Outside the display window, there was nothing but churning thick fog. Within the fog were dim yellow streetlamps lined up along the road and stretching into the distance, as well as the shadowy outlines of buildings illuminated by their sickly glow.
Not a single person could be seen on the broad street. It was as if this had always been an empty, deserted city, and the bustling crowds from several minutes ago had merely been an illusion lingering in Wasp's mind.
"...Something is very wrong." Wasp stared intently at the faintly surging grayish-white mist on the road outside. As she observed and compared every detail, she lowered her voice and spoke to her companion. "Night Owl, go check the communications station."
In the basement of this shop, which served as a contact point, there was a hidden room containing a high-powered Magic Net Communication device. The device was connected to a "merchant ship" that regularly traveled through the strait. Through equipment aboard that ship, it relayed communications to the Intelligence Bureau branch in Northport. In the coastal city of Plander, this secret communications station was the most important means for Intelligence Bureau agents to contact their homeland.
The young man known as Night Owl nodded silently and swiftly slipped away from the display window through a hidden door behind the counter. A moment later, he returned with a grim expression. "Heavy interference. There's no signal from either the relay station or headquarters."
"...The Supernatural Phenomenon has intensified again. This time, it's no longer the 'contradictions' and 'incongruities' hidden beneath the surface—it's directly affecting the real world." Wasp analyzed the situation calmly in a low voice. Before becoming an Intelligence Bureau agent, she had only been an unremarkable mage apprentice. Yet under Director Amber's guidance and with the technological and intellectual