“Samael Kaizer Theosbane. You look… terrible. Like you haven’t slept in days. What’s the matter? Still can’t maintain a proper sleep schedule even after skipping basically all your classes?”
My eyebrow twitched.
I was seated on a couch in an extravagant office cabin — plush and over-decorated, the kind you’d expect from someone with too much taste and not nearly enough self-restraint.
Across from me sat a woman who looked to be in her early twenties. Maybe late twenties, if you factored in her caffeine addiction.
Her hair was as black as the sky on a starless night, flowing down her shoulders in loose waves. Her face was sharp, but there was a subdued warmth to it.
It was the kind of face that made you think she could either offer sage advice… or bury you alive with a smile.
Her beauty was as captivating as it was serene.
The only flaw in her appearance was those deep, baggy dark circles under her eyes that hinted at the sleepless nights she likely spent either grading papers or plotting mass murder.
A dark robe hung off her frame, and a pointed black hat rested atop her head.
She looked like an evil witch from a children’s fairytale — if witches smoked five cups of coffee for breakfast and had no filter whatsoever.
I smiled my most charming smile.
“And you look just as ugly as ever, you bitch!” —was what I wanted to say.
But I didn’t.
Because I value my life.
So instead, I said, “And you look just as beautiful as ever, Lady Valkryn.”
“Instructor Valkryn,” she corrected smoothly — but took the compliment.
“Right. So this isn’t a friendly chat between two high-nobles,” I laughed one of those mildly annoyed laughs you’d only hear from aristocrats. “Then why else did you call me here so early in the morning?”
“…Early in the morning?!” Selene repeated, her voice jumping an octave in disbelief. “It’s two in the afternoon, Lord Samael.”
I blinked. Then slowly turned to glance at the large grandfather clock ticking in the corner of the room.
It was, in fact, two in the afternoon.
“Ah,” I nodded languidly. “That explains all the sunlight outside.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What is wrong with you?”
“Aside from the fact that I’m too perfect to even make the gods turn green with jealousy?” I replied rhetorically, crossing one leg over the other. “Nothing.”
She didn’t laugh. Instead, she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk and lacing her fingers in front of her mouth. The motion made the shadows beneath her eyes darken.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
I shrugged. “Because I look too handsome to be left unsupervised?”
She gave me a flat stare that could’ve curdled milk. “Try again.”
I sighed dramatically and leaned back against the couch. “Because the world can’t handle my genius, so you took it upon yourself?”
Her silence stretched.
I waited.
And waited.
Eventually, I caved. “Okay, fine. I don’t know. Is it because I’m not attending my classes? Or maybe because I burned down a dorm wing and said I’d handle the reconstruction but still haven’t? Or could it be because I blackmailed a fellow Cadet or two?”
Selene didn’t even blink.
She just raised a brow. “No. It’s because, a few weeks ago, you submitted a debrief report on your first mission. It was written so poorly that a man having a seizure could’ve compiled it better. And when I called you in to talk about it, you ignored my messages!”
Her voice had risen by the end, the edge of her mug trembling slightly in her grip. I was genuinely surprised she hadn’t already turned me into a pile of ashes.
I held up both hands in a show of surrender. “Okay, to be fair, I wasn’t ignoring your calls. I was… spiritually unavailable.”
“You blocked my account!”
“I was preserving my inner peace.”
She inhaled slowly through her nose, clearly doing complex mental calculations to decide whether jail time was worth murdering a noble Cadet in cold blood.
I decided to intervene before she reached an answer I didn’t like.
“Look,” I said, shifting into a more casual sprawl on the couch, “it’s not you. It’s me. I’ve blocked the entire academy’s account. The press conference last week? I didn’t even know about it until the very end. And fine, I admit the report I submitted was a little… avant-garde.”
“You ended it with a haiku!” she nearly screamed.
I nodded. “To reflect the inner turmoil I felt on that mission. Poetic, no?”
Selene stared at me like I was a tumor. Then she waved a hand. “You know what, I don’t even care. You’re here because there’s an ongoing investigation.”
I frowned slightly. “Regarding Professor Rexerd’s disappearance? Yes, I know. I answered the Grandmasters’ queries earlier today, right before coming here.”
Selene shook her head. “No, not that. The investigation I’m talking about is for what happened in Ishtara. The Central Monarch is personally involved.”
…Ahh. I’d been wondering when I’d be brought up for questioning about that.
Selene’s demeanor turned ice-cold.
She leaned back on the couch, her tone shifting as she said, “According to your report — and multiple testimonies from second-year Cadets still stationed in Ishtara — the High Priest was found dead in an underground bunker.”
She paused to accentuate her point, then added, “But his body was discovered right at the entrance of his treasure vault. Someone used his corpse to bypass the biometric locks, looted everything inside, and vanished long before the second-years arrived at the scene.”
I waited a little before shrugging. “So?”
Her gaze lingered on me a heartbeat too long, sharp and suspicious. “So, in that same report, you mentioned the Overlord and High Priest were working together. And according to it, you followed them into the bunker.”
I smiled and started lying with confidence. “Are you suggesting I killed him? Because if you actually read that report, you’d remember I clearly stated I never made contact with the High Priest. I didn’t even enter the bunker. I couldn’t have killed him — much less robbed a treasure vault I supposedly had no idea existed.”
Her expression hardened. “That’s the problem. You say that — but the High Priest’s informant, the only survivor of the massacre that occurred in that bunker, swears you were there.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Does he?”
Selene continued without missing a beat. “The Central Knights took him into custody half-dead. The Central Monarch interrogated him personally. And throughout his ramblings, he kept repeating one name over and over — yours.”
I nearly laughed. “You mean the same informant I paid off and tricked with a fake promise of asylum? The same traitor who sold out his master, only to get double-crossed by me? Of course he’s bitter. He’s vindictive. He’s framing me.”
Selene’s lips curled into a smile. One of those smug, self-satisfied little smiles that screamed gotcha. “I thought the same. Unfortunately, the Central Monarch didn’t.”
There was a moment of silence.
I blinked. “…Come again?”
“The Central Monarch questioned him in the presence of an Inquisitor,” Selene said lightly. “Which means… he couldn’t have lied. Every word out of his mouth was crystal-clear truth.”
My grin faltered. Just for a second. “So now you think I’m the liar?”
“I don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “But Seraphina the Flame Queen — Monarch of the Central Safe-Zone — does.”
…This bitch.
She was bluffing.
For two reasons.
One — Seraphina the Flame Queen wouldn’t care if someone killed the High Priest and emptied his vault.
She must’ve known by now that the High Priest and the Overlord were mere puppets. And Ishtara was a stage.
What she really wanted… were the ones behind the curtain. The ones holding the strings of those puppets.
The Syndicate’s existence wasn’t supposed to be known yet. But the Monarchs weren’t fools. They all knew — somewhere in the shadows — someone was pulling the strings.
So why chase the marionette when you can go after the puppeteer?
And two — Seraphina wasn’t the type to waste time on Inquisitors.
She was a savage.
If she wanted the truth, she’d rip it out with her own hands.
Inquisitors were people with innate powers related to mind reading, truth compulsion, and things like that. But those powers all had limits.
And what didn’t have limits? Torture!
So, the Central Monarch was the type of woman to torture her prisoners, not interrogate them.
That’s why I knew Selene was lying to me.
She was watching me like a cat who thought it had cornered a particularly clever mouse.
I rolled my shoulders. “I don’t know what to tell you, Instructor. I’m not lying. I’m being framed.”
Her smirk widened. “Is that the story you’re sticking to?”
“Absolutely,” I nodded immediately.
She tilted her head. “Then you won’t mind proving it under a Debuff Card?”
I frowned. “A Debuff Card?”
Instead of answering, she raised her hand. A Card materialized in the air, woven into existence from swirling light particles. A glowing red glyph was etched onto its surface.
“This Card is called [Tell No Lies],” Selene explained. “It forces the target to answer questions truthfully.”
And as she continued, her smirk… got smirkier.
“It’s not quite as strong as an Inquisitor’s Origin Card, but since you’re still a [C-ranker]… it’ll work on you just as well.”
Damn.
I swallowed. My frown deepened. “W-Wait. Don’t you need a warrant to use that on a Cadet?”
“Relax,” she said, her voice sugar-sweet. “I acquired special permission from the Central Monarch.”
This fucking bitch!
She was obviously lying! Again!
But since I had no proof, I had no way to call her out.
“Now then,” she said cheerfully, “I’ll ask again — clearly this time. Did or did you not kill the High Priest?”
The glyph on the Card above her flared brighter.
And I felt it.
I felt her Card’s influence on me.
It was like something clawed its way into the back of my mind.
I felt exposed — stripped bare. I felt as if my every weakness, every secret, every insecurity— not that I had any, of course — was laid out for the world to see.
I clenched my jaw. I tried to keep my silence.
But a strange, splitting pressure started to build behind my eyes, making me feel like my skull would burst if I didn’t answer… truthfully.
I had no choice.
My mouth opened on its own.
And I finally said:
“I… didn’t.”