Notes gathered in Mr N's search for the Tousled Detective.
Ding ding ding! Welcome, young successor, to this detective game that pulls back the curtain on Astropolis's darkest secrets. Much like Tousled Detective's classic spin-off novel series Tousled Adventure Crew, I split the clues I've gathered into two parts. Only those who complete both trials will earn the right to inherit my work. Of course, this is also an opportunity, a last chance to turn back before you learn the truth and find yourself with no way out.
During the recent Irontomb incident, a frontier fortification vessel known as the Tartarion was destroyed, and a massive number of casualties were transferred to Astropolis. Even with medical support provided by the Technology Department, nearly a hundred individuals ultimately succumbed to their injuries. What makes this all the more unsettling is the ghost conversion rate among the deceased: a staggering 100%.
As the investigation deepened, more and more things began to surface:
1. Beginning five years ago, imagenae, creatures that should have been exclusive to Planarcadia, started appearing in Astropolis. This breakthrough is said to have originated from an experiment conducted by the Technology Department. Around the same time, ghosts began to appear in Astropolis.
Based on data gathered from Planarcadia, ghosts are born through a mechanism that sets them apart from other imagenated life, and a highly unusual one at that. In the absence of human intervention, the only plausible conclusion is that somewhere within Astropolis, there exists a device capable of simulating a Phantasmoon from Planarcadia, one that radiates outward, driving the excitation and anchoring of Wishpower. Furthermore, this experiment remains ongoing.
2. After ghosts began appearing in Astropolis on a significant scale, the Talent Motivation Department established the “Postmortem Employment Center.” Over the following five years, the conversion probability of employees who died in Astropolis turning into ghosts increased by 12 times.
Ghosts have become the cheapest labor resource in Astropolis, exactly the kind of “talent” the Talent Motivation Department is looking for.
3. Tartarion, the most heavily damaged fortification vessel in the battle against Irontomb, received a substantial sum of funding from an unknown source prior to its deployment. Subsequently, each crew member was also compensated with a payout far exceeding standard decommissioning benefits.
Speculation
One or more departments, driven by vested interests, have been artificially inflating the ghost conversion rate to make ghosts serve the IPC's purposes. But since ghost creation necessarily involves death, this mechanism is extremely difficult to quantify, at least not openly. So, if the ghost experiment requires a large number of samples, could there be a possibility of deliberately manufacturing massive numbers of casualties?
PS: The food at that new Xianzhou place upstairs is pretty good.
Ding-dong. Greetings, young successor, congratulations on finding the second half of the clue. Then again, you might have found this one first, but I'm not one for unnecessary complications, so I'll just assume you already know everything that went down in Tartarion. A word of friendly advice: If you'd rather stay out of trouble, feel free to tear this note up, or burn it, if that's more your style. But if justice is what you're after, then by the time this falls into your hands, my fight has likely already been lost. I hope you'll be willing to carry on where I left off, until the day sunlight can truly reach every last corner of Astropolis.
I need to find out who ran this experiment, the one who used Tartarion as expendable test subjects.
Both the Talent Motivation Department and the Technology Department are prime suspects. Their motives are almost too obvious, which is exactly what throws me off. Given how these two departments usually operate, they could easily resort to far more controversial, heavy-handed methods to get what they want. Unless… There's another hand pulling the strings behind this experiment.
Years of living in Astropolis has honed my instincts, and the first name that jumped to mind was that thoroughly rotten Oswaldo. Sure, the warship was registered under the Marketing Development Department, but knowing how he operates, the lives of his own staff mean nothing to him. Pure conspiracy theorizing won't crack the case. However, a little luck sure helps. Buried deep within the mountains of publicly disclosed financial statements spanning every department, I found a sum that matched exactly the mysterious funding Tartarion had received, dressed up under the tidy little label of “welfare assistance.”
But… why him? I don't understand. Maybe I'll only find the answers I'm looking for when we're face to face. But the moment I learn the truth will probably be the moment I die.
I remember being a kid, watching the Tousled Detective appear on-screen for the very first time, the villain gets knocked down, justice being served, and all I could think was how impossibly cool that towering figure looked. But as I got older and looked up at Lodestar Tower, I couldn't see past the glittering surface to whatever ugliness lurked behind it. That's when it hit me: The Tousled Detective's ideals were so fragile, so utterly fleeting. So, I'm going to find him to get justice for the dead.
Detective's Code, Rule 5: Don't be afraid of evil. Evil should be afraid of you.
PS: After everything is said and done, I bet you're dying to know who the real mastermind behind all of this is. Remember the interactive game from //Tousled Adventure Crew? Stack two pages on top of each other, and the hidden answer will reveal itself. This is your final warning: Once you see that name, there's no going back.//
Side Note: The Xianzhou cuisine at that place is absolutely amazing. I recommend bringing a friend along.