I made it out of the Mage Association's without being accosted nor was Tamamo picked up on the Mage Association's radar beyond myself just having an unseen Familiar which was very much a normal thing to have.
From there I used my pass as a new enforcer to snag a couple of seats on an airplane heading to Las Vegas with Tamamo coming out of spirit form just with a minor illusion to hide her tails and ears so we could talk on the long plane ride.
But the plane ride made Tamamo uncomfortable due to the air pressure messing with her fluffy ears so we mostly had a short talk before I went to sleep so I wouldn't be too exhausted after the flight.
After the damned twenty-hour flight we had to go through I was damn near ecstatic to feel the hard ground beneath my feet... Up and till I walked outside, with the brutally hot and dry Nevada air hitting me in the face like I opened an oven.
"Alright Tamamo, I am going to get straight to things. The Calypso Magus family supposedly runs most of Vegas so I need to not step on their toes unless they themselves are the ones involved with the creation of Ghouls."
Tamamo's voice hit my mind as she was in her spirit form. As she herself fucking hated the desert heat apparently. "No problem! If they are making nasty ghouls we can round them easier with my charms and talisman's!"
Tamamo's confidence was nice for sure. But I smiled wryly and said. "If they are... Doing something so terrible, even if you are strong enough to fold the entire family in half regardless of the centuries they had to entrench themselves into the city. We still need to leave it up to Policies."
I shuddered at the thought of the Policies branch of the Mages Association. They were the ones who would coldly decide who lived and who died for the crimes against the Mages Association... Not to mention they were also part of the council that was involved with putting Sealing Designations on people.
"Not our job to deal with them in any case. It's just to confirm whether there is, in fact, Ghouls down in the underground if there are. Find out who is making them, and then if possible find all the missing homeless people."
Las Vegas was distinctly famous for its massive homeless population, and when literally hundreds and even thousands of them abruptly disappeared in the course of a couple of weeks? Even the mundane world had to pay notice to that.
'Just gotta hope it's not actually a higher-ranked Dead Apostle.' I mused as with Tamamo with so many tails, I honestly wasn't exactly worried about lesser threats now.
"Jake... Can we check out the casinos though?" Tamamo asked in wonder as she took in the massive casinos that made up Las Vegas's famous skyline and I gave a short hum before shrugging.
"Yeah, that won't be a problem. But lets go check the underground and sewers to see if we can find any clues. After that we can hit a nicer casino to take a shower and relax before night rolls around."
Checking the hot spots while the sun was still up would be the best idea as ghouls would be hibernating and in a lethargic state during the hours in which the sun was up.
Especially the same as a dead apostle as they would be hiding deep underground lest the sun fry their ass.
"Eww... I don't want the stink of the sewers to cling to my tails." Tamamo whined with her ears flopping downward in disgust at the thought.
I gave a wry smile as we kept walking past the countless people walking through the streets and I added. "Well when we get there, put a charm or something to surround your tails with magic or a barrier."
And Tamamo continued talking my ear off as she scolded me that a lady shouldn't be running around the sewers of all places...
With Tamamo muttering darkly. "Thank the goddess that you aren't so dull to make this our first date or something."
This awkwardly made me chuckle and keep silent in fear of Tamamo's righteous wrath of a scorned woman.
But we soon found one of the infamous floodgates where the homeless typically took shelter in the massive pipe leading to the underground... And as we took in the very creepily clean and clear front of the flood exit I asked Tamamo.
"Tamamo, do you have any spells that can divine what has happened with the people here?" As my Six Eye's with their amazing sight could pick up a great number of things...
Like tiny blood specks within the cracks of the concrete and I could count dozens of shattered and ripped-off fingernails where people were clearly dragged into the pitch-dark tunnels.
There was a hum from the fox miko with several paper talismans flying out of her sleeves only for her talismans to flicker and crackle with Tamamo growling. "Master! Someone has like... Flooded this area with a litany of spells! Like someone decided to cast literally hundreds of different spells here and it's throwing off my spells due to the sheer number of different spells cast here."
I frowned as that didn't make sense. Why would a mage be casting literally hundreds of different spells in this one area... They also made sure that his mana signature was also sticking to the area to overwhelm any divination attempts.
But in the end, I shook my head and said calmly. "Either way we can safely say a mage was involved with this. Let's continue on underground, we now need to find the mage workshop or more tracks of wherever the homeless people were taken."
I pushed more mana to my Six Eyes so that the darkness was no longer an issue with Tamamo's own enhanced senses allowing her to see in the dim darkness that was only broken by tiny dim LED lights on the wall as we headed into the sewer.
Hunting for whatever monster... Or man that was haunting the sewers of Las Vegas.