Vanason's heart pounded like a drum, and his legs felt as if they were filled with lead. Panic surged within him, urging him to bolt for the door and flee.
But his concern for Jeffrey's safety made him walk toward that door, one step at a time. At last, his trembling fingers closed around the brass handle.
The door was unlocked. A narrow, pitch-black crack yawned like an abyss. He gave it a gentle push—
The sight before him left him frozen in place. His blood nearly turned to ice.
The study.
Or rather, the place that had once been a study.
All he could see was a pitch-black scene that made his heart pound.
The walls, ceiling, and floor were entirely covered in a thick, scale-like layer of char, its dull sheen a sign that disaster had struck.
The bookshelves, desk, and chairs had all been burned to carbon. It was hard to imagine how terrifyingly hot the fire must have been for the furniture to retain its original shapes.
The mountain of books and papers had become a fluffy mass of black ash, ready to crumble at the slightest touch.
And behind the charred desk, curled up on the floor, lay a body that had also been completely carbonized, its shape barely recognizable as human.
It was about Jeffrey's size, but all its features had vanished. Like a badly fired clay figurine, it had been frozen in its final moment of pain and struggle.
Fire! There had been a fire here!
But... why?
Vanason looked around in horror.
The blaze had been so intense that everything in the study had been carbonized, yet... it had been confined to this one room!
The charred marks stopped abruptly at the edges of the study's doorframe. The hallway carpet outside was perfectly intact, without even a trace of smoke.
It was as if an invisible boundary had perfectly confined the terrible inferno to this tiny space.
This was no ordinary fire! It defied every law of nature!
Overwhelming fear seized Vanason. He stumbled backward, his stomach churning.
He had to call the police immediately. He had to get away from here, now.
For some reason, he thought again of Gallo's earlier divination. Gallo had said his divinations were highly accurate, even when he used a coin toss.
Jeffrey had indeed been in danger, but he was already dead. Vanason had come too late!
Just as he stepped out of the study and returned to the living room, still shaken, he suddenly froze.
Three people had appeared in the living room without a sound. He had no idea when they had arrived.
They wore similar dark gray trench coats. Their posture was erect, their expressions cold, like three statues cast in iron.
All three were staring at Vanason. Their eyes held no surprise or curiosity, only a frigid scrutiny that seemed to take in every detail.
A chill shot from the soles of Vanason's feet to the top of his head.
"Who... who are you? How did you get in?"
He was certain the door had been ajar when he came in, but the three of them hadn't been in the living room. Perhaps they had arrived much earlier and hidden in another room.
Could these three have had something to do with Jeffrey's death? Were they the killers?
The fact that Vanason was still standing took all the courage and strength he had.
The man standing in the middle, whose demeanor was the most austere, slowly stepped forward.
He didn't answer Vanason's question. Instead, he took a black document case bearing a silver emblem from his inner pocket and opened it in front of Vanason.
The emblem had an old-fashioned design: a sword and a long shield, with the Empire's black iron cross on the sword.
Vanason thought the insignia looked familiar, but he couldn't recall where he had seen it.
"Professor Vanason." The man's voice was steady and utterly devoid of emotion, carrying an unquestionable authority.
The fact that the man even knew his name made Vanason all the more uneasy.
"We are members of Clovin. From this moment on, we are officially taking charge of everything concerning Professor Jeffrey Gito."
"Clovin!" Vanason's mouth fell open, as if the name itself had some kind of magic that sucked the remaining air from his lungs.
His hand trembled as he removed the hat from his head, revealing his thinning hair. He pressed the hat tightly against his chest, making a nearly instinctive gesture of humility and submission.
He bowed respectfully, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "I'm sorry... sir... I didn't recognize the emblem on your document."
Now he remembered.
The sword piercing the long shield, and the conspicuous black iron cross at its hilt...
It was the emblem of the Iron Glory Empire's Imperial Security Committee. And the name of its core enforcement department, the one that truly chilled people to the bone, was Clovin.
In the Iron Glory Empire, you could complain about prices, privately mock a few government office workers, or even express mild disapproval of some government policy.
But as long as you were in your right mind, you would never utter the name "Clovin" lightly in public—or even in front of your most trusted friends and family.
It was the sword of Damocles hanging over the head of every Imperial citizen, an invisible specter haunting every city in the Iron Glory Empire.
It was everywhere, spreading across all the Empire's territories and even its colonies. Its members had the supreme power to arrest first and gather evidence later, and to dispose of people without a trial.
Terrifying stories about them circulated in private: their silent appearances in the dead of night, their methods for breaking people's minds in interrogation rooms.
And those who entered their headquarters, Lepest, and never came out again.
They not only eliminated foreign enemies but purged internal threats as well, defining what counted as "loyalty" and what counted as "treason."
Anything they considered a threat to the Empire's stability or secrets... whether a person or a book... would be ruthlessly erased, like chalk from a blackboard.
Now they had appeared here, in Jeffrey's apartment, where inexplicable death and uncanny horrors defied all reason.
In a daze, Vanason remembered a former colleague. He had no idea what "taboo" the colleague had violated, but Clovin's people had stormed into the school and taken him away. He had never appeared again.
Everyone at the school had instinctively avoided asking about it, as though the colleague Clovin had taken had never existed at all.
They didn't care whether he was alive or dead. They only feared getting involved with the colleague who had been taken away and becoming the next person Clovin removed from the school.
Vanason's Adam's apple bobbed. He felt as though he couldn't even swallow the saliva in his mouth.
The austere man was probably the leader of the three.
He showed no reaction to Vanason's reverent posture, simply putting away his document with an indifferent expression.
"Understandable, Professor Vanason. We generally prefer not to be recognized easily." His words were calm, yet carried more weight than any threat.
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