Phill got paralyzed for a moment, just looking at Tobey's darkened face as if he was witnessing a ghost wandering in the room. His mouth was slightly opened and the cup of coffee was halfway to his mouth, but never got there.
He slowly put the cup of coffee on the center of his desk, adjusting himself on the chair, which emitted a long and annoying noise.
"I need to buy another chair... hehe..." he chuckled awkwardly, scratching his neck.
Tobey didn't say anything. He kept taking short sips of his coffee, tasting its bitterness as it spread in his mouth, feeling his heart getting faster due to the caffeine reacting in his body, and also the adrenaline of facing his childhood friend. It was painful to him as well, but he couldn't hesitate there. Even though it would hurt to discover the real Phill, he needed to do it, for his own sake.
"You... indeed is a good one, huh? The greatest detective of this city, I should say. You are suspecting me for knowing that you were on vacation, haha... And here I thought that you were here just to see your dear childhood friend."
"I would like to say that my reason for coming here was to see you, but that's not the only thing on the line here. And I am not suspecting you over a small detail like that one, but it shows that some people know more about me than they should.
"Anyway, my point here is about something that I noticed in today's news. I don't know if you saw it, though you work here so you should know very well, that the cameras and security systems of various establishments and houses didn't record a single thing. Due to this fact, there is no evidence about what was happening in the last week that caused so many rumors to appear in the city.
"That's quite convenient, don't you think?"
Phill froze in the same place as he heard those words. He clasped his hands together while fidgeting with his fingers. His posture suddenly got very straight. It was clear that he was trying not to show signals of anxiety but was failing. At least, for a specialist like Tobey, who needed to deal with interrogations quite often, those strange reactions were quite obvious to take.
"It was just a prolonged system failure. Are you saying that, whatever happened last night was our fault, or that our enterprise has something to do with it? That's bullshit. System failures are something normal, it's bound to happen sometimes during the career of an enterprise like ours!"
Tobey got up from his chair, finished his cup of coffee, and walked to the window behind Phill's chair. It was, indeed, a really nice view.
Phill followed him as he spun his chair slowly, looking at Tobey with wariness.
"From here we can see two important points of my theory, you know?" Tobey said while pointing to a certain part of the city.
"Right where that old hotel is, which is the central point of all this fuss. People said that they witnessed some strange things happening there. Also, the region near Han's house had some interesting reports about a certain rainy night. However, in both cases, which were quite extreme cases, do you think that the cameras were working? No!
"So, I was wondering with myself... if the cameras of this enterprise weren't working in this last week due to a system failure, wouldn't it be reasonable that all the cameras of the city stopped working, also like the other services you offer with your security system? But, you see, I visited many establishments, and even asked in some houses... and no report about system failure in the last week was given to them, nor did their system stopped to work for a single second.
"Now, if you say to me that the system only stopped working in these two specific points, that's a pretty convenient failure, right?"
Phill bit his lips for a moment, lowering his head and pondering about what Tobey said. He felt like he was caught at a dead end. Finally, he found an out to that situation.
"Even if we were involved in this scheme, whatever it is that happened in the previous nights, why would we just disable the cameras of limited space in the city, increasing our chances of getting caught? The enterprise has access to everything, you know?"
Tobey sarcastically giggled.
"It's simple. You just cannot mess with all the cameras. First of all, because you wanted to make it seem like a system failure when actually it was just a manual disablement. If you made a real system failure or explicitly shut down all the cameras, it would be easy for your employees to find the problem and fix it. Also, this enterprise has a lot to lose with such a mistake."
"You are also assuming that not everyone here is participating in this scheme, right? Like, the employees and all..."
"But of course! I mean, this enterprise reaches more than a hundred employees. Most of them would gain more money by stopping you than by participating in it. Also, they won't gain anything by following you..."
After a pause, he sighed and grimly said: "And not everyone is involved in this demon-paladin sort of situation. It's unlikely that there would be an entire enterprise filled with them."
Phill got silent for a whole minute. Again, he didn't dare to move a single finger. His eyes were gazing at the cup of coffee in his hand, which was still full.
During that short span, both could only hear each another's breathing. They didn't dare to look at one other.
While Phill was absorbing what he just heard, Tobey was forcing himself not to turn his eyes away from the truth.
'It hurt a lot when I discovered the true intentions of Han's grandma, which I considered as being my grandmother as well. However, now even Phill...'
More and more, the lies built on his past were crumbling down. It was both an excruciating and satisfying feeling.
Phill finally sighed, getting up from his chair while chuckling nonstop.
"You always were an interesting individual, Tobey. It was always hard for me to doubt your capabilities. There was just one time when I dared to doubt you, and you shut my mouth once and for all."
"It was when you doubted me when I said I would face the guy who was bullying Han in school, right? Just because he was way taller and heavier than me. And he had a penknife as well," Tobey said with a nostalgic gleam in his eyes.
"Yes. I said I would solve it when I got home, but when I was arriving, I found you and Han on the way. You had a penknife stabbed in your back, a swallowed face but... damn, your knuckles were so hurt that for a moment I wondered whether he had hit your hands with a rock or something.
"And, instead of crying, you were wearing that cold expression of yours, as if your face was saying: well, just an everyday thing. Nothing much to see here."
Tobey nodded his head, a faint smile on his face.
"I was a very crazy kid. I mean, I am a bit reckless nowadays, too..."
[A bit? There are many controversies, but I will leave it at this for now...]
"Haha, yeah..." Phill sighed once again. "It's sad that we needed to get to this point, right? Nonetheless, I guess that this future was decided long ago. Demons can't simply become humans, and paladins can't do it as well. Like cat and mouse, these two races are born with a natural aversion to each other.
"What gets me quite frustrated, though, is that someone like you was fated to be our enemy..."
"Was it a compliment, Phill?"
The director shook his head.
"It was a lament, a venting. I hate to have your kind as enemies."
"I would rather have myself as a friend as well. After all, you know that I won't stop until I unravel all the truth and make your foundations crumble down bit by bit, right?"
Phill nodded his head.
"Be prepared to face a wall that you will never surpass in the process, little Tobey... That said, get your ass out of my office, before I am obliged to kill you."
"Let's be honest here, even if I stayed, you wouldn't kill me at all. Your kind needs to act with a low profile until things calm down, and until then you all are dancing in the palm of my hand."
After that, he exited the room.
[Good move, bro.] Mask sarcastically said. [What's the point of maintaining your façade with that Gustav guy but not with Phill?]
'Different opponents, different approaches. As I said, Gustav has a different connection with this case. Phill is entirely different because he knows that I am aware of the position of his family, so I need to be more assertive to make him leak information.'
[But, what kind of information did he leak?]
'He just gave me a clue that there is someone inside the MDCI who is a paladin and is watching over me. Otherwise, from who could he get the information that they gave me a vacation? Just someone working there would know. Also, as we talked, he showed passive behavior, which leads me to think that he isn't the head of this scheme... There is someone above Phill that is leading all of this; I just need to discover whether they are inside this enterprise or not.'