”
“It is. You might be surprised, but anomalies can be straightforward once you learn what they are and they represent. Maybe evidence can suggest otherwise, but so far in our experience anomalies are based on environment and desire. I can be confident in that, Assistant.”
She speaks with certainty. There can be multiple answers to what we are looking for, but I know Kei’s too tired to think about it for now. Maybe the researchers, the specialists, and the analysts can do it for us who sometimes think we are like them.
Make no mistake, we are data gatherers. We collect data to compile information that can be sold. We might be able to solve a case once in a while, but analyzing data is not usually our main priority. That task belongs to the Shichinin no Ken . It’s up to them how they want to use and sell the information we get. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the orders of the Shichinin no Ken. I doubt Kei and Eta would have been here in the first place.
We like money. We like spending money, but we do this to live another day. No one wants to risk their lives for spare change and we are because of the pay they promised and the data we can gather from the anomaly which we can sold for a fortune.
Kei’s Office is a rather terrible detective office with hundreds of unsolved cases, and I’m just an assistant working in their office who provides our clients information regarding Anomalies.
“We got all the data we can. I’ll upload the data to Sato and let him take care of it. We’ll have to make do with this and ask for our payments. Let's move out of here. I'm done with this place.”
Kei finishes her work. I followed her through the tenements. The streets are covered with the corpses of the fallen undead. Those who escape the lanes have returned to the misery lanes to help in cleaning the lanes after Changye's Administration offered them cash. Most of the cleaners removing the bodies are those who escaped before the Undead plagued the lanes and are now back here to gather all they can and make use of this chance to earn some extra cash cleaning up the unburnt ashes and corpses.
It’s a feast of vultures and hyenas who are eager to pat down the dead and see if they have anything on their person that can be sold for a price. As we walked the body-littered streets of the misery lanes, we witnessed corpse sorting grounds full of laners taking their sweet time pilfering through some of the intact remains of the dead. While the rest of them are busy dragging the dead to the corner where they can filly burn the remains on the incinerators provided by the city.
The cleanup is going to take months. Most of the buildings here are going to be torn down and rebuilt with the same exact design and recycled from the materials as well. They’ll build the same prefab buildings and one day they’ll turn them into same tenements with the same appearance as they have built them previously. A repeating cycle where I’m sure another plague or monster will decimate the area and people living here again and again. All the misery here is just the usual tragedy of the lanes. A tragedy these lanes have to repeat for the sake of the districts outside of the lanes.
Monsters and the Undead are natural disasters here in the lanes.
It's no secret that the Lanes is a sacrificial area. A place where misery is gathered so the other districts can thrive.
A long time ago, I thought it was unreasonable for Changye’s Administration to keep the lanes miserable when they have the power to change it, but the years have taught me the lanes have a horrid purpose.
To weed out those who can’t survive its miseries and keep the monsters hidden in the dark attracted to the lanes.
Even if the administration of Changye has a sudden change of heart. Many are confident nothing will change. The lanes breed misery and many idiots here would rather remain miserable than hope and try for something better. You can try to change it, many have tried so hard to do so, but misery invites greed, and self-interest triumphs over the needs of many. How many times do you think has someone fooled the Lanes to believe they can change their lives for the better only for the same person who preaches those lines to escape with their money and live in the districts after they are done with them?
It's an inescapable cycle of misery the people of the lanes might as well be proud of having.
For everyone who managed to escape the lanes has known this about the lanes.
They know the traditions and cultures engraved in the blood of bones of the people who got thrown here can’t be changed no matter how hard anyone tries.
You don’t expect this shithole to turn into a thriving paradise just because one loony said so.
I have more faith that other places outside of the city of Changye can thrive better than the lanes.
The misery lanes will remain miserable. Not because of its people. Not because of the Administration of Changye. But because it has become the very identity of this place.
It can’t be cured.
Because this place is the toilet bowl of the City of Changye.
***
After gathering data from the concrete man turned Dreadlord. We reach the CENTER to get ourselves cleaned with chemicals and holy rituals to process our clearances to leave. As we wait for our turn to leave the area. We watch the flamethrowers lit up the roads again and witness more mobs of refugees who are being returned to the lanes forming a crowd around men and women employing them to do cleanup work.
Those who live outside the lanes have also set up temporary shops near the barricade walls. Selling goods for the refugees who have spent cleaning up corpses so they can buy canned goods and supplies to fill their stomachs. Camps have also been set up around the center and the Church here does their best to fill the stomach of their believers and provide help to them as much as they can.
Honestly, it’s probably the church who constantly provides some sort of relief to the lanes even without a Dreadlord threatening them. Although I believe it’s for the sake of gathering loyal believers and devotees to the TCU.
It can’t be ignored that they are still doing some good here.
They are the only group who are willing to provide a sliver of hope to these people. Although they themselves know they cannot change the Lanes no matter how hard they try. Nonetheless, it doesn’t stop the Church members here from trying. It came to me that those who cling to the church retain a sliver of hope and most of the time, based on my own experience of asking someone who once lived in the lanes how they manage to get out.
They’ll always mention how the church helped them.
For the church helped those who truly wanted to help themselves.
They are a sliver of goodness in this place of misery.
And yet not even them are enough to empower those who are unable to think outside of their own misery.
I hate this place. Coming back here and staying for the last days and fighting almost everyday have reminded me how I’d rather sell myself to debt-slavery than come back here again. Thankfully, Kei and Eta share my sentiments and loved nothing more than to leave this palace behind and go back to the districts where we don't have to constantly smell the rotten bodies being burned by incinerators or flamethrowers and breathe in the ashes.
A Sacrificial Area
EX Graded Agents are monsters of their own rights. They are superhuman men and women who through the use of augmentation procedures and pacts with otherworldly beings grant them powers beyond what a humanoid can do: Supernatural strength, speed, endurance, and otherworldly powers.
Witnessed their work made me think again that one of them could have done much more if they had just come here earlier.
But they are expensive and their use of powers deprive them of something the OB and the Church don't usually tell us.
Great power comes with great cost. Some Agents sell their souls, and others have to be bound by certain rules and conducts they can't break lest they a taken away.
Agents who have these superhuman powers are required to be under the Bureau's Pact.
A pact that swears them to the protection of humanity that if broken. Would cast a curse on the pact-breaker and make the Bureau and the Church do everything they can to put the pact-breaker down.
These kinds of Agents and Hunters are the top fighters of humanity. Allowed in every country, and is capable of demands one usually would not have been able to have. Honestly, when you have monsters like them deployed in a fight. You’d be more worried if they somehow lose despite their abilities. If dragons manifest, then they’d be the one slaying them. If a devil enters the realspace, then you'll have these Agents waiting with holy relics and prayers of slaughter.
They are ones who purify gods, slay demons, banish devils, and purge the abominable from the world.
After they left a storm of blades and bullets here. The only thing left of the enemy is a limbless body with a sealing stake stabbed in the chest. The containment of the Dreadlord has been prioritized and after the Dreadlord was contained. The miasma centered on the control of the Dreadlord faltered, weakening the miasma to an extent it’s manageable to breathe the air and walk around the lanes without worrying about the miasma affecting your body.
Hazmat-wearing personnel. Containment experts. Contractors and Specialists in demonology and diabolists are eager to examine the Dreadlord. We fancy ourselves as Anomalous Experts, but truthfully we are more of an office where you can request data and information about recorded anomalies.
Kei’s interest was fully on the data regarding the anomaly. Others are usually unaware of it, but Kei and Eta have been around anomalies enough to understand how some of their warping abilities work and how sometimes can be solved through words and force. Kei only requested the field autopsy while examining the anomaly, but one look at the data she compiled made me once again understand why Sato and the 7S’s are so eager to affiliate with her despite being so young.
Machines can be trained. Perhaps one day she’ll be the model of an AI model specialized for anomalies. Kei’s comprehension abilities exceed everyone when it comes to anomalies. With Sato’s approval and the clearance of the Association we belong to, we have been able to gather data and extract information from the concrete man.
Kei, who is finishing her compilation on her field computer, turned towards me.
“Anything else we might have missed, Boss?”
“Depends on what you are asking for, Assistant. Our data’s feasible, marketable, and dangerous at the same time. Akun, do you know why the OB gives any Agent who is into augmenting procedures and supernatural enhancements a hard time?”
I look around. There is no person behind me. I wonder why she’s throwing me a random question. She looks at me tiredly.
“I’m talking about you, Assistant.”
“Guess that’s you're calling me now.”
“Yup. So, answer me, why is that the case?”
“Management. You don’t hand over a gun license to someone who can’t operate it properly.”
“And what if they are able to get it without the license?”
“Then they should know how to hide it well. Boss. Anomalies can grant strang power sometimes.”
“That isn’t new. Ever since the broadcast of the moon. There have been reports of supernatural happenings all over the place. From naturally strong bodies, and even now the permeation of sorcery from the ancient era said to have been lost in the library of Alexandria now is circulated to those who can manifest them.”
“Perhaps. But back then we knew nothing. The world hid the fact there are monsters. That a certain fuhrer held the spear of destiny once in the shadows of the world wars. How the occult is fighting for whatever magic there is they can find. It’s only when the world can't forget. When the broadcast of the moon landing went so wrong we now live in this kind of era. But we’re straying, I have a hypothesis, Akun. And that hypothesis is: What if there is a way to control the anomaly afflicting you and turn it into your powers?”
“Isn’t that the case with SP and UN graded agents? Might as well call them an anomaly for their powers alone.”
“Perhaps. But this would be a suitable explanation.”
She hands over the data. A closer look at the data heavily implied the concrete man was able to naturally ‘bend’ the concrete. Other than that data. We have been able to find the background information of the man. The DNA of the person who matched with him before he became the concrete man shows he is a simple man of a humble background. He’s not from the lanes. He lives just outside and works as a concrete finisher and has 40 years of experience. He has two children and a wife. Their socials also showed they live simple lives and had no qualms about their livelihood and lived normal lives until one day the concrete man left for a job as usual and never returned.
Further investigation revealed no foul play. He had no debts to pay. He had amiable relations and had little enemies. He simply changed into someone who can warp concrete into whatever he liked one day. Then his killing started and those who died were truly just unfortunate victims. The concrete man was warped into this murderous creature who made the lives of those who he encountered a tragedy.
He was just a normal working class man turned into this abomination with anomalous powers.
“It’s safe to assume the man lost reason. We can also safely deduce his powers came to be because of his experience as a concrete finisher.”
“Do we have records like this?”
“You didn’t take a peek?”
I never did take the time to read our office’s archives more than necessary because of how disorganized it is. I do remember reading some parts, but not all of them.
“Yes and no. Me and Eta have observed that anomalies usually warped based on its environment. The anomalies we encounter before you join our office are usually caused by the influence of the environment they are in and by the people around them. Like a warehouse manager who wants to get things done so he made puppets of his workers. The old lady who got too lonely and made friends shadows. And a fragment of a devil warped an entire block into a hellish landscape it wanted our world to be. In this case, we have a man who worked on concrete all his life gaining powers based on his profession.”
“Can it be really simple?”
“It is. You might be surprised, but anomalies can be straightforward once you learn what they are and they represent. Maybe evidence can suggest otherwise, but so far in our experience anomalies are based on environment and desire. I can be confident in that, Assistant.”
She speaks with certainty. There can be multiple answers to what we are looking for, but I know Kei’s too tired to think about it for now. Maybe the researchers, the specialists, and the analysts can do it for us who sometimes think we are like them.
Make no mistake, we are data gatherers. We collect data to compile information that can be sold. We might be able to solve a case once in a while, but analyzing data is not usually our main priority. That task belongs to the Shichinin no Ken . It’s up to them how they want to use and sell the information we get. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the orders of the Shichinin no Ken. I doubt Kei and Eta would have been here in the first place.
We like money. We like spending money, but we do this to live another day. No one wants to risk their lives for spare change and we are because of the pay they promised and the data we can gather from the anomaly which we can sold for a fortune.
Kei’s Office is a rather terrible detective office with hundreds of unsolved cases, and I’m just an assistant working in their office who provides our clients information regarding Anomalies.
“We got all the data we can. I’ll upload the data to Sato and let him take care of it. We’ll have to make do with this and ask for our payments. Let's move out of here. I'm done with this place.”
Kei finishes her work. I followed her through the tenements. The streets are covered with the corpses of the fallen undead. Those who escape the lanes have returned to the misery lanes to help in cleaning the lanes after Changye's Administration offered them cash. Most of the cleaners removing the bodies are those who escaped before the Undead plagued the lanes and are now back here to gather all they can and make use of this chance to earn some extra cash cleaning up the unburnt ashes and corpses.
It’s a feast of vultures and hyenas who are eager to pat down the dead and see if they have anything on their person that can be sold for a price. As we walked the body-littered streets of the misery lanes, we witnessed corpse sorting grounds full of laners taking their sweet time pilfering through some of the intact remains of the dead. While the rest of them are busy dragging the dead to the corner where they can filly burn the remains on the incinerators provided by the city.
The cleanup is going to take months. Most of the buildings here are going to be torn down and rebuilt with the same exact design and recycled from the materials as well. They’ll build the same prefab buildings and one day they’ll turn them into same tenements with the same appearance as they have built them previously. A repeating cycle where I’m sure another plague or monster will decimate the area and people living here again and again. All the misery here is just the usual tragedy of the lanes. A tragedy these lanes have to repeat for the sake of the districts outside of the lanes.
Monsters and the Undead are natural disasters here in the lanes.
It's no secret that the Lanes is a sacrificial area. A place where misery is gathered so the other districts can thrive.
A long time ago, I thought it was unreasonable for Changye’s Administration to keep the lanes miserable when they have the power to change it, but the years have taught me the lanes have a horrid purpose.
To weed out those who can’t survive its miseries and keep the monsters hidden in the dark attracted to the lanes.
Even if the administration of Changye has a sudden change of heart. Many are confident nothing will change. The lanes breed misery and many idiots here would rather remain miserable than hope and try for something better. You can try to change it, many have tried so hard to do so, but misery invites greed, and self-interest triumphs over the needs of many. How many times do you think has someone fooled the Lanes to believe they can change their lives for the better only for the same person who preaches those lines to escape with their money and live in the districts after they are done with them?
It's an inescapable cycle of misery the people of the lanes might as well be proud of having.
For everyone who managed to escape the lanes has known this about the lanes.
They know the traditions and cultures engraved in the blood of bones of the people who got thrown here can’t be changed no matter how hard anyone tries.
You don’t expect this shithole to turn into a thriving paradise just because one loony said so.
I have more faith that other places outside of the city of Changye can thrive better than the lanes.
The misery lanes will remain miserable. Not because of its people. Not because of the Administration of Changye. But because it has become the very identity of this place.
It can’t be cured.
Because this place is the toilet bowl of the City of Changye.
***
After gathering data from the concrete man turned Dreadlord. We reach the CENTER to get ourselves cleaned with chemicals and holy rituals to process our clearances to leave. As we wait for our turn to leave the area. We watch the flamethrowers lit up the roads again and witness more mobs of refugees who are being returned to the lanes forming a crowd around men and women employing them to do cleanup work.
Those who live outside the lanes have also set up temporary shops near the barricade walls. Selling goods for the refugees who have spent cleaning up corpses so they can buy canned goods and supplies to fill their stomachs. Camps have also been set up around the center and the Church here does their best to fill the stomach of their believers and provide help to them as much as they can.
Honestly, it’s probably the church who constantly provides some sort of relief to the lanes even without a Dreadlord threatening them. Although I believe it’s for the sake of gathering loyal believers and devotees to the TCU.
It can’t be ignored that they are still doing some good here.
They are the only group who are willing to provide a sliver of hope to these people. Although they themselves know they cannot change the Lanes no matter how hard they try. Nonetheless, it doesn’t stop the Church members here from trying. It came to me that those who cling to the church retain a sliver of hope and most of the time, based on my own experience of asking someone who once lived in the lanes how they manage to get out.
They’ll always mention how the church helped them.
For the church helped those who truly wanted to help themselves.
They are a sliver of goodness in this place of misery.
And yet not even them are enough to empower those who are unable to think outside of their own misery.
I hate this place. Coming back here and staying for the last days and fighting almost everyday have reminded me how I’d rather sell myself to debt-slavery than come back here again. Thankfully, Kei and Eta share my sentiments and loved nothing more than to leave this palace behind and go back to the districts where we don't have to constantly smell the rotten bodies being burned by incinerators or flamethrowers and breathe in the ashes.
