Chapter 58
“Cheers everyone! We cleared the tenth floor of Azrael tower!” Kastor said with a big smile on his face.
Everyone was cheering at each other because it was their first achievement but even so it was all thanks to Mykel and his team, Asmond was there to kill the demon lord so it was justified for them to celebrate. Asmond was the center of the attention and they were all so happy for him because, without him, the Guild Association would take all the credits for the clearance.
Asmond was overwhelmed by all the attention and decided to cool down a bit on the balcony. He grabbed his phone and tried to call Jeanne, but she didn’t pick up her phone and it went to voicemail.
“Sorry to call you this late at night, you must be asleep right now. I just wanted to call that let’s meet up because I didn’t see you earlier and thought you left already, so can you call me back so we can decide when we can hang out?”
“So you’re here, come on, everyone is looking for you!” A guy stood in front of the balcony door with a smile on his face.
“Alright, I’ll be there in a moment, I need fresh air first,” Asmond answered as he scratched the back of his head.
The morning came, Asmond woke up and his head was spinning like crazy because of all the drinks he had last night. He looked at his phone vibrating and immediately grabbed it, he was hoping to see a reply from Jeanne, but it was from someone else. He got so many messages and voicemails but none of them from Jeanne, so he thought she was still asleep so he wasn’t worried about it.
“You have been staring at your phone, what’s wrong?” Mykel asked as he stood next to Jeanne in the bullet train.
“Asmond sent a voicemail and asked me to call him back and asked about the plan for hangout,” Jeanne answered as she put the phone on her thighs.
“What’s wrong with that? You can go hang out with him,” Mykel replied as he looked at Jeanne with a smile.
“I know, it just doesn’t feel right,” Jeanne answered while smiling nervously.
“Don’t be, it’s not like you’re going to hang out with him for any other reason. He’s still your friend and I’m not going to forbid you to hang out with anyone,” Mykel said and stroked her hair and tuck them behind her ear.
“Are you really okay with it?” Jeanne asked and looked at Mykel in the eye.
“Of course, I believe in you,” Mykel answered with a smile.
Mykel suddenly stood up and watched through the window with the other passengers. Jeanne was confused and then she saw a tall building was on fire, she looked at how bad it was and the black smoke was covering the morning sky.
“That’s one of the Fraternity buildings, right?” Jeanne asked as she put her hands on the window.
“Yes, I believe so,” Mykel answered as he grabbed his phone and turned it had been on fire since an hour ago and no wonder why the fire almost devour the whole building.
“A terrorist attack?! Did anyone get injured?” Jeanne asked as she looked at Gunnar and the others who were chilling in the living room.
“Yeah, at least that’s what Miss Lyneth said and so far there are at least fourteen people who died in that incident,” Gunnar answered while using a hand grip and watching the news. “That’s not the worst part, the worst part is people think that it was us who did that,” he continued and looked at Jeanne.
“They blamed us? What’s the reason behind that accusation?” Jeanne asked as she sat down next to Gunnar and watched the news with the others.
“Many reasons,” Agnez answered with her leg rested on the table. “One of them is that we were jealous because the Fraternity cleared their first tenth floor which is idiotic and said we were trying to sabotage their success,” she explained as she took a long sigh.
“What? Don’t Kastor and Caesar clear the misunderstanding?” Jeanne asked as she looked at Agnez.
“They actually did, and so the media said that the Fraternity was being threatened by us. So, after that stupid accusation, both Kastor and Caesar didn’t want to deal with the toxicity of the media anymore since the problem they were having seems to be more dangerous than they thought. Now that they went quiet, people are starting to suspect us more,” Agnez said with her eyebrows raised.
Asmond appeared on the TV, he was coming out from the car and the reporters immediately ran toward him.
“Mister Asmond! Is it true that the Guild Association is the one who did this?” The reporter asked and then pointed the mic at him.
“I have no comment,” Asmond replied as he kept walking into the building with a serious expression.
“What?” Jeanne said and she was dumbfounded by his response because he didn’t tell them that it wasn’t the Guild Association who did that, and instead, he only answered with no comment which only made people assume that it was true.
“We should tell them that it wasn’t us,” Jeanne said as she looked at the others.
“For what? We don’t have anything to prove our words so it’s better to not pour gas on the fire,” Agnez answered as she stood up. “Miss Lyneth and Mykel are handling this matter right now so it’s better to not make any scene,” she continued as she walked to her bed.
Mykel and Lyneth were having a video call with Kastor and Caesar in his office, they were telling about what happened and showed them the CCTVs footage before the incident happened.
“This is what we found before the fire started,” Kastor said.
A group of people wearing black cloaks entered the building, there were a total of thirteen people and they immediately killed one of the guards on the spot. One of the people in the cloak pointed his arm forward with something hanging down from his hand then the fire happened as if the whole building was being lit like a torch.
Those thirteen people burned themselves with fire and they didn’t seem to be in pain. They seemed happy and excited until their whole body turned crisp.
“What? That’s bizarre, why would they burn themselves?” Lyneth asked as she watched the footage.
“We don’t know, but we believe it has something to do with what that person was holding before the fire appeared,” Kastor answered with his troubled expression.
“Can you zoom in and see what that guy was holding?” Mykel asked as he stared at the paused footage.
Kastor zoomed in and it was too blurry to see, but they know it was some kind of a pendant since it looked like one. Mykel crossed his arms and looked at the pendant, he wasn’t sure about it but if that was the reason the fire appeared, its effect looked similar to the artifact he wore, the [Ring of Fire] but he didn’t know something like that exists or at least in the original story.
There was no such thing as a terrorist attack in the original story, and those people dressed in black cloaks also didn’t exist in it. Something felt wrong and he only made an assumption that it had something to do with that mysterious artifact. The only thing that could lead him to the answer behind the incident was that pendant.
“Did you find that pendant?” Mykel asked as he looked at Kastor.
“We can’t find it, we have searched through the building and we found nothing,” Kastor answered as he pinched his eyebrows together.
Lyneth’s phone rang, and she immediately picked up, and then she slammed the desk as she stood up. Everyone looked at her with confusion, especially Mykel.
“What?! Where?!” Lyneth asked with disbelief as she walked to the side and listened to the person she was talking to.
Lyneth dropped the phone on the desk as she rubbed her face and exhaled deeply.
“What happened?” Mykel asked with his eyebrows furrowed.
“The Guild Association building in District 14 caught on fire and it’s the same as what happened to the Fraternity building,” Lyneth answered as she pulled her hair back. “What’s happening?!” she continued as she looked at the desk with disbelief.
“This isn’t right, something is off about this,” Kastor said as he looked at Lyneth and Mykel with a serious expression.
Somewhere in a dark room of an abandoned building, a person in a black cloak stood in the middle of a circle where candles and dozens of dead bodies were surrounding it. The person walked out of the circle and smirked and looked at dozens of people who were bowing their heads at that person.
The person walked toward the wall and stared at a photo of Mykel Alester that stick on the wall. “So your name is Mykel Alester, I came all the way down here just for you,” a familiar woman’s voice could be heard from beneath the hoodie and she started to chuckle mischievously.