The Test In the Forest Part 2

Higashimatsuyama, Saitama Prefecture, Japan

The three detectives had spread out in the surrounding area in order to get some additional information. You could understand the differences between the detectives just by seeing how each one handled the situation. The rookie Adachi was talking to people walking around, but none of them could help him because they had not been there the day of the incident or were not aware of what was going on, so he got nothing. Dojima knew that the best way to get information was to ask people who had a fairly fixed pattern that could tell when something was wrong, so he went to talk to the employees of several stores nearby, some of them mentioned that with the latest attacks the mountain is considered dangerous so people have stopped going even to the temple, like last week there was activity but almost nobody went, other clerks replied that sometimes homeless people would come by to help recycle the garbage or take it to the appropriate depot, and in return, they usually got food or a little money, but many of them were never seen again, which was quite strange considering their potion. Yamamoto for his part already knew more or less what to look for, so he went to a bridge near the river where he found the house of some of the homeless, to ensure their cooperation the inspector had bought some food in a nearby mini-supermarket which he would exchange in exchange for the information. The same ones informed him that with the last attacks, going to the mountain had become very dangerous, so their leader had forbidden the entrance to it for several days, nobody usually deserved it, so it was strange that one of them went there without a reason of force first, they also mentioned that they could not recognize the victim, but they indicated him where the leader of the homeless was because he probably did know.

After a while, they all met again and shared the information they had received. The next step was clear, to talk to this supposed leader, although Adachi mentioned that it was simply a waste of time, which earned him a scolding from his superiors, as it was a serious mistake for a detective to dismiss something in his investigation. When they finished their journey, they managed to find the person they were looking for.

"The collectionist, right?"
"Sorry to bother you but do you think you can spare us a moment of your valuable time?" Said the old man to another old man, showing his police badge.

"Of course, how can I help you Mr. official"
"Would you mind having a game with me while we talk?" He said pointing to a checkerboard with all the pieces ready.

"It looks like you were already expecting visitors, I hope it wasn't ours" Yamamoto said as he sat down to accept the invitation.

"I used to play with a friend once a week"
"He was supposed to show up yesterday, however as you can see nothing on the board has moved yet"

"Did something happen yesterday with him?" The inspector moved the first piece.

"This will get us nowhere" said the new guy arrogantly.

"Adachi, if you keep moving your mouth, you'll be out of a job" 
"Why don't you just listen and learn as you should?" Dojima quickly corrects his partner.

"Come on gentlemen, calm down"
"It is natural for the young to make mistakes"
"And the old man to correct them"
"...."
"But it is also up to the young man to see if he heeds the advice of the elders who have gone before him."
"I fear that my friend is part of the latter fact and his mistake of terrible consequences" Said the wanderer while responding to the inspector's previous movement.

"Was your friend by any chance the owner of these clothes?" The inspector showed one of the photographs of the scene of the crime.

"...."
"He was an ambitious and healthy kid"
"He didn't end up on the streets because of addiction like most people"
"He told me how he ended up here because of his father and how he lost his mother"
"He was saving money to get a haircut, buy clean clothes and try to get a job at a mini-super and start building from there"
"...."
"It is disappointing to see how his story ended"

"Because of the way you spoke about him before I thought he was a risk taker"

"Well, I also said that ambitious"
"He wanted to get money fast and get back on his feet as soon as possible."
"He gave up safe jobs like recycling and went to riskier ones like watchman or messenger"

"Any particular company?"

"The one that will pay the most"
"Guard the rival house, then ask for a job guarding the first house and receive money from both"
"I don't know how he managed to keep both sides happy and stay out of trouble for so long"
"Some of us were waiting for him to tell us his secret"

"So it is not a surprise what happened?"
"If so, why also a hunter in the photos?"

"If it was a surprise, well, I'm sure it wasn't because of that."
"About two weeks ago in one of our games, he told me how he had given up all that and found something simpler and safer"
"The courier one"

"And how does a messenger end up hugging a tree upside down?"

"I don't have the details"
"But lately more and more of them are appearing"
"At the beginning of the year there was hardly anything, but more and more are appearing"
"Word of mouth rumors are coming in"
"They'll take just about anyone"
"Just deliver this package to the other side of town"
"You don't have to know anything"
"The money is guaranteed"

"But there is nothing good in this life, is there?"

"Despair and necessity are a cruel enemy"
"Making mistakes can kill anyone in our life, and these bad companions are not good advisors"
"Some of my idiots took the package but didn't deliver it"
"They thought they'd get a better price somewhere else"
"So they came to me to grade its potency"
"...."
"But the packages were not drugs as we imagined"
"They were simply packages of dough, flour"
"Needless to say it was super weird, so that's when we recommended not to go with them"
"But there is always the ambitious and the needy to do what others would not do"

"Good move there sir"

"Thanks"
"As I kept saying, they were super rare these things"
"But they did pay for them, so they had a motive"
"The only clue we got was that after going through one of the packages we found one with something pretty strange in it"
"A piece of tech equipment, some of our guys say it could be a locator because of its antenna but I have no idea"
"I got it in that bag over there, covered with aluminum foil"
"I was hoping to get a good price with which to split the profits"
"You know, life is hard and nothing is free"
"The living have to eat"

"Sure, it's no problem to help a collaborator"
"But I would like to hear the end of the story to think how much would be a fair price to pay for it"

"Of course, I also want to make this a good business"
"If everything goes well for you, everything will go smoothly again, and that will also benefit us"
"..."
"Nobody knows who are the people behind the packages"
"Our people say that they are just told to go to a certain place and the package was already there, usually abandoned on the ground"
"They take it to the destination and put it back on the ground, usually the money is already waiting there with no one in sight"
"Once we watched but only another homeless guy from somewhere else picked it up and took it away"
"I think to make another delivery with the same package"

"This does not help me much in my work"  Yamamoto replied, now turning his attention to his checkers game.

"Well, that's because I'm not done yet"
"My guys and I don't like to get into things that are too shady, because we've had enough of that"
"We're just trying to improve the community and get back to real life"
"But lately we have had some outsiders from other places"
"They are few but they have come to us as their old groups have left and run out of members" The old bum took advantage of the fact that he had just finished his turn in the game to smoke a pipe.

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"Fewer members?"
"I think there are only two ways to leave the life of the streets" Yamoto moved a piece without much thought.

"And you are right, all of them seem to meet the bad one"
"According to these people, the package jobs also came to their communities"
"Everything was going well, but as the days went by, some just stopped coming back"
"They disappeared"
"Others happily mentioned that they had found work"
"Only to not be heard from again days later"
"...."
"Life for us is hard, things happen and one day you can be there and the next day you dont"
"..."
"But it is bizarre that so many things happen so quickly"
"..."
"The usual mobsters don't seem to be either as they can't win from mugging those who have nothing"
"I'm trying to warn my guys to keep them away from this" Taking advantage of his opponent's carelessness, the wanderer skillfully moved his pieces to camouflage a devastating attack.

"Okay, good story"
"Where are these refugees you took from?"
"What are the places that have already had disappearances?" The policeman remembering that he had to play moved another piece quickly.

"To the west, on the other side of the river, in Kitamoto, it seems that they were the first ones"
"But then we got people from south of there"

"That is the territory of the Toyashi Clan"
"I think there was a report that they had gained control of those areas recently"
"They also match the areas of these people's disappearances" Dojima added.

"But still the victims are from the northern areas"
"The hunter and the homeless man are the most southern victims" Adachi said, looking at the map on his smartphone.

"And Kitamoto in the center"
"The Toyashi Clan may not be related but they should know something at the very least"
"I don't think they would let someone deliver what everyone thinks are drugs into their territory without permission"

"Well since you are about to leave then I guess it's time to make my stellar move" The old man began to capture several of his opponent's pieces.

"I still had one more question to ask you."
"I wanted to know if you knew Jirou Iwasaki, he was in your group, wasn't he?" Inspector Yamamto counterattacked using his last piece to finish off all of his opponent's pieces in a single turn.

"But how .....!?"

"Iwasaki has managed to evade the police almost perfectly"
"He was an ordinary man, it is impossible for him to know how to stay under the radar"
"Someone had to teach him how to do it, a good teacher"
"Maybe his teacher just taught him how to stay out of trouble and Iwasaki listened"
"Isn't that right, collectionist?"

"You're right, it's my fault for responding to my nickname without giving it much thought, I deserve the wake-up call"
"Well, I have to keep the business always"
"But my agents are ethical, if there is a madman like him among them I myself would be the first to bring him to justice.
"We only deliver the tools we are asked to deliver, we are not in charge of what customers do with them"
"Iwasaki was the one who stole one of the packages"
"He disappeared after that, I never knew why"
"The surprise was mine when I saw him on TV as a figitive"
"It is really sad what happened to his ex-girlfriend, I feel guilty for what happened to her"
"But the Iwasaki I knew didn't seem like the type to do something like that"
"He was shy but he loved his ex-girlfriend, he never wished her ill, he is also working to recover from his situation"
"But it seems that I didn't know him as well as I thought I did"
"It was with him that I became suspicious about the packages"

"It's OK."
"If you stay calm as you are now, nothing will happen"
"...."
"Could you also get me one of these packages?"
"Try not to touch it too much to check it for fingerprints"

"I'll deliver it to you at the station then"
"I hope you have good luck in your search, I don't want to run out of workers"

With the new information, the law enforcement officers returned to the car and began driving in no particular direction to discuss what their next move should be.

"The Toyashi Clan is a group based in Tokyo"
"But due to problems with other gangs, they have had to look for new places where they can expand their business in a safer way"
"Kitamoto could be one of these places"  Dojima said as he drove.

"Still, it's too strange."
"The flour packets, the disappearances, the dead people nailed to the wall"
"Why do some packages have signal transmitters?"
"Adachi, can you take this to be checked later?" Said the inspector.

"Yes of course, no problem"
"...."
"Excuse me boss, just one question, but who is this guy the collector?" Said the young man while writing down everything he said on a laptop.

"He is the head of a gang of weapons dealers"
"Many guns that end up on the street pass through his hands"
"The man we spoke to was their leader"

"Arms dealers!"
"Isn't that dangerous?"
"Shouldn't we have stopped him?"
"And if it's so important, why is he a homeless man?"

"Adachi, you still have a lot to learn"
"Not everything in life is black and white"
"People who do bad things sometimes do it because they have no other choice"
"And others do it because someone worse could do the job they do"
"The collector is actually a man who tries to help the homeless because he was once one himself"
"He wants to see them get off the streets"
"Their jobs are not clean, but who else would give these people a chance?"
"No one likes to see the homeless or the poor, to the common citizen they are invisible men."
"And invisible men is just what is needed to move things secretly"
"The government does nothing for two reasons"
"One is the lack of evidence, at least in a public way."
"The second is that they have often brought too many more interesting things to the government to let them pass a sin or two" The old man replied 

"The government lets it happen?"
"Isn't that against the law?"

"And the law is there to protect the citizen"
"What if they manage to bring something to the authorities that are important to national security?"
"Thanks to the collector Japan has managed to be safe during times of war."
"He has brought us very valuable things for this country"

"So what should I do?"
"Just shut up about what I saw?"

"Just think that you will arrest him when the government asks you to, not before."
"Those who get into trouble that doesn't concern them are the ones who leave first"

During the entire conversation, Dojima did not say a single word. He knew that many things that happened were not for ordinary people like him. The best thing to do was simply to do what was expected of his job but nothing more. Adachi instead felt disturbed by what he was hearing, for his sense of justice was as incredible as that of his favorite hero. Still, he also knew that Yamamoto was an old man from a profession in which people died young, someone who is from a neutral country and old of age went to war and came back to be immediately chief of police without any questions, clearly policeman was not his real old job. Still, if he retired from that to become a policeman, it means that he was something worse before. , if anyone knew things that should not be known it was him. Even an idiot like Adachi could understand it.

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