Records Of Barton's Fantastical Events - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Chapter 11 Dungeon Master
Translator: Doggotranslation Editor: Doggotranslation

On the first floor of the North Headquarters of Barton Police Department, Unlike the usual din, the detectives today all looked listless, lying on their desks. Coulson felt like he was floating on the water, moving up and down, he was too sleepy! His bright forehead would occasionally hit the table, then he would be slightly awake. The pen in his hand would also quickly fill in a few words in the form in front of him, and then his eyelids would close again, continuing to float up and down like a float.
“Wake up! Coulson! Detective Coulson!”
Coulson felt that his shoulders were being pushed by someone. He was startled and quickly sat up and loudly said, “the report will be ready soon! … will be ready soon!”
But when he looked at the form in front of him, what he saw was the drawing he made while he was half asleep and half awake, which was far from the written report of the monitoring task last night!
“Huh!” Coulson’s report was picked up by someone in front of him, “This is your report! Even my three-year-old daughter is more talented at painting than you!”
Coulson pushed away his seat and stood up, his sleepiness had disappeared completely. The person in front of him was the Barton Police Chief, and Coulson was only a police detective in the northern district homicide team. So this person was his boss’ boss’ boss – Chief Cologne. 1
“Chief Cologne! I will rewrite it immediately! “The arrival of this important man was more useful than ten cups of coffee!
“No need.” Chief Cologne threw away the drawing and waved his hand, “I’ve asked your partner. Nothing happened yesterday.” Cologne glanced at James sitting at the table opposite Coulson and nodded.
James was stuffing a doughnut into his mouth at this time. Cologne couldn’t help but frown slightly. He didn’t understand why the only son of General Rance was different from the rumor. He was said to be a calm young man who had been trained in the army, but what Cologne saw now was just a gluttonous, undisciplined official second generation. 2
“Attention everyone!” Cologne temporarily ignored James and raised his voice to wake up the sleepy detectives. When everyone saw this important man, they immediately woke up and stood up.
“Everyone worked very hard for three consecutive nights. I already know that no suspicious incidents have happened, and now everyone can go back and have a good rest. The paperwork can be done later! That’s it, now dismiss!”
Tired detectives were relieved, picked up their things, and prepared for a rest. Of course, when the sun went down, they would appear on street corners, in cars, around bars, and watch Barton City at night again.
“Coulson, James, you come with me.” Cologne turned around and walked to the homicide team leader’s office on the first floor.
The team leader was not there. There was only a young man with a gray hat sitting in the middle, looking a bit nervous.
Detective Coulson habitually observed this skinny man and began to create a profile of the person: lack of exercise, pale skin, the lower body was slightly wider, and loose hip muscles, seem like a person whose job often required him to sit down, an office worker, maybe.
“This is Detective Coulson and Detective James (Rance).” Cologne began to introduce, “This is an employee of Barton Telecom from the Northern District Communications Department, Mr. Fitz.”
The man named Fitz reached out his right hand and shook hands with them nervously, “You can call me Fitz.”
Coulson had already guessed half of it. This week, there has been a problem with communications in the Barton Northern District. Occasionally, the telephones of the government and citizens couldn’t be connected. It just happened that two senators visited Barton City yesterday, so the smooth communication between Barton City and the outside world became very important, and the problem of poor communication became an important issue.
However, this was not part of the Barton Police Department’s work, so Coulson wondered why this man named Fitz would come to the homicide team.
Cologne nodded to Fitz, “You can take two detectives to the scene.” Then he turned to Coulson and said seriously, “Remember, we don’t want what you’re about to see to get out there! If Barton Daily gets any information, I will take your badges away! ”
Coulson dazed, and then immediately saluted, “Yes, Chief!”
When the three of them left the office, Cologne looked at James, frowning, but he did not say anything.
The three of them went out of the police station and got in Fitz’s car. This was an old van with the “Barton Communication” logo printed on the door. It seemed that the vehicle eliminated by the city government was bought by this Fitz.
“Detectives, have you had breakfast already? I know a great burger restaurant.” Fitz’s voice was a little nervous, and the hands holding the steering wheel were also shaking, he was looking for a topic to calm himself down.
“Don’t be nervous, you are safe.” Coulson had seen such people a lot, and he could guess that this man had obviously seen something that shouldn’t have been seen. With fear, he came to the police station for help. What he saw was probably very bad, so Chief Cologne ordered them not to disclose anything.
“We still don’t know where we are going?” Coulson tried to ease his tone, “Fitz, you may tell us our destination first.”
“Mhm. Well, we are going to my friend’s house, his name is David. Hmm, to be precise, we, we are going to the basement of his house…”
Coulson found that this guy’s hands were shaking more intensely, and his expression also became frightened.
“I, uh, I found something, it looks like David, but I’m not so sure…”
Coulson frowned. Honestly, he didn’t understand what Fitz wanted to express. He put his hand on Fitz’s trembling hand that was on the steering wheel, helped him stabilize the van, and asked, David, your friend David, is he in the basement of his house?”
“No… this is something I am not sure ..” Fitz had a confused, frightened face, “David he is working at the moment…”
“What does David do?”
“Like me, we work at Barton Telecom, we are colleagues and friends…”
Coulson thought for a second, and asked, “Is the thing you see, the thing in the basement of David’s house, is it alive?”
Fitz shook his head, “No, sir. That’s something I am sure of…”
“Fitz. Where is the burger restaurant you mentioned?” James in the back seat suddenly asked, “I’m hungry, and I need food.”
Coulson turned around angrily to look at James, but what he saw was a pair of emotionless eyes of James.
“Freak,” Coulson mumbled and stopped talking.
This was not the first time Coulson said so. When he first discovered this guy’s unusual appetite, he said this as well. But at the time, this was just a veteran detective ridiculing a rookie, but as time went by, it has been almost a week since he became his partner, such ridicule became his catchphrase.
Anyway, James got what he wanted, a Big Mac. Coulson didn’t care about this partner. Gradually, he also figured out what kind of person this guy was. As long as he was given food, he wouldn’t hinder him. So when the van was parked in front of Fitz’s friend David’s house, Coulson gave an order to Jame, who was still holding a big Mac and asked him to stay in the car.
“Recently, many citizens reported that there were problems with the telephone line.” Fitz led Coulson, found the key on the door eave, and entered David’s house, “so I often travel around the city to check the lines and other problems. David is not good at these jobs, so he stays in the control room.”
As he said, two people walked through the living room. This was a very ordinary two-story residential house. On the first floor was the living room and kitchen, and the second floor was the bedroom. The furnishings and decorations were also quite normal.
The door of the basement was under the stairs that led to the second floor. As Fitz opened the door, a gust of cold wind instantly blew toward their faces.
“David inherited his house from his parents, and this house has a large basement.” Fitz led the way and walked down, “Every Wednesday night, we will come here with friends to play ‘Dungeons & Dragons’…” 2
“Play what?” Corson asked subconsciously.
“Uh, a role-playing game… In short, yesterday, when we came, we found that David was not at home.” Fitz turned on the light in the basement. Just like he said, this basement was very big. Unlike ordinary people, who stored sundries in their basement, this basement was filled with swords made of foam, and capes of various colors…
Coulson roughly imagined the game and added one more word to Fitz’s profile: Nerd.
“David is always the ‘Dungeon Master’, without him, we can not play the game.” Fitz walked in one direction and continued, “So we waited for a while, but he never appeared, our friends eventually gave up waiting and then left.”
Coulson looked around carefully. He also had different costumes, but the types he had were not magicians, elves, etc, but doctors, nurses, judges, prisoners, etc… You know, those kinds of costumes. 3
“David never missed Wednesday’s game night, so I was a little worried.” Fitz had walked to a wooden box that was laid horizontally. He opened the lock and flipped the wooden box lid to reveal the white freezer inside, “so I stayed a little longer. Then I discovered this.”
Fitz opened the door of the freezer.
Detective Coulson approached and glanced inside.
No wonder Chief Cologne did not want this to be leaked out. Because so far, the twelve missing victims were all prostitutes. And now, lying in this freezer was an ordinary citizen of Barton City, who had a legitimate job and was harmless.
“How do you know that this is your friend David?” Coulson frowned, the head of the corpse, and most of the body parts had already gone missing, and because it was frozen, the forensic doctor would not be able to confirm the time of death.
Fitz tremblingly extended his finger and pointed to a place, “Tattoo, David really liked to be a Dungeon Master, so he tattooed ‘DM’ onto his body…”
Coulson looked at the two letters, sighed, and patted Fitz on the shoulder, “I’m sorry.” Although Fitz had always used the words “like” to describe it, with this tattoo, it could already be confirmed that this was his friend David.
Coulson closed the freezer and pulled Fitz, who had a pair of red eyes, to the side, “Now, tell me about the ‘David’ that is still working.”