At the intersection of Sea Breeze Street and Dragon Throat Avenue.
Inside the cordon, Ulysses stood with his brows tightly furrowed as he listened to a patrol guard's latest report. "Sir, the residences and shops over on Snail Street have all been inspected. No suspicious individuals have been found so far."
Ulysses gave a slight nod, his gaze shifting to the deep craters blasted into Sea Breeze Street. "Have the people from the Mage Association arrived?"
"They're already conducting scans along Sea Breeze Street," the patrol guard replied. "But so far, they haven't detected any suspicious mana fluctuations."
Hearing that, Ulysses let out a silent sigh.
More than half a day had passed since the incident last night.
The entire guard force had practically been driven to distraction by this bizarre case.
An absurd skeleton, a druid that transformed into an owlbear, and a mysterious Pact Master.
Together, the three had turned this neighborhood under his jurisdiction—a district famous for its good security—into a high-risk zone.
Yet the real administrative pressure was equally impossible to ignore.
The merchant associations around Dragon Throat Avenue had already submitted protests to City Hall, complaining that the blockade was severely obstructing the flow of goods.
Ulysses raised his head. The sunlight had lost its noon glare and now hung over the spires of the western buildings, stretching the barricades' shadows long and thin.
There were roughly three hours left until sunset.
Once the twenty-four-hour tracking window expired, under public security regulations, an incident like this—one that "had not caused widespread damage and whose targets had broken contact"—would see the current full lockdown downgraded to nighttime patrols.
While that would spare him from continuing to endure the public's complaints, it also...
He looked toward the personnel inspecting people at the cordon not far away.
It