"Wait, Mother did?"

Lillian blinked. From the way she said it, she clearly had no idea this had happened.

As a princess she should have been informed. Which meant Dr. Anise had deliberately kept it from her.

That much was certain.

Irene’s lips curved into a sly grin as she watched the curiosity bubbling up on Lillian’s face.

"Interested now?"

Lillian turned her face away, pouting her cheeks.

"Whatever. Just tell me the case. I was bored today anyway."

"Heh. Sure, princess."

Leon could not believe what he was witnessing.

’Oh my God. She is a textbook tsundere.’

With that, Irene clicked open a file, and projected it on the translucent display in front of her.

One hand resting on Irene’s chair Lillian carefully looked through the content. Her cheeks were basically touching Irene’s head.

On the screen were several photographs of children around twelve to thirteen years of age, covered in bruises and bandages. A serial number was printed below each photograph. All of them appeared to be ordinary citizens, photographed in hospital beds.

Just before anyone could think it could not get worse, three more images opened up.

These were different.

Unlike the others, all three were girls, aged somewhere between seventeen and twenty. Their eyes were closed and their bodies were submerged inside large capsule tubes filled with some kind of green chemical.

"What is all of this?" Ethan was the first to break the silence. "Are those—"

Lillian raised her hand. Ethan closed his mouth.

Irene expanded all the images across the screen simultaneously.

Leon looked at them along with the others.

Unlike everyone else in the room, he was not the least bit surprised. He already knew what those were and what purpose they served. What actually surprised him was the fact that someone outside of the expected circle had gotten their hands on these reports.

He glanced at Irene’s side profile. Her platinum hair caught the light from the rim above.

If Irene had these reports, then she was already involved in this arc.

Leon already knew what those capsules were for. Those girls had been forced into the spell of Dream Calamity, a technique tied directly to Dreamweaver and the Endless Reality. That much Leon knew. But that reason was still unknown to everyone in Evana except for the Doctor herself.

This was exactly what Ethan had stumbled upon in the game.

It had taken Ethan and Cyan three loops to gather information on Dreamweaver’s subjects, and even more loops after that to discover that Dr. Anise had known about all of it from the beginning.

Rumi found something off about it.

’Haru. If the Doctor already knew who was behind this, why would she hire Irene to uncover it?’

’I am thinking the same thing.’

’Does that mean Dr. Anise was lying to her own people? That does not add up.’

It did not.

According to what Leon knew, Dr. Anise was fully aware of why the children and those girls were in that condition. And yet she had hired a private detective to investigate it. That was an anomaly in this arc. One that was pushing the plot forward considerably faster than it should have been moving.

And by now Ethan would have received a notification as well.

Leon glanced at him. Ethan’s eyes were fixed on empty air, moving slightly as if reading something only he could see.

It was a quest progression message.

If Leon’s calculation was right, Ethan’s progress had already hit fifty percent.

That was not good.

Things were resolving themselves without Ethan’s direct involvement. If that continued, his quest would complete without him actually uncovering the truth step by step. Which was the entire point. The gradual discovery was supposed to answer most of Ethan’s questions about himself and about this place.

’This is bad.’

Something was deliberately wrong here. Someone wanted the plot to accelerate, wanted it finished before Ethan could learn too much along the way.

But who?

Leon turned it over. But no name came.

The only ones who knew about Ethan’s situation, as far as Leon was aware, were Silvermoon and Everbright. And dragging Ethan out of this quest before he reached the real truth was the last thing either of them would want.

And even if Silvermoon or Everbright had wanted to interfere, neither of them could act inside the city without disturbing the loop itself.

Irene turned toward Lillian and explained. She went through the morning’s meeting with Dr. Anise in the hospital room at the top floor of the palace.

She described what she had found, the syringe marks on the child’s body, and the current situation unfolding across Evana.

"The targets are mostly children between the ages of nine and fifteen. All of them are being treated at high priority. As for the girls in the liquid preservative containers, they were all brain dead."

"Huh?" Lillian blinked. "Preserved for what reason?"

"That part is still unknown to me." Irene reached into the drawer and pulled out a small metal box. "But if I have to guess then.... It must be Dr. Anise’s idea, you know, to run experiments on those who could not be saved, in hopes of finding an answer."

The metal box in her palm was filled with candies of different colours. Irene picked out a pink one and placed it in her mouth.

"So." She bit on it, glanced at Lillian and the others. "What do you think?"

Ethan was the first to ask.

"Hold on. You are saying children here are coming down with some kind of condition and falling into a coma?"

"Mhm. That is what I just said."

"No, that was not my question." Ethan waved his hand. "If Dr. Anise already knows about the situation, why is nothing being done to prevent it? I saw kids walking around the city without a care in the world."

"To prevent panic," Lillian said. "Mother knew this. And now I understand why she suddenly ordered an increase in military presence stationed inside the city."

Lillian went quiet for a moment, thinking to herself.

"But this is strange... Mother never said a word to me about any of this."

Dr. Anise could not have.

Lillian was sharp by nature. She would eventually connect the dots back to her father. Back to Dreamweaver.

That was not something her mother would ever want her to do.

But then why now?

Anise knew that bringing Irene into this would eventually lead Lillian to find out. Which meant she had done it deliberately. She wanted Lillian involved in this case.

Leon slowly started connecting the dots.

The more he thought, the clearer things became. But it was still not enough. A blurred picture of something much larger was forming in the back of his mind.

"Heh..." A quiet laugh slipped past his lips before he could stop it. He could not help it.

The absurdity of where his thoughts were leading him was almost funny.

He let Rumi examine it.

’What? This is absurd.’

She had the same reaction.

Whatever this was, it was enormous, and complex enough that pulling it off should have been nearly impossible. And yet the way this plot was accelerating, the way pieces were falling into place ahead of schedule, made it clear that someone had actually done it.

Only someone with knowledge of the loop could have managed this.

Thinking along those lines, Leon finally looked at Irene.

The Astral Matter memories floating around her. The way she had interacted with him as if they had already known each other for a long time. It was starting to make sense now.

He just had to wait a few more hours for this loop to end.

Leon said nothing out loud.

Still playing with the candy inside her mouth, Irene gave Leon a look.

"Why are you smirking?" She asked, beaming a controlled smile at him.

Leon smoothly changed the topic.

"What do you want us to do then?"

He asked a simple question, but the meaning behind it was different. The three of them were outsiders. It would look strange if anyone found out they were getting involved in an official case.

Irene shifted her gaze from the boys one after another, then finally to Lillian on her left.

"I need manpower. Will and Vivy alone are not enough. And we are running out of time."

Fair enough. This was essentially an emergency. Before things got worse or spread to the general public they needed to find the real culprit.

"I understand that." Lillian said, narrowing her eyes at her. Then she looked at the three boys. "But why do you want them involved?"

"Do not worry about that." Irene winked at her with a confident smile. "I know them well. I can vouch for them."

Hearing that, Ethan and Cyan exchanged a look. Leon had somehow seen it coming. Irene had clearly wanted the three of them in this case from the start.

Lillian thought for a moment.

"Just so you know, I am allowing it because it is you, Detective Irene. Anyone else and I would have the guards on their backs for breaching city protocol."

Irene nodded.

Lillian then turned to the three of them. "You all seem quite close to her."

They genuinely were not.

Ethan scratched the back of his head but could not bring himself to deny it. His quest progress had just hit fifty percent. He figured he was on the right path. So going along with it made sense.

But it didn’t mean he was not cautious.

Cyan stayed quiet simply because neither Ethan nor Leon had said anything.

As they were still discussing, the office door slid open.

Two people walked in from across the corridor, voices already going.

"Like I said, it would have been much easier if you had not followed me."

It was a composed female voice, followed by a footsteps trailing behind her.

"Excuse me? We got the footage because I dealt with them."

"Do not forget we got caught in the first place because you thought they were going to kill me."

"I was being cautious."

"You were being dramatic."

Leon and the others turned toward the sound.

The first one they saw was a tall man in a fitted suit, a cigar tucked in the corner of his mouth, black hair, black eyes, one hand casually spinning a revolver at his side. He looked like someone who had never once been in a hurry about anything.

The person walking ahead of him was different.

"Wha—!"

Ethan and Cyan both stepped back at the same time, hands going straight to their sword hilts.

A tied up grey hair in a single tail, red eyes, and two short horns curving from her head.

She walked in completely relaxed, wearing a tight fitted black shirt, black trousers, a sword at her waist. Her hands were in her pockets.

"A-A demon?!" Cyan pointed directly at her.

The young lady stopped. Her eyes froze at Cyan.

"Yeah. In the flesh." She said flatly. "Got a problem with that Brat?"