Why it never ends

Chapter 981 Cemetery

When Hesta received the message, he was reading an email from Victoria, who had been delaying the delivery of the files on the Fayaral Wasteland accident for nearly a month. However, during this time, she had walked through the northern forest of District 12, not only collecting a bunch of soil samples, but also selecting an unused laboratory as her workplace.

Hesta asked Victoria about her religious affairs several times, and she always replied, "I have something important to discuss with you, but we need to meet in person to talk." But whenever he asked her when they would meet, Victoria would start saying, "I'm still out, wait a few days," "I'll be back soon," or "next week," as if she wanted to shirk her responsibility.

Today, she received a rare email from Victoria, which contained more than 20 photos of mushrooms and mold. She scrolled to the bottom and saw Victoria wrote:

My work for this week has come to a successful conclusion. Don’t you think they are all beautiful?

Are you free today? I'll come to see you.

As soon as Hesta replied to the address, the doorbell of the apartment rang. She opened the door - Ximoya was standing outside.

"……haven't seen you for a long time."

"Didn't you go out to the party today?"

"I'm researching Eleven's transfer. It's really hard to do without your help." Hesta took a step aside to make way for Ximoya to enter the house. However, Ximoya still stood at the door and showed no intention of coming in.

"I won't sit down," Ximoya said, "In short, I just came here to tell you one thing, and then I'll leave--"

"We can't say that standing at the door," Hesta said, "how do you know if there's someone eavesdropping on our conversation at the stairs?"

Ximoya glanced at Hesta coldly, but still went into the house.

She looked around and asked, "It's been so long, why are you still living here?"

Hesta smiled and didn't respond. She walked to the open kitchen and bent down to find some sparkling water in the refrigerator.

"Kendai moved last week," Simoya said, walking to the dining table in the living room. "Did you know that?"

"Ah, she moved?"

"Isn't it funny? You, the one who kept clamoring to see the house, dragged it on for so long without doing anything, but Kende said to move and we moved."

"Where did you move?"

"She's left the city center. She'll give us the new address in a couple of days."

"That's what you came here to tell me today."

"I'm here to discuss your employment procedures." Ximoya's face darkened. "You applied for formal employment at Office No. 5 half a month ago, right?"

"That's what happened."

"Their documents have come down, why don't you sign them?"

"Well," Hesta placed a can of sparkling water in front of Ximoya, "I feel like now is not the right time—"

"Then withdraw your application!" Ximoya angrily slammed the table. "Do you know that if you don't sign the entry documents from Office 5, they will expire every three days? Every time you click to update, I have to prepare new supporting documents for you!?"

"...There is such a thing." Hesta felt the other party's resentment and couldn't help but take a step back. "What are you going to prepare? It shouldn't be complicated--"

"Yes, it's not complicated, but there are 17 references to your employment date in a document of several hundred pages. Have you ever thought about how it feels to have to revise it every three days, and not know exactly when it will be revised to?" Ximoya said indignantly, "You don't plan to take up a job in the near future anyway, right? Then withdraw your application! Don't add unnecessary workload to me!"

"...That's hard to say." Hesta crossed his arms, "Maybe the decision will be made tomorrow - Hey! Ximoya!"

Ximoya turned and left, closing the door of the apartment without looking back. Hesta scratched her head - should she say that the notification method of Office 5 was too backward or the work process of District 12 was too complicated, which caused her to be scolded by Ximoya again.

……

"So why did you submit your employment application but then drag your feet on signing it?" Victoria turned the steering wheel in the car. "You didn't do it to torture Kende's secretary, did you?"

"I'm so wronged," Hesta replied, "I didn't know there was such a procedure."

"then you--"

"Don't change the subject. You've been in District 12 for almost a month. Where's the file I want?" Hesta turned to look at Victoria. "You'd better tell me. We're on our way to get it now."

"No," Victoria said. "The excerpt from the accident report I gave you earlier was the most detailed information I had. I tried every possible way, but I found that if I wanted to access the full text, I couldn't avoid Kende."

"Don't default on your debt."

"Do you think I'm someone who would default on a debt?"

"……Hard to say."

Victoria laughed a few times and stopped the car on the side of the road: "Get out of the car, we're here."

Hesta looked out the window as Victoria took her to a cemetery. There were short, stunted hollies planted everywhere, and the narrow dirt paths between the cemeteries were paved with short, thick stone slabs that made solid noises when the soles of shoes stepped on them.

Hesta's eyes casually swept across the tombstones, and suddenly she saw the name "Chiba Masaki" among them. Only then did she realize that the AHgAs logo was embossed under the tombstones in this area.

Hesta felt his blood filling up, and walked quickly to Qianye's tomb, where he saw a bouquet of fresh flowers placed on the marble cover in front of the tombstone. Hesta kicked the bouquet over, walked forward and hugged the tombstone, as if he wanted to break it with his flesh and blood.

Victoria watched for a while with a smile on her face.

Hesta turned around with sweat all over his forehead and an unhappy look on his face: "Who erected this monument?"

“This is the workstation over here, right?” She picked up the bouquet and tidied up the scattered branches. This was the memorial gift Stella had personally selected and delivered yesterday. “What are you doing? If you didn’t know, you’d think it was an enemy who came to your house. You didn’t even let him go after he died—”

"They have no right to set up a tombstone for Ms. Chiba! I'm her ward, why doesn't anyone ask for my opinion!"

"Calm down. I can't tell you what's going to happen next if you're like this."

Hesta glared in Victoria's direction and finally let go of her hand.

"You said."

"As I said before, we can't retrieve the files on the Fayaral Desert accident. Anyone who wants to see it must get Kende's consent, right?" Victoria said, "But we do have information. At least, the fact that Kende has this file already explains a lot of information."

"what?"

"What do you think Kende's duties are?"

Hesta's eyes moved slightly.

"Protect the Mother City, right?" Victoria said. "I think this means at least two things: something went wrong in District 12's Mother City, and it's related to the incident in the Fayalar Wasteland."