After weighing the odds, Thomas decided to keep everything secretive as they were. He stored away the wallet, shoved all the thoughts about that incident and the mad demon, before starting to train again.
The next day, Thomas went inside his department to start his second day at work. When he went there, he found Lucy already reading through lots of scrolls and records about old incidents, still excited by her job.
"Oh, you came," when she saw him, she stopped what she was doing, and said in an urgent tone, "Trevor is waiting for you, up there."
She pointed towards the ceiling, and Thomas didn't get what she meant.
"The Vault?! Are you sure he asked for me?" Thomas felt a little scared about this. That was the place he ended up wrongly before at, the place he got heavily bombarded with superpowers and was this close from losing his life back then if not for Trevor.
"What's wrong with that place?" She blinked twice, seemingly not annoyed or stirred up by his anxiety or anything, "I asked him to go, but he refused, telling me it wasn't safe for me to go there."
"It's not safe for you but for me? What went wrong in his head!" Thomas became enraged towards Trevor. The latter knew about the last incident that he suffered from. Then how come he'd ask him now to go there willingly?
"He says you know the way, and he is waiting for you there, so don't worry," Lucy started to finally grasp how deeply terrified Thomas was from going there. So she tried to console him, a thing that entirely failed.
Thomas had no other choice but to follow Trevor's orders and go up there, heading to the same direction he swore to not go towards ever again.
"Here you are, what took you so long?" Just as he passed a corner, he found Trevor standing with another superhero, chatting like they were old friends or something, "come, come closer, don't be afraid, this time you are here on official visit."
"Official visit?!" Thomas moved his eyes between Trevor and his friend, trying to recall if this man was one of the superheroes who attacked him before or not.
"Don't worry, little cub, you are safe as long as you follow our protocols," Trevor's friend made it clear he was one of those who attacked Thomas before by this comment, especially when he followed it with a loud laugh.
"What am I doing here?" Thomas ignored this hidden remark towards the old embarrassing incident, turned to Trevor, and asked about why he called him here.
"Lucy is going to read through the old files and train, but you… I can tell you grasped a big deal of our work," Trevor paused, looking over his shoulders, where the entrance of the Vault department was.
The Vault wasn't like a real vault actually. It had a big door, with a small window on the side. Thomas saw the iron rods that blocked this window, looking as if it was a small prison cell or something.
Behind it, he could hear the noises of someone writing and working but couldn't see anything else from his point.
"What's about that place?" Trevor returned to look at Thomas, and the latter didn't know why but he felt bad about this look.
"You'll go there…"
"No way! I won't risk my life again with them!" Thomas was firm and decisive, even raised his voice a little bit, a thing that made Trevor's friend laugh again. Thomas looked at him as if he was telling him that it was good to enjoy another superhero's bad situation.
"I told you to not worry," Trevor rolled his eyes, seemingly resisting the urge to laugh to not embarrass his department new recruit in front of others, "I already applied for you to go in there. So, you have access for one working day to do something for me."
"Is that true?" Thomas moved his eyes between the two adult superheroes in front of him, and from their silence he knew it was, "but what do you want me to do? It's not our department."
"You work hard, then hand over everything you achieved to the Villain Hunter department," Trevor's friend took the role of explaining this over to Thomas, "then after that, everything related to the cases after getting solved or closed will be moved to here."
"And?" Thomas got what his department had with the Vault, partially grasping what the Vault's role in the SA was. But he didn't yet get why he had to go in there, and why Trevor wanted him to go, not going there by himself instead.
"I need you to check for an old case for me," Trevor finally stopped fooling with him, and started to speak about the purpose of summoning him here, "there was once a case that happened five years ago, one that's quite familiar and similar to the train one."
"For real?" Trevor knew the moment he'd mention the train incident, Thomas would change his attitude and start taking this matter with more enthusiasm. As for the latter, he realised why Trevor wanted him to be here despite his bad history with this place.
It seemed like Trevor felt little guilt about not sending Thomas out to investigate the train case with other team members. So, he decided to repay him and hand this task over.
This was part of the real reasons behind this, but Trevor really noticed how Thomas grasped how his department does things. He didn't ask questions, seemed to understand everything written in the scrolls he read yesterday. Unlike Lucy, Trevor felt like Thomas was ready to help, and he wanted to test him with this little task first.
"But there is a catch," Trevor's friend suddenly said, "the cases are stored according to their date, not by anything else. So…"
"I have to dig for it myself," Thomas got what this meant, "any clue about this case?"
"That old incident happened at a town called Danders," Trevor started explaining things over to Thomas, "and the superhero who got attacked back then had the code name of: The Bright Blade."
"Bright Blade, I got it," Thomas was now eager to end this discussion and go inside the Vault. He wasn't just going to read through this case, but apparently, he was going to read lots of old cases as well. And for a reason he didn't know, he had a hunch that he'd get to find something interesting in these cases.
He was part of the train incident after all. "Go now, I can tell how excited and eager you are to start," Trevor laughed, turning to his friend before adding, "I'll leave him in your care."
"Don't worry, he'll be fine as long as he stays in that room all day," Trevor's friend said, while patting on Thomas' shoulders as if he was patting on a kid or something.
Trevor then left, and Thomas followed that man towards the closed door. When they stood in front of it, he could see the face of the superhero working behind the iron bars. And he instantly recognised him as the first person to shout and attack him back then.
"That scaredy cat is back? Nice," that superhero laughed, as if they all never forgot about Thomas' awkward moment back then.
"He has access to the inspection room…"
"I know, come in,'' Just as the superhero said it, Thomas heard a muffled buzzing noise coming as if a warden door was opening or something. Then the shut door opened on its own, "the cases from that year are all moved to the room. Don't forget this, scaredy cat, you aren't allowed to go out from there even for launch, not even for bathroom."
"This…" Thomas was stupefied when he heard this, but Trevor's friend pushed him from the back and took him inside.
"Your meal will be delivered here by me, as for the bathroom…"
"Don't expect me to hold myself for that long!"
Trevor's friend stopped just in front of a closed door where the other superhero was in. The former remained silent for an entire minute, before breaking out in laughter, he and the other one as well.
"Just look at your face, hahahaha! Don't worry, there is one in that room, hahahaha! That cub is really funny, hahahaha!"
"I bet he won't last here for more than one month, hahahaha!" the other superhero behind the closed door said amidst his laughs, making Thomas feel more heat at his head out of his frustration.
They were doing this, acting in such a way, thanks to their strength and status. Thomas didn't aim for a higher status in this place, but he swore to grow stronger and come to mock them and might even humiliate them a little as well.
Trevor's friend walked then, leading Thomas inside a long and narrow corridor. There were many doors shut here. At the end of this corridor, there was a turn to the right, shielding what laid next from Thomas' eyes.
"This is the inspection room," they just passed three doors before they stopped at the fourth. Trevor's friend opened the door casually, which told Thomas this was just a trap.
Showing him there was no code or a special way to open the door would tempt anyone to go out and check other rooms. And Thomas was sure the entire place was monitored, if not by cameras thanks to the retarded technology of this world, then it'd be by one of the superheroes.
"If you need anything, just come out and shout my name," Trevor's friend said before closing the door, "I'm Zig by the way."
"Thanks," Thomas said, but when the door closed, his calm face changed to show a serious look, "as if I'm crazy to break the rules and fall into such a childish trap, hmph!"
He turned around and forgot everything Zig said. He was told to not go out of the room under any condition, and he planned to stick to the rules by the letter.
The room was square in shape, ten metres in length and width. Aside from a few tables, there were only two chairs. There were no drawers, no lockers, nothing to keep anything here. The cases that were brought out from the inner places of the Vault were stacked on top of each other on the ground, forming little hills between the tables.
From the first look, he could tell there were hundreds of cases here. "I have only one day, and I intend to read them all."
Thomas knew he didn't need to read anything twice to know everything about the cases. But when he started reading, he was met with a surprise, unpleasant one.
"Lots of things are omitted… What for?!" Thomas was surprised to see lots of words, lines, even entire phrases getting omitted by black ink. He couldn't read anything covered by this thick layer of ink, and he flipped through many case scrolls to see the same thing happening.
This was quite bizarre. He knew these were old cases, but why were such lines and phrases omitted?
"It's like someone is trying to cover up his tracks or hide something…" his nature as an investigator kicked in at this moment, feeling the same hunger he felt when he sniffed anything that didn't match up in any case he handled.
Each case's scrolls were gathered up in one bag, made out of thick and hardened paper, the same paper that scrolls were made out of. Inside, he found lots of scrolls sealed with brown rough threads. Each case got a different number of scrolls, ranging between ten up to fifty.
Few cases even got two bags, as they had more scrolls to hold. Thomas started to ignore the omitted sections, trying to even guess what these omitted words and phrases were.
Guessing phrases was the hardest, even impossible, but he started to guess lots of omitted words based on the general context of the case.
He started to read through the cases randomly, selecting one case from each pile and reading through it. The cases he read spoke about simple incidents that superheroes met, like trying to rob them, or even domestic violence against building owners or their neighbours. But there were serious cases as well.
As he knew the main four types of villains active in the town, he wasn't surprised to read cases about various incidents that involved them. Only Witchers didn't appear in any case he read, and that made him question what he read back at the book.
He read about superheroes getting abducted, involved in various disasters caused by Maniacs or even the Scorchers. He read how ugly and brutal the scenes left by these were and couldn't help but pray he'd never meet such gruesome fate like the unfortunate superheroes he read about.
"Wait… This case…" after five hours of reading and going through lots of scrolls and cases, he found something that made his eyes shine brightly in excitement, "this one has a wallet! The same wallet as the one I already have!!"
That incident involved the attack of two villains, labelled again as Maniacs. They attacked one superhero called Max, with a superpower that could turn any liquid to metal, reshaping it to form deadly weapons and even shields!
It was a brutal battle, one that ended with Max running away with his life after stealing a wallet from these two villains. Unlike Thomas, Max handed the wallet to the investigation department. And the wallet was described in great detail, being identical to the one Thomas got.
The latter started to read through this case more thoroughly and with high attention. Lots of phrases were omitted about what happened by the Villain Hunter department, only the sections related to the Investigation department were mostly intact.
There he found nothing useful. The incident happened at a remote area, where this superhero was going on a random checkup routine mission.
He was supposed to tour a grand area, find anything suspicious, then report it back. Yet out of the blue, he got attacked. Investigation ended up with nothing worthy of mention, and the Villain Hunter department section wasn't of value to Thomas.
The case ended by closing it without reaching any decisive result. "Hmm… The wallet and all of its belongings were confiscated inside the Vault. There is a paper with weird letters and words left behind, I bet it's like written in English!"
He now wanted nothing more but to rampage through this department and look for this paper and perhaps more like it. But he knew he had no such power to do such a thing, and he'd only be seeking his demise and downfall if he tried to do anything like this.
He calmed himself down, controlled his eagerness to find this page. He placed the case away but made sure to remember every single word written there down to the letter.
He started to read faster through other cases, trying to distract himself away from that paper. He was sure it was a message left by the Great Monarch, something that was related to a great secret or something grand like an artefact or something.
As he spent more hours there, lunch was delivered by Zig. The latter didn't speak with Thomas, didn't say even a single word, only looked at him in a weird way before leaving.
"What? Did you think I was going to wander around the place?" Thomas ate his lunch while complaining about this, venting out his frustration using words instead of actions.
After launch, he continued reading fast through many cases. He knew he got less than three hours left before the working day would be over, and he had to take advantage of every second to find that case Trevor wanted. And he finally found it after one hour of having his meal.