novelraw Chapter 360 Interlude - Poison as Observed as Fire
Chapter 360 Interlude - Poison as Observed as Fire
Chapter 362 Interlude - Poison as Observed as Fire
The interrogation room was lit with a stark white light, like gauze soaked in bleach, as if this incandescent bulb was destined from the day it was born to cover up some unspeakable filth.
The suspect who was caught red-handed destroying evidence at the crime scene—the one who openly took hostages on the street—is now sitting in a stainless steel chair behind the interrogation table, his hands firmly restrained by cold locks.
Sera, the interrogator, dressed in a police uniform, sat opposite him, her fingers interlaced, her gaze hidden in dark shadows. "Tell me, why did you come to United States?"
The man who had removed his black robe continued to feign deafness and muteness, turning his head away to intently study the mottled patterns on the iron tabletop.
Many criminals were terrified by the suspected bloodstain, but according to Sera's recollection, it was just a coffee stain that Officer Jenny accidentally spilled from her cup during her first interrogation.
Faced with the other party's uncooperative attitude, Sera sighed softly, her tone still gentle. "Stop pretending. While that Roaring Bomb's roar was loud, it hadn't evolved into a Explosive Monster yet; its 'loudness' wasn't enough to instantly deafen someone. Didn't you recover before being put in the police car? Someone who can't hear won't use footsteps to attack the police while pretending to be dead. Now, just confess honestly here."
The man snorted, still ignoring the interrogator. Miss Serra continued speaking on her own—
"Even if you remain silent, it won't make any difference. Following your trail, the Feiyun City police have already located your previous hideout. There, we found the raw materials for the potion left behind by Servik before his death, as well as the centipedes he used for large-scale poisoning. There is no doubt that you are closely connected to the poisoning case that occurred in the rented house on the east side of Feiyun City."
"What? You think I killed that dead man?"
The suspect turned around and uttered his first words since stepping into the police station.
Sera neither confirmed nor denied this, but responded in a formulaic tone: "This case is still under investigation. Although much of the evidence found so far is against you, we are willing to hear your explanation before we thoroughly investigate the whole story."
A disdainful snort escaped the man's nose. He looked Sera up and down, then turned his head away again, leaving behind two words: "Boring."
Despite this cold reception, the interrogator showed no emotion whatsoever, which was precisely the main reason she was assigned to conduct this interrogation.
In fact, Sera was even a little relieved at this point. Although the suspect in front of her appeared calm on the surface, he must have faced police interrogation before, but his past experience had not taught him any useful lessons; it only made him seem hesitant and timid in his responses. Such criminals were actually easier to deal with.
Sera calmly continued, "Furthermore, regarding your identity, our Flying Cloud Police Department has also made some progress. Your Mightyena and Ancient Armor are very representative Pokémon in the Hoenn region. Therefore, we just compared your photo with the Hoenn League Police database and got the expected results."
After hearing this, the man shut his mouth tightly again and stopped speaking. He probably wanted to escape reality, but how could the interrogator give him the chance to escape?
"Segawa, male, had his first criminal record when he was twenty years old for participating in a gang fight. During his three-year prison sentence, he joined a prison break operation planned by an unknown organization and then disappeared - and according to the subsequent investigation by the Hoenn police, that organization was most likely the extremist group, the Water Fleet, led by the former Hoenn TV station director, Goto.
"Who is Segawa? I don't know the person you're talking about."
As Sera calmly recounted the events, the interrogator began to panic. His gaze darted around, his head shook incessantly, and his hand unconsciously pressed against his right shoulder.
The interrogator naturally knew the meaning behind the man's action. The officer who searched the suspect had told her beforehand that the man had a small anchor-shaped tattoo on his right arm, which was undoubtedly some kind of symbol of a member of the water fleet.
However, Sera knew that now was not the time to reveal this evidence to provoke the other party. She needed to patiently wait for the right opportunity to further break down the suspect's psychological defenses.
"Your ancient armor—"
Miss Sera adjusted her square-rimmed glasses, deciding to approach the suspect from a different angle. To obtain the most accurate testimony, she needed to tighten the noose around the suspect's neck little by little.
"The forensic department of Feiyun Police Station has already extracted a simple genetic sample from it, and we will compare it with evidence from a past case in the Hoenn region."
The policewoman's voice was calm and composed: "In that incident, the transport truck carrying the ancient Pokémon embryos from Devon Corporation was switched. However, the research lab that created the Pokémon embryos still has complete data from the fossil reconstruction experiments. By comparing the two, we can confirm the lineage of this ancient armored Pokémon."
Sera watched the prisoner before her, noticing how the man gradually lowered his guard because of these seemingly insignificant details. A barely perceptible smile appeared on her face as well—
The mastermind behind that theft has now been arrested for another incident. He's being held in a prison under Interpol in the Johto region, where he confessed to all his crimes. You may have heard of his name and underground title: a high-ranking officer in the Naval Fleet, known as "Runaway Alarm." And he just so happens to have been apprehended in a smuggling case that our Feiyun Police Station was working on.
The defendant's face, which had just relaxed, suddenly tensed, and his eyes widened. He opened his mouth as if to ask something, but ultimately frowned and held back.
"That cadre named Tsubasa already had a long list of crimes in the Hoenn region."
Sera paused slightly, her gaze fixed intently on the eyes of the person being interrogated.
"While he was suspected of smuggling in the United States, he also committed another murder against an innocent bystander. Under normal legal procedures, he would definitely be sentenced to life imprisonment this time. You've been to prison before, so you know how long it can feel. However, that executive was lucky; he signed a witness protection agreement with Interpol. If he confesses to the crimes he knew about while in the Aqua Team, his endless sentence can be reduced to less than ten years."
As she spoke, Sera leaned forward slightly, looking intently into the other man's eyes, and said, word by word, "Mr. Segawa, although your style of doing things seems quite tough, I think you haven't been involved in murder before, have you?"
About fifteen minutes later, Sera, who had maintained a poker face the whole time, got up and slowly left the interrogation room.
As soon as she stepped out of the interrogation room, her superior, Ms. Jenny, quickly emerged from behind the one-way mirror.
Officer Jenny, beaming, went straight to her capable deputy, grabbed Sera's hand, and exclaimed without reservation, "Sera! Your interrogation skills are as excellent as ever! I never expected that Segawa would be able to extract so much useful information!"
"Damn it!"
Faced with her superior's praise, Sera's face fell slightly, and she said with a look of frustration, "Even though I convinced him to that extent, I still couldn't completely break through the suspect's psychological defenses."
"?"
Officer Jenny's smile froze, then she quickly recalled the previous interrogation process, and then, as if waking from a dream, regretfully said...
"That's true. Although the criminal confessed his identity and the firsthand information he found at the poisoning scene, he still refused to say anything about what the Aqua Fleet was plotting."
Watching Sera's composed and confident demeanor in the interrogation room, Officer Jenny was unconsciously drawn away from the main point by the atmosphere.
Sera picked up a bottle of mineral water prepared outside the interrogation room, moistened her throat, and shook her head, saying, "Think about it carefully. The information he provided was either related to the Hoenn case, which has nothing to do with our Unova region, or it was about the scene when he discovered Selvik's poisoned body. Just as Detective Hugo speculated, he came to Flying Cloud City to track down someone. That person, like Selvik, was keen on using poisons, which led him to mistaken his target. As for stealing the evidence from the crime scene, it was because he suspected that the murderer who poisoned Selvik was the very person he was searching for, so he took all the evidence related to poison to his hideout for research."
"To be honest, the reason we were able to capture him in such a short time was because he was using his Mightyena to use 'Scent Detection' to search for Poison-type Pokémon. That guy charged straight at the bait we had set up without any hesitation."
Recalling the scene in the early hours of the morning, Officer Jenny shrugged, feeling both annoyed and amused.
"That's why Segawa's reaction during the interrogation seemed so unusual. I think someone must have pointed out the bottom line to him beforehand—could it have been Gotoku personally instructing him? The prisoner is worried that if he leaks key information, he'll likely face retaliation from the Aqua Fleet after his release, and his family and friends might also be implicated. Therefore, even with the lure of a reduced sentence, he completely refused to confess any information related to the organization."
Sera was furious, but at the same time she couldn't help but sigh, "Just how terrifying is that organization and that Aqua Team in the eyes of its subordinates? It is said that the 'Reef Alert' is also very tight-lipped in the criminal investigation organization. Although they have confessed to a lot of crimes committed by their accomplices in the Hoenn region, they will not say a single word about the most core secrets of the Aqua Team."
In fact, back in the interrogation room, Sera had cleverly played a word game with Segawa regarding the sentence for the "runaway alarm."
Die did sign a witness protection program with the police, but the sentence reductions provided by the program only applied to the smuggling and murder cases he committed in the United States.
As for the numerous misdeeds committed by that Fleet officer in the Hoenn region, he will need to undergo another trial after serving his sentence and being repatriated to the Hoenn region. The exact length of his sentence will depend on "Reef Alert's" reformatory behavior in prison.
"Could it be because even the high-ranking officers within the Navy Fleet aren't fully aware of the organization's planned operations?"
Looking at the troubled Sera, Officer Jenny rested her index finger on her chin and pondered.
Her deputy shook his head and said with certainty, "Perhaps that's a factor, but as far as Segawa is concerned in the interrogation room, there's definitely more information we haven't been able to extract from him."
Officer Jenny looked at Segawa in the interrogation room through a one-way mirror that offered one-way vision.
The criminal, who had traveled a great distance to Hezhong, was now hunched over with his head bowed. His sun-darkened face was filled with a complex expression of guilt and worry, clearly still troubled by his previous confession.
"throat-·
Officer Jenny sighed deeply. "It seems we have no choice but to resort to our last resort."
After a ten-minute break, Segawa saw Officer Jenny, the officer who had confronted him on the street earlier that morning, push open the door outside the interrogation room with a blank expression.
"Where is that policeman from earlier?"
He asked, his eyelids drooping.
Officer Jenny ignored Segawa's question and simply placed a walkie-talkie on the table. Since the suspect's hands were firmly bound, Segawa had no way of touching the walkie-talkie.
"What are you going to do?" the interrogator asked again, but Officer Jenny still did not answer.
She simply took out something that looked like a remote control, pressed a button on the corner of the ceiling, and then walked over to the one-way mirror and drew the curtains on the window that looked like a mirror from the inside.
"Hey! What exactly do you want?"
Segawa was truly frightened this time, and he roared at Officer Jenny.
After completing this series of actions, Officer Jenny remained silent, turned around in silence, pushed open the interrogation room door, and walked straight out.
In this room, which was completely surrounded by soundproof walls, only the suspect, Segawa, remained, sitting helplessly opposite a police walkie-talkie.
"Shout—what the hell are these people doing?"
Just as the member of the Aquarion fleet was filled with doubt, a red dot suddenly flashed on the walkie-talkie, indicating that a call was in progress.
rustling sounds... followed by human voices—
"Now that I've successfully heard your voice, I think we can start the call. To cut to the chase, I asked Ms. Officer Jenny to create an environment where we won't be eavesdropped on or monitored by anyone for the time being. Therefore, our communication can be a little less restrictive compared to a formal police interrogation."
The voice coming from the walkie-talkie was calm and smooth, clearly belonging to a young man.
"You must be an officer sent to Unova by the Hoenn region's Team Aqua to carry out a certain mission, right? It seems a bit impolite to make such a confirmation unilaterally. Let me briefly introduce myself. My name is Hugo, and I am a private detective who cooperates with the Feiyun Police Department."
Unlike the previous interrogator who seemed unfathomable, the owner of this voice gave off a lazy feeling, as if she didn't care at all about the conversation between the two of them at this moment.
"I understand your desire to protect the Navy's classified information, so in this conversation, I will try to avoid touching on those topics and only ask questions within the scope that you find acceptable. Is that alright with you?"
Almost under the influence of that hypnotic, relaxed tone, Segawa nodded subconsciously before suddenly realizing that he was talking to a walkie-talkie that couldn't see the image.
Just as he was about to speak, the man's voice rang out again.
Since you haven't answered, I'll take that as a yes. After saying all that, I just wanted to ask one question.
Segawa held his breath nervously.
Then, the man claiming to be a detective asked over the walkie-talkie, "Did you and Voodoo ultimately succeed in destroying the Lava Team's secret base?"