Otaku Translation: I! Anomaly Cleansing Agent! C88

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After checking the prisoner’s condition and noticing her unstable emotions, the policewoman turned back, speaking earnestly amidst the cacophony of the boiler. "No matter how unusual my duties are, I am still an officer of the Police Department. It’s my responsibility to carry out my duties and minimize disruptions to ordinary citizens' lives.”

"So I can’t let my guard down just because I think you won’t hurt anyone, nor can I abandon the investigation due to distaste for harming civilians or fear of offending the Lions."

“…”

After listening carefully to the policewoman’s response, the prisoner fell silent for a moment. Then, looking at her as if she were some kind of monster, asked incredulously, "That’s it?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Forget it… Pretend I didn’t say anything…"

Sizing up the bewildered policewoman, the prisoner suddenly dropped her previous compliance, her voice tinged with mockery. "Respectable Miss Isha, when I first learned your surname, I had my suspicions. But now, I’m certain.”

"You must have a deep connection with the new military leader who came to power earlier this year. At the very least, you’re a distant relative, maybe even a direct one."

“...”

"Am I right?

"Heh, I should’ve guessed. Only a family like yours could raise someone so naive and foolish."

The prisoner, around forty or fifty years old, sneered at the astonished policewoman. Her weathered face, lined with crow’s feet and sunspots, radiated genuine disdain and ridicule.

"Esteemed Miss Isha, born into privilege, you likely don’t understand the consequences of enforcing your duties and insisting on doing what’s 'right' in this place."

Before the policewoman could recover from the shock of her lineage being exposed, the prisoner pressed on. Pulling her cuffed right hand out from under her covering clothes, she jabbed at her chest forcefully, her voice low and grim.

"My husband was an auditor in the Military Readiness Bureau. Just before the outbreak of the Patriotic War six years ago, he discovered that the company of the Lion family was substituting cheap, dirty cotton for high-quality medical cotton in their bandages, which caused infections in wounds.”

"After reporting it several times without result, he persisted, driven by the same principles as you. When he still received no feedback and faced reprimands, he wrote a letter to the military leader of the time. And guess what happened?"

"Was he... dismissed?"

"Of course not. He was greatly rewarded."

Glancing at the stunned policewoman, the prisoner leaned in, her voice cold and detached amidst the roaring boiler.

"The military leader ordered a thorough investigation upon receiving the letter. All problematic bandages were replaced, earning widespread applause. My husband, credited for this achievement, was duly rewarded and transferred from the Readiness Bureau to the more critical Confidential Affairs Bureau. Our family moved into the assigned residence.”

"But barely two weeks later, shortly after my diligent yet foolish husband completed his transition, the inspector sent to review his files announced that they had been tampered with on a large scale. He was promptly arrested on charges of espionage and interrogated for seven months in your Secret Investigation Bureau."

“…”

"Interesting, isn’t it?"

Seeing the silent policewoman, the prisoner sneered.

"If you don’t check the files thoroughly before taking over, you risk being sabotaged by your predecessor. But if you do check them, you’ll inevitably be suspected of espionage. So from the moment he accepted the transfer, no matter what choice my husband made, the outcome was always the same."

"And here’s the kicker: the investigator assigned to my husband’s case was none other than his former superior. After repeatedly obstructing my husband’s reports, he was suspended and reassigned. Ironically, he ended up in the Secret Investigation Bureau, tasked with investigating my husband. Funny coincidence, isn’t it?"

Her lips curled into a humorless smile as she continued.

"Thankfully, my husband was both resilient and lucky. After seven months of imprisonment, aside from losing forty pounds and limping due to a ‘mishap,’ he somehow emerged alive without confessing.”

"Unfortunately, the military had no time to wait for a suspected spy with a limp. His position was long taken, and no department was willing to ‘take him back.’ Our family was evicted from our assigned residence."

"Heh, during the Patriotic War, prices in the capital soared fiftyfold. By the time he was released, we had nearly exhausted all our savings, leaving us with just a few silver coins.”

"To ensure my daughter and I survived, and for the so-called righteous war, he took a lump sum of the enlistment pay and enlisted. But because of his limp, he couldn’t run fast enough and got shot in the other leg."

The policewoman, visibly shaken, bit her lip and paled. "And your husband..."

"Dead, of course. From a foolish cripple to a dead one."

After recounting her husband’s fate with a detached expression, the prisoner’s lips curved slightly, her voice mockingly soft. "By the way, there’s something even more amusing. Want to hear it?"

"I..."

"Your silence means yes."

The prisoner chuckled, rolling up her sleeve slightly to reveal an old, blood-stained bandage tied around her wrist. Peeking through the crudely stitched edges was a clump of coarse cotton, stiffened by dried, dark brown blood.

"When they brought him home, this very bandage was wrapped around his leg, beneath which lay a festering wound oozing yellow pus and teeming with fat, white maggots."

Rotating her wrist gently, she gazed at the relic of her late husband with a serene smile. "My crippled husband was indeed resilient. He wasn’t killed outright on the battlefield; he managed to crawl back to the trenches. Unfortunately, he succumbed to wound infection in the end.”

"And ironically, what ultimately killed him was one of those substandard bandages he had risked everything to report—a filthy, black-cotton bandage. Funny, isn’t it?"

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