The policewoman took everyone away except Clark.
She really was a police officer, because Clark had taken a careful look at the badge hanging from her chest. It had her badge number on it, and judging from her tone, she had not been lying.
Clark felt a little lost.
It felt as though time had slipped away right beneath his nose. During that stretch, it seemed like he had done something, yet also like he had done nothing. He suspected Super Brain had blocked out something he was not supposed to remember.
Clark could only set off again.
The moment he stepped outside the construction site's wall, he saw one person chasing another. The one in front was a skinny man, while the one behind was a somewhat chubby blond man.
The man being chased screamed nonstop, but Clark felt that was understandable, because the man chasing him was carrying a crocodile in his arms.
Theoretically, an adult male crocodile could not be used as a weapon by a human, because their core strength was far greater than one might imagine, and an ordinary person could not restrain them.
But that crocodile had been modified. It wore something like a construction safety harness, firmly secured to the fat man's waist as part of his belt.
Just as Clark was about to step in and stop the fat man's violence, two children suddenly rushed out of a roadside house and began spraying the fat man with a garden hose.
After getting drenched, the fat man was visibly enraged. He punched the crocodile strapped to him hard, making it open its jaws wide, then charged toward the garden, frightening the children into scattering.
The children's mother seemed to have witnessed the scene from the window. She rushed out the front door at