Threat

"Still, that was only a classification method based on where they originated, meant to make combat easier," Liz continued. "Since Secondary Chelated Beings were foreign invaders, they were usually unfamiliar with the local people, affairs, and terrain, making them relatively easy to eliminate. Primary Chelated Beings, on the other hand, had lived at the site of the incident for a long time and knew the area well, so they were better at hiding, more cunning, and harder to fight."

Hesta understood. "Was it the same on the wasteland?"

Liz froze for a moment, then shook her head.

"The situation on the wasteland... how should I put it? It was different.

"There was no need to distinguish between Primary and Secondary Chelated Beings on the wasteland. Even if you did, it would be meaningless. For most wastelands, by the time someone realized Chelated Disease had already invaded, it was too late. Some people tried to flee, while others stayed where they were and waited until everyone fell ill, one after another.

"But if word arrived in time, and Quicksilver Needles and the United Government teams could get there before the outbreak spread to everyone, they could provide treatment and relocation—but maintaining that line of communication was costly, because there was no electricity on the wasteland. Everything depended on horses and people.

"When an entire wasteland fell ill, it was called a Chelated Tide," Liz said softly. "Still, hunting Chelated Beings in places far from towns often came with fewer restrictions than in Habitable Zones, so it was easier to deal with."

Hesta had already realized her question had been a little inappropriate. This somewhat cruel answer reflected Liz's own experiences. She had needlessly stirred up someone else's memories and pain.

Liz fell silent for a while, then snapped the book shut and casually set it aside. "Take out your computer."

"...What for?"

"I'll help you encrypt it first. I should've done it yesterday, but there were too many things going on and it slipped my mind..."

Seeing Hesta's baffled expression, Liz briefly explained the reasoning to her.

"So that means Shawn might be able to see what I do online?" Hesta asked.

"Theoretically, that was possible. But the base had disabled all of Shawn's devices these past few days, so he probably didn't have the tools."

Hesta pondered for a moment. "...All right. Give me a second."

For several days in a row, Shawn was unable to use Calvin's computer—Calvin had simply placed his computer in the base library.

And the two of them had never been locked in a cold war for this long. Several times, Shawn tried to start talking again under the pretext of some everyday matter, only for Calvin to avoid him just as he was about to speak.

After several failed attempts to test the waters, Shawn gave up—he finally realized that unless he was ready for a long talk with Calvin, there was no way he could pretend that conversation had never happened.

He felt resentful, but had nowhere to vent it. Calvin had begun preparing for their first field combat mission next month, yet for the first time ever, he had not dragged Shawn along to train. Shawn simply used every excuse he could think of—sick leave, personal leave—to skip all kinds of short simulated battles. To his surprise, the base approved every request.

All at once, he had plenty of time on his hands.

About a week later, the base suddenly raised his credit rating again, from D to C-. Although Order Officer Molly personally spoke with him and warned him to turn over a new leaf and behave himself, the raised rating meant that both he and Calvin could move back into the student dormitories.

This had made Shawn wary for a short while. After leaving the observation zone, he did not go looking for trouble with Hesta for several days.

But Shawn soon figured out what was behind it—from that week onward, large crowds of civilians began gathering outside the base. They chanted, "Set her free," while holding high portraits of Hesta with her flaxen hair. With nothing better to do, Shawn stood in the main building near the front gate and looked down at the spectacle as though watching a show.

From his own experience, he caught the scent of an attempt to keep the peace. Molly, and likely the base's higher-ranking leaders as well, did not want—or were even afraid of—a news story breaking at this time about someone bullying Hesta inside the base.

But Shawn was not afraid.

Not long after Shawn moved back into the student dormitories to "recuperate" from "diffuse headaches," he found a perfect opportunity to slip into Mrs. Lavette's first-floor duty room: Mr. Weir assumed she had been driven half mad by the demonstrators lately, so he invited her to drive into the city with him one afternoon. They would leave at one and return before five.

Only, in the email, Mr. Weir had not specified exactly which day—it would depend on how much work he had left that week.

But that was no challenge for Shawn. Every day after noon, he moved a chair beneath the corridor window and sat there reading. The L-shaped path outside the dormitory was usually empty at midday, and whenever a figure passed below, he raised his hand to check the time.

Before long, he spotted Mrs. Lavette heading out in full dress. She wore a pale yellow solid-colored coat over a floral dress, a straw-green gauze flower tied to the hat on her head, brown low-heeled shoes, and carried a small black handbag.

Shawn watched Mrs. Lavette disappear around the end of the path, then began estimating the time against his watch. He imagined her slowly crossing the entire base to reach the underground parking lot on the west side, where she would meet Mr. Weir. The two of them would sit in the car and, with the engine starting, travel farther and farther away from here.

Once the distance in his imagination had passed the point where she might think, I left something at the dormitory. I need to go back, Shawn closed his book, went downstairs as if by chance, came to Mrs. Lavette's door, and swiped the electronic lock open with a universal card he had prepared beforehand.

Mrs. Lavette's computer password was very simple: Lovett4576_

This was probably the most perfect password she could devise. It contained uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and a special symbol. The only problem was that Mrs. Lavette's computer account was also named Lovett4576.

But on the bright side, she would never lock herself out of the system because she had forgotten her password.

Shawn skillfully pulled up the window he needed. Very soon, his eyebrows lifted slightly—Hesta's accessible search data stopped at around nine o'clock on Sunday night the week before last.

It seemed Liz had already upgraded her protection.

Shawn typed in new commands with interest to view Hesta's handful of search records. This was probably the only thing in the past week that had managed to pique his interest, and the corners of his mouth had already lifted slightly.

However, that malicious smile soon froze on his face—although Hesta had opened a great many pages, the search topics she entered were all extremely concise:

How could she buy a small knife suitable for concealment?

How could she fabricate an alibi?

If someone under the age of twelve intentionally killed someone and was discovered, what punishment would they face?