Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to Akhenaten who had suddenly screamed so violently.
“Akhenaten!” Bellona gasped upon seeing him suddenly being pushed down to the ground by a couple of men in black suits and guns from down the hallway that had entered through the door.
Sebi was quick to respond as he outstretched his hand and sent the guards flying backwards. Misharu rushed over to Akhenaten, helping him up while the taller groaned in agony.
“My back hit the floor, now it hurts so bad,” Akhenaten complained as his body slung over Misharu, who was supporting him.
The men started to get up again and aimed their guns at the young adults to shoot. Sebi was quick to stop the bullets before anyone could be hit and forcefully pried the guns out of their hold then threw them behind him, while Necomir swiftly rushed in to knock them down with swift chops down their napes.
It happened so fast that when the men were knocked out and unable to do anything, Necomir stood their in stunned silence. He knew Sebi was very powerful, but his speed and alertness was really something commendable.
But then again, this was also someone who managed to deal with an armed arsonist.
“Are those human?” Sebi tentatively asked as he hid behind Necomir and stared at the men curiously. Although he can hear the buzz of their minds, robots in this era were also intelligent enough not only to serve as training companions for telepaths, it also allows them to be more precise in dealing with their functions such as security, production, management, etc. so he was unsure if they were human or artificial intelligence.
Chunmi walked over and touched the men. She shook her head and said, “They are robots.”
Bellona was quivering with rage, her voice low and shaky as she said, “I swear… th-this is too much! They even reached the point of hurting us!”
“Bell, hey…” Akhenaten reached out and touched her back. “Calm down, it’s alright–”
“It’s alright?!” Bellona snapped at him. “Because of my stupid family, your back is hurt!”
Akhenaten couldn’t say she was wrong and that he was not displeased, so he could only shut up and stare at her helplessly.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Misharu mumbled. “For people like your parents, I doubt they will let us be just because Akhenaten was hurt.”
“You’re right,” Necomir nodded. “And besides, these guys are more clues.”
He bent down and probed at the get-up of the man. After a while, Necomir took out a plain, metallic card with only a logo of what seemed like a butterfly at the center.
“I’m betting these people are part of what happened during the investigation,” Necomir said as he flashed the card at his friends.
“Who do you think they are, then?” Akhenaten wondered.
“I’m certain that they might be people who are directly related to the deaths of the Carvalhos, and they have something they want to retrieve from the crime scene before anyone can figure out that their organization has something to do with their deaths,” Necomir explained. “But it’s just a rough guess.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“That’s actually very good,” Sebi nodded. “Chunmi, you haven’t looked into all the data, right?”
Jtecwl cbvvfv. “Ktfgf’r ralii atf olif obg Pjgj jcv atflg rbc.”
“Ktfc, ifa’r mbcalcef bc klat atf rfjgmt,” Rfmbwlg rjlv.
Snfgsbcf kfca yjmx ab kbgx. Qtlif Jtecwl regofv atgbeut atf ibur, Vfyl wjvf tlr kjs bea bo atf gbbw jcv rfjgmtfv atgbeut atf batfg gbbwr rlcmf tf kjcafv ab wjxf tlwrfio erfoei.
Sebi remembered their early hypothesis about James Carvalho needing drugs for emotional stability, so he made that his point of reference and set off to look for any bottle of pills within the vicinity.
Remembering about the room where he and Necomir had woken up in, Sebi guessed it was probably the master’s bedroom shared by the couple. Feeling a bit hot from the strangeness of the coincidence, he rushed back and started looking for drugs in the room.
Sebi didn’t know what he was expecting, but the drugs were actually easy to find. They were hidden inside a drawer of the bedside table, looking as simple and mundane as the vitamin supplements that he had to ingest.
Maybe Sebi was expecting something more… suspicious? Something more obscured which can hint of the shadiness of the substance?
This made Sebi shake his head as he gripped the bottle of pills. He had a feeling in his gut telling him he needed to find something more suspicious.
And so, Sebi turned the room upside down, using his telekinesis to sense objects in discreet places. It took him a while, until he suddenly pushed away the bed and saw a little trap door on the floor beneath.
Stretching his hand out and touching the door, Sebi could sense a few bottles underneath. He needed a lock to open it, but decided it would take him longer to do so.
In his brute way, Sebi stood up and rubbed his hands together. Preparing himself by shaking his arms around, Sebi then focused on the door and pried it open.
It was made of metal and reinforced with even more metal, not meant for just anyone to access at all, making Sebi certain this was something very important to the case. It was unbearably hard to open, making Sebi sweat all over.
When he finally managed to force it open, Sebi made a little squeal in surprise and toppled backward as he lost balance, fortunately against the bed he had shoved to the side instead of the floor.
Once Sebi got his bearings again, he stood up and walked over to the trap door. He peered inside and saw five clear bottles of purple substances. He reached inside and took out one, bringing it up to the light to see what was written on the label.
“…” Sebi sighed helplessly, unable to understand the foreign language that the label was written in.
With the acquired items, Sebi hurried back to his friends and handed it to them with a proud little smile.
Necomir gazed at him for a few more moments after taking the bottles from him. The expression on the little hatchling’s face was clearly that of someone asking for praise, so Necomir decided to say, “Good job.”
It had the intended effect. Sebi grinned as he obediently sat to the side in order to hear what his friends had discovered.
“This is Leonard Carvalho’s log, based on the tracker his parents put on him,” Chunmi announced, reading off from the screen. “It’s basically just a log of him going to and fro school, with the exception of a major incident where he had to be admitted to a hospital specializing in children who were ability users.”
Bellona suddenly clicked her fingers. “We have another theory.”
“Let’s hear it,” Necomir prompted her.
“It’s quite obvious, but it has to be said that we now have two candidates for the use of those emotional stabilizers,” she said. “It’s either James, or little Leonard whose powers have manifested and has become erratic.”
“Are we sure that Iara Carvalho is not an ability user?” Misharu wondered.
“It’s public knowledge that she doesn’t have an ability,” Necomir said.
“Unless…” Misharu mumbled.
But before he could finish his train of thought, Chunmi suddenly chimed in, “Iara Carvalho can’t escape suspicion, too. Her log shows that she was constantly leaving the planet towards the asteroid belt to deal with space pirates bothering Yezuno.”
“But isn’t that just normal for a minister of Intergalactic Affairs?” Akhenaten said. “Necomir, doesn’t your dad do that all the time?”
“My dad is Minister Marshal, he is in-charge of security across the star system from intergalactic terrorists. A minister does the office work and the politics,” Necomir corrected him. “Although, for a small planet like Yezuno, I guess a minister will have a bit more work to do.”
“Those bottles that Sebi found,” Bellona gestured to the bottles in Necomir’s hands. “What do those say?”
“This one is for emotional stability,” Necomir said as he shook the corresponding bottle. “This one…” he turned the bottle and furrowed his eyebrows at the label. “…is in a language I don’t know.”
“Those might be in Chinese,” Sebi offered, recalling the characters and matching it to the same characters that he had seen from records before in his past life.
Akhenaten walked over and took a single glance before grabbing the bottle, saying, “It’s Japanese. Let me read them.”
He began reading the label out loud in Terrarian Latin, helping Chunmi search for the meaning of the scientific words on the Stellar Web.
“No match,” Chunmi said, scrunching her nose in frustration. “Did you read it wrong?”
“We can try it in Japanese,” Akhenaten offered, taking control of the computer.
Even in the original language, there were still no matching results.
“Maybe… let’s try the words inside the other boxes, the ones with the percentages?” Misharu said. “I have no idea what those words mean since they are too scientific and not within any of our areas of specialization, but the placement of the words on the table look like the ones to the right are the components of the ones to the left.”
“Then let’s try that,” Chunmi said.
Misharu turned out to be right. The words they used this time turned up matching results that were familiar to Necomir, whose eyebrows scrunched up upon seeing the composition of the components.
“Enhancing agents?” Necomir spoke. “Those are similar to the ones used by military personnels during battles to enhance their abilities. Only the military can be issued with this kind of substance.”
“What if… James Carvalho was trying to increase his power?” Bellona said. “Didn’t you guys say his log included dealings with people from the firearm industry? Maybe he wants to dominate them by showing that his power transcends his wealth and capability? Or, maybe he wants to show them that his metal telekinesis is also powerful enough? Planet Helldrum, after all, is a planet ran by the strong.”
“But James had only been in contact with them two days before his death,” Akhenaten said. “That couldn’t have been enough time to cultivate something bad… right?”
“Who knows,” Chunmi shrugged.
“Alright, so let’s get this straight first,” Sebi said, clapping his hands together. “James is in possession of emotional stabilizers and substances with enhancing agents. He has dealings with the firearm industry, but if had only been two days before his death. Little Leonard’s ability has manifested and is a bit erratic, so he has been hospitalized for a week. Meanwhile, Iara has been leaving the planet to deal with space pirates.”
“Yes,” Bellona nodded. “Now our question is, who among these three was the cause of the murder of the family?”
Everyone exchanged uncertain gazes, thoughts wild with presumptions that they were not sure of. James seemed to be the one in possession of suspicious things, but Sebi had found them in the couple’s shared room, so it cannot be said that Iara was entirely clear from this. Leonard was also a heavy suspect, since the hospitalization proved that the manifestation of his powers might have been severe.
Sebi scratched his ear uncertainly as he spoke up, “Is it… James Carvalho?”
“Leonard also does not seem too far off as the one responsible for their deaths…” Bellona grumbled in frustration.
A clear, haunting chuckle resonated through the room, enough to send chills down everyone’s spines. Only one person was capable of such a laugh, thus everyone turned their heads to the culprit.
Sebi nudged the lunatic to the side to make him stop.
“Stop that, weirdo,” Sebi mumbled at him, making displeased faces at him
Misharu made a face back at him and cleared his throat.
“It’s Iara Carvalho. She killed her family.”
Author’s Notes:
Oooh~ I wonder what is the significance of this in the plot~
Thanks for the chapter! AHHHH, I wonder how this ties up into the plot itself. Hngg. Looking forward to more developments. <3 <3
thanks for the chapter! <3
Misharu’s evil laugh is so funny 🤣🤣🤣