Alex saw, with horror, the guard who had vanished before—now returning with a full platoon of city soldiers at his back.
The missing guard seemed to have diverted to the security hall to report what had happened, and now the entire city was searching for him.
He pressed himself even closer against the cold stone wall.
'Now it's a real game of hide and seek.'
Alex had shaken off the person who had been pursuing him earlier, but now he had to avoid an entire city on high alert.
Some hours later, all the way in the Magic Security Bureau, two individuals were receiving a report.
They were none other than Lydia and Eva.
"A man has killed Lord Bren Alderfell—he is still on the run and inside the city," the officer began.
"He also seemed to have killed the girl who was with Bren tonight. This is the drawing based on the description." He handed Lydia a painting.
The moment she saw the portrait, her eyes widened, and Eva pressed her hand to her mouth.
"Okay, you may leave," Lydia said, feigning nonchalance.
The moment the door closed, Lydia turned to Eva.
"It looks like the little brat lied to us a little. He did, in fact, know the murderer." Her tone tightened; beneath it simmered anger. What Alex had just done wasn't simple violence—it was mass murder in the eyes of the law.
"Yes. And perhaps he kept quiet because you are the biggest problem he could face," Eva replied, trying to defend the boy who had saved her life.
If Eva had met him alone, perhaps he would have shared more. But Lydia was one of the highest security officers of the capital—any hint of involvement would have triggered her instinct to keep him under relentless surveillance.
"But I do have doubts about the report," Eva continued. "If he killed the woman who was with Bren, then how did Bren's guards get the description?"
'That's true,' Lydia thought. It didn't extinguish her anger, but it sharpened her suspicion that something about this story didn't add up.
"Still, he lied to our faces and went straight to murder someone," Lydia said.
"This still warrants a full manhunt. Haah, if only he had told us…" She sighed, rubbing her temples.
She knew both Marc and Alex, and based on what Eva had shared about her encounter with him, Alex didn't seem like a bad person. He had simply suffered far too much in far too little time. If he had reached for help, she would have offered it.
"What would he have gained from telling us?" Eva asked softly. "You would have monitored him day and night. And remember what he told us—Marc was like a brother to him. Wouldn't you react the same if someone in your family was murdered because they helped a girl fend off a creep?"
Lydia had no reply. Eva was right. She would have reacted the same. The only difference was that Lydia's strength meant she would never have been captured.
In this world, power alone decided how much one could get away with.
"Still, we have to search for him," Lydia finally said. "We must capture him before the Alderfells do, or he'll be done for."
"Yes. I still owe him for saving my life," Eva replied.
The two women parted to look for Alex.
On the street, patrols marched everywhere, and after more than fifteen minutes of constant pursuit, there was still no sight of the man in question.
"Damn, he's evading the whole security force," Lydia muttered, though hidden admiration slipped into her voice.
Alex had managed to hide from the entire capital for a whole twenty-five minutes.
It didn't sound like much—until one considered that more than twenty thousand trained personnel were searching for him. That level of evasion showed how intelligent and cunning he truly was.
And Lydia liked intelligent and cunning people.
The women vaulted from rooftop to rooftop, searching for any anomaly in the foot soldiers' patterns.
Eva had become a mage just like Alex, and under Lydia's guidance had progressed rapidly—already nearing tier 2.
As they separated to cover more area, Lydia noticed something happen in the distance.
A guard was walking through an alleyway when he suddenly stumbled and collapsed.
She called Eva through the communicator.
"I think I found him. Follow me."
Eva reached her moments later, and together they sped toward the alleyway.
When they arrived, they found the guard lying on the ground, a piece of armor missing.
He was motionless.
Lydia approached him with worry, kneeling beside him and checking his pulse.
"He's still breathing," she said, exhaling in relief.
Eva knelt beside her and examined the guard's body. She plucked a small needle from the man's neck and handed it to Lydia.
"He used this to knock him out," Eva said.
"Yeah. And he also took a piece of the guard's armor," Lydia added.
As Eva scanned the surrounding area, she noticed a stack of newspapers—yesterday's issue, delivered today but still wrapped due to the rain that had kept vendors from handing them out.
A headline caught her eye.
'Who is Alex—'
She unpackaged the papers and read the full title.
"'Who is Alexander, the commoner who achieved top 1 in Lyssan Magic Academy?'" she read aloud.
This immediately drew Lydia's attention, and she walked over.
Together they looked at the article. It included a portrait of Alex and several statements from students who had known him and from his homeroom teacher.
"I didn't personally know Alex, since he mostly kept to himself, but I shared Anatomy with him, and he already seemed to know everything before class even began," one student said.
"I heard from some commoners that he was the academy's best alchemist. He always spent his time creating potions in class, yet he still scored top marks in every test. I've tried his potions—they're the best I've ever had," a noble commented.
"Alex was the kindest and most intelligent person I met in my ten years of teaching. He solved problems with incredible cunning, sometimes without even being present," his homeroom teacher added. "I still remember the midterms—he defeated an intermediate monster at apprentice level without taking a single hit. That was his best performance."
"He taught himself two elemental magic creation! Hahaha!" another eccentric teacher declared.
After reading the article, Lydia and Eva finally understood who they were dealing with.
"Alchemy and anatomy… what an insidious combination," Lydia murmured.
"Yes. And now that we know this, Alex is probably using sedatives to knock guards out without harming them," Eva said.
"And he also has who knows how many pieces of armor. We should assume he's mixed into the patrols now, acting like a city guard," Lydia replied.
"I'm tempted to catch him, arrest him until this blows over, and make him work for me—he's wasting that intelligence!" she added, her competitive spirit flaring.
"That didn't sound creepy at all. Luckily you like women, or I would be genuinely worried," Eva teased.
"Ha! Game is on, scoundrel!" Lydia declared, ignoring Eva.
She was excited—truly excited—to capture someone who could hide from the entire capital while still being inside it.