Kovishik stormed out amid everyone's laughter. His valet swiftly turned the wheelchair around and headed for the exit without looking back.
Chloe immediately got up to chase after him. Fatima called out to her twice, then turned and whispered a few words to the servant beside her. After listening, the servant hurried off in another direction.
"Is everything all right?" Hesta asked. "Would you like to go check on them?"
"It's fine," Fatima said. "That child has always been like this."
Trion let out a breath, and the two tufts of hair by his mouth twitched. "Kovishik has quite the temper. It was only a joke, what's the big deal... He's still a child too."
The others laughed again.
"Now that the irrelevant people are gone, we can talk about something else," Hesta said, looking at Victoria. "I haven't introduced her yet. This is my colleague, a remarkably talented Chelated Disease researcher, Victoria—"
"I've heard of you!" Trion immediately said. "You're the Quicksilver Needles who handled the District 3 Assassin case in District 3 the year before last, aren't you?"
Victoria looked somewhat surprised.
Hesta leaned closer and lowered her voice. "He helped Arevalo review the list of all prosecutor candidates."
"Oh! There's been so much going on lately. Whenever I worry about one thing, I forget another... The Assassin affair has the entire Nobility Academy in a panic. Even the Governor has been asking about it repeatedly—do you have any new information? Has the Assassin really come to District 12?"
"Without a doubt," Victoria said. "We've already caught traces of its movements..."
"It?" Fatima softly repeated the word.
"Internally, we use the personal pronouns for Chelated Beings when referring to the Assassin," Victoria said. "This time, the Assassin's targets are undoubtedly still certain nobles. You know, it has always