Alan and Gunther headed towards the crowd to know the cause of this ruckus. When they reached the crowd, Alan tapped a student's shoulder. When the student turned, he asked, "What happened? Why is everyone gathered here?"
"We heard someone's scream from the first floor," The student answered. "We gathered here to know what happened."
Alan nodded. "Thank you." He stepped aside from the crowd with Gunther.
"Why are they making such a big deal of someone's scream?" Gunther asked while the chatters and murmurs of the people still fell into their ears.
"Something must have happened," Alan replied. "If the soldiers are not letting anyone go inside, then it means something big and terrible must have happened."
"What should we do then?" Gunther asked.
"What can we do? Let the elders handle the situation." Alan turned his body to walk away but stopped mid-way to look at the first-floor where the headmaster, Master Wrath, a shiny bald man interrogated the young attendant. "Besides, we have just returned from a long journey. We should not pressure our brains for these things." The corner of his lips twisted to form a smirk before he finally turned and walked away.
"You are right," Gunther said in agreement with Alan's words and walked away with him.
The soldiers inspected the headmaster's chamber to find some clues for solving the decapitated head mystery. Apart from racks with dozens of books on one side of the room, frames hanging on the walls of ancient calligraphy and paintings, wooden drawers with important documents inside, and a wide wooden table at the center of the chamber; they found nothing.
They had pulled out the arrow from the wall and the forehead and kept the head standing erect on a white cloth on the table.
The soldiers inspected the arrow and the head for clues while the three musketeers questioned the young attendant, and tried to speculate the situation on the balcony that was connected to the chamber.
"Did you see anyone leaving or roaming around the chamber?" Master Baulding asked.
The young attendant shook his head sideways. "No, master, I saw no one."
"Hm," The headmaster hummed with a quizzical expression. "It means they played it nicely." He looked at Master Wrath who didn't say anything for some time. "What do you say, Wrath?"
Master Wrath caressed his thin long mustache while thinking something for a moment, then spoke while looking at the young man with doubtful eyes, "We need to investigate deeper on this matter. It is not a petty issue but a murder." He asked Baulding, "Are the soldiers interrogating the people present in the building around that time?"
"They are," Master Baulding answered. "We will come to know if they find something."
"We must notify this to the emperor immediately," Master Wrath suggested. The headmaster nodded.
Meanwhile, a soldier sat on the floor and inspected Tartar's head with a magnifying glass. Another soldier changed the head's angle to let him inspect from every side.
"Open the mouth," The soldier with the magnifying glass said. When he looked inside the mouth through the magnifying glass after the other soldier opened the mouth, he saw a piece of paper. "There is something inside. Take it out."
…
"Entering the academy building and performing all this is almost impossible," Master Baulding said.
"Even if someone entered the building, leaving would be impossible for them," The headmaster said. "I have tightened the security around the academy. They can't leave." He looked at his attendant. "You can take a day off and have some rest."
The young attendant nodded and walked away. All three of them stared at his leather bag hanging by his shoulder when he left and glanced at each other.
"What do you think? Why would someone kill Tartar?" Master Baulding asked when the young attendant disappeared from their sight.
"I sent Tartar to tell the emperor about the secret weapon we were creating," The headmaster answered. "Someone knew he was going to the emperor and ambushed him on the way."
"Then it means the person who ambushed him gained the information," Master Wrath said. "They knew about the secret weapon."
When Master Wrath and the headmaster talked, Master Baulding seemed confused after hearing them. "What secret weapon are you talking about?" He asked with a confused face. He did not have the information about the secret weapon.
"Our emperor tasked me to create a weapon of mass destruction to wipe out Alabusians," The headmaster replied.
Bald Baulding nodded slowly as he understood everything.
"But that scroll I gave Tartar is more important than that."
"Why is that?" Master Baulding asked.
"It contained some confidential information," The headmaster answered while his breathing fastened in anxiousness. "Let's hope they don't figure it out and access the information."
Suddenly, a soldier walked up to them and said, "Masters, we have found something. You need to see it." The three of them looked at each other with bemused faces and followed the soldier inside the chamber.
When they entered, they saw a small piece of paper on the table that was moistened in saliva because of staying in Tartar's mouth. The soldier hurried to the table and picked it up.
"You need to see it," He mouthed when he handed it to the headmaster.
The old man took it while grimacing because of the sticky saliva covering the paper. He noticed there was something scribbled on it.
"What is it?" Master Baulding wondered.
The headmaster read it in his mind and clutched the paper tightly in his hand as he burst into anger. Master Wrath and Baulding noticed the sudden change in his expression.
"What did it say?" Master Wrath asked, and the headmaster handed the piece of paper to him. His eyes expanded in shock and he mouthed what they wrote on it. "Hanzer Van Du Nigros…"
They wrote the headmaster's name on the paper as if they told them they have some business with the old man. All of their face muscles tensed when they thought about the endless possibilities regarding this course of action.
"Someone killed him to show me what they are capable of," The headmaster groaned while his jaw stiffened in anger. "They are declaring a war against me."
"What would someone have against you?" Master Baulding asked in curiosity. "Why would they kill your attendant if they had animosity towards you?"
"It is not towards me," The headmaster said when he slowly untangled the threads in his head. "It is towards the empire. Tartar got ambushed on the way when he was going to deliver the information to the emperor."
He remembered something similar happened in the first province a while ago. "Someone killed one of our commanders in the first province. They stuck a strap of leather on his forehead and wrote the emperor's name on it." He took a step ahead and added while staring ahead into the abyss, "I have a feeling this is related to that incident."
"If what you said comes out to be true, then we are witnessing a small part of a big game," Master Wrath speculated.
Suddenly, a soldier who inspected the arrow that was stuck in Tartar's head said, "Master, I found something."
They all had their attention diverted to the soldier from their conversation. "What is it?" Master Baulding asked.
The soldier handed the arrow to him and said, "Master, there is a snail carved on the flat part of the arrowhead." Master Baulding took the magnifying glass from the soldier and saw that there really was a snail carved on the arrowhead.
Master Wrath and the headmaster glanced at each other as they realized the incident in the first province was connected to this incident.
The markings on the arrowhead were different for each province. The soldiers belonging to a certain province used the arrows with the mark of that province.
The snail mark was the mark of The First Province.
"Those b*stards," Master Baulding reacted in frustration, and his eyebrows formed a scowl. He didn't realize he broke the arrow out of frustration, and the soldier didn't dare to point it out as he loved his head over his shoulders. "They themselves connected the dots. The same people committed these two acts."
"They are challenging us," The headmaster said with a dense face. "Not only this, they are challenging our empire. They are going to perform something big, and they are challenging us to stop them if we can."
All the soldiers stood up when they listened to his words.
"I am sure those dirty Alabusians are involved," Master Baulding groaned. "The first incident happened in their province. I will carve their hearts out to make them spit their agendas. I will…"
Master Wrath interrupted. "We can't be sure if Alabusians have a hand in this. The culprits might have planned this to put the blame on Alabusians and save themselves from the gazes of suspicion."
"What should we do then?"
"The emperor will tell us what to do," The headmaster said.
…
Alan stared at the principal academy building with an evil smirk on his face. He stood under the shade of a tree with Gunther.
"Plan as much as you want. At the end of every road, you will find your end too," He thought.