Pokémon Detective Case Files

Chapter 328 Corpse Poison – A Memo of the Case's Progress

Chapter 330 Corpse Poison – A Memo of the Case's Progress

"Dream?"

At midnight, in the brightly lit Feiyun Police Station, Bilan stared in surprise at the detective in the white coat standing in front of her.

Not long ago, this boss had just bid farewell to Carlos, the champion who was visiting Unova, and left the charity gala. He brought Mia to the Flying Cloud Police Station and told his assistant what had happened.

The woman who intended to end her life was currently in the police station's psychological counseling room, receiving mental health support from police professionals.

However, judging from Officer Jenny's expression that said, "Look how much trouble you've caused us again," the emotional support she was giving seemed to have had little effect.

Hugo placed his hand on the desk beside him, sorting out the situation while rhythmically tapping the edge of the desk.

According to him, such repetitive and simple actions helped him maintain a calm and steady pace of reasoning amidst complex mysteries. "Miss Mia released the 'Aiya Mushroom' during her sophomore year of college, when she was around twenty years old. That's at least six years ago. And according to her description, the strange dream about the 'Aiya Mushroom' only started appearing in the last year."

This five-year time gap undoubtedly means that some things cannot be determined for the time being.

"The dream that was recurring seemed to be a montage of fragments resembling flashbacks. Miss Mia couldn't recall its exact beginning, much like how we often forget dreams we had days ago—it's all too ethereal. According to her testimony, the strange dream wasn't initially perceived as a concrete dream or image, but rather as an extremely abstract thought—a suicidal impulse. Her lingering on the beach in Feiyun City seemed to be influenced by that impulse as well."

"In other words, she first developed a suicidal tendency without any apparent cause, and then, as this emotion became more and more intense..."

Only then did I gradually start having strange dreams, in which I saw fragments of my past life with Aya-chan, and from this, I realized the connection between myself and Aya-chan.

"A dream that makes someone want to commit suicide? Are there really dreams that terrifying in the world? Could Miss Mia have offended some kind of Pokémon like Gengar or Misdreavus?"

Seeing the detective's expression gradually become troubled, Azure Assistant tried asking...

"I remember Ghost-type moves like 'Dark Shadow' seem to have a similar effect, causing the victim to see their deepest fears."

Hugo shook his head: "The 'Shadow of the Night' does reveal one's deepest fears, but they are not baseless." This is Officer Jenny's office. The detective scanned the stacks of documents scattered on the desk, including search reports on the suburban poisoning case and analytical notes on the Selvilik poisoning incident.

He took a deep breath, looked away from the fascinating documents, and then said to Azure—

"Miss Mia didn't do anything wrong by releasing the Agaric. The release was out of good intentions, and she not only fully respected the Pokémon's wishes but also went back to the forest to check on it the day after the release. After that, she adopted a new Pokémon, Electivire, as her partner, so it can be said that she has almost completely moved on from the shadow of the past."

"Regarding the matter of the 'Aiya Mushroom,' she may still have some regrets, but it's definitely not serious enough to become a deep-seated obsession."

"So, if her strange dreams and suicidal tendencies are caused by the Ghost-type Pokémon's 'Nightmare,' she'll probably dream about things more closely related to her current life, like rising rents, an employment crisis, a deteriorating economy, or being unable to stay in Suicune City."

"But Hugo, that's not necessarily true, is it? Perhaps some event triggered her guilt and nostalgia for releasing the Pokémon, like maybe she recently discovered what happened to Agaric after it was released?"

The detective's assistant pressed on with a nitpicking tone—

"If such an incident really happened, even without the Ghost Pokémon secretly rigging the vote, Miss Mia might still be driven to despair and attempt suicide."

"But that would make it impossible to explain the strange dream. Could it be a lie the other person made up? Judging from Miss Mia's personality, lying must be quite a difficult challenge for her."

The detective in the white coat pointed out Azure's oversight and shrugged—"Besides, if Mia knew about these things, she shouldn't have any reason not to tell us, right? I can't imagine why someone who's about to commit suicide would still want to hide a secret at this point."

As he spoke, Hugo himself began to have doubts. "However, it's true that we can't completely rule out that possibility. After all, as a detective, one can never underestimate a client who comes to them for a consultation. Although Miss Mia didn't make a request, let's wait and see if the police's psychological counseling is effective."

"Hugo, do you think Mia's dreams might be related to plasma clusters?"

Azure changed the direction of her reasoning and then asked.

"Indeed, this method of manipulating minds does resemble the work of the mastermind behind Team Plasma, and the origin of this incident is also related to the Pokémon Liberation Movement, which Team Plasma strongly promotes. It's hard to believe that the two are completely unrelated."

Hugo agreed with his assistant's assessment, but then turned to Wen Yi and asked, "However, mere suspicion is meaningless. Even if we pinpoint a suspect, we still face a huge problem—what exactly is the connection between Mia, who once released the 'Aiya Mushroom,' and the Plasma Cluster? Azure, do you have any clues?"

Seeing that the detective had thrown the question back into her hands, Bilan held her head and pondered for a long time before finally shaking her head in resignation.

That's true. Who could guess what kind of sinister and wicked scheme that evil organization entrenched in the Unova region has in mind this time? "By the way, maybe—we can ask that guy."

Hugo suddenly remembered the contact person assigned by the Plasma Group to monitor him.

Although he was called a monitor, Hugo hadn't officially met the other party yet. He had previously sent that guy to deal with the controversy caused by the handover of the championship under the pretext of testing his abilities, and he was currently at the United States headquarters at the end of the Champions Road.

If we interrogate that guy carefully, we might be able to extract some clues about the internal workings of the Plasma Cluster from its members.

If they were lucky, they might even be able to glean some information from him about the cause of death of that "Plague Scholar"—after all, Team Plasma is the largest criminal organization in the Unova region, and Selvilik, who has been selling deadly poisons since leaving the hospital,

It is impossible for them to have no connection with the former.

"Alright, let's put Mia's matter aside for now. Hugo, what are your thoughts on the poisoning and murder case the police are investigating?"

Seeing Hugo pondering and then slowly turning his gaze back to the documents on the table, Azure sighed helplessly and simply asked the detective directly about the case.

"Have the police done any results from their scientific search of the scene? Like the Pokémon hair and dust traces?" Hugo asked.

"Preliminary results are already available."

The one who answered was not Azure, but Officer Jenny, who returned from the counseling room.

"Through the examination of Pokémon traces on the deceased's clothing, we discovered that Selvik had been in contact with a large number of Centipedes in the weeks leading up to his death. We suspect that he used these Pokémon to poison the wound medicine containing insecticide spray toxins. According to the examination by toxicologist Nurse Joy, there were also physiological traces left by a Seviper and a Dracovish on the deceased's old clothes, which were likely Pokémon that the 'Plague Scholar' usually carried. In addition, there were traces of other Poison-type Pokémon, but they were varied and faint, making it impossible to identify them all. Perhaps they were wild Pokémon that he encountered by chance in the wild."

"Whether it's the centipede snail, the rice spoon snake, or the dragon king, they should all have been taken away by the intruder who cleaned up the scene, right?"

"Azure asked.

“That’s right.” Miss Officer Jenny nodded. “As for the dust traces, apart from the soil in the wild areas around Flying Cloud City, we also found a very small amount of salt sand in the crevices of items such as suitcases.”

"Salt? Did the deceased live by the sea?"

The detective raised an eyebrow knowingly; this was indeed unexpected new intelligence.

"That's certainly possible," the officer said. "The air in coastal areas contains a lot of salt that evaporates with the seawater. If you're frequently exposed to the sea breeze, these tiny salt particles can accumulate over time. But there's something odd about it. No sand, the kind of sand commonly found on beaches, was detected on Servilik's shoes and suitcase wheels, which is a bit puzzling."

"Besides the seaside, similar particles can also be produced in salt mines, and chemical plants. Could the deceased have hidden in those places in the past?"

Azure, on a sudden inspiration, remarked, "Whether it's manufacturing poison or selling murder weapons to premeditated criminals, it needs to be done in a secluded corner, right? Could that 'Plague Scholar' have found a place like that as his hideout for making poison?"

"Selvilik has been missing for so many years, so there must be a place where he stayed, but it is still too far-fetched to judge whether he lived by the sea or in the mountains based solely on the salt."

Hugo looked at Officer Jenny and asked, "Any other new discoveries? The police have been working on this for so long, there can't be only this much to show for it."

Upon hearing the detective's question, Officer Jenny's face fell immediately, and she sighed, "Sigh, I wish it weren't true."

"What's going on?" Azure tilted her head in confusion.

"Although Servić's cause of death was clearly poisoning, the autopsy revealed no traces of poison in his body. Even the specific method of poisoning remains completely unknown. In all my years as a police officer, I've never seen such a disappointing autopsy report."

"You mean the autopsy couldn't determine what kind of poison Servik died from, or whether he was exposed to the poison through oral ingestion, inhalation, trauma, or some other means?"

Upon hearing Officer Jenny's account, Hugo couldn't help but frown.

"It's not that it's impossible to determine, but the current situation is completely different from any known poisoning symptoms in the medical community."

Officer Jenny shook her index finger under her white glove and said, "If the victim dies from an external infection, then at least there will be a wound on the body; if the death is caused by an oral poison, then regardless of whether the poison is encapsulated, the deceased's digestive tract and stomach will inevitably retain traces of the poison's effects."

If death is caused by inhaling toxic gases, abnormalities will also appear in the lungs and trachea.

"However, there was no trace of the poison entering the body from the outside on the 'Plague Scholar's' body. According to Miss Joey, it was as if a deadly poison had been generated in all the blood of the body out of thin air, and then launched a general attack, causing the body to fall into a state of paralysis evenly and slowly from the limbs to the brain, and then die in a coma."

"You said the deceased's blood contained a deadly poison, does that mean the bloodstains taken from the body contained toxins?" the detective pressed.

"No, that was just Miss Joy's analogy. In fact, we couldn't extract any known poison components from the deceased's body after death. Miss Joy even risked letting her poison skeletal frog come into contact with the blood, but it didn't detect any lethal substances. The poison seemed to evaporate instantly after killing the victim."

Officer Jenny shook her head and sighed as she explained the whole situation, then looked expectantly at the director of Hugo Detective Agency, "How's it going, Hugo? Do you have any leads?"

"The intelligence is still fatally insufficient."

The detective rubbed his temples, imagining a mysterious poison that appeared and disappeared suddenly, like a spirit using "teleportation."

"We'll still need to trouble the police to do some more legwork. It's necessary to thoroughly investigate Servić's movements and lifestyle during the past ten years of living under an assumed name. The investigation into the motive for the poisoning incident cannot be interrupted either. It would be even better if we could find out the specific way the victim obtained the raw materials for the insecticide spray."

"You don't need to tell me that; the police are already investigating. By the way, Miss Mia's psychiatric evaluation report is out. Would you like to see it?"

Miss Officer Jenny raised a document in her hand.

"Aside from the suicidal tendencies stemming from that strange dream, Ms. Mia shows no signs of mental abnormality. But the mere suicidal tendency is already quite alarming. We're planning to contact her family and have them take their daughter back to her hometown to recuperate. What do you think?"

Hugo thought for a moment and decided, "Let's wait a bit. I don't think this incident is simple. Sending Mia out of Flying Cloud City now might not guarantee her safety. I need to investigate the connection between that incident and Team Plasma. For now, let's settle her in... —hmm.—"

The detective hesitated.

"How's Dr. Shin's Dream Lab going?"

When she was chatting with Hugo earlier, Azure already had this idea in her mind. It just so happens that she had taken the two Dream Eaters there a few days ago—"Isn't the device in that research institute used to solve this kind of problem? Miss Mia is suffering from strange dreams of unknown cause, Dr. Shin-gu would definitely welcome such a test subject."

"Yes, that's a brilliant idea. We'll send Mia there tomorrow."

The agency director readily agreed, "Alright, since the evidence is limited, our reasoning can only end here. Let's stop our investigation here for today; it's about time to head back to the agency. It's strange, I feel like I've forgotten something today—"

As if in response to the detective's puzzled question, two figures, panting, squeezed into Officer Hugo's office—"Detective Hugo, you forgot about our interview!"

Mary and Dai said in unison.