Tensions ran high in a certain studio.
Dyrk, the presenter of the interview paced across the room while holding his fist onto his mouth.
‘It shouldn’t be too bad, right? Two percent. That’s all I’m asking for. No, one point five percent is good too. Even one percent is good.’
The latest interview had aired.
Because of the accumulated nerves, Dyrk decided to stay out of the studio.
He knew the results would only show up once the interview ended. However, he couldn’t wait at all.
He was nervous.
So damn nervous.
“Damn it, how much more do I have to wait?”
Pausing, Dyrk checked the time and groaned.
Only five minutes had passed since the interview had aired. It almost felt like an hour had passed, and yet, it was only a few minutes.
The realization felt agonizing.
“Should I just knock myself out so that-!”
Clank!
With the sudden opening of the door, a figure rushed into the room. Frightened, Dyrk jumped back.
He was just about to protest when he noticed that he was familiar with the figure.
“Writer…?”
“Haa… Haaa…”
Holding onto several papers and breathing heavily, the writer of the show, Jack Bannali raised
his head and looked at Dyrk. There was a strange glimmer in his eyes as he looked up.
Holding onto a communication device, he raised it up.
“This…”
Struggling to get his words out under his heavy breathing, Jack took a deep breath before speaking at all once.
“It’s a hit! The interview! It’s blowing up!”
***
The final rating of the show ended up reaching a staggering 5.7%. This didn’t sound like much, but for a mere interview, this was a staggering number.
Not taking into account the fact that people who missed the live broadcast could watch it right after. The number of views was staggering.
The cadets from Haven became the topic of discussion for all those within the Empire.
In particular, a specific person.
“Huek.”
Leon’s face trembled as he held onto a communication device.
It was a strange sight.
While his face held no expression, his body would tremble from time to time as he would let out strange sounds in the middle of the class.
“…Kh.”
He wasn’t the only one.
Half of the class was behaving in the same way.
With all attention focused on a single figure, the strange sounds persisted throughout the lecture. They were loud enough to disrupt the lecture, but the Professor turned a blind eye to
it.
Because…
“The spell composition is highly dependent on the… Hoo… different types of runes that… K- eum, excuse me. It’s highly dependent on the different types of… Ho.”
Even he was struggling to maintain a straight expression.
Feeling the laughs and stares from all the cadets, Julien’s expression remained indifferent. It almost felt like he was completely unaffected by the laughs and stares.
Of course, that was merely on the outside. freewebnoveℓ.com
‘Leon, Aoife, Kiera, Professor Karlian, Kaelion? Is he laughing too? Amell? Leon’s brother? Oh, right. That guy is royalty. What was her name again? Leon’s sister-in-law? Andreas. Carmen.’
Julien was currently busy memorizing the faces and names of those who were laughing. He was currently writing a kill list.
If any of the people on the kill list ever were in mortal danger, he wasn’t going to save them. In Leon’s case, Julien was prepared to laugh at his death.
‘See if he laughs then.’
Julien ground his teeth while adding name after name to the list.
Eventually, his gaze paused toward a bright-eyed figure. With two deep yellow eyes, he was
hard to miss out.
Julien’s brows rose up at the sight of him.
‘He’s not laughing?’
This was a rare sighting.
However, when Julien thought about it, then it made sense.
Caius didn’t strike him as a person who would spend time watching that sort of stuff. He wasn’t even present during the live interview.
Of course, he wasn’t interested in watching the broadcast.
As Julien was about to nod at him, he realized something.
“Oh.”
Caius…
He had lost all of his emotions.
Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t laugh at him.
Thinking thus far, Julien didn’t know how to feel. In the end, he still wrote Caius’s name in the
list.
In his mind, he knew.
He was probably going to laugh at him too.
***
Swoosh-!
The curtains ballooned, casting a faint shadow as a silhouette emerged within the spacious office. The room was spacious, with a towering bookshelf filled with leather-bound tomes dominating one wall.
A grand window allowed light to pour in, illuminating the intricate carvings of the massive wooden desk that stood as the centerpiece.
It was currently dark outside, but the light from the chandelier at the top brightly illuminated
the room.
Behind the desk sat a man with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.
Pen in hand, Ivan held his head lowered while writing on a certain document. He seemed completely oblivious to the silhouette that moved silently right in front of him, casting a
faint shadow above him.
“….Hm?”
It was only then that Ivan stopped and looked up.
Raising his head, a faint smile spread across his lips.
“You’re back.”
“….I’m back.”
A voice, eerily identical to his own, echoed softly across the room. As the chandelier’s light
spilled over the silhouette, its features came into sharp focus-standing before him was an
exact replica of himself.
From the hair to the eyes, and even the faint smile on his lips.
Everything was identical.
“I’ve received the report. It looks like things didn’t go as planned.”
Putting the pen away, Ivan stood up and walked over to his clone. Pinching his chin, he looked
closely at it, examining it for anything out of the ordinary.
However, as he looked deeply, he found nothing strange and nodded.
“Alright, let’s see what happened.”
Pressing his hand against the forehead of his clone, Ivan closed his eyes.
Vivid images flooded Ivan’s mind, replaying the events that had unfolded in Haven. As the
memories cycled through, a faint frown slowly etched itself onto his face. He felt a strange sense of discomfort that he couldn’t quite put into place.
Opening his eyes, his frown only deepened. The clone had already disappeared and the only
person standing in the room was the original Ivan.
“Someone tampered with the memories.”
Although not clear, Ivan could tell that certain scenes he witnessed didn’t make sense. Of
course, while he was a little troubled by this development, he wasn’t shocked.
After all, he had expected this to happen from the start.
Turning his head, his eyes fell on a certain letter. He had received it early in the morning but
never had the time to open it.
It now seemed like an opportune time.
Riiip-
Retrieving a small knife, he tore the top of the letter and opened up the contents.
“Ah, as expected.”
His expression eased upon reading the contents of the letter. All it did was confirm his
previous doubts, and everything fell into place.
“It looks like there’s a chance the leader himself has made a move. Only he is capable of doing
something like this to one of my clones.”
This was big news.
It meant that the leader of the Inverted Sky was now within the Nurs Ancifa Empire. So long as
they played their cards right they could trap him and detain him.
“I’ll need to start formatting my case review.”
Rummaging through his desk, Ivan hastily looked through several papers. However, it was to
his annoyance that he couldn’t find what he wanted.
In the end, he had no choice but to call his assistant up.
“Clara, get me the case review papers on my desk immediately.”
For an operation as monumental as the one Ivan was planning, he needed a compelling
argument to sway the entire association, including the Royal Family and Central. To achieve that, he had to meticulously organize his evidence and present it convincingly.
Even as one of the Monarchs, he couldn’t justify ordering them to set up a net to hunt down a
figure whose existence was uncertain.
He had to make sure that he could leave no way out for the opposing side.
To, Tok-
Thankfully, his assistant was very efficient.
Shortly after Ivan issued the command, she entered the room with the papers in question.
Clara was a new assistant that Ivan had hired just a few months back. While he didn’t actually
hire her as that wasn’t his job, he had been rather satisfied with her.
She was efficient and never asked questions.
With short brown hair, thin-framed oval glasses, and a dusting of freckles across her face, she
had a slightly nerdy appearance-but one that carried its own unique charm.
“Here you go, sir.”
“Ah, thank you very much.”
Ivan hastily retrieved the papers and started to sort through them before eventually picking
up his pen where he began writing.
“You may go.”
Right as he started, he waved his hand to dismiss Clara.
“Yes, understood!”
Ivan expected Clara to leave, but just as she stepped away, she stopped.
“Ah, right! There’s something else I wanted to mention, sir.”
“Yes…?”
Frowning, Ivan turned around.
He didn’t quite like getting disturbed, but managed to quell his annoyance and spoke with an
even tone.
“You’ve received a package.”
“A package?”
“Yes, it’s rather big. I’ve checked the contents and it looks pretty safe.”
Clara held up a small wooden box, rectangular in shape and rather long. Ivan’s eyes scanned
the box, but he couldn’t sense anything unusual about it.
“Okay.”
Without thinking too much, Ivan retrieved the box and opened it.
He didn’t have any expectations when opening the box, thinking that it was just a common
gift, but the moment he opened the box, his face changed subtly.
“….Ah.”
It was a wine bottle. A well-maintained and luxurious wine bottle.
Ivan’s lips pressed together in a tight line as his gaze lingered on the bottle. His grip on the
box tightened noticeably.
After a few moments, he took a deep breath, managing to calm himself.
“Send this gift back. Tell them I appreciate the gift, but I can’t drink alcohol.”
“Ah? But this looks really expensive.”
With a surprised look, Clara took the bottle and closely examined it. Her brows jumped up as
she read the tag placed at the very front of the bottle.
“Wow, this Mount Eclair? Isn’t that one of the top brands? It would be a pity to send this
back.”
“It’s alright. If there’s anything that I don’t lack, it would be money. I just prefer to not drink.”
“Oh, I see. A pity. A pity.”
A pity?
Frowning, Ivan opened his mouth to lash out, but before the words could escape, he felt them
get abruptly sucked back in.
“… And here I thought you liked alcohol. After all, given your line of work, there must be
things you must want to forget, right?”
As if he had been struck by a thunderbolt, Ivan’s body froze.
Staring at his assistant who was casually admiring the bottle, Ivan felt his mouth grow dry.
She…
She couldn’t know, right?
It couldn’t be. It…
“Well, what a pity.”
With a simple smile, Clara placed the bottle in the box.
“I guess I’ll return it now.”
Turning to look at Ivan, she smiled and dismissed herself.
“I’ll see myself out.”
Clank!