Because it was still raining outside, Victor took an umbrella before leaving the dormitory building. He also put on a raincoat and pulled up its hood to shield his face from the rain beating against it.
This was something he had learned after coming to Gotham: on Gotham's rainy nights, umbrellas could not completely keep out the rain. At least, no umbrella except Schiller's could.
Victor stepped outside, intending to see who was wandering around the faculty dormitory building so late at night.
He thought it might be a student who had gotten drunk at a party. Such things happened often at Gotham University, and if no one intervened, the student might freeze to death on a typhoon-ridden rainy night.
Victor circled around the dormitory building and followed the side path to the windows, but there was no one there anymore.
He examined the ground and found no obvious footprints. However, there were faint traces of movement near a puddle beside the path.
Following those traces westward, Victor realized he was already nearing Gotham University's laboratory building. He frowned, but there was no tension on his face. Clearly, he had been prepared for this.
Suddenly, a bang came from the second floor of the laboratory building. Victor carried his umbrella inside, hurried to the second floor, and saw a stranger frozen into an ice sculpture in the corridor.
He clearly was not a student. Aside from being the wrong age, he was dressed nothing like one.
He wore a blue uniform and a white hood, both trimmed with a ring of fluffy fur. He looked somewhat like one of the Inuit people. He also wore blue goggles with two black horizontal bars across the lenses.
That outfit made Victor pause. Even in Gotham, it qualified as bizarre attire.
Victor glanced