After recovering from her headache and injuries, Alia finally beca aware of the chaos unfolding around her. So, she stepped forward toward the guards, fixing them with her powerful gaze.
"Can soone explain to what is going on here?" She asked her final question with such an authoritative tone that there was no room for disagreent.
The guards remained motionless, but the air around them felt heavy, suffocating. Alia’s presence was like a blade pressed against their throats.
They exchanged glances, waiting, almost begging, for one of their companions to take the lead. Yet none of them dared to be the first to speak, and they all remained frozen in place.
The silence dragged on, and Alia tilted her head slightly, irritated. Her eyes swept across each of the soldiers, studying them, waiting for soone bold enough to break the cowardly hesitation.
"I’m waiting," she said, her voice low, controlled, yet carrying sothing that made one of the guards swallow hard.
Another flinched and took an involuntary step back, as if any extra inch of distance might ease the suffocating pressure.
That’s when Alia moved. Just a single step forward, but the sound of her boot against the ground echoed like thunder in the soldiers’ ears.
"Speak," she commanded, her voice sharp as drawn steel.
One of the guards trembled, and despite his will, the words began to spill from his lips.
"Alia, we..." He cleared his throat, trying to regain composure. "We were just following orders. These students are suspects. We need to detain them for questioning."
She raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. "Suspects? Of what, exactly?"
Another guard, avoiding her piercing gaze, quickly intervened. "We... we’re not exactly sure. But after what happened at the rift, we needed to..."
The guard struggled to find the right words, or a proper excuse for their actions. So he finally settled on saying:
"Amanda ordered us to arrest and interrogate the students after the incident that happened at the rift."
"Oh? And since when does that woman have authority over Enki’s police? Did a prosecutor at least issue a warrant for this?"
"Uh..." The man struggled to find the right words. "I’m sorry, but the commander left us to take Amanda to the infirmary. I don’t know the details behind the operation."
In the end, facing Alia’s inquisitorial eyes, the man chose simply to throw all the bla on his superiors.
Hearing this, the woman sighed deeply. "I expected more from the proud guard of Enki," she said in a stern tone that made the man’s chest tighten as he froze in place. "But I see I’m talking to a useless man, who isn’t even capable of understanding the orders given to him."
"I apologize for my lack of qualification," the man said, bowing as his cheeks flushed with sha and humiliation at the situation.
"It doesn’t matter, lift your head," she ordered in a harsh tone. She was already tired of it all. "Then at least tell what incident happened in the rift. I imagine you can at least answer that for ."
"Yes," he replied, his voice escaping in a shaky breath. "The students... well... they entered the rift to participate in the simulated hunt, as usual. It was supposed to be a routine exercise, with no real risks, just supervised training."
He paused, looking away for a mont, but Alia’s imposing presence forced him to continue.
"But... sothing went wrong. There was... an incident. We still don’t know exactly how or why, but..."
"Just tell , what happened?" Alia asked in a firm tone.
"The students were trapped inside the rift for a week," the man replied in a fright.
The woman was surprised by what she heard, but that explained the state the students were in. They had clearly been through an arduous journey.
"And it’s with an arrest warrant that you greet the students after they miraculously survived this crisis, apparently alone?" she said, noting how there were no guards accompanying the students, only surrounding them.
"Well, I..." The man tried to look away, not knowing what to say. "I received orders, so..." the only way out he could find was to invent an excuse to get rid of the problems.
"And for what reason would you need to arrest them?"
"Uh... there’s a risk that whoever caused the incident is among them," the man repeated the excuse created by Amanda.
Faced with this, Alia sighed deeply, then turned to another guard and ordered him to check the availability of the school’s infirmary. And he confird that there were enough vacancies.
"Very well, I will send the students to the infirmary," she said, giving no room for them to question her.
And facing her threatening gaze, no one dared to complain. Therefore, she continued, declaring her decision.
"Given the risk that the culprit may be among them, I’m going to send each one to a separate room. I’ll also take responsibility for personally observing them. Do any of you have a problem with that?"
"No, just count on us if necessary," the guards replied timidly.
"Yes, it will certainly be necessary," she said with an irritated voice. "I want you to begin a thorough investigation into this incident imdiately. Understood?"
"Yes," they all answered in low voices.
"I expect you to make up for your mistakes and inefficiency up to this point by working hard," the woman said in a threatening tone.
The guards exchanged glances but eventually agreed, just as she expected. Seeing that they were ’eager’ to work on the investigation, the woman gave a slightly sadistic and threatening smile, then declared:
"Understood. Now, which floor were the students wrongly sent to?"
"To the 76th floor, ma’am," one of the guards responded, intimidated.
Alia sighed impatiently and snapped her fingers. In the blink of an eye, the energy around her distorted, and in a sudden flash, her body vanished from the spot.
In the next instant, she reappeared in the hall with Jeff. He was one of Enki’s chief guards and a trusted man.
The man dropped to one knee out of reflex, still adjusting to the sudden change in location, but quickly stood up, already accustod to Alia’s abilities.
"Situation?" he asked imdiately, straightening up.
Alia crossed her arms. "I imagine you’ve heard about the situation where the students got trapped in the rift, right?"
"Ah.. yes, but I wasn’t assigned to the case," the man replied, then looking around he saw the students and a big relieved smile spread across his face. "I see they survived, that’s a relief."
"Yes, but this still needs to be investigated, and from today you are the head of the case."
"Okay," he replied, looking a little insecure. Obviously, Alia didn’t have the authority to simply do things like that, but she didn’t seem to care.
"Very well, then you can go to the 76th floor and carefully investigate what happened there. And I expect you to carry out your duty honestly, understood?"
She said with a threatening tone that made all the n there think several tis before trying to obstruct the investigations.
"Your work starts now," she declared, her voice full of authority. "I want every detail of this investigation conducted perfectly. That ans there will be no mistakes. There will be no delays, get results."
The guards looked at each other, swallowing hard.
No one dared to answer. They just nodded quickly, one by one, before starting to disperse hurriedly, beginning their work without any objection.
Alia watched them for a mont, satisfied with the response, then with a snap of her fingers, she sent all those guards to do their work.
Then she turned to the students and simply said:
"You can go and rest, you don’t need to worry about the details."
She snapped her fingers and then began to send each of them to a room in the infirmary. It was at that mont that she noticed sothing.
"Oops... they don’t look like students," she murmured to herself, and brought four people back.
Then, after sending almost everyone to the infirmary, only 5 people remained in that place: Morrigan and the four prisoners that the students had brought with them.
"Who are they?" Alia finally asked her ever-loyal secretary.
"They are prisoners," she replied briefly. She knew her master’s mood was terrible, and one of the things she hated most was long, rambling answers.
"So where should I send them?" she asked, only then noticing sothing. "Wait, isn’t that my brother? Wein, what did you do this ti?"
The man, who was unconscious, obviously didn’t answer.
"I think you can send them to the beast prison at the school; at least they’ll be contained there, thanks to the anti-magic effect," Morrigan said anyway.
"Okay," the woman did so and finally teleported herself and her friend to the living room of her house. "Now you can explain to what really happened."
"Of course," Morrigan replied with a soft smile on her face.
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