Zaen walked into the living room where Aeron was waiting for him along with the weird-looking machine Zaen gave to him.
Given the condition the machine had been in, Zaen was doubtful Aeron would be able to get much information from it. However, to his surprise, Aeron had managed to restore the machine to its former glory within six hours. The outer body of the machine still looked as beat up as ever, but the parts were no longer falling apart from the main body.
Aeron was home today as he had been given a month-long break from school to get out of the 'trauma' he had suffered at the hands of the mist. Students in Astran were rarely given holidays except on Sundays and a few selected national holidays, and Aeron wasn't going to refuse free holidays even if it meant lying to his professors.
The logic behind this was simple, it was to maintain a balance between the students who went to military school and those who went to science school. In military schools, they weren't given any holidays not even on Sundays but they had to work for fewer hours, about seven hours a day. Whereas, the science students were given holidays but their hours were long, around 12 hours per day.
The training in both the schools was harsh and rigorous in their own ways. While the military school strengthen the bodies of their students, the science school tried to steel the brains of their students. This was the reason why Zaen and Aeron both had the will and skills to achieve what they wanted by working together, even though their talents were useful in different fields.
"It looks like I underestimated you, monkey." Zaen smiled as he ruffled Aaron's hairs once again.
"Hmph, you could learn to fix this too, if you weren't busy hitting up girls on Instagraph," Aeron replied after pushing Zaen away.
"... It wasn't like that."
"Sure, it wasn't." Aeron smiled while nudging at Zaen with his elbow, "Either way, let's get down to the topic. I've fixed the machine, even though it took a good chunk of my brain to do so. Let me explain its function to you in layman terms."
Aeron pointed at the large cylinder attached to the machine, "This cylinder is used to hold LN or liquid nitrogen or any other refrigerant with similar cryogenic properties. But in my opinion, LN will suit the best because of its extremely low boiling temperature and high refrigeration capacity at almost any atmospheric pressure."
"So LN from the cylinder is ushered into the main body of the machine via a tube at high pressure where it is mixed with gaseous nitrogen. This is done to eliminate explosion hazards and prevent undesired oxidation reactions and it also helps in fast dispensing of the nitrogen mixture-"
"You sure, you're explaining it all in layman terms? Because I'm not getting a thing you're spewing." Zaen stopped Aeron because so far whatever he said went straight over his head.
Aeron sighed heavily before shaking his head, "Guess I got carried away. Ahem, so in short what I wanted to say was that this machine can be used to drastically reduce the temperature over a large area in a short period. I'll assume it has an effective radius if at least two to three kilometres."
Zaen was pleased that his hunch was correct. The machine was used to make the temperature fall last night. But now he had a different question in his mind. Who could've placed the machine inside the alleyway?
Although the machine had the logo of the special force at the top, it couldn't have been the special force that set up the machine. After all, if they were the ones who did that, why would they arrive at the alleyway so late?
It could be said that the machine was used to lure the ghoul out. But what type of hunter would lay a trap and then forget about it? It was general knowledge that if a hunter sets a trap to trap something or someone, the hunter would stay close to the trap or somewhere around it to claim their prize when the time came. But Zaen was fighting with the ghoul all by himself before the special force showed up.
'Maybe someone wanted to lure me and the ghoul at the same time. But who would do such a thing and why?' Zaen was lost in his thoughts.
His first guess was that it all was the artifact's doing. If it could teleport people into a different dimension, it wouldn't be difficult for it to teleport inanimate objects from one reality to another, either. Also, the artifact was the one thing that pointed him in the correct direction so it made more sense. Sadly he couldn't prove his theory as the artifact didn't answer to him nor did it have any features like a virtual assistant for Zaen to ask questions to.
"Are you sure about it, Aeron?" Zaen finally asked his brother after thinking for five minutes straight, "Can this machine be used to cause a major temperature drop?"
"I'm a hundred and twenty-five per cent sure of it," Aeron replied. He was almost upset that Zaen was having doubts on his skills, "I even compared the readings from last night and yes it was well within this machine's ability to cause that much drop in the temperature."
"That makes sense- wait a minute, how the heck did you manage to get temperature readings from last night?"
"Really? You're gonna ask that?" At this point, Aeron was confused whether Zaen was trying to troll him or not, "I got it from the news reports, where else would I get the readings from? Don't tell me you thought I hacked into a weather satellite or something?"
Zaen did think it was the latter, given Aeron's genius it wasn't an impossible thing for him to do. However, now that Zaen thought about it, Aeron wouldn't need to do such a thing when the readings were pretty much available on the internet.
"Ahem. Of course, I didn't. I just wanted to know whether you were indulging in illegal activities or anything." Zaen stated with a matter-of-fact attitude.
"Illegal activities... says the guy who runs around killing monsters at night." At Aeron's comment, both brothers burst into laughter.