After watching the two of them leave, Dave lowered his gaze to his palm and began counting the money Zavi had just given him. The amount stunned him: One hundred and ten Zen.
He froze. That sum was equivalent to a full month's wage, even though he had not yet worked for a full month and had already asked for an advance.
Dave frowned, trying to understand why Zavi would give him that much. The more he searched for an answer, the more confused he became.
He put the money into his wallet, then slipped it into the pocket of his coat. As he was about to stand, he turned to the right and saw Han with his head resting on the table, asleep in a pitiful state.
The wound on Han's arm was still bleeding, fresh drops slowly falling to the shop floor and forming a small puddle right in front of Dave's feet.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Dave shook Han's body in panic. But Han did not respond at all.
Dave heard the faint sound of dripping blood, slow but constant. He lowered his head, staring at the small pool beneath Han's scuffed brown shoes.
"Did he endure all that pain the whole time?" Dave whispered in disbelief, then took off his coat and checked Han's back.
He saw bloodstains still seeping through the brown fabric and dripping onto the shop floor, sending a surge of panic through him. He feared the shop owner, who happened to be there, would get angry.
In a panic, Dave pulled out his wallet again, took two bills, one of them worth ten Zen, and placed them on the table, weighed down by an empty glass.
He quickly draped the brown jacket over Han, hoisted Han's trembling body onto his shoulder, and carried him outside to look for a doctor, even as the wind grew bitterly cold and the rain fell harder.
–––
Meanwhile, about hundreds of meters from the border between the Chapena and Tezny districts, the two found an empty blue circus tent and decided to go inside to shelter from the bad weather.
They planned to continue toward the city square, but the stone road had become slick from the rain, blocking their way. They had to move carefully to avoid slipping.
Five minutes later, Zavi grew more restless as the sky darkened. "Come on, we have to go!" he shouted in panic.
But Kalr refused to leave the tent.
"You go first. I'll follow… Don't worry," Karl replied calmly as he wiped his glasses with a damp cloth.
Zavi's eyes widened. He was worried about his mother in the city square after hearing the horrifying information Karl had told him in the shop half an hour earlier.
"Hey, damn it…" Zavi hissed, gripping Karl collar tightly. "If you hadn't told me about that…"
The glasses fell.
Before he could finish, Karl brushed his hand away and picked up his glasses again. He put them on and smiled faintly. "I know, Zavi. Should I tell someone about this? Ren? Or your younger sister?"
Instinctively, Zavi stepped back two paces. His face darkened at the subtle threat. Two memories of Karl crossed his mind: when he saved a teenage boy from a beating that was clearly no ordinary incident, and how Karl deduced that someone had been controlling the people who attacked the boy.
Karl had followed him ever since he left his house, helping him, intentionally or not, by drawing attention to himself and the surrounding crowd, both those involved and those who were not, during the boy's torture. The only person who truly seemed to see Zavi clearly at the time was a man wearing a bowler hat.
After learning about Karl supernatural abilities, a Second-Tier Sorcerer at a level that allowed him to become anyone he wanted under one condition, that he had to take a part of the target's body, everything began to make sense.
When Zavi first heard it directly from Karl, he did not believe it right away. He wondered where and when Karl had obtained a part of Dave's body, but after thinking far ahead, he understood.
But why did he reveal his own ability? The question suddenly surfaced in his mind.
Karl was not merely a shapeshifter. At his second tier, his movement speed approached the speed of light, fast enough to steal a single strand of Dave's hair without Dave ever noticing.
And within four months, Karl could create avatars up to three times, a terrifying and effective power, though he regretted using it afterward, with each avatar appearing briefly to replace his main body if his main body died, perhaps or otherwise.
In addition, his frightening second-tier ability, the symbol of a Magician, Mirage Exceed, was hidden behind his glasses and coat. The illusion activated automatically whenever he wore his glasses, and became passive when he wore only the coat.
Karl had revealed only part of his abilities to Zavi, even though the other team members surely already knew everything.
After recalling Karl words, Zavi finally understood. In this world, he was merely borrowing someone else's body, yet he treated that unfamiliar family as if they were his own.
He knew that on Earth, he had never felt comfortable around his real family. But what was wrong with accepting his new family in this world as his true family?
Thinking…
Zavi turned away and stepped forward. He stood beneath the tent flap, lifted his head, and let the heavy rain wash over the bleak and useless expression on his face.
"Damn it…" he muttered softly.
Thunder rumbled without pause, as if something were pressing down from the sky. The wind grew stronger with every second. Objects around them were swept into the air, window glass shook violently, and the metal sheets above them rattled with a piercing sound.
Karl glanced at Zavi. The eyes behind his glasses began to gleam. He pressed his glasses and stepped closer, about to convey something important.
"Come here. I have something important for you to hear." Karl raised his index finger and smiled faintly.
Zavi turned around. Rainwater slid down his face, dripping slowly and soaking the ground that had once been dry. He stared blankly at Karl. They looked at each other for a moment before Zavi stepped closer.
He stopped just a few inches from Karl. He leaned in slightly and whispered something into Zavi's ear, a sentence that erased his bleak expression in an instant, like a sheet of paper consumed by fire.
"What…!?" Zavi staggered back. He never expected Karl to say that.
He fell silent. His thoughts spun, weighing possibilities and consequences. After confirming that everything was still within acceptable limits, he finally nodded. He agreed, and prepared to follow Karl instructions from that moment on, with a time limit of two hours.
Time was almost up. They could not wait for the rain to stop, so they left the tent.
Ten minutes later, they arrived at the city square after overcoming several obstacles: slick roads, biting cold wind, and heavy rain pounding against their bodies and obscuring their vision along the way.
"We made it in time," Karl said with a brief bow. He lifted his head slightly and looked at Zavi beside him.
"What time is it now?" he asked, breathing hard.
"Seventeen zero five." Zavi handed over his wristwatch and scanned the square, which had now recovered after the earlier incident.
"I see." He touched his chin with his left hand, gazing ahead as he returned the watch.
Zavi accepted it gladly and slipped it back into his pocket.
"So… are we just going to stand here, or…"
Before he could finish, Karl cut him off.
"No need to wait. We'll do it exactly as I told you earlier."
–––
Earlier, at the shop, Karl had told Zavi something that made his skin crawl. The people who survived the kidnappings were not just victims, they were targets whose time was nearly up. Tuesday night was the deadline, and Wednesday noon was the thin line between survival and a ninety percent chance of death.
Two hours after leaving the building overgrown with weeds and bushes in the Forgenate district, Elmer felt it first. A dark premonition had been stabbing at his chest since the previous afternoon, like a cold blade slowly pressing against his heart. At dawn, he dragged Karl out, visiting the survivors' homes one by one. The Morotuane Church helped identify their addresses, eleven names possibly caught between life and death.
In the Chapena district, two survivors, Mei Actitus and the woman who had spoken with Zavi, Fernesa Hurnami, were still fine. From the outside, by sensing or confirming it, both were breathing steadily, their homes quiet. But that was only the beginning.
The remaining nine led the two of them to Forgenate.
Four people there were found still sleeping soundly with their families. There were no abnormalities, no injuries, the homes and streets were calm, because no ordinary person dared to go out alone except the two of them.
Until they arrived in the Tezny district. Around five in the morning.
At the first house, their hopes were shattered. Five people who had left the building the previous night were found in a state that could no longer be called living. Their right hands were gone, not torn off, not forcibly cut, but missing with cuts so clean it was as if something that should not exist in this world had taken them. The skin at the edge of the wounds was pristine, without a single drop of blood. Even the most experienced killer could not have left wounds like that.
Three police officers and two investigators from the Tezny district stood pale-faced. They also found severe injuries at the back of each victim's head, blows from a hard object, likely a wooden beam easily found inside the house as firewood for the stove. But what left the two investigators speechless was the sight in the living room: one of the victims they had just found was floating several inches above the floor, his body slowly descending like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.
And that was not the only one. Four other houses, still within the same district, experienced different strange incidents. One of them was the Pinsone family home on Ahiston Street No. 14, near the city square, where a body was found floating upright with its head down and feet up.
The other three victims died lying flat on tables in the living rooms of their respective homes. The police and the two investigators were accustomed to the strange phenomena in this world that kept emerging day after day. But every time they heard reports of "dead people," their bodies and minds froze instantly, as if already sickened by the current state of things.
At exactly eight in the morning. Tuesday. The five victims were buried at the public cemetery, Meirrena, Tezny, Ahiston Street No. 20.
The two of them attended the funeral as a sign of respect and pity for innocent people who had fallen victim to the cruelty of the world.
After the burial of the five victims was complete, Clark decided to protect the remaining six survivors, and also to investigate how it was possible to kill people in such a manner.