Serena and Zefer exchanged contact information then parted ways. Zefer went straight to working out. Even though he had lost a vast majority of his HP, he was still surprisingly energetic. As for Serena, she decided to get to work right away. She made her way to the surveillance room.
The surveillance room was located inside the main office, which was at the front of the Academy. So, she would surely be noticed by any staff roaming the halls, but all staff knew who she was. Therefore, it was easy for her to get around. With a wave and smile, even a friendly hello, the staff didn't seem to care one bit what she did.
As Serena entered the main office, she was greeted by the receptionist, "Hello Serena, what brings you here today?"
"Hello, Brittany. I am just here to get something for Mr. Howard." Serena made up a lie. Thanks to her connection with Mr. Howard, the one who oversaw the library, she shouldn't look suspicious here. As for the second part of her lie, the teacher's lounge was connected to the main office. So, it also added to building her lie. Adding in her already excellent standing with the staff, well, at this point, she was playing on easy mode.
"Oh yes, of course. Go right ahead, Serena." Brittany said with a wave and smile, and Serena nodded while thanking her as she passed by the front desk. Interestingly, there was no one here or even in the teacher's lounge, so making her towards the surveillance room was going to be a cakewalk.
Upon entry, she noticed a single guard on duty looking over the camera. She was curious why he hadn't called in a faulty camera since she blocked the field of view for the gymnasium cameras. She kept them on ice, literally.
As she slowly approached the guard, she could hear snoring which caused her to giggle silently since her job would be easy, but just in case, she seemed to sprinkle some kind of ice dust over his head. It was a spell that would cause someone to fall asleep for hours, but in the guard's case, he would remain asleep for a while longer unless something woke him.
She slowly moved the guard with the chair, careful not to wake him before getting to work. She began pressing buttons, typing commands on the console, and in return, certain time-stamps were overwritten, removing any traces of Ruth and Zefer ever entering the gym or meeting. She deleted footage of the frosty gym cameras and triple-checked her work to ensure she got everything.
Once she was finished, she put the guard back in place before leaving the room. "Thanks, Brittany." Serena said as she walked past Brittany, giving her a friendly wave, "No problem, Serena! Don't work too hard." Brittany replied, and Serena did the same, "You as well." After that, Serena left and returned to the library to finish her day. As she did, she sent a message to Zefer, telling her she had finished her work.
Since that day, things had been quiet. Zefer expected an investigation to begin within at least two days, but surprisingly nothing was happening. Zefer decided to just carry out with his [Daily Quest]. He continued to use idiots that challenged him to make money and even tried to unlock acrobatics. He felt like acrobatics, in particular, would help him in the long run.
Of course, Alex and Maven continued to try and approach him, but he blew them off as usual. He didn't have time to deal with these two, and even if he wanted to use them, he figured accepting them so easily could become suspicious. So, he continued to act the same way he always did.
Honestly, Ina found it scary how Zefer acted like nothing even happened. Zefer showed no remorse for what he did. It was as if what he did was nothing more than simply taking out the trash. Even if he had killed before, the average human usually becomes affected by taking a life. Still, perhaps it was precisely because he took those lives back then that he was able to remain calm.
Ina figured that Zefer probably viewed humans as nothing more than trash, or at least those in this city. So, killing them wasn't a big deal for him; however, she was wrong. It wasn't because he thought of them as trash, but rather, his mental state forced him to believe it was alright to kill people. As long as he killed those who wronged him, it was justifiable.
Nevertheless, Zefer never changed the way he acted. He continued to perform the same even as the days passed, not caring one bit for the gossip and murmurs.
Then, the fifth day finally came. Zefer was in his morning classes. The bell and rung stated that homeroom was to begin. Still, as Ms. Veronica entered the classroom, Zefer noticed a solemn expression on her features.
Everyone was curious as to why she was sad, but it seemed like she was about to answer their inquires shortly. "Good morning, class. I regret to inform you that I have some terrible news this morning. I am sure some of you have been wondering where Ruth and some of the other students have gotten off to." Well, it seems they have gone missing. Ms. Veronica was sad when she spoke, showing that she felt pained by this.
"Oh, it took them five days to come up with that conclusion. I wonder what they thought of before? Either the parents didn't care about their kids, or the school was keeping it on the down low until today." Zefer said to himself as he listened to Ms. Veronica, although he didn't break from character. His expression was still unamused as usual.
Murmurs began to fill the classroom about Ruth's disappearance. Word began to flutter around, wondering what happened and why Ruth was missing. Alex was the only one who side-glanced at Zefer. It wasn't that he thought Zefer did something, more so, that Zefer may have some kind of information on the matter. After all, Ruth was always messing with Zefer, so perhaps, Zefer could share some light on this. For now, Alex decided he would ask later. He didn't want to say anything now since he didn't want it to look like he was accusing Zefer.
In another classroom, Maven was sitting at her desk when she heard the news. "Ruth is missing!?" Maven exclaimed to herself with surprise. She was wondering why she hadn't heard anything about this until now? It wasn't just one student, but many students. Surely, something was reported to her father, but her father didn't even tell her anything either. So, why was she let out of the loop?
"I need to call father and ask him what is going on. If students have gone missing, it is my duty as the Student Body President to find out what is going on." Maven said to herself, noting that once she was free, she would give her father a call. She had been busy trying to find ways to get Zefer to open up to her, but so far, nothing was working. She decided to put the other matter on the backburner with a more pressing issue at hand.
Once more, in another classroom, two individuals seemed to react. Katie, the lighting girl Zefer nearly killed the day he gained his power, and Karrin, Zefer's stat point, or at least that was how he viewed her. Katie was awestruck to hear that students had gone missing since she didn't think much would happen. After all, this was an academy with not only a police force but a disciplinary committee.
Karrin, on the other hand, didn't seem to really care. Sure, it was scary that students went missing, but she was more so focused on trying to get Zefer to fall in love with her. Every day since she agreed to sleep with him, they would have sex, only for him to just walk away right after without care. It was as if she was nothing more than some pleasure toy for him, which upset her.
She refused to give up since she had come too far to let Zefer continue to treat her like some used toy. She was the one that used men. She was the one that had them in the palm of her hand, not the other way around. Her plan was to get Zefer to fall for her so that she could break him and turn him into her toy.
But that wasn't working out for her. No matter what she did, Zefer never seemed to react. It was like he didn't have any emotions or feelings of lust. Karrin continued to work on an idea of what she was going to do next, which of course, would undoubtedly fail.
Finally, Serena was in the library when Mr. Howard announced the missing students. Since he was staff, he had more information. Therefore, he found it safe to share the knowledge and told Serena each of the students that had gone missing.
Serena played the role of a scared student rather well, almost as if she was genuinely frightened. Her acting was on a whole other level because on the inside, she was grinning since she knew that soon, Zefer would accept her. After all, there was no way any of this would link back to Zefer, right?