Chapter 326
Chapter 326
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 326
Chapter Title: Trepptower Park
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“…Trepptower.”
Mecklenburg cleared his throat and quickly regained his composure. He still didn’t look thrilled, but his determination to take it seriously came through loud and clear. He glanced over the status report I’d shoved in his face earlier and shook his head.
“It makes sense, but there’s a snag. Sure, you lumped Damhe River and Langersee-Müggelsee together, but that doesn’t change anything.”
‘Better than Erich Rheinau, at least.’
The Damhe was the river where Langersee Lake sat. Trepptower Park’s southeast had the Langersee-Müggelsee, as mentioned earlier. He’d caught on that I was treating Trepptower Park as the landmark for that whole chunk of area. Exactly. To reach this conclusion, you had to consider Trepptower Park and everything below it as a single unit.
Anyway, dealing with Erich Rheinau had felt like strategy wasn’t even on his radar, but this guy’s mind was turning at a decent clip. Worth the five minutes of stalling.
I watched a minute tick by as I adjusted my gloves.
“For now, let’s head there.”
“Didn’t you say there was a snag? You think they don’t know about the proposition we’ve pinned down?”
I shot him a glance but skipped the rebuttal, sticking to my script.
“Wittelsbach’s probably already been to Trepptower Park. They left before us, so they might’ve even checked it out already. Let’s turn our late start into an advantage.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but I didn’t need his orders anymore. I’d thought what he was thinking, and he’d thought what I was thinking. No point handing him the floor. I stepped up to the map and gestured.
“Listen up one last time, senior. I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”
* * *
You think they don’t know about the proposition we’ve pinned down.
Mecklenburg had said Trepptower Park was suspicious but not definitively the answer—there were hitches.
Good point. The “proposition” he meant was the reasoning I’d used to rule out Pfaueninsel.
Let’s recap from the start. If Pleroma set up a base at Pfaueninsel and was active enough for us to find solid clues there, Jungfernsee-Tiefsee shouldn’t have been contaminated by at least 10 a.m.
So, low probability though it was, consider this scenario. What if Pleroma really did set up there, but everyone coming and going was high-level—qualified personnel—and they were willing to risk brief mental haze? Or they had some special defensive tech? If they’d contaminated the area on purpose to keep us away from their base, didn’t the triple-star severe contamination downstream on the river through Berlin—and even in the outskirts—look too convenient? Had we fallen for their feint and skipped right past the real base?
We even had to factor in that they could use spatial magic to dodge contamination, but we knew its limits. Sure, it could avoid poisoning for transit, but wide-area spells jumping buildings weren’t something anyone could sustain long-term due to mana and stability issues. Their spatial magic would be set up as a base in key spots. That’s what we needed to hunt down.
‘Then shouldn’t we be scouring high-contamination Pfaueninsel instead?’
Fair question. But rewind to basics: Pfaueninsel had triple stars at 10 a.m. too. No prior newspaper articles to check, so in this test setup, we exclude anything before 10. Plus, checking the problem setter’s hints solves it. They mentioned a portal and prisoners—not berserkers, but “prisoners.” That screams the high-IQ wizard kidnappings. Why snatch those eggheads without dosing them into frenzy and keep them intact?
‘They need brains right away. Even if they’re qualified, one frenzy death and the kidnapping’s pointless.’
Here’s the obvious takeaway.
Wherever they portaled the prisoners from was clean at the time of the incident—or at worst lightly contaminated, ★☆☆, not enough to frenzy from breathing.
That’s Mecklenburg’s proposition.
‘So why Trepptower Park?’
I paused my thoughts and looked around. The park smelled of fresh grass. The Spree nearby had some contamination, but nothing like the double-star on the 12 o’clock report. If anything, a single star at most. For a spot Pleroma swept through, the midday park felt shockingly peaceful.
At the same time… standing in a park meadow during a test like this naturally made you uneasy. Me, at least.
“Wish we had a detection dog. Too much ground to cover, no matter how I slice it.”
I spoke to Mecklenburg via artifact and turned. Beyond it, I heard thumping impacts, plus vivid wind rushing around me.
A whiff of earth hit me.
Boom—!
Before the grass could swamp me, I threw up a barrier on the ground and leaped back. Sky-blue mana grabbing for my arm split at my sword’s edge.
No one in sight, but I knew who. I let out a dry laugh and called.
“Leo.”
* * *
Three minutes earlier.
“Trepptower? Why?”
“Doesn’t add up.”
Doubts poured from the wizards clustered around Narke and Elias. They were all watching the mimesis feed.
“Man, both teams picked Trepptower Park now.”
Elias muttered flatly. Narke, guarding his side with a sound barrier, smiled.
[Let’s move fast. You know why I picked Trepptower Park, senior.]
On the mimesis screen, Lucas jabbed the map, talking at breakneck speed—time pressure made it hard to follow, drawing a light laugh from Narke. The data Lucas highlighted read:
[Trepptower Park Temporary Closure]
[10 a.m.] Berlin Spree ★★★, Berlin Havel Southwest ★☆☆, Jungfernsee-Tiefsee ★★★, Langersee-Müggelsee ☆☆☆, Tegelersee ☆☆☆.
[12 p.m.] Berlin Spree ★★☆, Berlin Havel Southwest ★★☆, Jungfernsee-Tiefsee ★★★, Langersee-Müggelsee ★★★, Tegelersee ★☆☆.
Narke stared at the screen.
“Fifty spots on the list, and he picked mostly rivers~”
Over thirty of the fifty were in Greater Berlin, so no surprise. Pre-expansion Berlin’s core six districts clustered the measurement points, thinning out toward Brandenburg outskirts. Those Langersee-Müggelsee and Tegelersee spots were the sole readings from Berlin’s southeast and northwest.
Lucas and Leo zeroing in on Trepptower Park together had to stem from Langersee-Müggelsee spiking from 0/3 to 3/3.
“They’re calling out the weird jump in Langersee-Müggelsee numbers.”
“Probably.”
Elias gave Narke’s mutter a curt nod, focusing up.
But if so, why Trepptower specifically, not Langersee-Müggelsee? Senior wizards around them voiced the same puzzle. Narke felt it too, briefly, but quickly traced his friends’ logic.
The Spree stretched hundreds of kilometers, yet they’d split out Langersee-Müggelsee etc.—meaning “Berlin Spree” contamination was Mitte district central. Mitte-Spree dropped one notch in two hours as tainted water flowed to Havel southwest and Tegelersee, diluting into Langersee-Müggelsee’s clean flow.
Then bam—Langersee-Müggelsee got hammered. Lowest population density in Berlin. Why spray chems there? To poison the river upstream? Then why not start with Langersee-Müggelsee before Unter den Linden’s Spree?
‘So, conclusion’s this~’
Pleroma ran a decoy.
Lucas and Leo were dead sure the Langersee-Müggelsee shift was smoke, hunting the real base. Enter Trepptower Park.
“Both going hard. No contamination readout for Trepptower yet.”
Elias muttered beside him.
Trepptower’s readout wasn’t out. Reports were ongoing, but not machine-fed to central—couldn’t print every spot. They were deducing from givens only.
At 12:30 now, Berlin empty—but back at 10 a.m., Pfaueninsel southwest and central Mitte’s Unter den Linden took focused hits, then all Greater Berlin. Factor in the [Trepptower Park Temporary Closure] article, and their pick made sense. Unlike blatant “Contaminated” headers for Unter den Linden or Spree, Trepptower’s said only “Temporary Closure.” Article confirmed no concentrated attack like Unter den Linden—just a massive park next to Greater Berlin, high risk for chem bombing, plus a prime escape spot from tainted zones. Government shut it to prevent panicked evac wrongward.
Still, Trepptower hugged the Spree, which tested high. No reason for prisoner-hauling Pleroma to go there.
But we knew where that Spree reading came from, right?
Mitte gauge. Geographically, Trepptower’s Spree was upstream from Mitte’s. So Berlin Spree’s triple stars? Likely pure Unter den Linden bombing fallout. Proof: zero stars upstream at Langersee-Müggelsee.
In short, Trepptower was actually low contamination, river-adjacent for document aversion—prime numerical loophole spot.
‘And now Langersee-Müggelsee runoff’ll really taint it…’
From Pleroma’s view, Trepptower bought time against imperial wizards.
Elias, chin-propped and bored-watching his friends, smirked.
“Fine, Trepptower works. But they’re both playing cagey? Splitting one teammate each feels off.”
“Probably…”
Narke chuckled lightly, continuing.
“Wrapping here leaves seven minutes—too long, like Leo said.”
“Whoa.”
Elias nodded at Narke, then eyebrows shot up. The Trepptower feed showed familiar omens.
“They ran into each other.”
* * *
Boom—!
I slashed incoming plant stalks, sprinting like mad. Laughter bubbled up; I fought it down.
Back to it. With so many wizards suspecting Trepptower, you think Pleroma missed it?
Mecklenburg’s point boiled down the same. “Snag” meant “Pleroma that dumb?” They’d predict it—Leo and 91st Class Representative likely picked it too.
Not simple, sure—pounding Trepptower to lakeshore took effort—but seven minutes? Two imperial wizards’ spell range covers snags easy.
Swoosh—
“…!”
Lost in thought, nearly clipped. I dodged the stalk that snatched my hat, veering as I yelled.
“Fight me? Come out and fight!”
Felt like battling Mother Nature. Every blade of grass around lunged.
‘Screw it.’
No good. Running’d burn five—no, four… maybe three minutes. Needed to parley with Leo.
[Peace I leave with you.]
I swung my sword into staff form and slammed it down.
[My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you!]
Rooaaar—!
Before light and roar faded, something smashed down on me. Obvious who. Familiar voice.
“Why so late?”
I craned back, eyeing his hand on my collar, and grinned.
“Me hunting you?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Leo tilted his head, face untouched.
“You’d hit the top suspect first… why show for this low-odds spot now?”
“…….”
Sharp as ever.
I laughed, slapping his hand away. Suspicion good, but for me, game on.