“How are things looking on the outside?” Pandora tilted her head, a stroke of perfectly asured curiosity touching her features. “Regarding... that matter. Have they found out anything?”
The section chief stared at her.
In those bloodshot eyes, there was only a deep, unspeakable complexity.
He didn’t answer.
Pandora didn’t seem to mind. She smiled instead—a faint thing, but one that suggested she’d already gotten her answer.
“By the look of it... no progress at all?”
She wasn’t surprised.
Put simply, Aldrich had contacts inside the Disciplinary Court and wanted to push the investigation forward. But Julian Bennett had more contacts, and deeper ones.
Besides, Arthur’s crew had been the ones to provoke the fight in the first place.
Given how much ti had passed—enough that even the nas and faces of those people were starting to blur in her mind—the results the Disciplinary Court could dig up were only ever going to be murky and impossible to clearly define.
Under these conditions, as long as she didn’t confess, they didn’t have enough to pin a conviction on her.
“These past few days,” Pandora’s tone lightened, even taking on a hint of... friendliness? “It’s been quite pleasant interacting with everyone. I hope we’ll have the chance to et again.”
The section chief fell silent.
He lifted a hand to his temple and pressed hard, fighting off a headache that was throbbing with every heartbeat.
It wasn’t retaliation he was worried about. He wasn’t like the Demon Hunter apprentices out there; for him, death was mostly just a matter of swapping to a new body. And after spending a few days with her, he didn’t get the impression this highly intelligent, rational girl would bother doing sothing so aningless.
He just...
really did not want to relive the experience of his work failing over the past few days.
He shook his head and turned away again.
This ti, faster. More decisive.
Like he couldn’t wait to escape the room that had handed him such a thorough beating.
However.
Just as that heavy, soundproof black door was about to click shut—
He stopped. His back still to her.
“There won’t be any more interrogations tomorrow.”
“He has agreed to your request.”
“Tomorrow.”
Click.
The door sealed shut.
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Completely cutting the room off from the outside.
Pandora sat alone in the empty Room S.
The white light from the ceiling bore down, as bright as ever.
The smile on her face slowly widened.
It was a genuine smile—carrying a layer of deep satisfaction, and the easy relief of a plan coming together.
..................
It wasn’t long before the other door beside Pandora opened.
An expressionless guard in a Disciplinary Court uniform stood outside and gave her a nod.
Pandora stood, adjusted her collar and cuffs, and returned a simple nod. Formalities exchanged.
Then she stepped out of the interrogation room.
Outside was a long, sowhat dim corridor.
The walls were cold grey stone. The floor was laid with heavily worn dark carpeting. The ceiling was high, punctuated at regular intervals by wall lamps that gave off a sickly pale light.
The corridor was empty.
Not far away was the room she’d been temporarily living in.
The conditions were better than the interrogation room, at least. There was a bed, basic washing facilities, and the food supply was decent.
It was only the freedom that was lacking.
But regardless of the final outco.
Tomorrow was the last day of the detention period.
After tomorrow, even if the Disciplinary Court hadn’t squeezed a single thing out of her, by the rules, they had to let her walk.
Pandora made her way down the corridor at an unhurried pace.
Her footsteps echoed in the empty space.
Her face didn’t show much of anything.
Calm.
And a trace of anticipation, subtle enough that you’d miss it if you weren’t looking.
..................
Early the next morning.
Inside the simple but clean temporary room.
Pandora had just finished washing her face with freezing water and was drying off with a rough towel.
A rhythmic, asured knock ca from the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Miss Pandora, please co with .”
It was the guard from yesterday.
She dried her face, straightened her collar, and opened the door.
Following the Disciplinary Court staff down the hall, it was clear they weren’t heading back to that oppressive interrogation room.
Instead, they arrived at a much more conventional eting room.
The space wasn’t large, but it was decorated with a certain understated elegance.
The walls were painted a soft cream. A simply patterned rug covered the floor. In the center of the room sat a broad, remarkably comfortable-looking natural wood conference table, flanked by several high-backed cushioned chairs.
It looked exactly like the kind of room any legitimate organization would use for informal discussions.
However, Pandora’s gaze imdiately landed on the center of the room.
Or rather, the center of the table.
A transparent, exceptionally resilient partition divided the entire room cleanly in half.
The barrier didn’t obstruct the view, and it allowed sound to pass through without issue.
But its presence created an unambiguous divide, preventing any physical contact or escalation beyond words.
Giving a ntal nod, Pandora looked at the man sitting on the other side of the partition.
He was a large-frad man with broad shoulders—a build that should have projected strength, but right now, he was shockingly gaunt.
It wasn’t the lean, efficient skinniness of a trained fighter. It was a sickly, desiccated withering.
His skin was pale, taking on a bloodless, greyish-white hue.
This pallor was sowhat similar to the anemic lack of color Pandora exhibited when using Elsa and paying the 【Price】.
But his was drier. More pathological. Like a plant that had been completely drained of its water and nutrients, leaving behind nothing but withered branches.
“Aldrich?”
As if sensing her gaze, the man slowly raised his head.
It revealed a face with a high-bridged nose and deep-set eyes.
His natural deanor leaned toward the sinister side—the kind cultivated by soone who had held a position of power and authority for a long ti.
But his current expression was overshadowed by a thick, impossible-to-hide exhaustion.
He looked listless, with faint bluish shadows pooling under his eyes.
Pandora’s eyebrow ticked upward slightly.
While this was her first ti eting Aldrich in the flesh, she was already intimately familiar with the man through their previous exchanges.
What surprised her, though, was that—
He was considerably more gloomy and exhausted than she had imagined.
It seed Ember killing Wilbur had dealt a much heavier blow to him and his faction than she’d anticipated.
It wasn’t just the loss of a capable subordinate; it appeared to have triggered so kind of deep-seated turmoil and internal attrition within his ranks.
“The Baroness...”
“Or perhaps, Pandora Douglas.”
Aldrich looked at the girl who hadn’t even been an apprentice for a full year.
His eyes were half-lidded, his gaze sowhat cloudy, but deep within that cloudiness, a razor-sharp glint flickered past.
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