Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 306: "Fishing" Law Enforcement

"Hello, Officer Max Anton." A young man saw Max coming in through the door and stood up from his chair to shake his hand. "Just call me Candlelight."

The newly established Grizzlie Castle Police Department branch was temporarily set up in the former Grizzlie Castle City Guard Command Post. Senior police officer Max was specially selected to be sent here to be in charge of the city's public security management.

Max looked around in confusion and found that the young police officer named Candlelight and several people sitting behind him were not wearing the standard uniform of the Pioneer Territory Police Department, but were wearing ordinary civilian winter clothes very casually.

"Are you the secret police officers sent to Grizzly Castle this time? Why don't you wear police uniforms when you're not on a mission?"

Candlelight smiled and said, "Officer Max, we are different from ordinary police officers like you. As long as we are not lying in bed with our eyes closed, we are always on duty."

He pointed to his colleagues behind him and explained briefly, "After Earl Feigen's defeat, we immediately set out to infiltrate Grizzly Castle and began gathering intelligence according to the secret orders given by the Lord."

No wonder... Max muttered in his heart. He heard that when the Northern Army counterattacked Grizzly Castle, they received advance information about the Earl's family's troop deployment from the city, as well as some newly drawn maps of the city. It seemed that these were all the masterpieces of these secret agents in private.

"Are you all from the wasteland?"

Candlelight pointed at the chilblain behind her ear and said, "I'm from the South. The accent and appearance of the people in the wasteland are slightly different from ours. It would be easy to be discovered if I sneaked into the city..."

This is also the main reason why Superintendent Yurio and Chief Asdalen did not choose police officers like Max who had undergone prosthetic limb transplants when selecting detectives. Their metal limbs exposed outside their clothes are too conspicuous. As long as they stand on the street, people will notice that the police are coming even if they are dozens of meters away. Apart from the deterrent effect, they have no way to carry out any covert intelligence work.

Max has been a policeman for more than a year, and he feels that there is simply no end to the work he has to do every day. Many times he even has to work overtime on holidays.

Dealing with daily disputes among the people in the territory is one of the most tedious tasks. In addition, receiving the continuous influx of refugees also requires the cooperation of the police. Arresting thugs and vicious criminals who are causing trouble is also a necessary task. The army now completely ignores the security work in the territory except for pioneering the defense of the city and going out to fight.

As for Grizzliesburg, a big city with nearly 10,000 people living there, it was very different from what he had expected.

The city guard patrols under the former lord, Earl Fagan, do the work of the police, but they seem to have no work norms or rules and regulations. Due to the meager military pay, they often habitually squeeze some extra money from the people, and colluding with black street gangs to extort protection money is a typical way.

When war breaks out, they must respond to the lord's call, either climb the city walls to participate in the defense, or follow the knights to go on expeditions.

But in the frontier territory, the police and the army are two completely unrelated department systems, each handling their own internal and external work tasks, and have never been confused.

However, the identity and scope of work of the undercover police officers are very vague, which often makes Max feel a little confused - the identity, appearance and information of these people are directly under the responsibility of Superintendent Yurio. Even he himself, as a senior police officer, does not know how many such "shadow colleagues" have been recruited and trained under the National Police Agency.

In addition to direct missions from the lords and police, their operations also relied heavily on spontaneous reports from the people of the territory. Indeed, after experiencing several assassination attempts on their lords and the infiltration of spies from southern nobles, the local residents of the Pioneer Territory had taken it upon themselves to monitor any new immigrants they considered suspicious and quietly report them to the police. While much of this information was based on groundless suspicions, this massive local intelligence network, built by the people themselves, made it difficult for enemies and spies attempting to infiltrate the territory to conceal their identities, resulting in their swift capture.

Max came back to his senses and asked in a deep voice, "Now, what mission do I need you to carry out this time? I only received instructions from Superintendent Yurio and I don't know the specific details of the case at all."

"We've received two reliable reports that someone seems to be secretly purchasing food from the Frontier Territory and, taking advantage of the frequent travel between the two regions, secretly transporting it to Grizzly Fort for sale."

Candlelight took out two pieces of paper from his bosom and handed them to Max. One of them looked like a piece of papyrus that had been crumpled into a ball and then unfolded, while the other was obviously made of letter paper.

Max, an experienced man, could tell at a glance that the paper ball must have come from a secret report from the people of the territory, but the letter paper...

"You actually opened letters between citizens? Is this... is this legal?"

Candlelight shook her head nonchalantly. "Smuggling grain is a serious crime under the laws of the territory. Facing such cunning and treacherous criminals, we must use the same tactics as them to defeat them, protect the property safety of the people of the territory, and uphold the authority of the lord."

Wow! This guy's ideological awareness is even higher than that of ordinary police officers. It seems that he has been taking lessons from Chief Asdaren frequently.

"Well, if the evidence is conclusive, why don't you just arrest them directly? Why do you need the cooperation of ordinary police officers like us?"

Candlelight chuckled and said calmly, "Officer Max, our mission requires us to catch the perpetrator red-handed... We can't arrest someone based on just two pieces of paper. This will seriously damage the reputation of the police department and cause the public to lose trust in us."

Max sighed. It had been nearly half a month since he was sent to Grizzlie Castle on official business. The police officers under his command, dressed in dark grey uniforms, were too conspicuous. Whenever these strong "RoboCops" appeared in the city, the news would spread immediately to all the people in the area, making them as eye-catching and dazzling as the illuminating magic stones in the dark night.

Any ongoing criminal or illegal activities would immediately scatter upon hearing the news, making their security mission extremely difficult. The local people of Grizzly Castle were not friendly to these wastelanders from the North, let alone trust them. When encountering disputes, they would rather let local black street gang members intervene than notify these "airborne" foreign police.

"The reason we need your cooperation in this case is because we hope to use you to expose those guys' flaws. I'm sorry to describe it this way, but as soon as you show up, it's like a huge rock thrown into a toilet, which will always startle a swarm of flies. This way, our secret operations will go much more smoothly..."

Max looked somewhat displeased, but he had to admit that what the other party said was right. Letting them be responsible for luring the snake out of its hole, and then having this group of "shadows" cast a net to catch it, did sound like a good plan.

"Fishing enforcement" isn't just a technique mastered by these undercover police officers. Max had also secretly learned a lot from Chief Asdaren's lectures. It was said that the Lord himself proposed this method of handling cases...

(End of this chapter)