I awoke in a strange place. My thoughts were fuzzy but I know that it was dusty, and the air was flowing so I knew I wasn't underground. I went to reach for my head, it was pounding, but I couldn't move my arm.
'My arm, not arms, Spirit? What's the situation? I can't see.' Nothing back from Spirit.
"HEY! WHERE AM I?!"
"Not so omnipotent without your gadgets are you?"
"Vincent? What are you doing here? I recognize your voice."
"My name is not Vincent, it's Sunpoa." Vincent futilely tried to cover up his involvement.
"Why am I here, 'Sunpoa'?"
"You've wronged too many people with your arrogance. You're just going to get what is coming to you."
"Is this because I beat you too many times in Professor Unda's class?"
"No, it's because you cheated!" Vincent realized his mistake and gave up hiding. "Fine, I'm Vincent, but you deserved this from the very beginning when you humiliated me."
"So it would have been fine for me to just forfeit the match so everyone can jeer about how the newcomer had to intentionally fail for you to triumph? Don't blame your inadequacies on others." My nerves were starting to get the better of me, I started to finally realize how helpless I was.
"Really? In your position, you're trying to sound smart?"
'It's probably better to quietly find way out.' I thought while looking for Orin's mind link in my head.
I search and searched but I could neither contact Orin nor could I use Eneru.
"Hey! Stay in this realm when I'm talking to you!" Vincent was flustered.
"What did you do to Orin?"
Vincent chuckled "You can see your hand in front of your face right? Take a look." Vincent opened a portal in front of my face and it showed the back of my hand as if I were looking at it, it was blank.
"What did you do to our bond!?" I was terrified, Orin and I were inseparable. "That bond is for LIFE! There is no way to erase it!"
"That's where you're wrong, it's trivial to break a bond between beast and man, simply kill the beast."
"You didn't." Vincent's last remark made me suspicious, he wouldn't kill Orin because of a feud.
"We did."
"Liar."
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The Constables' meeting was a mess. The four naturals were sitting around a table, two of their voices overlapped and nothing was getting done.
"I say we wait for the rift to be traced!" Venor exclaimed
"By then they could have already taken his core!" Unda retorted.
"Wake up people, we aren't here to argue, we have to save a student, for now, let's go forward on the premise that he has been captured by core hunters." Larry was calm, collected, and driven.
"They have little reason to wait, so he is either in transit or already dead. So we need to respond immediately, but with discretion, we will have to have a cover-up if he doesn't make it." Headmaster Sivor's voice was cold as he plotted to hide the incident if it got out of hand.
Professor Unda walked behind Headmaster Sivor and injected him with a fluid.
"You are under arrest for corruption, Headass Sivor."
"Woah! He's out cold, why?" Venor asked.
"I finally recorded one of his stupid remarks. For now, Professor Larry is acting Headmaster and Head Constable. How shall we proceed, Headmaster?"
"We should ask Ingen's friends who might have a vendetta against him, no matter how good these core hunters are, they definitely needed someone on the inside."
"Yeah, then at least we will have a lead."
"I'll talk to Laura and Teo, Unda, you talk to Devin and Vincent, Venor, you talk to Yomo and Ben report her when you're done."
Two Professors split and started looking for their targets, Larry stayed in his new office.
"Laura of Gond and Teodor of Reike Wood please report to the Headmaster's office." The message reverberated through the halls of the school.
Soon Laura arrived, but Teo didn't show up.
"Teacher! What are you doing at the Headmaster's desk?"
"I'm the Headmaster now, Sivor was fired."
"Wow."
"Anyway, while we wait for your friend, we have to talk about Ingen, he's gone missing."
"I know, I've been looking for him for the last hour, he and Orin disappeared."
"I need to know if there is anyone who would hold a grudge against him, he is in grave danger."
"I don't know, other than envious looks no one has ever expressed ill-intent towards Ingen, other than me..." Laura looked down in shame.
"Don't worry about that, is there anyone who he beat at a lot? Envy is deadly."
"Well he just beat Teo, and he beat Vincent in his special combat class a lot."
"Teo is really late isn't he?" Larry looked into a drawer at his desk and started flipping through a stack of papers. "Wait, both of them are absent, and both of them are counted among Ingen's friends."
"That's really suspicious," Laura stated the obvious.
Larry pressed a button on his amulet. "We have two suspects, Teodor of Reike Wood, and Vincent of Belnas."