Summoner Sovereign

Alicia and Kureha had been friends for a few years now. Even though the Violet family was not part of the ten great families, it was still a prestigious clan. They had a few connections with the ten great families. Well. Just the Stuart and Franklin clans, though, and even so, just a few members. For example, Alicia didn"t know who Shawn Franklin was, and had no reason to through her limited encounters with the Franklin family.

However, she did befriend Kureha when they met each other at a social gathering a few years ago, and exchanged contacts. Kureha would sometimes visit her when dropping by Jing Tian City for business. Which was why she was familiar with the city to begin with, despite not living here.

A video of Alicia appeared in front of her, the blue-tinted holographic image hovering in the air. The Black Rose Society president beamed happily when she saw her friend.

"Kureha! It"s been a while!"

"Hi, Alicia. It has, indeed." Kureha nodded somberly. She tried to muster up a weak smile, but found her lips rigidly and unnaturally curving up. Sensitive as she was, Alicia noticed her friend"s mood.

"What"s the matter, Kureha? Did something happen?"

"…yeah." After the mission…after everything, Kureha finally felt a wave of emotions. .h.i.tting her hard. The loss of her sister…witnessing her grisly demise…it was just too much. It took her everything she could to hold back her tears. "Alicia…I need a favor."

"Anything, Kureha. Where are you now? Are you outside?" Alicia glanced at the background and saw the buildings and trees behind her friend. "What happened?"

"A long story." Kureha wiped at her reddening eyes. "I"m…um…at Jing Tian City right now. Do you mind if I come over for a visit?"

"Sure! You can even stay over!" as much as Alicia wanted to ask when she arrived, she didn"t pursue the issue. Instead, she rose from her desk, where she had been studying. "Where are you right now? I"ll go over and pick you up."

"Thanks." Kureha sent the coordinates. Alicia acknowledged them, and then hung up to hastily make her preparations. While waiting for her friend, Kureha sat on a nearby bench.

Then she cried.

*

"You should have told me when you first came to Jing Tian City," Alicia told her gently. "My home may not be as safe as yours, but at least you won"t have to worry about kidnappers here."

The Violet family was not as rich as the Franklin family, but they still lived in quite the huge mansion. Even though the vast halls seemed empty, there were quite a few security personnel watching the place.

"I wanted to keep a low profile. Didn"t want to stand out. Also didn"t want to trouble you." Kureha took a deep breath, and accepted the tissue that Alicia offered. She suppressed a sob. "I"m not supposed to be here. If the elders find out, they"ll order me and my sister to return."

She closed her eyes as the memories of her sister welled up inside her. Gritting her teeth, she clenched her fists and forced herself to calm down.

Alicia didn"t press for details, having heard the gist of it from Kureha. She had found her friend sobbing on a bench, crying by herself, and quickly bundled her into the back of her father"s car. It wasn"t long before Kureha informed her of the abduction, and Kurenai"s gruesome death at the hands of murderous rapists.

"Your sister…the people who did this to her…we"ll definitely hunt them down." Alicia promised determinedly. Kureha shook her head.

"They"re dead," she replied plainly as she wiped her eyes. "We killed them."

"…eh?"

"Sorry. When Kurenai was kidnapped, I went and hired a couple of students from your school to help me track her down. We were too late." Kureha took a deep breath, and vengeful wrath flashed in her eyes. "We made them pay."

"…I see." Alicia sighed and nodded. "That"s good then."

She hesitated for a moment, but her curiosity got the better of her.

"Who did you hire?"

"Richard Huang and Troy King. They were extremely helpful." Her face fell. "It"s my fault they both got hurt. We managed to get some treatment, but Richard is still suffering from mana depletion. He needs a little longer to recover…hmm?"

She caught the expression on Alicia"s face and trailed off. Alicia blinked and then closed her mouth.

"You hired Richard and Troy!?"

"Yeah…oh, that"s right. They mentioned something about being Black Rose. So they are your members, huh?"

"How"s Richard? Where is he right now?!" Alicia was grabbing Kureha"s shoulders, and the latter could only stare at her, stunned.

"Um…he"s fine. He"s sleeping off his mana exhaustion in a military camp just north of here. He"ll be fine once he recovers his mana."

Alicia sighed as she let go of her stupefied friend and sat back in her chair, relief written all over her face.

"That"s good. Jeez, that guy never fails to worry me. At least both he and Troy are all right. I a.s.sume Troy has also returned to Jing Tian City?"

"Yeah…we went our separate ways shortly after that. He says he needs to track down his brother after we found out that there is a link between him and the Research Foundation Group." she lowered her voice. "That"s why I need a favor from you, Alicia. I need every information you can find regarding the Research Foundation Group."

"The…Research Foundation Group?" Alicia repeated, puzzled. Kureha nodded.

"The organization that my uncle Frank founded…the same man who ordered the hit on both me and my sister."

*

For the rest of the week, Kureha did as she said and launched herself fully into her investigation.

"Alicia, did you find anything?"

"Hmm…not much, I"m afraid."

The two girls had chosen to meet up at a café to share their findings. Alicia had several holographic screens open and floating in the air as she read through reports, highlighting the sentences she thought were particularly relevant or important.

"I"ve gone through the thirty-two scientific organizations here, and none of them seem like they are a cover for this Research Foundation Group. And I can"t find any group under that name listed in the city"s records."

"How smart of Uncle Frank." Kureha chewed on her lip. "Using a research organization as a cover would be too obvious, huh? Maybe we should look into other organizations."

"Like what?" Alicia raised an eyebrow. "There are over three thousand and five hundred commercial organizations in Jing Tian City. It"ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"Ugh…" Kureha leaned back in her chair and held her head. This was going nowhere. They had spent an entire week combing through just thirty organizations. She couldn"t imagine going through a hundred times that number. That would take too much time.

"But you know…" Alicia giggled. "When you first approached me for help, I never imagined it would be for something like this."

"What were you expecting?" Kureha asked distractedly as she flipped through several holograms in hopes of finding a clue they overlooked.

"Well, you"re the Sword Saint. I thought you were looking for a fight or something. So I would have gotten ready to organize an official duel."

"If I wanted a duel, I can look for that at home. I don"t have to come all the way to Jing Tian City for that."

Alicia winced at that. She was aware of the reputation Jing Tian City had when compared to the other cities. There weren"t many strong young mages here, with the exception of Troy the Superman. Most of the times, Jing Tian City was looked down upon as a den of weaklings. The academies in the city had performed poorly in the national tournaments over the past few years, after all. Even Jing Tian Academy, the premier magic school in the city, had fallen so far from grace after the Hurricane Blade Feng Hai graduated.

In short, if an esteemed mage like Kureha was looking for a strong opponent, Jing Tian City would be the last place she would visit.

Unaware that she had hurt Alicia"s pride, Kureha continued flicking through the holograms, and she sighed loudly.

"Ugh…I can"t find any clues at all. Really? None of these scientific research organizations look suspicious to you?"

"We"ve visited and investigated all of them, remember? What do you think?"

"…yeah." Kureha couldn"t help but admit bitterly. "There was nothing amiss about them. They all seemed perfectly normal to me. Only a couple of them are about monsters or anything remotely related to them. And those have been founded decades or centuries ago…way before my uncle was born. I hardly think he"ll be able to bring them under his control that easily…and that prisoner we interrogated clearly said that Uncle Frank founded the group, which mean it can"t be any of them."

She glanced at the screen again, eliminating the organizations until a couple were left.

"Only these two were founded in the last couple of years. Three, if we widen it to ten. But this company manufactures drinks and researches on nutritional value. The other one is astronomy and stargazing. The ten-year-old company focuses on laser technology and lights. None of them are related to monsters."

"And when we checked them out, we can"t find anything," Alicia agreed. "They looked perfectly normal to us."

"Yeah." Kureha was frustrated at the dead end they came to. Leaning back in her chair, she took a sip of her iced coffee, her eyes wandering away. "I wonder how Richard is. Do you think he has woken up yet?"

"I hope so." Alicia pursed her lips angrily. "He"s always so reckless. I know he"s…strong, but he always overdoes things and ends up getting himself hurt."

"That"s my fault. I was the one who got him involved."

"It"s n.o.body"s fault." Alicia sighed as she sucked on her straw, emptying her cup. "Except your uncle"s. Anyway, Richard has done more than enough. Let him rest. I don"t want him to get involved and end up hurting himself again. He might be intelligent, but he"s not the kind who"s good at investigating stuff. How do I put it…he"s more of a sci-fi person than a mystery or detective person. If it"s just checking out companies, we can handle this on our own. Now let"s go look for more clues."

"Where should we go next?" Kureha asked as she finished the rest of her drink. "I don"t think there"s any point in checking out these research companies again."

"No, there isn"t," Alicia agreed, her eyes drifting to the holographic screen. "But we can change directions. Look…" she spread her fingers to magnify a screen. "I notice that this first research organization tend to s.h.i.+p the drinks they manufacture into a warehouse. Which is strange, now that I think about it. They are a research company, aren"t they? Not a manufacturing or beverage company. So why are they manufacturing such large quant.i.ties of drinks and s.h.i.+pping them? Shouldn"t they be getting samples of drinks and conducting research on them?"

"…which is what they are doing when we visited them." Kureha frowned. "Should we check them out again?"

"Yes, but not exactly." Alicia tapped the photograph in her holographic screen. "I meant to check out this warehouse that the drinks are being brought to." she leaned closer to read the text beneath the photo. "Hmm…just as I suspected. The drinks are brought to this warehouse…and left there. Weird."

"What"s weird about that?" Kureha asked, bewildered. Alicia smiled at her slyly.
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"Usually you would store the drinks in a warehouse before s.h.i.+pping them out…but the drinks never get s.h.i.+pped out. The warehouse receives more and more drinks…but, where do the drinks all go? Why are they stockpiling so many drinks? For research? Even if that"s the case, isn"t that…too many drinks?"

"That does sound suspicious," Kureha conceded with a nod. Alicia dismissed her holographic screens and rose to her feet.

"It"s decided then. Let"s pay the warehouse a visit."