Chapter 231 231- String Of Fate
As the sound of ringing echoed inside the closed, almost claustrophobic elevator, Kai and Aria knew that they were now in a very sticky situation.
The person they wanted to meet the least was now with them inside the elevator, smiling as always as she hummed a small song of hers.
"I never knew you were the headmistress, Ethia." Kai suddenly broke the silence as he spoke with a calm smile.
He knew that he couldn"t simply stay silent now since they ended up meeting her right after school. Instead, he decided to try and shift the dynamic and give himself a push. After all, he was still undercover as far as he knew.
"Fufufufu, My apologies for not telling you, guys. I had to keep it a secret for, you know, safety reasons." Ethia replied with a small chuckle.
"Oh, why is that? Is it dangerous to reveal that information?" Kai pushed more with another seemingly innocent question. He was playing on the fact that he was a completely naive and clueless boy.
"Of course, working on such an ambitious project poses a threat to us. We need to stride carefully unless we want to end up threatening our workers and scientists."
Ethia"s reply made Kai nod his head. However, in his head, he already knew that Ethia was lying, and quite blatantly at that. First of all, from what he saw in that file, Ethia would probably never need to hide her ident.i.ty at all.
Second of all, even if it was indeed for safety reasons, that doesn"t explain her hidden ident.i.ty as Ethia, the landlady who was completely clueless about Origin. Divinity wasn"t some underground operating company anymore, it was a full-fledged company that worked under the laws of the world.
Which means that Ethia was simply saying something that Divinity wanted her to say. Or even worse… Something that Kai"s father wanted her to say.
"She"s most certainly lying about that too." He thought to himself.
"We"re glad to see that you"re working hard, Ethia." Aria took the chance to speak to Ethia.
"Fufufufu, thank you, Calia. I will definitely do my best for my dear students. Especially you two, after all, you"re also my renters now." She chuckled. "By the way, what cla.s.s did you end up in?"
"Cla.s.s B, why?"
"Oh, Cla.s.s B? That"s a pretty good one. I will make sure to see if I can help you two. Consider it my special treatment, fufufufu!" She said.
Although Kai couldn"t notice any suspicious intentions behind her words, it still worked to make him even more wary of Ethia. She was just too shrouded in mystery for him o simply take all her words at face value.
"No need for that. We want to try our best to become stronger!" Kai replied with a determined look.
"Yes, I agree with Jack! We want to try our best on our own." Aria backed him on his small act.
"Ohoh?"
After all, she was one of the first few that tricked him without even trying. The fact that she was an Origin User was still a shock to him.
Coincidentally, the door of the elevator finally opened on the floor that Ethia chose.
"Well, I need to go now. Let"s talk later, ok?"
"Sure. Have a nice evening, Ethia."
After bidding her farewell, Kai and Aria continued their trip to their floor in pure silence.
Entering inside the apartement, they finally relaxed a little.
"She doesn"t seem to suspect us," Aria said after a while.
"She doesn"t. Well, that"s at least what I could see." Kai said with a serious tone.
At this point, he was suspecting the first impression he had on Ethia. Even things like his amazing ability to read people were now something he wasn"t certain of.
"Well, in any case, we"re still safe and that"s the optimal situation. Whatever happens next isn"t important now." He added.
"Yes, I understand."
***
A few hours pa.s.sed quietly as Kai and Aria went on with their normal day. They didn"t talk more about Ethia since this matter wasn"t the most urgent one yet. They now had to focus on rising in ranks as fast as they could.
Kai also wanted to hurry up with his plans to do some research on the Progenitor a.r.s.enal. The archeological sights that were discovered which needed some time since he required permission to visit these places.
But, for better or worse, everything was still on track. Granted, there were some problems along the way but Kai was able to somehow keep everything as it should be.
Around 9 p.m., Kai was about to head to bed. But, before she could go to bed, Kai decided to do some searching inside her room.
After their meeting with Ethia today, he scoured the whole apartement for any cameras, microphones, or any suspicious objects just in case. It didn"t take him long to do it but he didn"t do every room. The only one left was Aria"s room which he decided to check later on since he didn"t want to barge into her room without asking her.
"Please go ahead. I don"t mind." Was Aria"s answer so Kai simply entered her room along with Aria who seemed rather fidgety for some reason.
The interior of the room was simple and organized, a clear mirror of Aria"s personality. She had a simple bed, a small bureau with her laptop on it along with multiple books that varied from philosophical to music books.
There were no decorations on the wall or anything that someone would consider "feminine" in the room except perhaps for the soft smell of Aria lingering inside of the room.
"Did you notice anything odd recently?" Kai asked as he spread his senses across the whole room while he started walking and looking around.
"No. I don"t think so." She replied.
"Hmm…" Kai continued searching in silence.
He checked under the bed, near the window, and under the floorboards. The last thing he left was the desk which was the most obvious place to hide something like the one he was searching for.
Kai wanted to look everywhere unexpected first before going to the obvious. Luckily or not, he didn"t find anything where he searched so he finally headed to the desk before he started looking around. He also asked Aria"s permission to check her laptop in case there was a suspicious file installed there.
After that, he started checking the books on her shelf. Opening them one after the other, he was already starting to give up on the idea that there could be any hidden spying items.
However, at the last book which was in the corner of the shelf, when he started flipping through it, something fell off from one of the pages.
Looking down, Kai squinted as he picked up what seemed to be a picture. On it, there were two small children, a boy and a girl. Both of them were incredibly cute. The girl was smiling happily as she hugged the boy from the side while the boy had a stoic look on his face that hid a rather happy feeling in his eyes.
Both kids were sitting in a beautiful garden, surrounded by nature.
"This picture…" Kai murmured with a rather shocked expression. He does remember this picture even though it"s old.
It was the one that Aria took when they were outside enjoying the sun. At the time, she insisted on doing it since she wanted a small memory of their time. Kai retorted at the time that she couldn"t even see it.
"Hey! I can feel the picture! As a punishment, you won"t get one. It will only be for me! Hmph!" She replied and that"s how she ended up taking the picture and keeping it.
Aria, who was on the side, realized what Kai found and quickly rushed toward him before she took the pic.
"I"m really sorry. I… I kept that picture there so that I don"t lose it. I didn"t think you would find it." She said with an embarra.s.sed expression.
"..." Kai was completely speechless. He never expected that Aria would keep such a picture for all these years.
"Why… did you keep it?"
"It"s… It"s my precious picture. I know it"s selfish, but can I please keep it? I love this picture so much." She said honestly.
This was one of the very few things she had left from her time with Kai. She would always pull this photo out and look at it every night, tracing it with her fingers. Even if she can"t see it, she can still feel it. She still can feel the memories within it.
She loved that picture so much that it was actually one of the main reasons why she didn"t just end her life during that time.
She just felt that this picture still connected her with Kai. Even after what happened and what will happen, she was certain that this picture was proof that the two of them were at some point in time, each other"s most precious person.
That picture was their red string of fate that was almost completely severed.