The Police

"Suit yourself."

The Flame Crow Girl could tell what Sean thought, but she didn't press him. Honestly, she admired his courage in standing up to them. She wouldn't deny that a tiny part of it was because of his looks—he was exactly her type—but it wasn't enough to make her stick around.

She'd already finished what she'd come to Holkodo to do.

Next, she had to attend the Dawn Meeting.

She needed to find somewhere absolutely safe.

"I'm leaving. Keep your distance from them."

"Wait."

Sean raised a hand to stop her.

The girl paused mid-stride. Wind stirred the strands of hair by her ear, and she glanced back at him. "What? Want me to walk you home?"

Sean: "..."

That wasn't it.

"I don't know your name yet," Sean said.

"Want to repay me? Do it when you can enter the Void Arts Space." The girl lifted her fair neck, like a proud little swan. She left him with those words, lightly sprang into the air, and her graceful figure silently burst into flames, turning once again into a crow wreathed in fire. She flapped her wings and flew into the distance.

This time, she left no feathers behind.

"What even is the Void Arts Space?"

Sean stared blankly at the sky for a while, then gave a helpless laugh.

Had he... just been snubbed by that girl?

It made sense, when he thought about it. As things stood, he hadn't even fully awakened. He was just an utterly ordinary person.

On the other hand, to use spells like Illusionary Form, a wizard needed to have at least Tier Three control over magic. For a transformation like the girl's—crossing species and drastically changing her physique—Tier Four might be necessary.

And the girl looked quite a bit younger than him, around seventeen or eighteen. Clearly, she had great talent in the occult, and had every right to be proud—or rather, by the standards of the world he'd described in his book, she wasn't even that arrogant. Give that power to some guy with a more abrasive personality, and any dog that looked at him twice on the street would catch a Fireball Spell.

Tier Three marked the true threshold of the supernatural. It was the first point of balance between "science" and "the occult." Wizards at this tier could already stand up to most light firearms, and only those who reached Tier Three had any chance of surviving the Witch Hunt.

And "surviving" was only the beginning.

Sean left the alley and stopped at its entrance. He looked past the pedestrians streaming along the street and took one last, long look at the outline of Floris Hospital. Then he lowered his head, turned up the collar of his coat, and hurried toward the taxi stand.

Nine in the morning was rush hour in Holkodo.

It took Sean nearly an hour to get home.

His apartment was on the third floor. As soon as he stepped out of the elevator, he heard the sound of someone turning screws.

A repairman in blue-and-white overalls was replacing his door.

The short police officer, Burg, was there too.

When he saw Sean return, he immediately smiled and greeted him. "Good morning, Mr. Sean."

They'd arranged for the door to be repaired that morning, but Sean hadn't expected Burg to arrive so early. He pulled out his phone and saw that he'd missed two calls.

"I called earlier, but you didn't answer, so we came straight up," Burg explained with a smile. "I thought you were asleep. When I went inside to look for you, I saw you'd gone out. So I had the repairman get started on the door. I figured if he finished before you got back, I'd send you a text and have you pick up the key at the station."

"You know how it is around here. There's always some petty issue to deal with, and if we don't handle them, we get complaints. The sooner the door's fixed, the sooner I can get back to the station and take care of paperwork."

"Sorry," Sean said apologetically. "I was in a rush this morning and forgot to leave a note. I usually keep my phone on silent. I've held you up."

"No problem. I didn't wait for you, either." Burg laughed heartily. "You're the one with nerves of steel. You went out with your door unable to close. What if a thief had come in and taken something valuable? You'd have been in a panic."

"Don't be so careless next time."

"Will do."

Sean went inside. "I'll get you both a glass of water."

"No need. We're almost done." Burg waved him off.

The repairman set down his tools, removed his grimy white gloves, and grasped the doorknob. He closed and opened the door several times to test it. Once he was satisfied everything worked, he nodded to Sean and Burg, then crouched to pack up his toolbox.

"All done. If anything goes wrong with the door, just give me a call," Burg joked. "Lifetime warranty."

"Remember, lock the door next time you go out."

He patted Sean on the shoulder and went into the elevator with the repairman.

Sean watched them leave, thinking that the policeman was pretty cheerful—much more approachable than the stereotype, and easy to get along with, too... Wait.

Why had he said "too"?

The elevator doors slid shut. At the same time, the neighbor's door opened cautiously, just a crack.

A woman poked her head out and looked around. Once she saw Burg was gone, she quietly asked Sean, "Did you do something wrong?"

Sean smiled. "If I'd really done something wrong, would I still be standing here talking to you?"

"True." The woman let out a sigh of relief. "I opened the door to get my milk earlier and saw that policeman go into your apartment. He seemed to be looking for something and took quite a while to come out. I thought he was gathering evidence of your crimes."

Looking for something?

Wasn't he looking for Sean??

The smile on Sean's face suddenly stiffened.

"How long is 'quite a while'?" he asked.

The woman thought for a moment. "About half an hour?"

Sean: "..."

Now he knew why he'd said "too."

Another person using a friendly face to disguise himself!

"Never mind, forget about him. As long as you haven't done anything wrong, it's fine. That way, even if you end up in my bed, I won't be harboring a criminal." The woman didn't seem to notice Sean's change in expression. She shot him a flirtatious wink. "Handsome, my husband's been away on a business trip for a while and won't be back for a month or two, so... want to come over for some milk tonight? I'll heat it up for you myself."

"You've turned me down several times already. You should say yes at least once, shouldn't you?"

"I've got professional recording equipment at home, all set up. You can film me, then use the video to make me strike any pose you want. I absolutely don't want my husband to find out, of course~"

"Any pose?"

"That's right." The woman blinked her watery eyes. "I've even done yoga."

Sean: "Can you make yourself into a triangle? It's the most stable structure."

The woman: "?"

"That's too pointy. No good. How about something rounder? A backbend bridge, maybe? You can enter from either side..."

"Bang."

Sean answered her with the cold slam of his door.

The woman: "..."

"Look at you, acting all high and mighty."

Her warm advances had met a cold reception. She stood there awkwardly for two seconds, then huffed in annoyance. "So what if you're handsome? It's nothing special. One day I'll get you, have a son even more handsome than you, and then we'll see if you're still so full of yourself. Hmph!"

"Bang!"

She slammed her own door even harder than Sean had.

The woman didn't know that Sean was thinking of her best interests.

In every way.

First, Sean didn't want to ruin her family.

Second, if Quill and the others found out she was getting too close to him, her whole family could be in danger.

A little casual chat to keep the conversation going and maintain good relations with the neighbors was as far as he could go.

Sean had risked going to Floris Hospital to ask Chris some questions and verify a few things. Now that Chris was dead, he'd basically gotten his answers. Burg's two faces had confirmed it even more clearly—

He'd already been targeted by the hospital, and had been under their surveillance the whole time.

Sean went home and turned on the lights. A quick look around told him the living room was different from how he'd left it that morning.

Like many single men, he kept a messy home. It was hardly tidy. Usually, he only vacuumed and mopped; he never bothered to organize things. But even a mess had its own order. The placement of every cup, sofa cushion, tissue, and trash can reflected his habits. He noticed even the slightest change.

What's more, Burg hadn't even tried to hide it.

The most obvious sign was that the shards of glass and milk on the floor were gone.

If he asked Burg about it, Burg would surely smile and say, "I tidied up a little while I was here."

He might even joke, "I was doing you a favor, Mr. Sean. You're not going to report me for trespassing, are you?"

It was obvious he'd deliberately left these clues for Sean to find.

As luck would have it, right then, Sean's phone screen lit up.

Burg had sent him a text—

"Mr. Sean, I rushed off earlier and forgot to tell you—I'm a huge fan of your books. I've been a loyal reader for years. If I remember right, you've got a signing event in Old Sigel City on the first of next month, right? I've already put in a request with my supervisor to be assigned there as your security. You'll have to sign a few extra copies for me then. See you at the venue—don't be late. /smile /smile"

The polite smiley faces at the end of the message were especially jarring.

Sean stood in the living room, looking around. In that instant, the ceiling, which should have been only four or five meters high, seemed to rise, stretch, and turn, growing ever more vast, like a sealed sky. Somewhere beyond his reach, it felt as if pairs of eyes were watching him, smiling mockingly as they told him:

"Sean, you can't escape."