Before Aiden reached the center of the park, he had dealt with a considerable number of zombies.
After dealing with at least 10 zombies and emerging from the bushes, he saw artificially cleared surroundings and simple play equipment like slides made for children to play on.
And around them, a significant number of zombies were standing still as if nailed to the spot, blankly.
Aiden ignored the zombies glancing at him and started investigating the surroundings more.
Having found traces on the walking path, Aiden looked in the direction the traces led.
There was something like a small igloo-shaped play equipment, and the traces led inside it.
Guarding the surroundings once more, Aiden approached the entrance of the play equipment and carefully entered inside, watching his surroundings.
"Hmm... This is worse than I expected."
While it's impossible to know what color the inside of the play equipment originally was, the entire wall was dark red.
And in the center was a large bowl containing rotting internal organs and various viscera, and behind it was something like an altar with a severed human head placed on it.
On the back of the altar, symbols of unknown meaning were drawn on the wall, and small pieces of human body parts were hanging.
Aiden looked around with a disgusted expression, and saw items that appeared to belong to the missing person, Kane Houston.
"I'll need to gather something to complete the request."
Aiden collected a few items and once again stared intently at the altar.
"It will be certain if I check the other two places as well."
They create such altars in multiple places as if marking their territory.
If the remaining two places were in the same state as this one, it would mean that the Enterprise camp was the fanatics' territory.
However, it was still inevitable that questions remained.
The fanatics' tendencies are extreme and cruel. Simply put, they're just madmen, but no traces of them could be found inside the camp.
And if it were a camp occupied by fanatics, an atmosphere like the current one couldn't exist.
According to information provided by a wanderer who had dramatically escaped after being sent as a fanatic's laborer in LA:
They are thoroughly monitored, perform hard labor, and are strictly divided into believers and laborers under strict rules.
Laborers.
They say it's labor in name only, no different from slavery. They are in a state where they don't know when they'll be dragged to the altar and lose their lives, receiving food worse than slop, living in hell.
In contrast, the believers live relatively normally, regularly conducting crazy rituals in the name of worship.
Aiden still doesn't know what being they believe in and conduct rituals for.
Honestly, he had been avoiding contact with fanatics as much as possible and wasn't interested in the first place.
After fully grasping the internal situation and gathering all the belongings, Aiden came out of the play equipment.
The zombies were still standing blankly in place without moving.
'Zombies staying in one place without moving? What on earth are the fanatics up to?'
Aiden ignored the zombies and quickly left the park.
Starting the bike immediately, Aiden set off towards the remaining two missing locations.
* * *
Meanwhile, Sadie was freely wandering around inside the camp.
Among them, she poked her face into a group of children playing together.
"Hi kids! I'm Sadie."
"Hello!"
The children greeted energetically.
"What are you playing?"
"We're just making sand castles."
Sadie watched the children making sand castles and casually asked various questions.
First, she asked about what kind of life they were living in the camp.
"Us? It's nothing special. The adults say they're busy every day, so we just gather and play like this."
The girl who seemed to be the leader of the group answered as if annoyed.
Wondering if they hadn't established any proper educational institutions, Sadie asked another question.
"Then, aren't you attending anything like school?"
"School? We don't go to school, but we go to church every weekend."
"Ah... You attend church?"
"Yes! Pastor Randy leads the service!"
"Pastor Randy? Not the leader?"
"He is the leader, but he's the pastor at church!"
Sadie just smiled and nodded at the children's innocent appearance, but since she, Aiden, and Arian were suspicious of Randy, the fact that he was the church's pastor was a significant point.
Just as Sadie, thinking there wasn't much more to hear, was about to get up and leave, saying goodbye to the children, one child grabbed her skirt.
"Sister, do you have anything to eat?"
"Huh? Food?"
"Yes! I'm hungry."
"Ah... I don't have anything with me right now, what should I do?"
"It can't be helped... These days, they don't give us much food at church either. They used to give us a lot of snacks before..."
Thinking there might be a problem with the rations, Sadie comforted the children for now, said goodbye, and left.
Sadie didn't immediately return to the hotel, thinking she should look around the inside a bit more, and quickened her steps.
As she walked around busily, the sun was setting and night was approaching.
* * *
Night is Arian's time.
The optimal conditions to maximize a vampire's characteristics.
That is night.
During the daytime when Sadie was out, Arian had climbed to the highest point of the camp, imprinting the interior of the camp in her mind.
She slowly observed everything from people's movements, irregularly created alleys and roads, to the locations of main buildings managing the camp's affairs.
The sun that had been setting eventually disappeared, and darkness slowly began to show its face.
Certainly, this camp's situation isn't as abundant as LA's.
The electricity supply doesn't seem smooth either, as darkness began to spread everywhere.
As it happened, with many clouds covering the moon, it became even darker.
The best condition for people moving ominously.
The same goes for Arian. But Arian didn't move right away.
A little more, when the darkness settles in deeper, that's when Arian plans to move in earnest.
Quietly exhaling, she suppressed her presence.
Thus, the night hours slowly passed.
How much time had passed? Arian's two red eyes sparkled.
The first place she appeared was the government office where they first met Randy. On its rooftop.
Arian maximized her hearing, trying to sense the presence of people around as much as possible.
Inside the building, she could sense the voices of people chatting and the presence of people quietly scribbling something, as if some were working overtime.
Among them, Arian concentrated repeatedly to find Randy's voice or presence.
But Randy didn't seem to be in the government office.
She quietly opened the iron door leading down from the rooftop.
Even if he wasn't there, his traces would remain intact in the office, so there was nothing to worry about.
It seemed electricity wasn't flowing smoothly inside the government office either, as darkness was spread here and there.
She deeply blended with the darkness and moved her steps towards Randy's office.
Click
Arian carefully turned the doorknob, but it was firmly locked.
That wasn't a problem for Arian.
A little blood flowing from Arian's fingertips entered the keyhole, and the lock was lightly disengaged.
Creak
Click
Arian, who had entered very quietly, locked the door.
After quietly checking the surroundings, Arian confirmed no one was nearby and comfortably rummaged through the office interior.
"There doesn't seem to be anything unusual..."
Arian, who first checked the documents on the desk, couldn't find anything special.
There was nothing much besides simple administrative documents, supply status, current situation of zombies spread throughout Las Vegas, and so on.
Arian put the documents back in their place and started searching through the drawers.
"Hmm... Is there nothing in the office?"
Hoping to find something, she touched here and there inside the drawers to see if anything was hidden, but again, there was nothing special.
"Damn, this is getting annoying."
Thinking she might have to go around the camp interior from now on to find traces of Randy, Arian, who was investigating the desk, noticed the jacket hanging on the chair.
"No way..."
But she hit the jackpot.
Searching through the jacket pockets, Arian discovered a necklace.
The necklace had a pendant made with an unfamiliar pattern and a silver chain.
She looked at the pendant shape as closely as possible to remember it.
Then she put the necklace back in the jacket and left Randy's office.
There was nothing more to look for.
Arian instantly climbed back to the rooftop.
"Phew... What should I do, look around more? Or go back?"
Arian thought it would be better to follow Randy directly rather than digging into his background from the start.
She decided to stop here for today and quickly headed to the hotel.
* * *
"Th-thank you... sob."
Jane, the requester who rushed over as soon as Aiden reported completing the request, burst into tears immediately upon receiving Kane Houston's belongings that Aiden had brought.
"I'll receive the reward through the request office. I hope this brings you some comfort."
When Aiden said that, Jane couldn't stop crying and just nodded.
Leaving Jane behind, Aiden approached Chad.
Chad, who noticed Aiden approaching, greeted him with a surprised face.
"It's amazing that you really solved this, all three requests at that."
"I've arranged to receive the reward through the request office. I'll come back tomorrow."
"Alright, anyway... thank you. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my mind."
When Chad expressed his gratitude, Aiden simply nodded silently.
"Is there something you want to ask?"
Chad asked as Aiden didn't leave.
"Are there any junk dealers who have found traces of fanatics around?"
"Fanatics? Are those madmen settled somewhere in Las Vegas?"
"I thought you would have the most information here, but I guess I was mistaken."
"Hmm... Of course I have a lot of information, but honestly, there's been nothing coming in about fanatics. Did you find some traces?"
Aiden hesitated for a moment.
If the fanatics had moved this thoroughly in hiding, he worried that unnecessarily sharing information might create an unfavorable situation, and he pondered whether this person could be trusted.
"It's just that LA is wary of fanatics too, so I was checking if there was any information about them here as well."
Aiden decided not to share the information.
"I've heard rumors that they're growing in power, so LA is keeping an eye on them too, huh."
"That's right. Anyway, I'll come back tomorrow. Please take care of the reward."
"Sure, don't worry, see you tomorrow."
Aiden left the request office without any particular farewell.
As he was slowly walking to the hotel, Arian appeared beside Aiden.
"Aiden."
"You're here. Any harvest?"
"Well, I'm not sure if it should be called a harvest, but let's go back first."
"Let's do that."
Having joined up with Arian, Aiden headed to the hotel where Sadie would be waiting.