Cop Craft – Dragnet Mirage Reloaded

"Translator: ClefRunner"

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Episode 05 SMELLS LIKE TOON SPIRIT

I’ll take all the help I can get.

From beyond the cloudy sky, a flying boat was getting closer. From what he could see within the frame of his Bushnell binoculars, there was no doubt that it was a single propeller aircraft, but he could not hear the sound of the engine yet. It was still about five or six miles away. It probably would be no more than two minutes until it arrived at the small landing strip.

Kei Matoba turned on the switch of his wireless headset.

「Seems like our guest is finally here. All units, stand by.」

The roll call had already been done. All members of the staff on stand by amounted to 12 people. There were members of the San Teresa Police Department’s special Vice Squad, and some uniformed officers from Goranbitha county.

They were hiding inside the shabby hangar, the regulations cabin, or the storagehouse, carefully waiting and watching out for their “guest”.

「That’s unexpected. I didn’t think he’d come.」

Muttered Tilarna Exedilika, looking bored right behind Matoba. She had her blond hair elegantly arranged to accompany her silver armor. She was leaning with her back against the concrete wall, and she was disinterestedly poking a wooden box with her sheathed Krége.

「Well, O’Neill’s leads occasionally end up being useful.」 「Occasionally, yeah.」

~o~O~o~

It all started the previous night.

Matoba went home after work, and just as he was about to put his hands on the small sailing ship model he hadn’t touched in a long time, he received a call from O’Neill, his informant.

Apparently O’Neill had gone to a club in Seven Miles with a girl that night, and “coincidentally” heard the conversation from the guys next to him. O’Neill, the self proclaimed priest (sometimes a Christian father, sometimes a monk, sometimes a spirit medium), apparently had managed to convince the girl to go with him with some made up story, but more importantly, the contents of what he overheard were quite interesting.

Apparently there were plans to smuggle in some cargo via a small landing strip located in the wetlands east of San Teresa, in Goranbitha county.

The contents of the cargo were unknown. It probably was more “Goblin powder” or “Fairy dust”, or valuable luxury items in a tax evasion scheme. There even was a possibility that the cargo were people being trafficked. The only thing certain was that the items were not being brought in legally.

The “Lanceros” landing strip was not the kind of place regular flights would take off from. It was merely a place that the very few residents of the vast Goranbitha wetlands used occasionally. A few flights per week would take off in worn out propeller planes, and it didn’t even have any permanent employees. It had no beacons to guide the flights, and of course there were no traces of a radar or anything similar. It was a two hour country drive away from San Teresa city, and even the closest police station was already thirty minutes away.

There were countless strips like that throughout all of Kariena Island. So of course, people in the illegal business were making good use of them. The air traffic radars were not able to detect small aircrafts like that, and they didn’t even have the budget to begin with.

It had gotten to the point that they needed to rely on intel from informants like O’Neill to be able to combat it at all.

There was nobody around to receive the items. They had only encountered a couple of clueless junkies that had driven to the spot in a rental car, and they had already been arrested, and the car seized. All that was left was waiting for the aircraft to land.

「I’m sick of waiting. Kei, let’s get this over with and go home.」

Tilarna stood up. She curved her back and stretched, almost like she had just finished some light workout.

「Hey, we’re not here shopping. Don’t lower your guard.」 「Shopping is harder than this. Dorini market prices are too complicated. Tea costs one dollar, but some fish eggs cost over two hundred? I don’t get it at all.」 「Well, that’s caviar, I told you about it the other day.」

It had already been over four months since Tilarna had arrived on Earth as a Semani Knight, but even then she still was not fully adapted to Earth’s everyday life. Matoba had started wondering if perhaps it was more of a personal problem due to her nature, than a consequence of her condition as someone from another world.

「Back in my world, tea leaves cost about ten times the price of fish eggs.」 「Don’t compare the eggs of any fish you can catch in your local river with caviar. This is why you’ll always be a hillbilly.」 「Hmph… what’s wrong with the countryside anyways? My Naruma is a city with history! In the past it blossomed as a commercial hub under the Kingdom of Darthemelaya’s rule, and it defeated enemy general Belbéi during the Shewatha wars. Your hometown of Wonuma or something is not even worth mentioning compared to it.」 「Uonuma is a rice producing site. My hometown is Sagamihara. Try to remember that for once!」 「Well it sounds similar.」 「It doesn’t at all! Maybe that’s the problem. You aliens have ears that were built like that to begin with. So do sounds like Uonuma and Sagamihara sound the same to you after all?」 「That’s a pretty interesting question. Please educate me on how you Dorinis perceive the world around you. Maybe you are seeing a completely different world from me. However, unfortunately, as long as you’re not able to use “Morth el Balba”, we will never know for sure.」 「Morth… what’s that?」 「It’s some Mildi referred to as “the hand that carries the soul”. It’s a spell meant to switch two people’s souls… and if you Dorinis used it, then maybe you’d know what real people hear.」 「Huh.」

Matoba reluctantly accepted the existence of that kind of magic used by Semanis, but it definitely sounded made up.

「Well that’s pretty impressive. Can you use it?」 「No way. That’s a long lost spell. Not even my Thetha knew how to use it. What I wanted to say was that unless I had some magic like that, I would never be able to comprehend you Dorinis.」 「Ah, I get it already. They’re coming.」

The strong sound of a turboprop engine was getting closer. The distance to the aircraft had reduced itself to the point that binoculars were no longer necessary to see it clearly.

And even though they kept calling it an airplane, it was more of an old Cessna fitted with some extra floating devices. It wasn’t the original model but one that had been modified countless times by the owner.

Even though it was officially considered an outdated aircraft, there had been several previous instances of people using them to smuggle items. They would receive their goods from Semani transport ships that crossed through the gate over to Earth, and almost always arrived at abandoned landing strips.

The aircraft deployed its landing gear, and got ready to land.

Even though there was no particularly strong wind in any direction, the plane’s wings were swaying from left to right quickly, and its body itself was losing and gaining altitude awkwardly. Though Matoba possessed no flying license himself, even he could tell that it was probably an unskilled pilot at the helm.

The plane landed.

It bounced up and down into the air while pressing on its tires against the runway, but ultimately it landed safely. After it stopped shortly, the pilot made the propeller turn even faster than before, and started heading towards the unpaved road.

「Stand by. Stand by… If he stops in front of the hangar, then we’ll get him.」

He whispered into his wireless device.

His fellow detectives from Vice of course knew better than that, but the county’s patrol officers didn’t look as experienced. He wanted to prove that they could do a better job than even the HQ detectives that had sloppily cordoned off the area.

Even the older and more experienced detectives were patiently following along Matoba’s directions.

But a single novice county officer was different

「It’s okay. Let’s go.」

Said a young officer via the earphone, while waiting right at the back of the hangar.

「Wait. Don’t come out yet. Stand by. I repeat, stand by.」 「This is the closest we’ll be to him. Let’s go!」 「Stop it, you idiot! You’re going to mess it all up!」

In an attempt to intercept the aircraft that was still in the middle of the runway, the county patrol cars pushed forward. They turned on their flashy sirens. The mysterious pilot reacted immediately. His idling propeller began to speed up immediately, and the aircraft sped up noticeably. It drove lightly on top of the lawn that separated the parking area from the runway, and then went straight ahead.

They were gaining distance and running away.

「Ah, fuck… All units ahead! All units ahead! Pin the target down!」 「How are we supposed to pin him down?」

Said Tony from his same department. He and his partner Godonov were hiding inside a relatively tall bush on the edge of the runway.

「Do whatever you can. Don’t let him gain any more distance!」 「Does that mean we have permission to shoot?」 「Ah, that eh… don’t. Negative. You don’t have permission to shoot at him.」

The aircraft seemed to have enough aircraft to flee from the scene. Shooting recklessly was dangerous, and on top of that the other side wasn’t shooting at them. That was a difficult aspect of being a cop. If they were with the army, then they would’ve shot their opponent open like a swiss cheese with no mercy.

「Kei. They can’t shoot?」

Tilarna asked with a composed expression

「How many times do I have to tell you? We can’t be the ones to shoot first」 「In that case, leave it to me.」 「What? … Hey!」

Tilarna jumped out of the security shack, and dashed towards the runway.

The problem aircraft started speeding down the edge of the runway. The county patrol cars were driving with the intent of intercepting it, but their tires had become clogged with mud and weren’t spinning right. The sound of the turboprop engine was getting louder. At that rate, the aircraft was going to get away.

Tilarna stood in the middle of the runway. Right in front of the aircraft that was heading her way. She drew her Krége out of its sheath, and took a sword fighting pose.

Matoba, who had come chasing after her, was looking pale after seeing what she was about to do.

「Stop it, you idiot! Do you want to die?!」 「Shut up and watch.」 「Wha…」

He had thought about running in and pushing her away, but he quickly realized that he would only manage to fall prey to the plane’s propeller. He imagined that, unless she had gone insane to the point of not noticing the risk, then she probably was acting based on confidence.

As he was folding his arms, the plane and Tilarna intersected each other.

It all happened in a flash.

She barely managed to turn her body, and draw her Krége. Small sparks flew out of the plane, and a grating metallic sound resonated through the air. That was all that Matoba could sense.

「….!」

Fortunately, Tilarna had not been swallowed up by the propeller.

She landed on the runway after spinning forward in the air, and the aircraft passed her by as they all watched it get away. On the other hand, the makeshift Cessna seaplane didn’t slow down at all. It seemed to waver slightly, but it kept going to the edge of the runway and narrowly managed to take off.

「You let it get away. Fuck! It ran away, you fuckheads!」

One of the county officers was shouting through the intercom.

It was one of your novice officers who did it to begin with— was what Matoba wanted to shout back at him, but doing that on their turf was not a good idea. He simply held it back, and remained silent as he dumbfoundedly watched the aircraft get away.

Tilarna calmly stood up, and dusted off a cloud of sand from her butt.

「…Hey. What was that?」 「What?」 「That act you put up back there. Were you trying to kill yourself?! I would rather let the suspect run away, than get scolded for letting an officer die!」

Tilarna didn’t falter even with Matoba’s threatening attitude. She quickly gazed at the aircraft that was gaining altitude and getting away, and merely grumbled “hmph”.

「Kill myself? There’s no way I would commit suicide or anything like that」 「In that case…」 「I thought you wanted to stop that airplane without shooting. In those cases it seems like you just can’t count on your Dorini tools.」 「What?」 「Just watch.」

At that moment, they saw the left floating part of the airplane fall off as it was getting further away into the horizon. They could hear no sound. All they could make out was the figure of the float, which was about as big as the body of the plane itself, falling and turning through the empty sky.

A skilled pilot would have probably been able to keep flying even after that. However, it seemed like this pilot didn’t have the ability to reclaim control of the out of balance aircraft, preventing it from falling into the ocean. Its wings shook harshly from left to right, and the plane started losing altitude. It trembled as it kept falling, in an attempt to correct its drill-like tailspin movement.

「Ah…」

The plane crashed.

They could see a large water splash with their own eyes, even standing behind the tall bushes.

Since the area they were in was full of wetlands, all Matoba could do was hope that the mixture of water and mud worked as a soft cushion. In the best of cases, they would even be able to save the lives of its crew.

「Got it? This is the true edge of a Vyefahrt blade.」

Said Tilarna as she swiftly sheathed her Krége

「Dorini machinery and technology can’t compare. I can at least do something like this without relying on your dull guns… Well, of course, I had to rely on a bit of Mildi as well.」 「…Ah, yeah. I see.」

After responding adequately to Tilarna’s words, Matoba called out to the others on the radio. And whispering, he said

「The idiot took down the plane. I repeat, the idiot took down the plane. This is an emergency, hurry to the crash site.」 「Wait, Kei. Are you perhaps referring to me when talking about this “idiot”?」 「Shut up! Who else could I be talking about?!」

He was indeed shouting directly at Tilarna.