Chapter 2135: The Killer's Bait
"Do you have solid leads?" The middle-aged man among the two wasn't entirely convinced by Xu Huo and asked him for concrete evidence.
"I don't have definitive proof for now," Xu Huo said. "But this is something I heard from a friend in the Enforcement Department. If you don't think it's worth exchanging, you're free to leave."
The middle-aged man, his face marked by time and hardship, hesitated for a moment before handing over the materials he had brought. He also gave Xu Huo a contact method, asking him to notify them if there were any new developments. He mentioned that the association had many people skilled in solving puzzles and cracking cases, and any clue could be key information.
Xu Huo agreed, took another set of information from the other person, and then ended this one-to-many meeting.
Finding a hotel to stay in, he used a newly purchased terminal device to read the data.
The three secretly recorded files were largely similar, all starting from after the crime was reported by the family and before the Enforcement Team arrived. They included the Enforcement Team's search process—not only the surveillance equipment installed by the city government but also visits to nearby households. The bodies were, of course, not visible, but one person had secretly infiltrated the crime scene. Based on the bloodstains on the floor, the victim had lost a massive amount of blood before death. The blood traces on the walls didn't appear to have been directly sprayed from the victim's body but seemed more like something had accidentally splashed them, even reaching the ceiling.
The three files weren't long, and Xu Huo finished them quickly before opening the middle-aged man's storage device.
The archive that nearly filled the entire projection screen genuinely surprised him. Nearly fifty cases were meticulously categorized, including surveillance footage from before some of the incidents, investigation announcements from various city governments regarding the murders, details disclosed by player organizations, and specific timelines deduced from post-investigation analyses of when different cases occurred. For example, how the killer managed to enter the victims' homes, torture them just one wall away, and evade the ubiquitous surveillance equipment and armed robots—Zone 008 naturally had privacy settings. Although modern surveillance devices could already probe inside buildings, most citizens hadn't enabled this feature, relying mainly on their own equipment. However, after the frequent murders, many people activated this permission, granting the public surveillance equipment and armed robots responsible for neighborhood security the authority to inspect inside homes. This was intended not only to prevent the killer from striking again but also to address other safety issues, with response times even faster than residents' own devices.
Under these circumstances, many believed the murders would surely stop. But unexpectedly, the killer didn't relent at all, maintaining the same pattern—killing someone every few days, even under the overlapping coverage of city government surveillance.
Because of this, various city governments and player organizations inspected both legitimate and illegitimate equipment sales channels. Many cities, in response to the situation, had upgraded their surveillance equipment and armed robots to the latest versions. If even this couldn't catch the culprit, then either someone had purchased corresponding shielding or jamming devices from companies specializing in such equipment, or it was the work of some Artificers active in the underground market.
The city governments released some of the data. If someone could commit crimes under the watch of upgraded surveillance without being detected, that person was likely a very powerful player. Only this could explain how the killer came and went without a trace and had means to evade monitoring.
However, player organizations disagreed with this view, arguing that such a method of killing was too roundabout for a player. Zone 008 had no shortage of various activities and gatherings. If a player were to act, they could easily gather these people and deal with them all at once. Tracing the "Declaration" would be even simpler—using some agents, no one would even resist. They believed that the killer's laborious approach precisely indicated limited capabilities.
This argument also made sense. In the end, the city governments and player organizations summarized the killer as follows:
First, he might be a player, but definitely not a high-level Advanced Player. Since he possessed items or devices that could shield surveillance equipment, the possibility of him being an Artificer had to be considered.
Second, his goal was the "Declaration," so he might have participated in some collective activity six months ago and was a member of some organization.
Third, because the victims didn't know each other and had no overlapping traits, they could only have become targets by having frequented the same place.
Finally, he mostly acted at night, making it highly likely that he had a legitimate job.
These conclusions were drawn from a combination of various factors. The existence of the "Declaration" led the city governments and player organizations to believe that the killer must belong to some organization. But because the methods of killing and interrogation were nearly identical, they leaned toward the culprit being a single person rather than a group.
As for speculating that the identity was an Artificer, this fit both the hard condition of possessing shielding surveillance equipment and the time-based inference of having a legitimate job.
With a relatively clear profile, the next step was to pinpoint where the victims had simultaneously appeared six months ago. Considering that the killer might be within this range and could kill unrelated people to cover their tracks, both the city governments and player organizations designated any location where more than six victims had appeared together as a target for investigation.
Of course, this meant the number of people to investigate was enormous. Zone 008's transportation was far too convenient. Even if a family went on a trip, they might be teasing monkeys at the zoo in the morning, queuing at a restaurant in a neighboring city before lunch, and after the meal, if the kids wanted a specialty ice cream, the parents might cross several cities to buy it. Then they'd go to an amusement park for some high-altitude rides, followed by an intercity parade, darting through over a dozen cities in one go...
Based on the distribution of victims' cities, there were over a hundred locations where more than six people had appeared together. Narrowing it down, there were still over thirty locations where more than ten people had appeared together. After eliminating those with lower time relevance, twelve locations were finally confirmed. These included the nearby Rabbit Ear Amusement Park, intercity airships, festival squares, high-altitude concert venues, musical theaters, and religious parade events. The Rabbit Ear Amusement Park and intercity airships had the highest number of victims, especially a particular intercity airship trip six months ago, where over thirty victims had boarded the same flight.
These key locations naturally had to be investigated first. Every passenger on that intercity airship was cross-checked by the city governments and player organizations. Thanks to the advanced Message Collection Terminals in Zone 008, such a large-scale investigation didn't actually take much time. Yet in the end, it yielded nothing—aside from players who had left, everyone who had long resided in Zone 008 lacked the conditions to commit the crimes.
So this was bait.