The two officers exchanged a glance.
One of them turned serious.
“Please wait here. I need to report this to my superior.”
He hurried away, leaving the other officer with Freya.
The man tried his best to reassure her, repeating things like, “Don’t be afraid,” and, “We’ll take care of this.”
A few minutes later, the officer returned to the lobby with three other people.
All three wore police uniforms, but theirs were different from those of the regular officers.
Ordinary police uniforms were black.
These three wore dark blue, and Freya could tell at a glance that both the fabric and tailoring were of much higher quality.
Most police officers she had seen were young adult men.
This group was different.
One was a man who appeared to be in his forties or fifties. The other two were a young man and woman who did not look much older than Freya.
The older man approached her immediately.
“Are you certain about what you saw? His eyes were red, and he had a tail?”
Freya nodded.
“It’s true… I really saw it.”
The moment she finished speaking, the young woman among the three officers spoke.
She wore glasses and had shoulder-length golden hair. Her quiet, composed appearance made her look more like a scholar than an officer.
“Captain, she isn’t lying.”
Freya stared at her.
They could detect lies too?
That confirmed Freya’s suspicions.
These three almost certainly possessed supernatural abilities. They were probably specialists responsible for dealing with incidents like this.
Fortunately, the captain’s question had been vague.
He had only asked whether she had truly seen the creature.
He had not asked whether she had seen it last night.
Technically, Freya had told the truth.
Still, the young woman’s ability put her on guard.
She would need to choose her words carefully from now on.
Freya hesitated before asking in a timid voice, “Was that thing really human?”
She looked between the three officers.
“Are the urban legends people tell at school actually true? Are there monsters in this world that ordinary people don’t know about?”
The older man rubbed his brow and sighed.
“All right, kid. There are… things in this world that can’t be explained by common sense.”
His expression softened.
“But don’t worry. We’ll protect you.”
“What kind of things?”
The captain sighed again.
“Right now, our priority is dealing with the man outside your home.”
He considered his words.
“How about this? Once we’ve driven him off, I’ll explain everything properly.”
With that answer, Freya had no good reason to keep pressing him.
She led the three officers back toward her apartment.
During the walk, she learned their names.
The captain was Nolan Ashford.
The young man was nineteen-year-old Miles Carter.
The golden-haired woman who could detect lies was twenty-year-old Rena Carter.
Their surnames made it obvious that Miles and Rena were related.
They were siblings, with Rena being the older of the two.
Freya glanced back and forth between them.
They did not even have the same hair color.
Rena was blond, while Miles had black hair.
More importantly, Rena was only around five feet three inches tall. Miles stood almost a full head taller than her.
No matter how Freya looked at them, Miles seemed more like the older sibling.
As that thought crossed her mind, Rena seemed to sense something.
She puffed out her cheeks and placed one hand on her hip.
“Freya, you’re about the same height as me.”
“Huh?”
Freya looked genuinely surprised.
She met Rena’s eyes and realized their gazes were perfectly level.
“I’m only around five foot three?”
She had never paid any attention to her new height.
This was honestly the first time she had realized it.
Rena stared at her.
Was this girl a little slow?
The four of them arrived at Freya’s apartment shortly before noon.
Freya prepared lunch for her guests.
It was not much of a meal, but she truly had very little food in the apartment.
That afternoon, Nolan took Miles outside to scout the neighborhood.
Rena stayed behind with Freya.
Freya continued trying to draw information out of her about supernatural powers, but whenever the questions reached anything important, Rena refused to answer.
Evening eventually arrived.
A carriage stopped not far from Freya’s apartment.
A cute girl in a school uniform climbed out and hurried to the front door. She had a round face and soft cheeks that gave her a youthful appearance.
She knocked.
Rena answered the door.
Both girls paused when they saw each other.
The round-faced girl looked confused.
“Isn’t this Faye’s apartment?”
“Faye?”
Rena tilted her head.
“Do you mean Freya? Yes, she lives here. Who are you?”
The girl visibly relaxed.
“Good, I found the right place. I’m Amy, one of her classmates.”
She glanced past Rena.
“She didn’t come to school today, so I got worried and came to check on her.”
Freya had been preparing dinner in the kitchen.
When she heard the conversation, she came to the door.
The moment she saw Amy, several memories surfaced.
Amy had been the original Freya’s only close friend at school.
She was the classmate who had mentioned the new steam train.
She was also the one who had told Freya about the black market.
Freya had not expected Amy to visit.
Nothing like this had happened during the previous simulation.
Then she realized why.
At this time during her first simulation, Freya had been on her way to the black market.
Amy must have come to the apartment while she was gone, and the two had simply missed each other.
That realization revealed an important flaw in the system.
Simulating the future was not the same as predicting it.
Suppose an assassin came to her apartment at this exact time.
If Freya happened to be somewhere else during the simulation, she might never encounter the killer. She could then assume the time period was safe, remain home in reality, and walk straight into the attack.
The simulation only showed the future created by her own choices.
It did not reveal everything that would have happened without her.
Freya invited Amy inside.
She briefly explained that she had not felt well and that something had happened at home, which was why she had missed class.
Amy immediately stepped closer and placed the back of her hand against Freya’s forehead.
“You weren’t feeling well? Are you sick? Did you get enough rest?”
She was so close that Freya could feel the warmth of her breath.
A faint blush spread across Freya’s cheeks.
She took half a step back.
“I’m fine now. I should be able to return to school tomorrow.”
“That’s good!”
Amy opened her schoolbag and handed Freya a notebook.
“I wrote down everything important from today’s lessons. I thought you might need it.”
“Amy, you’re wonderful.”
The notebook was not especially useful to the current Freya, but Amy had gone to considerable trouble for her.
Freya thanked her sincerely.
Amy stayed for dinner and spent some time chatting with Freya afterward.
When the sky outside grew dark, she finally rose with visible reluctance.
“I should go. My father will lecture me again if I stay out too late.”
She smiled at Freya.
“I’m just glad you’re all right, Faye. I’ll see you at school tomorrow?”
Freya nodded.
“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”
After Amy left, Nolan sighed wistfully.
“Is this what youth looks like? Must be nice.”
Rena glanced toward the door.
“Wasn’t she curious about who we were?”
“That’s just how Amy is,” Freya said.
To put it simply, Amy was not especially curious about other people’s private affairs.
She did not pry into secrets that had nothing to do with her.
As long as Freya was safe, Nolan and the others could have been anyone.
It did not matter to Amy.
While they were talking, a scream came from outside.
Freya recognized the voice immediately.
It was Amy.
Everyone froze.
Nolan reacted first.
He shot to his feet and rushed out the door with the explosive speed of a pouncing leopard.
His body almost blurred.
Miles followed a moment later.
He was slightly slower than Nolan, but still far beyond anything an ordinary person could manage.
By the time Freya stood to follow them, both men had already disappeared.
She could only run toward the direction of Amy’s scream.
Rena initially tried to stop her.
When she saw the panic on Freya’s face, however, she hesitated.
That brief pause was enough for Freya to get out the door.
Rena hurried after her.
“Wait!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Several gunshots rang out.
Freya turned right after leaving the apartment and reached a three-way intersection.
Amy lay on the ground.
The black-clad watcher stood nearby.
There was a deep wound through Amy’s abdomen.
She lay curled in pain as blood flowed steadily from the injury.
It was obvious what had happened.
Amy had encountered the creature after leaving Freya’s apartment, and it had attacked her.
Nolan pointed toward Amy.
“Get her to the nearest hospital. Now!”
Miles immediately lifted Amy into his arms and ran.
He passed Freya as she reached the intersection.
Nolan remained behind, staring at the scene with a grim expression.
“So it’s Obsidian again.”
The watcher lay dead on the ground.
A bullet hole marked the center of his forehead.
It was unquestionably a fatal wound.
The rest of his body looked even stranger.
His skeletal tail had been driven into his own shoulder.
Both arms had been twisted into unnatural spirals.
Freya’s first reaction was confusion.
Her second was nausea.
This was the first corpse she had ever seen in either life.
A bloody, mangled corpse lay only a few steps away.
She covered her mouth and retched.
Rena arrived after Freya, breathing heavily.
She glanced at the body and grimaced.
Her reaction was not as severe as Freya’s.
Rena gently patted Freya’s back.
She opened her mouth, but seemed unable to find the right words.
After a while, Freya became slightly more accustomed to the sight.
Her face remained pale.
“What is Obsidian?”
Nolan crouched beside the corpse and searched its clothing.
He removed a black envelope from an inner pocket.
Then he looked back at Rena and Freya.
“Can you hypnotize her?”
Rena hesitated before shaking her head.
“That’s still beyond me.”
Freya’s expression sharpened.
“Hypnotize me?”
Nolan rose and rubbed his brow.
“All right. Fine. It looks like I really do owe you an explanation.”
He looked directly at Freya.
“As you’ve already seen, this world isn’t as ordinary as it appears.”
“Beneath everyday life is another world. A dangerous one.”
He gestured toward Rena.
“There are things called supernatural Paths. By drinking a specially prepared potion, a person can gain abilities beyond ordinary human limits.”
“Rena follows the Mind Path. She can study a person’s expressions and small physical reactions to judge what they’re thinking and whether they’re lying.”
“She also has a limited ability to hypnotize people.”
Nolan glanced toward the apartment.
“Our original plan was to keep you inside while we dealt with the creature.”
“Afterward, Rena would have hypnotized you and removed your memories of being watched.”
They had rushed out to save Amy.
In the confusion, Freya had followed them and seen everything.
Rena lowered her head.
“This is my fault. My hypnosis is still too weak.”
She sounded miserable.
“I can only make someone forget small, unimportant things.”
Freya had now seen a corpse.
Worse, she had seen her only friend lying in a pool of blood.
Those memories were far too intense for Rena’s current ability to erase.
Nolan looked at Freya.
“So, kid, whatever you might think about this, you have to join us now.”
He paused.
“You’ll be joining the Special Affairs Division.”
Rena looked even more dejected.
“Freya, you’re one of the best students at Kordo National Academy. You could have found a good job after graduation.”
“Now you’ll have to join the Special Affairs Division and work with us.”
She lowered her voice.
“It’s all my fault.”
Freya strongly disagreed.
Rena deserved to be thanked.
Compared to an ordinary graduation followed by an ordinary career, Freya was far more interested in supernatural powers.
Rena, however, only became more guilt-ridden.
Working for the Special Affairs Division was extremely dangerous.
Its members responded to supernatural incidents, and whenever something went wrong, they were expected to face the danger first.
The casualty rate remained consistently high.
Nolan turned toward the police station.
“Let’s go back. Someone else will come and secure the scene.”
Then he looked at Freya.
“You’re coming with us.”
“The first thing you need to do is sign a confidentiality agreement.”