Chapter 309: Trouble

In a sense, just the ability to separate from Clown was a type of enhancement to his powers.

"Now that the tentacles are gone, you'll be completely free from my influence. I hope this will mark the beginning of a long and fruitful collaborative relationship between us," Raven said.

"Likewise. I hope you'll follow through on your other two promises as well."

"I will. I'll help you keep Hebi no Miko occupied, and I'll also help you kill people in cases where it's not so convenient for you to do so. Here are my contact details on the dark web, contact me if you need my help."

Raven gave Adam an account number as he spoke, then departed from Adam's psychic world.

At this point, there was nothing else left to be said.

Upon leaving the psychic world, he saw Raven jump down the nearest manhole and disappear into the sewage system.

With that, the plan to hunt down Hebi no Miko had officially ended in failure.

However, it wasn't a complete failure for Adam. At the very least, he had gained something from this trip. If Raven really were trustworthy, then he would be safe from Hebi no Miko, at least for the immediate future.

With that in mind, Adam sent Wax Figure and May a message each.

"Hebi no Miko has already escaped, we do not know who saved her, or what organization those people belong to. Right now, Mechguard units are still doing their best to hunt them down."

Inside a nearby building, both Wax Figure and May were very much disheartened by this message, particularly May.

"I knew I shouldn't have come here today," May grumbled in a frustrated voice.

Wax Figure was still in a decent situation as there were many powerful adapters in the northern congress. Setting aside the mysterious leader of the resistance army, there were also many shadow congressmen on the same level as Cowboy.

In contrast, the pawn shop was far more limited in its number of powerful adapters.

Even though the pawn shop was one of the most prominent private organizations in Sandrise City, the fact that it was privately owned meant that its ceiling was very limited.

Compared with the northern congress, which was one of the most powerful official organizations on the entire continent, there was far less power that she was capable of mustering up.

If Hebi no Miko were determined to seek vengeance, the majority of the adapters working for her would undoubtedly run for their lives, and even her own safety would be under severe threat.

With that in mind, May became even more frustrated, and she immediately replied to Adam's message.

"Come and see me tomorrow!"

An amused grin appeared on Adam's face upon seeing May's reply.

Even in the worst of moods, one would always feel slightly better from the schadenfreude of seeing someone else more unfortunate than them, even if that less fortunate person were a friend.

It wasn't a quality to be proud of, but it was simply human nature.

At least this wasn't a complete loss for me, but this is nothing short of a catastrophe for May.

Adam put away his communicator before departing.

There was a lot of cleanup work that had to be done. Firstly, it was still unclear whether the suspects had escaped, so the manhunt had to continue.

Of course, aside from that, there was also another troublesome job that had to be carried out: it had to be seen whether any innocent bystanders on the scene had been affected by the battle that had just taken place.

This was generally not a concern for Mechguard. Mechguard units were extremely lethal, but their actions were governed by very advanced pieces of code, and only in very rare cases did they accidentally harm innocent bystanders. Even if that did happen, the affected bystanders wouldn't be killed.

However, the same couldn't be said for battles in the psychic world. Hebi no Miko had invaded Chen Yanyan's psychic world from afar, which meant that she had to have used a long-distance synapse transmission device, which had an effective area.

It would've been fine if she had chosen a small area, but if she had chosen a large area, then there were sure to be innocent bystanders who had been affected.

Adam returned to the room that he had previously been in, and sure enough, he found a few unfortunate victims there. Most of them were gang members, and there were also two suspected fugitives on the run who had been swept up in the battle as well. In total, six bystanders had been involuntarily dragged into the psychic world by Hebi no Miko before perishing to her forbidden techniques.

There might be some trouble coming...

……

Sure enough, trouble was just around the corner. Adam stayed up the entire night, accompanying Shae and Diana back to the veterinarian hospital, and dawn was only just beginning to break when 12 people arrived at the hospital to see him.

Adam hadn't met any of these 12 people before, and all of them were wearing strange chequered shirts.

At first glance, these chequered shirts appeared to be some type of uniform, but upon closer inspection, Adam noticed that these shirts were all slightly different, so it was clear that they were private attire.

Adam was initially rather perplexed and didn't know who these people were, but these shirts tipped off their identity to him.

"Hello, are you from the Dataist Union?" Adam asked in a very polite voice.

The Dataist Union was an extremely powerful organization. This was the organization that supervised all of the legitimate armed forces in the world.

Following World War III, the Dataist Union had become an organization that was solely responsible for supervising Mechguard. They didn't answer to anyone aside from the public, and due to how enormous and decentralized the organization was, it held no centralized power, but one would be sorely mistaken if they didn't regard it as a powerful entity.

As a blank slate, Adam was naturally drawn to organizations like this.

If there were unions like the Psychic Body Union and the Political Regulator Union in addition to the Dataist Union, then the world would be a far better place.

However, this was sadly impossible.

Data could be made transparent and be subjected to a system of mutual supervision, but human hearts couldn't be exposed and made transparent. Hence, all fields where human nature played a significant role were always the darkest and filthiest facets of the world.

Of course, there was also a third reason why Adam was being so polite to them.

In the past, Adam had received assistance from a mysterious figure on multiple occasions, and he had always wondered who it was that was helping him. After extensive consideration, he decided that the Dataist Union seemed to be the only entity capable of this.

However, he had no ties with the Dataist Union, and they had no reason to help him.

"As expected of a special psychic police officer, you have some impressive information sources. You already know who we are even before we came here."

"Ah, I think there's been a misunderstanding. I didn't receive any information to tip me off in advance, I simply identified you based on your shirts," Adam explained with a smile. "What can I help you with today?"

"We're here because you're suspected of violating Mechguard deployment regulations," the leader of the Dataist Union representatives said, cutting straight to the chase. "As I'm sure you're aware, Mechguard is under the supervision of the Dataist Union.

“All of the footage that's captured by Mechguard cameras is immediately uploaded to the cloud, and as automatons, they can only act within the constraints of the law and follow the rules without deviation."

"What does that have to do with your visit today?"

"We've noticed that all of the cases that you've handled recently have resulted in deaths."

"Is that illegal?"

"It's not, but we're not responsible for enforcing the law, we only answer to the public. You are violating the regulations in your deployment of Mechguard units. As an example, in the last case that you were involved in, the suspect managed to get away in a location that was outside of the surveillance of Mechguard cameras.

“No one saw what you did, so there's no evidence that you let the suspect get away. However, if we were to release this footage to the general public, they would think that you're engaging in some shady business, and that's what we are responsible for."