novel-bin Chapter 194 The Daily Affairs of the Azure Detective
Chapter 194 The Daily Affairs of the Azure Detective
Chapter 204 The Daily Affairs of the Azure Detective
Following the request for help regarding the lost elderly person, Azure successfully handled the remaining consultation requests.
In the second request, the partner Pokémon that had disappeared was a Wheelball. This Pokémon, evolved from a centipede, has a hard shell and venomous spikes, and when startled, it spins like a tire at high speed.
The wheelworm went missing while out for a walk. Its trainer seemed a little overly worried, insisting that its partner had been targeted by a haughty pheasant that had recently appeared in the neighborhood and had been carried away back to its nest.
However, as far as Azur Lane knows, no bird Pokémon would like a prey like Wheelball—this cocoon-shaped Pokémon is both tough and poisonous, and its average length is 1.2 meters. It's hard to imagine it being carried through the sky by a proud pheasant.
"My partner evolved earlier and is much smaller than other Pokémon. That big bird always stares at my Carabinth with a menacing look. It must have been planning to make it its lunch! Please save my Pokémon!"
—The client expressed his pessimism and confusion about Azure so loudly, his voice trembling with tears.
Despite the other party's earnest request, the female detective remained skeptical.
Now she has a fairly good understanding of the Pokémon ecology in Unova. The client's description of it as ferocious is probably just due to the gender difference of the Arrogant, right? Male Arrogant have a conspicuous crest on their heads, and such a large bird landing suddenly next to people can indeed be quite startling—but that doesn't mean it will have an appetite for Bulbasaur. On the contrary, Bulbasaur is more likely to run away because it's frightened.
After calming the client down, Azure opened the drawer that was originally kept by the Grass Turtwig and skillfully took out a map from inside.
Due to its unique shape, this Pokémon cannot move quickly without relying on terrain elevation differences, so it is not difficult to deduce where it disappeared.
After roughly checking the local terrain, Azure wrote down the information of all the shops at the end of the nearby downhill slope in her notebook, and then called them one by one to ask if they had seen any Pokémon running by like purple tires during the midday hours.
The subsequent investigation went relatively smoothly. After asking only the twelfth shop, Azure received a positive response: a cashier at a clothing store had personally witnessed the rolling wheel-shaped ball. The "purple tire" that was witnessed was not 1.2 meters long, but only the size of a soccer ball, which basically confirmed that it belonged to the client's partner who had evolved ahead of schedule.
At this point, the mission was essentially complete—Azure told the trainer the possible location of the Wheel Ball, and the trainer found a partner in less than half an hour.
The partner Pokémon eventually settled in the grass at the end of the slope, where it encountered a group of wild Pokémon of the same kind. Having never had any social experience before, it was very excited and happily played with its companions, even lingering for a while when the trainer came to find it... but that was no longer a topic unrelated to the request.
The third commission is the classic premarital investigation, which is also the most popular service in the firm. Hugo had already established procedures for handling similar commissions.
The first step was to use legal means. Azure skillfully filled out a fabricated consultation application and sent it to the email addresses of various public institutions within the alliance.
The United States' public institutions uphold the ideal of "transparent government," but the quality of their clerks varies considerably. Therefore, sometimes, with sufficient justification and earnestness, official information about the subjects can be obtained from them in writing. Furthermore, if the subjects' identities are fabricated, this round of investigation will also expose their falsification.
The second step involves a gray area of the law.
At this stage, the detective agency will search specialized data-selling websites. These websites crawl data from the online platforms of government agencies and educational institutions in the United States, as well as from search engines themselves, and then integrate the obtained information to a certain extent.
Searching on such websites yields a wealth of personal information about the subject, including their school history, criminal records, work experience, and traffic violations. This information is extremely cheap on web crawlers; investigators can learn most of a subject's life for less than one percent of the commission fee. However, the information is often a mix of truth and falsehood, requiring secondary verification by detectives.
The idea that this information has already been leaked online by information traffickers before it can be searched, so there's no need to feel guilty about looking at it... is wrong!
Buying a citizen's privacy with money is itself an act of funding crime, no different from buying stolen goods from a thief.
However, the detective at the time said this—
"In that case, you can report these web crawler websites to the police's cybersecurity department after you've finished your investigation and feel guilty. If the police take action, the intelligence brokers will have to move their operations, which is a loss that several intelligence deals couldn't recover. This way, you can improve efficiency while also upholding justice and conscience—a perfect win-win situation."
I think your definitions of justice and conscience, and even win-win situations, are a bit too broad... Azure thought to herself.
However, no matter how much we repay kindness with enmity by reporting illegal websites, these information brokers who leak citizens' privacy will not disappear from the internet. After all, the vulnerabilities of various portal websites in the United Alliance are there for all to see; as long as one has the corresponding code for scraping data, such websites can be rebuilt no matter how many times they are destroyed.
Plugging all these network vulnerabilities is a massive undertaking, and the United States Alliance has neither the budget nor the motivation to completely resolve this threat. Therefore, it can only address the symptoms and leave the relevant police agencies to suppress the problem.
The reason why these websites can survive repeated crackdowns is that they always have a constant stream of customers.
Unlike individual users like Hugo Detective Agency, various commercial companies and intelligence organizations also purchase public intelligence in bulk from web crawler websites to create more accurate user profiles. On this basis, they recommend advertisements, sell products, analyze trends, and manipulate public opinion. It is said that Smura, one of the seven sages of Team Plasma, is a specialist in doing this kind of thing.
If online searches fail to yield useful information during background checks, there are third and fourth steps: tracking the target's social media accounts and offline surveillance, respectively. However, these methods are only used when investigating important cases; a simple premarital investigation wouldn't warrant such extreme stalking behavior.
As for today, after submitting the application to the consulting alliance, Azur Lane suspended the processing of the commission and decided to wait for a written response before proceeding with the second step of the investigation.
Just like a professional locksmith, finishing a job too quickly can frighten clients. In this case, you should learn from the efficiency of the United Alliance, pretend that this kind of information is hard to obtain, and deal with the client slowly. This way, it will be easier to collect the commission.
Yes, the world is not black and white, but is made up of large swaths of gray—Azure used "self-suggestion" on itself.
Finally, there's the most agonizing case: the infidelity investigation—a wife suspects her husband of having an affair and therefore requests a detective agency to investigate him.
Such cases are unlikely to have a satisfactory resolution.
The female detective rubbed her forehead and reluctantly found the client's contact information and dialed the number.
According to Hugo's statistics, in cases like these, where the situation necessitates a detective's intervention, the likelihood of one party actually committing adultery is as high as 70%. Even if the law firm finds perfect evidence, its significance is merely to make the divorce proceedings smoother. The broken marriage cannot be restored, and the shattered heart cannot be redeemed…
However, Hugo also once said this—
"The view that links marital happiness with life happiness is arbitrary. Divorce is essentially about getting rid of personal dependence on another person. Although it is accompanied by pain, it is like quitting smoking or drinking, something that should be praised and blessed."
...Does that guy not believe in love at all?
A woman's anxious voice came through the receiver. After learning that the detective who had accepted the case was a young girl, she not only did not give up on the case, but also began to pour out her grievances without any restraint, complaining heavily about her life and her spouse, and discussing her worries about the future.
If Hugo were here, he would calmly interrupt the other party and shift the topic to the commission. However, Azure was completely overwhelmed by the other party's aura. Not to mention interrupting, it was even difficult for her to interject and express her own opinion.
An afternoon flew by, and Azure finally hung up the phone after processing the combined time of the first three requests. Exhausted, she collapsed onto the sofa in the office, hugging her fluffy Eevee tail and basking in the warmth of the Pokémon world.
During that long period, the client meticulously described to Bilan the entire process of a relationship deteriorating and decaying, how a family gradually went from warm and beautiful to unbearable, to the point where every day felt like an eternity. Now, she just wants to find a reason to break up with her spouse, whom she can no longer stand. Ideally, Bilan would find concrete evidence of infidelity; if not, she would find other ways herself…
If one's spouse hadn't cheated, is it possible for the two to reconcile? — This was a question that Bilan simply couldn't bring herself to ask.
She could only recite the script: "I understand. Our firm will reward you with the truth in proportion to your commission fee."
Upon accepting the commission, Azure was greeted with a sigh of relief from the client, as if a heavy burden had just been lifted from their shoulders.
If you hear sighs like that every day, anyone would lose faith in love... Although she wasn't quite saddened by such things, the detective's mood became slightly heavy.
It was already past closing time, and according to the client, it was the perfect time to go out and investigate evidence of infidelity. Azure changed into an inconspicuous outfit, picked up her digital camera from her detective tools, and walked out of the gate of Feather Residence with Eevee, Ditto, and Archaeopteryx.
In terms of clues, the information provided by the client is more than enough; Azure is even confident that she can resolve this case before dinner.
...In the end, we didn't encounter a single real case today. The work that Azure did was no different from the tasks she was usually assigned in the agency.
This is the daily routine of detectives, not always glamorous, often skirting the line between morality and law. They don't need to command Pokémon in battles, but their minds still get tired. Sometimes it's exhilarating, sometimes it's frustrating. Bizarre cases don't happen every day, but the mundane details of life are endless. Sometimes, even after helping someone, they won't express gratitude; other times, even without doing anything, they receive heartfelt thanks from their clients.
But as a substitute detective, Bilan sometimes feels a sense of anticipation, wondering when her first case will finally arrive.