I followed Erwin into his office, passing by several Survey Corps members wandering the halls. Those who knew me avoided my gaze. Those who didn't, shot me a weird look. After all, if you saw an MP in the Survey Corps headquarters, it would not mean good news.

"How have you been, Hazura?" Erwin immediately dropped the pretenses, acting as old friends.

I shrugged in return. "Honestly, the MP did not give me a friendly greeting. However, things are now dying down and I'm buried in that case you sent me on."

"And how is that going?"

"We were getting somewhere until the playing field expanded into the Underground City. Now Nick and I are hunting around for some kind of way to explore the City without blowing our cover."

"Ah yes, Nick did mention that and I have a solution. Come in, Levi."

My eyes widened and I whirled around, coming face to face with Corporal Levi.

"We agreed to leave Levi out of this." I gritted my teeth and broke eye contact with raven-haired man.

"It was a wise decision at the time but since it has come to this, we don't have much choice. It is still your case, Hazura." I turned sideways, eyeing Erwin. He stood up as he finished his explanation.

"Either you continue floundering around hoping to find some lead that would help you in your quest down under, or you could simply ask Levi for some helpful hints that could cut all those potential weeks of effort out for you."

I looked down towards the ground and collected my thoughts. The whole point of me joining the MP was to keep Levi from his stubborn head where it shouldn't go. However, Eriwin did have a point. The chances of finding Isabelle's and Farlan's families were far from easy and getting Levi to help us would lessen our burden greatly. Also, with Levi under Erwin's direct command, Erwin could pull Levi out when he gets too close to the case.

"Would your first question be how you get back to the Underground City?" Levi's monotone voice spoke out. I moved my gaze to him, keeping a rein on my emotions.

"Yes. It would."

"I hate being an MP." I groaned, lowering my head to the table again with a smack. Nick smothered a hand over his own face.

"If you keep saying that, I'll begin thinking like you. And im an MP full-time."

"Sitting for a few hours doing paperwork, I get. But an entire day? That's insane." I shifted my head to the side to eye the papers lying innocently on the desk. Nick had gone to Erwin to retrieve what the Commander knew of Isabel and Farlan while I remained locked in the office, racking my brain for potential plans of attack. We had to find the Underground City hideout, find out who distributed the weapons, who they were distributed to, which MPs were part of it and who was the overall mastermind. Talk about a hefty list. I made a sound of annoyance at the thought and turned my face back to the wooden. Something light collided into the back of my head and I winced, spying the pencil continuing its course to the other side of the room. I sat up and shot a glare at Fuji. He narrowed his eyes in response.

"Shut up with the groaning, I get it. Now give me a draft of what you've come up with so far."

I cleared my throat to wake myself out of the dream-like state.

"So, if the families of Isabel and Farlan can be contacted, then we head down there and bond. Using that access, we see if we can help any further and try to catch wind of any of the weapon activity. We find out the hideout and find someone that is willing to keep a tabs on it. After that, we keep an eye on any of the distributors above-ground and see who they sell to. Hopefully, this would also lead us to which MP officers are corrupt and the whole mastermind."

"Ten loaves of bread that the mastermind made it so we couldn't track the whole thing back to him."

I smirked. "I'd lower that bet to only 5 loaves of bread, partner. Despite everything, the mastermind has to somehow keep tabs on their current operations. You cant just give a shitload of money to the distributors and expect them to follow your orders. You have defenses, silent forces that force the lower levels to cooperate. If we can find out exactly how they are keep tabs or how they keep things running accordingly, then we can trace it back to them."

Fuji sat up straighter. "And how do you know this exactly?"

I sighed. "Come on Fuji, think about it. If you gave me ten coins to get you a tray of potatoes, what says that I don't just take the money and do a runner? Either the money is much better than we predicted, the lower levels receive some kind of unseen benefit or blackmail." I ticked the options off my fingers. Nick leaned back into his chair, crossing his arms.

"Well if it's the Toria gang that we're up against, according to your friend's-"

"-acquaintance." I abruptly corrected.

"-acquaintance's information, then the most plausible option would be that they receive some kind of unknown benefit. Gangs never seem to think that a lot of money is enough money and also finding blackmail against a notoriously known street gang isn't going to be easy."

"Blackmail is possible with anyone but yeah, you're probably right. Blackmail would be much more difficult to sustain and giving them a benefit. Especially if you get a giant profit from these operations. A small cut would be enough to keep them in line."

"So if we can find their trigger-"

"-we can find the source."