Chapter 181 Investigation (part 2)

‘What?’ Norbert’s ghostly form twitched as it clashed against the strange barrier that kept the insides of the building out of his reach.

Even his physical body shook in its hideout, reacting to the backlash of the clash.

‘That was unexpected,’ Norbert whined to himself as he shook both his physical and his ghostly heads. ‘But hardly surprising,’ the officer added in his thoughts.

‘I might not be much of a gamer,’ he thought, changing the position of his ghost to take a look at the building from a little bit further away. ‘But even I know what this means,’ he thought, allowing a small, unseemly grimace to cover his face.

The area ahead was off-limits for Norbert. Or rather, it was off limits for his current self.

‘I really need to find a way to level up somehow, don’t I?’ the officer thought.

A long rift appeared right through the middle of Norbert’s forehead. He couldn’t help feeling annoyed at the notion of being left in the dust by all those who directly participated in the fight.

‘I know that my skillset is more suited for the auxiliary role, but I will never be able to grow at this rate,’ he thought.

Norbert then clinched his ass and gritted his teeth.

‘I can’t forget about Carol,’ Norbert reminded himself, gritting his teeth.

The timing of the stray thought about his sister couldn’t be any worse.

‘Just as I was about to give up.’ Norbert shook his ghastly head.

‘There is no use whining, huh,’ he thought only to switch his perception and move over the top of the shed. ‘How am I supposed to help her survive in this world if a mere barrier can stop me?’

Norbert didn’t waste any time trying to cross past the barrier. The walls of the shed were impenetrable for his current self. Yet, the invisible barrier of the building was anchored fully on the building’s structure.

Norbert had no means of breaking through the shield. But he was free to check if the building itself didn’t have flaws.

It was a small, far-detached shed that had as much use as one would expect it. As such, it took the officer only a few moments to carry out a throughout investigation.

‘This seems to be the best spot,’ he finally decided on the rooftop’s fragment that decayed over the years.

It was nothing more but a tiny gap, no bigger than the side of a smartphone… But it was the most Norbert could ask for.

He approached the gap, ready to look through it with a single purpose in mind.

‘If this barrier boots up when one approaches it, I could try to enter before it comes up,’ Norbert thought. He then directed his eyes towards the gap and then took a moment to calm himself down.

‘I need to be as quick as possible,’ Norbert thought to himself. ‘So that I can scout the place, let the survivors get freed, and go back to the school so I can finally find Carol!’

The officer’s physical body took in a deep, long breath. He held it in his lungs for a while. And then, right as his physical eyes opened to let the air out, Norbert pushed his perception and dynamic vision to their limits.

First, he changed the position of his ghost to right above the rift. His vision turned blurry when the vision from his previous spot suddenly mixed with what was in front of his ghost’s form now.

‘Keep going!’ Norbert urged himself, correcting the direction of his ghostly eyes even before his brain managed to single out the frames of his current vision.

Norbert’s vision has yet to go back to being normal. While his eyes provided the up-to-date information, without the normal transition of looking around, Norbert’s brain needed a moment to move over to the new vision.

And in this short moment, Norbert gazed right through the hole.

‘Go in!’ the officer urged himself, attempting to sneak in through the gap before the barrier…

‘FUCK!’

The barrier rejected him again. The pain caused by the clash of his ghostly form against said barrier nearly made Norbert black out.

‘Huh?’

One could expect the pain to be the main factor that made Norbert freeze in both his physical and ghostly forms. Yet, the truth was slightly different.

‘Isn’t this… Robert’s…’

Norbert failed to get inside the building. The barrier proved to be a bit too much of a challenge for him, especially when the officer lacked the means to even attempt breaking through.

What he achieved, though, was a quick glance inside. And while most of the shed’s insides were exactly as one would expect from what Norbert’s group learned from Robert and other survivors…

There was one girl that stood up on her legs, contrary to all the other people inside who were all down on the ground, appearing to be sleeping.

And this one girl, right when Norbert attempted to break through the barrier, looked up, right towards the crack the officer attempted to use.

“So it’s time,” the girl said, squinting her eyes as she kept her stare right on the crack in the roof.

‘What the hell was that?’ Norbert thought, panicked all over. He left his ghostly state to hang in the air, opting to return to his physical body right away.

He sat down on the ground for several hours without making even the slightest movement. As such, it was only natural that when Norbert attempted to stand up and rush toward the others, his body failed to meet up his expectations, making the officer trip on his own legs and fall right down to his face with a loud thump.

“Fuck,” Norbert cursed under his nose, raising up and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He then stood up and bolted forward, rushing towards the stairs.

‘I might be the only one without any fighting skills, but I’m still pretty athletic,’ the officer thought, squinting his eyes as he ran down the stairs. “And I will be damned if I will reduce myself to whining in the corner!”