Severin felt as if he had been slapped.
The air froze in his lungs and ice filled his blood.
Celia?
Severin wanted to turn to the door and run out of his dorm to the female dorm, but he held himself back with every ounce of strength he could muster.
"I must not be rash. It might be exactly what the culprit is waiting for."
He took a deep breath, steadying himself.
"Celia must still be alright, or else I would be staring at her body right now instead of this."
The team leader noticed that something was wrong with him and asked, "Do you know what that name means?"
Severin nodded calmly. "This is the name of my House member."
Sharpened gazes turned to him.
"This is the name of a new victim? Take us to her place, quickly."
Two security guards stayed behind with the body while three, including the leader, followed Severin.
He was just short of running as he rushed out of the dorm and to the other side where the female dorm lay. His head was filled with different thoughts, furious thoughts that collided and made his head heavy.
"Someone is targeting me, and I can only think of one organization. Or is it another? But still, this method of death is familiar. I’m sure the author wrote about it. This is my clue."
They swept into the hallway and rushed to her room.
They didn’t need to kick it open because they found it already wide open.
The room was messy.
It was too late.
One part of the room was scorched black as if a flash fire had swept the area.
And there was no Celia.
Severin’s heart missed a beat.
Fuck.
The security guard leader walked into the room cautiously, his hand glowing with blue light. He searched the room quickly, then crouched beside the scorched area and placed his hand on it. "It wasn’t long."
Severin gritted his teeth, and his eyes narrowed to slits. He felt like a fool. He’d been going around pulling strings, and then his own subordinate was taken from under his nose.
It was pathetic.
His most powerful strength was his brain, and someone had just toyed with him.
The anger that started to flow through him guttered to a stop. What use is anger? It would only distract him. He needed to think.
If the culprit had purposely led him to Celia’s place, then it must be someone who wanted to play. There must be a clue left behind.
Severin spread his perception as far as he could and swept the whole room. He found little except for scattered things, but one thing stood out.
A paper.
The world doesn’t really use paper that much, especially for students.
He walked toward it, carefully placed among the clothes thrown around. He picked up the crumpled paper and unfolded it.
Something was written on it.
"Who next? Congratulations, you have earned my attention, and now I must make you listen to me. Write the name of the next person on your window, and so shall it be. If you don’t or try to play tricks, then I will make you sorry."
Severin frowned.
"What is that?"
Severin handed the paper over.
The guard leader frowned. "What the fuck. Just who did you piss off?"
☆☆☆ ☆☆☆
Just as Severin predicted, he didn’t get any sleep that night.
Because he was arrested.
He was now the primary suspect and the number one next victim, so they took him to the security building. He wasn’t put in a prison, but he was still confined in a room.
Then they did the interrogation with the use of a rune formation that supposedly detected lies.
In the world, there was no technique or spell that could detect lies just by speaking them. But the formation would scan the body at all times, and any changes in brain waves, heart rate, and body movements would be enough to tell lies from truth.
Severin knew it.
A beam of light was put directly in his face so much that he could only hear the voice of the interrogator but not see him.
"Do you know Celia? What was she to you? There are rumors that she’s your lover."
Severin wanted to raise his brows at their tactics. They were throwing a bunch of questions and intentional falsehoods just to confuse him and let his guard down.
"She is my House member." Straight and to the point.
"What did you know about her disappearance?"
"I know that she wasn’t in her room when we got there."
The interrogation continued like that, from relevant questions to irrelevant ones. Severin answered all of them calmly, as if he were talking about the weather.
If Severin hadn’t been in such a bad mood, he might have tried to play up his innocence even more because right then he sounded like a machine, devoid of any emotions.
Even his eyes were lost of light.
The interrogation didn’t go as they wanted, especially for the interrogator, because at some point he kept quiet and another person took his place.
It was an aura that Severin expected. He looked into the beam of light that was shining into his eyes. "Head Instructor Darius Faulkner."
A pause.
"You can tell it’s me?"
"I can. There are not that many people who have your same kind of pressure, sir."
Darius chuckled. "I see." Then his voice sharpened. "Then I’m glad you are not my enemy, because there are not lots of people who can tell I’m there without seeing me."
Severin read the threat there.
"So tell me, Severin Reignhart. What do you know about the Scar organization?"
Severin blinked. "The Scar? They were the ones that wanted to kill us in the dungeon. Oh! They also destroyed the research facility, right?"
Darius didn’t speak for a while. "I don’t know, but there are now four cases and you are in the middle of it all?"
"Four?" Severin asked.
"The research facility, the dungeon, and now this. Also, we have reason to suspect the event where all your previous class members were kidnapped."
Severin grimaced internally.
Yes, that’s a lot.