The G-5 Branch had just experienced the most efficient day in its entire history.
No, to be precise, the Admiral's Office of the G-5 Branch had just had its single most efficient day since the base was founded.
Ain worked like a precision machine wound to perfect tension.
In less than half a day, she reduced the long-accumulated mountain of paperwork to nothing.
Urgent documents were processed first.
Anything requiring a receipt was stamped with "Acting on behalf of the Admiral."
Routine reports were sorted and archived.
Useless scrap was neatly bundled up for disposal.
The entire office was spotless, with bright windows, clean desks, and not a speck of dust.
There was even a faint "scent of order" lingering in the air.
Potts was so happy he nearly fainted.
He followed Ain with a cup of coffee, looking at her work with the reverence of an apprentice watching a master.
Every time he handed her a document, he felt like his soul was ascending.
And the one responsible for all this, Admiral Renzo, remained sunk into the sofa the whole time.
He looked asleep, though maybe he wasn't.
To him, Ain's rhythmic sounds of flipping pages and stamping documents were not troublesome noise but a soothing white noise, almost hypnotic, making him more relaxed than ever.
When Ain finally finished all the "surface-level" work, her eyes turned toward a small, unimpressive door in the corner of the office.
"Potts," she said, voice cool and crisp. "Is that the archive room?"
"Ah, yes, Rear Admiral Ain!"
Potts quickly nodded. "But… ever since former base commander Vergo left, no one has gone in there. It's terribly messy. You don't need to-"
"It's my duty."
She didn't give him the chance to finish.
She walked over and pushed the dusty door open.
A heavy smell, old paper, mold, and thick dust surged out, stinging her nose.
Compared to the pristine office outside, this place was another world altogether.
Shelves leaned crookedly.
Documents were thrown haphazardly across the floor.
Layers of dust disguised what anything originally looked like.
Cobwebs spread across the corners like an abandoned ruin forgotten by time.
This place was filled with chaos and disorder, Ain's least tolerable state.
Without hesitation, she slipped on white gloves and stepped inside.
Seeing this, Potts sighed helplessly, grabbed a mask and tools, and hurried in to help.
The work was tedious, but Ain didn't mind.
She handled every file with the care of an archaeologist uncovering lost history, dusting, sorting, piecing together fragments.
Then, while clearing out a rusty cabinet on the verge of collapsing, she suddenly froze.
At the very bottom, underneath several unimportant purchase orders, she found a logbook with its cover torn off, along with several reports labeled "Accidental Incident."
Her instincts immediately told her something was wrong.
She opened the logbook.
The handwriting was frantic and uneven, describing the last voyage of a small patrol ship.
The entry abruptly stopped after describing an island where fire and ice existed side by side.
The final page had been violently ripped out.
Next, she checked the reports.
The first report: A G-5 listening post intercepted intermittent children's crying from a nearby sea.
The signal soon vanished and was dismissed as "interference."
The second report: A reconnaissance boat went missing.
Cause listed: "Extreme weather, presumed sunk."
But the attached meteorological record showed calm, clear skies that day.
Ain's eyes narrowed.
The third report shocked her the most.
It was an incomplete draft.
The trembling handwriting contained fragmented phrases:
"…giant child…dragon…poison gas…help…"
The rest was obscured by a large smear of black residue.
And the one who signed the report, was Vergo.
All these scattered pieces pointed toward the same location, an island marked with a giant red X on the G-5 navigational map.
Punk Hazard.
"Potts," Ain said quietly, pointing at the name on the map.
"What do you know about this island?"
Potts took one look and immediately paled.
He waved his hands frantically.
"Rear Admiral Ain, you absolutely must not go there! Back when Vergo was still here, he made it very clear, it is a Forbidden Island."
"They say many years ago, Dr. Vegapunk's laboratory had a massive chemical weapon leak there."
"The whole island was contaminated and was rendered completely uninhabitable."
"No one is allowed to approach it."
"Chemical accident?"
Ain looked again at the draft mentioning "poison gas."
Her gaze sharpened.
'This wasn't that simple.'
'Accident reports of this scale should have been formally recorded, carefully stored, not sloppily hidden or destroyed like this.'
'Someone was covering something up.'
'Poorly.'
There had to be a bigger secret buried beneath the surface.
A quiet "static," a faint invisible noise, seemed to hiss beneath the calm sea, something deeply wrong.
Ain closed the files and carefully secured these key documents.
Then she glanced through the door at the outer office, at the man still asleep on the sofa.
She knew Renzo's rule perfectly well, Don't bring him "trouble."
And right now, what she had were only fragments, uncertain, unverified suspicions.
The worst type of trouble.
"Until I know the truth," she resolved silently, "I can't involve him."
She would investigate the source of this "noise" on her own strength, first.
Before anything else could disturb his peace.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu