Spirit's Ascension-Chapter 85—Disappearances

The others peeped over Cole’s shoulder to check what was going on in the room.

The moment they laid eyes on its content. Their eyes also widened in shock.

"What could have gone on here?" Linda asked.

Cole didn’t bother replying at all; he rushed into the room to check what exactly was going on.

The room was in total ruin. All its contents were scattered all around.

Cole could even faintly catch the whims of blood in the air. Cole’s search even grew much more ferocious.

He checked through all the things in the room, searching for anything that could give him any clue about what happened.

In his search, Cole found out something that made him breathe out a soft sigh of relief.

He found a dead rat surrounded by a pool of blood.

"Thank the heavens, it wasn’t what I was thinking," Cole said.

He was still extremely curious as to what happened to Mr. Evans’ room and even where Mr. Evans himself was.

"Did this room belong to someone very important to you?" Bryan asked.

"Yes, it is; he is someone really special," Cole responded.

His worry had subsided a lot now, since it wasn’t the first time Mr. Evans would be missing for some time.

And ransacking others’ rooms isn’t also uncommon in the slums.

"I just hope he is fine," he said while leaving the room.

Despite still being quite worried, he thought about the others and didn’t want to disrupt the mission too much.

Since he was even the one that influenced the others to choose the mission, he wanted to make sure not to cause any more trouble.

"Sorry guys, let’s get going," Cole said while leading them towards his former room.

The three of them entered Cole’s room that was still left unoccupied, even his small bit of luggage was still exactly where he left them.

The only difference was that they were now covered by a thin layer of dust.

"Let’s try to clean the room first," Cole said.

They were a group of Spiriters, so cleaning the room took them little to no time.

The room was back to being squeaky clean in no time.

"Was this your room," Linda asked with a strange expression.

Cole felt a little weird inside but kept a straight face.

"Yes, it is," he replied.

Linda looked as if she were about to say something, but she quickly shut her mouth, though she looked slightly uncomfortable.

"How do we go about the mission," Cole asked the others.

They all stared at each for a while, waiting for someone to say something but none of them seemed to have anything to say.

The room grew quiet for a while, the only sound present being the sound of whistling wind.

They were mere newbies to all this, despite all of them having a big goal in mind. They had no experience whatsoever.

"How about we go through the information first," Cole finally said.

"Yes, let’s do that," the others agreed immediately.

They then proceeded to lay down all the information provided by the man earlier.

"Let’s go through the common areas where the missing reports are filed,"

Cole automatically took on the position of team leader since no one else seemed ready to take up that role.

"The most complaints have come from this area of the slum," Cole said while pointing at the given map.

While he was saying that, his mind was also thinking through some things that made him even more worried.

"Is this close to that particular place," Cole thought.

"This further proves some of my speculation; Doctor Thomas must be involved somehow," he said.

But studying the map much more closely, Cole felt even more confused.

The other locations were nowhere near the first one; they were all scattered throughout the slums, which looked suspicious.

"There’s no connection between these locations," Cole muttered.

His thoughts began spiraling as he began overthinking everything and throwing caution out the window.

Bryan looked at him like he had something to say but he also kept holding himself back.

"It doesn’t make sense for them to go to all of these places, even if they are trying to prevent suspicion," He continued.

"Cole," Bryan suddenly called out, snapping him out.

"I think we need to calm down and analyze."

"If we could figure this out so soon, they wouldn’t have given us this mission," Bryan said.

Bryan’s words allowed Cole to calm down quite a bit.

"I noticed you have been on edge since we arrived; you need to relax, and we will do our best," Linda chipped in.

Though Cole heard them and understood their points, he felt the urgency to find the kids as soon as possible.

His mind couldn’t just get off the point that the kids could be in some big trouble or pain in that instance.

The situation with Mr. Evans made him even more flustered, further worsening his situation.

"You guys don’t understand; this matter needs to be resolved as soon as possible," Cole replied.

"We get that but it doesn’t seem like we will be solving this anytime soon this way,"

"We really need to calm down and take things step by step."

"There’s no point in rushing and failing," Linda said curtly.

"You guys don’t seem to get it," Cole said.

He picked up the map and began heading out of the room.

"I seem to be the only one that understands the severity of the situation," Cole said after a little pause.

Bryan and Linda were now the only ones left sitting in the room. The two of them stared at each other, completely at a loss as to what to do.

"Cole seems to have a much deeper connection with this than I thought," Bryan muttered.

Linda, sitting not too far away, heard his words and immediately said her opinion too.

"We need to help him before he completely loses it,"

"Yes, we do, but we don’t even know where he left to right now."

"We can only wait."

Cole could be seen running as fast as he could through the slum, heading straight towards a location on the map.

"I will do it on my own then," he said with a determined gaze.