"Outdoor excursion?"
"Disappeared in the mountains?"
"That's right, and at the time of their disappearance, a police officer received a call from one of the missing girls... She said monsters were attacking them."
"No one took her words seriously back then."
"It wasn't until a few days later, after their parents reported them missing, that they realized that call... was no joke at all!"
As Hunt recounted the events he had witnessed, he swerved the steering wheel to avoid a car ahead.
His colleague, Colin, asked, "What was that call a few days ago about?"
Colin hadn't been there at the time and didn't know what had happened, so he inquired.
Hunt then narrated the events of that day one by one.
It turned out that a few days prior, a female officer had received a report.
Initially, upon hearing "my two friends" were killed, the female officer naturally took it seriously and immediately made arrangements.
She never expected that, subsequently, from the caller's mouth, she would hear the reason: "being chased by slimes."
The female officer's mind went blank on the spot, and then she became angry.
If they were being chased by slime monsters, was the case real or fake? Was the person speaking the truth? Did it even need to be asked?
It was definitely fake!
It was immediately clear that they were playing with the police, essentially playing a game, and then two friends were killed by monsters in the game – killed by the lowest-level monsters in a game, how embarrassing, what skill level!
The female officer had initially considered pursuing legal responsibility, but then she thought, judging by the voice, it sounded like a young girl. Moreover, the entire police force wasn't dispatched. After searching for two to three hours, this young girl hadn't said they were being chased by monsters, but directly stated it.
For actions that didn't actually result in a waste of police resources, it could be forgiven.
Better to have less trouble than more, so let it go.
She just blocked the girl's number from calling the police station again.
This incident also spread among several police officers.
However, reporting false alarms was not uncommon, and the officers didn't think much of it.
During their meals and in their free time, they discussed the psychology of today's youth – calling the police after being killed by monsters in a game, it was a severe waste of police resources and a serious lack of psychological education.
They should be disciplined, and the psychological education of today's children needed attention.
Also, the gaming skills of today's children were too poor; they couldn't even handle beginner monsters like slimes in games – several officers who were good at gaming strongly complained and discussed this issue, stating that if it were them, they could easily handle not just slimes, but any dragon or final boss.
As for the female officer directly blocking the caller's number, every officer who heard about this incident strongly agreed.
After all, no one wanted to receive repeated false alarm calls every day – if they didn't block it, would they be polite to her?
Most officers maintained this attitude before the situation took a turn.
It wasn't until later, after receiving the missing person reports from the parents, that these officers, after collecting various pieces of intelligence, learned that the young people who had gone to Crystal Mountain had disappeared.
Coincidentally, they disappeared that very night, and the one who had called for help was one of the missing girls, who was now also gone.
The disappearance and the报警 occurred at the same time – there could naturally be no connection between the two.
In other words, the girl's call back then was not a false alarm, but a real case.
Someone was truly chasing them!
Two people had truly died!
No, now it was more than two – it was likely that the girl herself and all those missing youths had been killed!
Because of the initial oversight by the female officer who took the call, everyone had died – dereliction of duty! This was dereliction of duty!
The leaders at the police station naturally didn't believe there were real monsters.
That slimes actually existed.
They simply assumed that the young girl who made the call was forced, with criminals watching nearby, someone observing, and she couldn't speak freely – so she could only use "coded language," and the so-called slimes were not actual slime monsters, but a "code name."
The reporting girl, by invoking the absurd notion of slimes appearing in reality, was using this "code" to alert the police that she was being persecuted by criminals and could not speak freely.
However, the dispatcher, the female officer, didn't understand this code, and instead treated this statement as a false alarm – this undoubtedly indicated problems with both her competence and attitude.
After this incident, the superior officer severely reprimanded the female officer who had taken the call, scolding her for making a wrong decision that led to the deaths of a group of young people.
Although the person involved felt wronged, what kind of code was "slime"? Under those circumstances, even if any police officer, including the superior officer, had received this call, they would have made the same choice without hesitation – who could have imagined that this would lead to the disappearance of a group of young people and a bloody death?
Hindsight was useless.
But since the incident had already happened, someone had to bear the responsibility for the wrong decision made at the time.
Therefore, someone had been demoted.
Hunt finished recounting the events of that day.
Colin, hearing the cause and effect of the matter for the first time, shook his head and sighed, "So, there was actually such a layer to this."
"But this matter is temporarily unrelated to us – we are here to investigate the floating body, not the matter at Crystal Mountain."
"The search team is responsible for that."
"And we will do what we need to do."
After listening, Hunt finally stopped the car.
"We've arrived."
It turned out that after chatting so much in the car, a period of time had passed, and they had naturally reached their destination.
Upon arrival, the two dispersed the onlookers and used tools to retrieve the floating body.
After retrieving it, Colin, as an experienced officer, looked at the body but saw no wounds on it, only some mucus adhering to it.
"Not killed by a firearm, nor by a sharp weapon..."
Colin made a preliminary assessment of the cause of death based on the characteristics of the body.
However, as he was not a professional forensic examiner, he could only make preliminary exclusions and could not definitively confirm the cause of death.