"We'll be having our emergency meeting now regarding the serial killings that are happening in this institute. I am Knox Valdis and I'll be the one who will lead this joint investigation." The man looked towards Kayne's direction like a warning before continuing. "I would like full cooperation from all of you with correct reports without any omissions from the truth."
The meeting ended with little events except for the obvious hostility Knox is throwing at Kayne.
"It's been a long time since we came here. What should we order at the cafete—"
"Sorry, I need to do something."
Kayne left Koiren hanging on his sentence. It only took a few seconds for him to completely disappear from Koiren's sight as he dashed his way out, abandoning the stupefied friend.
He's planning to make an investigation of his own under the authority of Regulus. For some reason, he feels itchy at the degree of malice Knox Valdis is showing in the meeting earlier. He's wary and careful about something, the type of person who always has a rotten side to hide if it's based on his grandfather's standards.
He secretly tailed Knox.
The head investigator met with a student from the institute and gave the student a small box. The student received the box with a smile and thanked Knox. Curious about what the box was, he watched the student a few more minutes from afar, wishing that he'd open the box to confirm its content or do something that was similar.
But the student did not.
Kayne, frustrated, went back to the headmaster's office.
"Young child?"
"Let me ask, do you know a green-haired student that wears thick lenses?"
"A green... There are a lot of students here, young child. If you say thick lenses, I can think of more than a hundred. The same with green hair. And there's also the possibility that they wear that eyeglasses for the specific occasion or someone altered the color of their—"
"A head shorter than me, with hair parted in the middle. At first you'll think he's shy, but he can hold a conversation with someone—this!" Kayne immediately took the picture of the person he saw with Knox lying on the Headmaster Stanz' desk.
"Who is he? What are these?"
He scanned the other pictures as well that is in there.
"They are the students who went with your father's last expedition."
"Sorry, I need to do something."
He got a bad feeling about Knox and the student. Why did he not examine the students affiliated with his father first? He will blame his hastiness if something happened to the student.
"I received the pictures too earlier."
Kayne stopped at his track. Iris Engelard? Did he took control over his body again?
"Just call me Ris. I'll be speaking in your mind from now on. You know, I am also quite curious about this case."
"Can you please get out of my head? I am busy."
"How can you say that to the person who keeps you in a good condition?"
Correct. Without Engelard watching over Kayne, the boy already berserked long ago. Him, stabilizing and guarding Kayne's original core that controls time from corrosion of other core fragments he mindlessly ingested as a porridge, made it possible for the child to not turn into a monster. In return, Kayne can control other domains that belong to the cores he took inside his body. Sadly, although he can read runes. Kayne can't write his own rune magic, much to Engelard's disappointment.
"And what happened to the deafening screeching sound you always make before? You love making yourself sound scary."
Engelard laughed. It's nothing but a way for him to amuse himself from time to time. Testing the waters known as Kayne.
"Call me Ris," he repeated.
Kayne noted it but did not reply to him anymore. He already saw his target and walked straight to him. In a swift motion, he showed his card, stating that he's a researcher from Lucian's company. "Kayne Fenriz. May I talk to you for a while? This is urgent."
The student looked at the card shown to him and nodded his head. "Hmm, okay. Let's talk here."
Kayne looked on his left and right to check the area if there were other investigators around, especially Knox.
"I would prefer it if... hah." He sighed and breathed deeply.
"Honestly, I dislike talking with strangers."
Kayne nodded in agreement. He knows it. Even him won't trust a complete —
"You did with Rigel," Engelard interrupted.
Rigel aside, he can't trust anyone completely. He still has a thin wall of doubt with the Regulus family until now and a room for suspicion to people around him.
"May I know what you want to talk about?"
"Name?"
"Daniel Lois von Malcolm. Now, please answer my question. I guess you didn't run here only to ask for my name."
Kayne stared at Daniel. He doesn't know what to say. Should he check the content of the box first or brief him that his life is in danger? If he tells him any of those two, how can he answer why? His hastiness on this day knows no bounds. Very unlike him, who always tries to grasp the whole situation first before making a large move. Will his approach to Daniel alert the perpetrator? But he's uneasy that these events have something to do with Rigel. He wants to find him as soon as possible.
In the middle of his chaotic thoughts, a familiar voice called his name.
Like a frozen human thawed by the sudden warmth that a comrade came to rescue, Kayne glanced back to see the smiling face of a fiend he considered as a friend.
He's running like a rabbit towards him that would make people think that the person is weak. But thinking back to how he saw him deal with the drug dealers before, he can't help but be wary of the unknown about that person.
"Oy, Kayne, pretty boy! I found you."