Ch.194Request Log #016 – Transformation (5)

I left the maroon-colored dwarf on the living room floor, staining the wooden boards red. I’d removed the hallway carpet to hide the bloodstains for now. That would do for a while.

Just as I was about to search the house, I heard knocking at the door. Ah, this wretched sense of kinship. I threw off my blood-stained gloves. Was there blood anywhere else? No, everything else seemed fine for now.

From outside came the voice of a dwarf who sounded slightly younger than the one I’d just killed. How young, I couldn’t tell. Dwarves all had that same gruff voice regardless of age.

“Uh, Professor Otto? Are you alright? You were shouting about something and then suddenly went quiet… did something happen…?”

I couldn’t panic. I swallowed, then exhaled. Trying not to hesitate too long, I marched in place quietly to sound like I was coming from inside the house, then made my footsteps louder as I approached the door.

I glanced back once to check behind me. No bloodstains were visible. After making sure there was no smell of blood, I opened the door that I had locked earlier. A concerned-looking dwarf stood outside.

I wiped away the sweat soaking my hair before facing my visitor. A stranger coming out of a dwarf’s house would be suspicious. I naturally used the name he had mentioned.

“What’s this? You know Otto? I just gave him a sedative and put him to bed, so he can’t come out right now.”

The young dwarf with his beard tied in a ponytail opened his eyes wide. I must have appeared to be a good person. A good person’s sad story always works well.

“W-what? Sedative? I thought Professor Otto was in good health…”

I opened the door a bit wider and looked around. Then, gesturing for the dwarf to come closer as if I were about to share something others shouldn’t hear, I whispered:

“Your friend is a Great War veteran. He sometimes has these fits—probably because he nearly got killed by a Doppel during the war. He invited me over for a drink, saying he’s been feeling worn out from traveling lately, but as soon as we started drinking, he began shouting like that. Can you keep this a secret? You know how dwarves always want to appear strong.”

The dwarf covered his mouth. Without even clicking his tongue, he nodded. A naive, good dwarf. Someone through whom both cancer and knowledge could spread too easily. That was fortunate, in its way.

“I had no idea… he never talked about his time in the Great War… Um, yes! I understand. Oh, and might I ask your name…?”

The simplest way to avoid such questions was to dodge them. Since I’d been kind until now, it would be fine to show a little anger. I cleared my throat before speaking.

“What, are you conducting an investigation? I came all the way to Littlehold at this hour to help a struggling friend, and now I’m being treated with suspicion? This is disrespectful not only to me but to Otto as well. Truly, terribly disrespectful.”

As I spoke as if genuinely angry, the young dwarf backed down first. He opened his clenched fists and held his palms out as if to calm me.

“No, that’s… that’s not it. I must have listened to too many detective radio dramas. I apologize for my rudeness…”

How many people were still playing detective in their rooms even though that terrible radio drama had ended long ago? I sighed and half-heartedly acknowledged his apology before closing the door.

It took longer to send away this innocent dwarf than it had taken to kill the so-called party member dwarf. That was to be expected. There was no reason to spend much time on a dwarf warlock-soldier.

Now I could investigate at my leisure. I’d been dealing with a neighbor while a treasure trove sat right before my eyes. Having somehow sent the neighboring dwarf away, I headed upstairs.

I went up to handle a case I had written into the case log myself—a job no one had assigned to me.

The upper floor was nothing special. A very ordinary, perhaps even modest everyday space. That everyday space was disgustingly stained with blindness and unawareness.

He must have been writing letters right before I arrived. Letters to his family. A tender tone. He wrote that he had grown accustomed to living in America but wanted to return home—expressing his emotions honestly in a way that was uncharacteristic for a dwarf. Yet he wore a ritual dagger at his waist and had created an abomination to release into a busy area this morning, all while writing such letters as if he were completely innocent.

It was simply disgusting. Still, I took the letter. Being handwritten, there was nothing better for identifying this dwarf’s handwriting. And near where the letter was, I found what I was looking for.

There was a separate place where he kept letters exchanged with the party members he had mentioned. He must have thought telephone operators might listen in on conversations, as there were quite a few letters.

The dwarf’s name was indeed Otto. His main job was recruitment. He spread anti-goblin literature like what I’d seen today to fellow dwarves, creating followers who could be used as shields. The organization wasn’t much different from the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn. I was beginning to understand more.

I wasn’t trying to understand them because I wanted to. A firefighter doesn’t understand fire because they love it. They understand fire to extinguish it and put it out. The same goes for me.

The person he exchanged the most letters with was a dwarf named Günter. A common name among dwarves. This Günter seemed to be responsible for procuring materials for rituals. There was a lot of talk about smuggling.

Despite their hatred for France, they showed no reluctance to accept goods coming through French ports, which were reportedly most used for smuggling alcohol. There was no reason to call this practical.

The ritual materials were mostly just books and daggers, so there wasn’t much to worry about. However, in one letter, I found something concerning:

“Found a used 1918 Tankgewehr for sale. Probably captured equipment, and judging by the monster engraving on the gun, it was used for Doppel hunting rather than against tanks. If we can purchase it, it could help us hunt Doppels beyond just creating abominations to fight them. This one bothers me a bit.”

Now I was certain these dwarves aimed to kill members of the Argonne Invincibles. The reason for killing them… probably because they needed achievements.

When I tested him with my boasting, this dwarf didn’t deny that they were on their last legs. With their leader having been in prison for nearly a year, it was natural they were faltering.

When someone falters, competitors emerge. Extremist voices were a dime a dozen, and other dwarves had no reason to support these particular dwarves.

To overcome this situation, these dwarves needed achievements. Killing the Doppels who had driven them into the pit of defeat, even chasing them to American soil, would be achievement enough for them.

“Right, they believe they could have won if they hadn’t been surrounded in the Argonne Forest and if we hadn’t used that damned ritual.”

Dwarves found it very difficult to admit they lost simply because they couldn’t win. They much preferred saying they lost because goblins stabbed them in the back or because Doppels roamed the battlefield.

I clicked my tongue in disgust at the fact that my life appeared to some as a trophy to hang on a wall. Even murder had become political.

The last letter from this Günter dwarf about finding the Tankgewehr was from a week ago. I took the bundle of letters and went downstairs to the living room. There might be more letters.

I searched the pockets of the dead dwarf named Otto, who had an ornate ritual dagger stuck in his neck. I found a few more letters. There was also a key. It didn’t seem to be for this house, as there were no locked doors inside.

I unfolded the blood-soaked letters to read. One mentioned buying a Tankgewehr and a box of ammunition. Though called a box, it contained only twelve rounds, which wouldn’t be enough to shoot all the Doppels, it said.

Twelve rounds. Even regular rifle bullets couldn’t penetrate an Argonne Invincible’s body, but a Tankgewehr could easily pierce through. Even our bodies couldn’t withstand that.

It would be better to corner them in a building somewhere. If they stood up, it would be comical to watch them struggle to fire a rifle longer than a dwarf in an indoor space. A meeting hall or something similar would be ideal.

I had gathered all the letters I needed. The rest contained mostly trivial matters.

There was even a letter complaining that while this dwarf lived quite well thanks to his skills, the writer was moving from motel to motel. With jealous suspicion about embezzling sponsorship money, it stated an intention to make this a proper agenda item for discussion at next week’s meeting.

Next week’s meeting. The mention of a week suggested weekly or bi-weekly meetings. Fortunately, the letter had arrived last week. Was the key for entering the meeting place?

I needed to find the location of the meeting place. It wasn’t this house. The letter said they would talk more when both were at the meeting place. That meant the dead dwarf also had to go somewhere.

I opened the other letters I had dismissed as trivial and checked the dates and days. A letter that arrived on Thursday mentioned content discussed “at yesterday’s meeting.” The meetings were on Wednesdays.

Finding the location of the meeting place from a house with one corpse and unknown contents wasn’t particularly difficult. I went through a connected door into the garage and turned on the light.

I reached through the car window and opened the glove compartment. I carefully pulled out a map stored inside, making sure it didn’t unfold while I was removing it.

This dwarf wasn’t particularly neat. The map seemed to have been stuffed into the glove compartment in the same state it had been used. I checked which part of New York it showed.

It was a map of Staten Island. It was part of New York, but still largely undeveloped, filled with farms and ranches. Such a place wouldn’t attract much attention.

There was a circle drawn on the map. Perhaps because it was difficult to tell locations just from the map, a large circle had been drawn around one farm with “Gretchen Farm” written next to it.

There could be no better place to hide abominations. The abundance of ranches and farms meant few people lived there. Even if an abomination howled with bizarre sounds, there would be no one to hear it.

The only concerning point was that it was flat terrain. During the Great War, nothing was more dangerous than running across open ground without cover. People died meaninglessly in such places.

If there were farms nearby, it would be better to leave the car and infiltrate from there. In an area full of farms, no one would pay attention to rustling sounds in the bushes.

Now I had learned everything I needed to know. It was past midnight, so today was Wednesday. The meeting was today. The location was Gretchen Farm on Staten Island. I would bring my club there.

I left the corpse as it was to serve as a warning if another dwarf came looking tomorrow, and left the house. I got in my car and drove away from Littlehold. I went home. The night wasn’t over yet.

For a remote place like Staten Island, I could even use a rifle, so I cleaned mine for the first time in a while. It was inconvenient to use in urban areas but good for fighting.

Every time I wiped the gun with an oiled cloth, the Argonne Forest came to mind. I remembered comrades dying as Tankgewehr bullets shattered their lives.

I remembered smashing and destroying the Tankgewehrs that had disgustingly engraved images of four-limbed monsters on their stocks after a successful charge. I remembered the hatred. It was like swallowing poison.

I finished cleaning the gun. I attached a strong leather strap to the hook on the metal rod I had received from Yehoel. I adjusted it to the right length to properly secure it around my wrist.

The sky, beginning to turn red as the sun rose over the deep blue, reminded me of the Argonne Forest sky, blackened by smoke and reddened by flames.

It felt like there was a ringing in my ears. Memories not fully digested refluxed like nausea. I gritted my teeth. From a fireproof safe full of money and documents, I took out an incongruous object.

It was a gear. I don’t remember clearly, but it was probably from a pump used to drain water from trenches. I had attached this gear to the handle of a pickaxe used to widen trenches and used it as a club.

The gear had blood caked on it. No, that’s not right—I had cleaned it well whenever I thought of it, so it was clean. Just a little dusty.

I pushed the end of the club, which had its center of gravity in the middle making it not ideal for swinging, into the hole of the gear. It fit perfectly. I could feel the weight at the end making it much easier to put force into it.

Preparations were complete. I would fight as I had fought in the trenches. I would kill as I had killed in the trenches. Conveniently, the enemy hadn’t changed at all. I would gladly do this for my comrades who were like brothers.

When visions and ringing passed through my body like an uncomfortable dream, I realized. An Argonne Invincible was reflected in the mirror. The image of my comrade superimposed on me was so clear.

Was it a temporary, everyday transformation like what werewolves do, or a permanent, terrible transformation like a person becoming an abomination? I couldn’t tell. No, I could. It was the latter.

Since I didn’t know the meeting time, I left home as soon as the sun rose. I drove straight to Staten Island. It was a quiet, peaceful place. The kind of place where I might want to retire and cultivate a farm.

I hid my car in the bushes quite far from Gretchen Farm and got out. Carrying a duffel bag, I walked into the bushes near Gretchen Farm as autumn approached. It didn’t look like a place where farming was done diligently.

Craving tobacco, I put some chewing tobacco in my mouth. Until a comrade who used to light cigarettes was killed by a dwarf sniper, I preferred smoking tobacco in situations like this, but since then I’ve favored chewing tobacco.

I had taken a few steps forward only to retreat back into the past. I tensed my entire body as if waiting for a whistle that would never sound.