The X-ray cost eighteen thousand naira.
Kade stared at the receptionist.
"Sorry. How much?"
"Eighteen thousand."
"For one ankle?"
The woman looked up from her computer.
"Do you have another one you’d like us to examine?"
Tobi made a choking sound.
Kade turned toward him.
"Don’t laugh."
"I’m not laughing."
"Your shoulders are shaking."
"I’m grieving for your finances."
The diagnostic centre was already crowded despite the early hour. A television mounted above the reception desk played a morning programme nobody appeared to be watching.
Kade sat in a wheelchair borrowed from the facility.
His injured ankle rested awkwardly on the footplate.
Bamidele stood beside him, counting money.
"I’ll cover it," the repairman said.
Kade shook his head.
"No."
Bamidele looked up.
"You have eighteen thousand?"
"No."
"Then we’re finished discussing it."
"I’ll pay you back."
"Fine."
Tobi leaned closer.
"Congratulations. You’ve unlocked another debt."
Kade sighed.
"At this rate, I’ll need a separate notebook."
"Already started one."
"Of course you have."
Bamidele paid.
For a moment, Kade couldn’t look at him.
He had spent most of his life hearing that money wasn’t everything.
Usually from people who had enough of it.
Right now, eighteen thousand naira stood between him and finding out whether he’d damaged his ankle badly enough to make walking dangerous.
The System could consume monsters.
It couldn’t pay hospital bills.
The X-ray showed no obvious fracture.
The clinician suspected a significant sprain and recommended continued support, reduced weight-bearing, and follow-up if the swelling or pain persisted.
Kade listened carefully.
"So I can walk?"
"Not normally yet. Use support, avoid unnecessary strain, and give it time to heal."
"How much time?"
"Longer if you keep injuring it."
Tobi nodded solemnly.
"Doctor, please write that in capital letters."
Kade ignored him.
The clinician examined his shoulder wound as well and advised continued cleaning and monitoring for infection.
By the time they left, Kade had acquired a walking aid, medical instructions, and a considerably larger debt.
Bamidele helped him into a taxi.
"Back to the clinic," he said.
Kade shook his head.
"First, Tobi’s mother."
"No," Bamidele replied.
Kade turned.
"No?"
"You’re not going to her house."
"Someone threatened her."
"And arriving there with an injured boy being hunted by cultivators will improve the situation?"
Kade opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Bamidele continued.
"Call her. Arrange for her to stay with someone she trusts. Then decide what can be checked without exposing her to more danger."
Tobi was already reaching for his phone.
"My aunt lives nearby. Mum can stay there for a few days."
Kade looked at him.
"Will she agree?"
"She’ll complain first."
"Naturally."
"Then she’ll agree."
Mrs Balogun complained for eleven minutes.
Tobi timed it.
She wanted to know why two grown men were suddenly giving her instructions about her own house.
She wanted to know whether Kade had eaten.
She wanted to know why nobody had explained Adunni’s disappearance properly.
And she wanted to know why Tobi sounded as though he hadn’t slept in a week.
Eventually, she agreed to spend a few nights with her sister.
But she refused to leave the envelope behind.
Kade sat upright.
"Wait."
Tobi looked at him.
"What?"
"Tell her not to move it yet."
Tobi relayed the instruction.
Mrs Balogun’s voice rose through the speaker.
"Which envelope?"
Tobi froze.
Kade closed his eyes.
They had never told her where it was hidden.
"Nothing, Mum," Tobi said quickly.
"Nothing?"
"Just an old school document."
"Then why are you whispering?"
Tobi stared at Kade.
Kade mouthed, Stop talking.
Tobi nodded.
"Mum, please just take your normal things and go to Auntie’s place." This story is hosted at g.com.
A pause.
"Are you hiding something in my house?"
Neither answered.
Mrs Balogun sighed.
"When this nonsense is over, both of you are coming to explain yourselves."
The call ended.
Tobi lowered his phone.
"She’s definitely going to search my room."
"Then we need to tell her not to touch anything unusual," Kade said.
"That will make her search faster."
Bamidele rubbed his forehead.
"Call her back. Tell her plainly that a stranger may have entered the compound and she shouldn’t handle unfamiliar objects."
Tobi obeyed.
This time, Mrs Balogun listened.
Back at the clinic, Kade asked Bamidele for a pen and paper.
"What for?"
"Questions."
Bamidele raised an eyebrow.
"That’s new."
"Apparently, running at people doesn’t work."
Tobi looked offended.
"I’ve been saying that for two days."
Kade drew three columns.
WHAT WE KNOW.
WHAT WE SUSPECT.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW.
He began writing.
Adunni was missing.
Someone had sent messages to her phone.
A supernatural creature had imitated her voice.
The split-eye symbol appeared on the concealed paper, the shrine, and now a card outside Tobi’s home.
A stranger knew about the envelope.
Those were facts.
Everything else was uncertain.
He couldn’t prove the same person had left the card and sent the messages.
He couldn’t prove the visitor was a cultivator.
He couldn’t prove the shrine, the hunter, and the stranger worked together.
And he certainly couldn’t prove Adunni had intended him to enter the waterworks.
Tobi watched him write.
"You’re making a detective board without the board."
"Cheaper."
"Also less impressive."
Kade ignored him.
"Let’s start with Mr Akin."
Tobi opened his phone.
Their old class group had produced several replies overnight.
One caught his attention.
Mr Akin? There was a temporary maths teacher during our final year. Didn’t stay long.
Tobi sat forward.
"Wait."
Kade looked up.
"What?"
"Someone remembers him."
The message came from Femi, a former classmate who had somehow remembered every teacher’s name while forgetting most of the mathematics they taught.
Tobi called him.
Femi answered after several rings.
"Chairman! You finally remember your classmates?"
"Femi, quick question. That temporary teacher—Mr Akin. What did he look like?"
"Which one?"
"The maths teacher."
"Oh. Tall man. Always wore glasses."
Tobi looked at Kade.
"What about a brown leather bag?"
Femi laughed.
"That bag! Yes. He carried it everywhere."
Kade’s stomach tightened.
Tobi continued.
"Do you remember his full name?"
"No."
"Where he went afterward?"
"Not really. Why?"
"Someone claiming to be him came looking for me."
Femi went quiet.
"That’s strange."
"Why?"
"Because I thought he died."
Tobi sat motionless.
"Died?"
"That’s what people said," Femi replied.
"When?"
"After he stopped teaching. Maybe a year later."
"Who told you?"
"I can’t remember. It was school gossip."
Kade leaned closer.
"Femi, did anyone actually confirm his death?"
"Who’s that?"
"Kade."
"Ah! Kade! You still owe me that calculator."
Tobi covered his eyes.
Kade sighed.
"Put it on my list."
Femi laughed.
Then Kade repeated the question.
"No," Femi admitted. "I never saw anything official. Somebody said he had an accident. That’s all."
"Do you have a photograph of him?"
"Maybe."
"Our graduation pictures. He was standing near the staff."
Tobi sat upright.
"Can you send them?"
"I’ll check my old laptop."
"Please."
"Why are you two looking for him?"
Kade and Tobi exchanged glances.
"We need to verify someone’s identity," Kade answered.
Femi hesitated.
"All right. Give me some time."
The call ended.
Tobi stared at the screen.
"A teacher who might be dead."
Kade wrote another line under WHAT WE DON’T KNOW.
Whether the visitor was Mr Akin.
"Don’t turn a rumour into a fact," he said.
Tobi nodded.
"Right."
But neither looked reassured.
That afternoon, Mama Efe brought Kade food and made him elevate his ankle again.
Tobi sat beside the window, scrolling through old school photographs.
Bamidele had returned to his shop.
For the first time all day, the clinic was quiet.
Kade studied his list.
He had spent the past two days reacting.
Running.
Hiding.
Surviving.
Now he had something resembling a plan.
Verify the visitor.
Keep Mrs Balogun safe.
Recover the envelope when it could be done without drawing attention.
And stop treating every unexplained event as proof of a single conspiracy.
He looked at the System.
[HOST STATUS]
[ASE CORE: ABSENT]
[SPIRITUAL ENERGY: 19 UNITS]
[PHYSICAL CONDITION: IMPAIRED]
No change.
Kade dismissed it.
He didn’t need a new ability to make a better decision.
Tobi’s phone vibrated.
"Femi," he said.
A photograph arrived.
Then another.
An old school assembly.
A graduation ceremony.
Students in oversized uniforms.
Teachers standing beneath a faded banner.
Tobi enlarged the second image.
"There."
A tall man stood near the edge of the group.
Glasses.
Brown leather bag.
Kade leaned forward.
"That’s him?"
"Looks like the description."
Tobi sent the photograph to his mother.
Is this the man who visited?
They waited.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Mrs Balogun replied.
YES. THAT’S HIM.
Kade felt a brief surge of relief.
At least they had identified the visitor.
Then another message arrived.
BUT THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE.
Tobi frowned.
What?
Her reply came almost immediately.
HE LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE THAT YESTERDAY.
Kade stared at the photograph.
It had been taken several years earlier.
People aged.
Hair changed.
Faces acquired lines.
But Mrs Balogun was certain the visitor hadn’t changed at all.
Kade took the phone from Tobi.
He enlarged the man’s face.
The image was grainy.
There was no way to make a reliable comparison from it alone.
Still, something bothered him.
Not the man’s apparent age.
His position.
Every teacher in the photograph faced the camera.
Except Mr Akin.
He was looking toward the students.
More precisely, toward the section where Kade and Tobi stood.
Kade lowered the phone.
"Find the original photograph," he said.
Tobi looked confused.
"Why?"
"Because I want to know whether he was looking at us."
Tobi glanced at the image again.
"And if he was?"
Kade looked down at the list of unanswered questions.
"Then we need to find out why."