—

“Good for you Sir Arnold, you can take these bead and have the Intelligence Department to study it’s components so that we could also give it to our forces.” Raven turned his head towards Arnold and gave him a huge hint.

Arnold felt like he was struck by lightning and hurriedly took out a case from spatial ring and preserved the poisonous beads so that he could present it upon reporting back.

“See? This is why I love working with big mouthed individuals. I hardly did anything and they will scramble to give me what I want.” He flashed a very sweet smile as he looked towards Boar, whose mouth is dribbling with blood.

Oh how he regretted provoking this little devil. For a second he thought: ‘What’s up with these kids nowadays? Is it just me or they’re becoming more and more devious like this one in front of me? Damn it Mom! Why did I inherited your ‘Big mouthed’ trait!?’

Just as they thought that Raven was done, well he wasn’t. He looked down on Tiger and said: “Poor you. Thinking that you are the leader of this little group. Must’ve felt quite exhilarating right? Oh how stupid…”

“What nonsense are you up to kid!” Tiger felt extremely provoked by his words but got no reply from Raven, instead he saw him crouching down in front of Snake and suddenly, he felt a huge pang of defeat in his heart.

“Well well…” Raven clicked his tongue as he stared at the mask of Snake. “I can’t believe that a little disciple like you will end up here. Quite a big catch isn’t it?”

Without any further warnings, he ripped the sleeves of Snake. As his wheat colored arm were exposed to everyone, so was a scar that made Old Lee, Arnold, and Jackson flashed their killing intent once more.

“Hoho…” Raven stared at the scar and continued: “So you are the disciple of the 5th Emissary huh? But I’m not really convinced though…”

Raven’s hand moved once more and ripped the veil of Snake as well as taking off his mask. As Snake’s face were exposed, this made everyone aside from Jackson and Arnold gasp in surprise.

“You…” Old Lee trailed off, he unknowingly clenched his hand beneath his sleeves as he glared hatefully at the face of Snake.

“I told you didn’t I? You’re marked as well.” Raven sneered as spat on the face that he and his brothers seen before.

That’s right. Snake is the very professor that incited some useless bullies to hinder Raven and his bothers’ way sometime ago. It was also that made the merchant clan to smuggle some items inside the kingdom and suggested human trafficking to earn money.

“I should’ve killed you back then…” Snake gnashed his teeth as he hatefully stared at Raven.

“But you didn’t, so that’s your problem.” Raven sneered. “Still it’s quite impressive for you to be able to penetrate the walls of our home. Mind telling me how you did so?”

Snake didn’t replied, nothing out of Raven’s expectations really. Raven just smiled, stood up and made suggestions to Old Lee.

“Give them ‘special care’, specifically that one. He knows a lot.” Raven pointed at Snake as he gathered his crew back to the Inn.

Old Lee was silent. He was silently simmering in rage as he realized that he was meddling with criminals all along. His identity might be a secret by he’s also more than an undercover teacher at the Heavenly Cloud Institute. He shared an honest bond with his students and even had friends in the teaching department, but to think that a disciple of the 5th Emissary was casually strolling down the institutes gates without them having any ideas is just a huge blow for him.

***

Now that everything’s gone, the students were now free to return back to the Inn so that they could rest. Most of them were oblivious about what happened but the instructors said that there was a huge infection on the Inn that needs to be cleansed so the students have to move out for a while. This excuse was rather effective since no one really raised a fuss and they just continued on like nothing happened.

Meanwhile, the three adults were currently missing, probably off to some place where they were keeping the criminals and also supervising the interrogation.

Back at the Inn, Raven and his crew were resting, but unexpectedly, of all the people that should be fast asleep now, Paul was still up which is almost a miracle. Raven saw this and sat beside him.

“I don’t get it bro.” Paul’s voice were tinged with sadness, “Why did it have to be this way. Everything would be extremely easy if there’s no infighting.”

“Some people call it Desire, while other people call it Greed. Either of those things are the answer to your question.” Raven calmly stated. “Humans are a different breed of species. We’re smart, capable, full of potential and resourceful but we’re not perfect. The more complicated were are, the more we are prone to sin.”

“Ever since the day that we were created, humans always wanted one thing. And that is Progress. How else do you think we will be able to last up until today? Originally, there’s nothing wrong with this, up until the fact that some people starts to step on someone or pull someone down just to achieve their own ‘progress’. The more desperate one gets the more uncaring they are on just many sacrifices they needed to achieve their goals. Eventually, without their knowledge, they became enslaved by their very own pursuit of ‘Progress’.”

“Can’t help it. Some people just wanted everything for themselves, and just because of this ‘Desire’ it’s rather difficult to say just how much they are willing to sacrifice just to achieve their results. In simple terms, it’s like a high risk, high reward gamble.” Raven explained.

“Will my old man be alright? You see, if this sort of thing is happening here, then it should also be possible there right? You said it yourself, some people won’t stop for the sake of their goals.”

It was very understandable for Paul to worry like this. After all, his father is the Dean of the whole Heavenly Cloud Institute. The paperwork that he needs to face each day was already enough to make him older that he actually is, and now he also had to deal with this?

Despite of his father not paying much attention to him, Paul never hated him. It was more like Paul hated himself since he wasn’t able to share the burdens of his father.

Paul isn’t the brightest kid to the begin with. His knowledge was acceptable but nothing too impressive. He also wasn’t the best child ever and he also didn’t inherited the defining traits of his parents, if anything, Paul looked more like his mom instead of his dad. If this wasn’t enough though, he also didn’t inherit their talents which made many people disappointed, even he was disappointed to himself.

God knows how many times he curled up in a corner of his room and shed tears all by his lonesome. He masked his pain with smile and stupid actions just to make everyone, including himself, believe that he wasn’t the least bit affected by the situation and he could just work really hard to regain his lost reputation.

“This is so not like you. It’s gross. Being serious and shit isn’t really your thing…” Raven plainly stated.

Paul was dumbfounded and complained: “Come on dude! I’m trying to be dramatically serious here for a change! Don’t ruin it!”

“Alright, alright.” Raven shrugged, “Calm down will you? There so many things that you didn’t inherit from Uncle Bradley and being intelligent is one of that. He’ll be fine. It’s not like it is the first that he had dealt with this.”

“I hope so too. I don’t want anything to happen to him before I get the chance to flex in his face.” Paul snorted and went proceeded to tuck himself in his bed. After exchanging goodnight with Raven only silence prevailed as Raven was left alone with his thoughts.

Suddenly, Raven spotted another person who’s still awake. It was Luna. Seeing her sat on the railings of the balcony, Raven nimbly jumped down and approached her.

“What’s up? Can’t sleep?”

Luna was startled but as soon as she heard his voice, she automatically calmed down and went back to what she was doing before.

Even though no one spoke, the silence between the two was comforting. It was like a silent acknowledgement of other. He’s here and so was she.

“It’s weird you know?” Luna stated, “Everyone thought that the reason why ran away from home was because of my sickness, which is partially correct. But the bigger reason was because I felt suffocated in that place. There a lot of masks that I have to wear, so many things that I have to pay attention to, so many people that I have to be wary of. It was too much.”

“I always thought the outside world is more simple, honest and colorful. Alas, what a naive thought really. The things that you taught us so far, the events that we faced so far. I didn’t realize that there’s so much darkness in the place that I once thought was colorful.”

Suddenly, for the first time in this lifetime. Luna stared deep onto Raven’s eyes and said…

“You already knew that I am a Princess right?”