After knocking her out and placing her aside, Azzy called the manager of the Bar and gathered the remaining staff members since there were no other customers to serve.
He showed the photograph of Alder and interrogated them. Naturally, they behaved politely after seeing his ID card.
Once he was done, he proceeded to take his friend back with him, although not before the manager gave him the bill with a long list of expensive beverages and snacks.
"1.8 million Credits? You gotta be kidding me." Azzy was stunned at once when he saw the bill. The amount wasn't huge for him as it was less than his weekly salary but still, with that amount, a commoner could purchase a 1000 sq. ft apartment flat in the suburbs of any tier-1 city.
And she wasted so much money in one night. He couldn't help but wonder how could she even afford to spend such an amount with her teacher's monthly salary of 100k credits.
"Is she rich or something? Well, it doesn't matter at the moment. I can talk to her tomorrow."
Azzy couldn't help but shake his head and pay the bill before carrying her on his back to the academy.
To save himself from unnecessary trouble, Azzy took her to his apartment and threw her on his bed before closing the door and walking toward the sofa in the living room.
He sat there with a notebook in his hands.
"Okay, let's see what we gathered so far." He started writing the things he found out that night.
1) Alder drinks daily but never to the point of getting drunk.
2) Alder never drinks expensive ones at Bluess Bar despite being a regular.
3) Contrastingly, he drinks ridiculously expensive ones when he was with Aaron. And they don't split the bill. Alder pays all by himself. According to the records from the bar, the average bill of those two was around 700k credits.
4) According to the waiter at Bluess who regularly serves Alder's table every time, Alder and Aaron don't come together. Aaron always comes late and goes early.
5) Alder was never seen drinking with anyone else apart from Aaron.
6) The waiter heard Alder and Aaron speaking about some organization a lot of times. Alder wanted to join it.
7) That means Aaron is a member of some unknown organization Alder probably was investigating about.
8) Is Aaron an informant? No, if he is an informant, Alder wouldn't want to join it but would rather want to get information. That's all.
9) On the night of the fifth of February, before Alder went missing, he was with a woman. He left with her and was never seen again.
10) According to the records, he arrived at the bar around 1 a.m. and left around 2:45 a.m. The headquarters received the message at 3:06 a.m.
11) If I catch this woman, I can get more clues. But, who is she? The light was quite dim and the waiter says that he didn't properly see her face except for the fact that her eyes are glowing in golden color, her hair is jet black, she has bangs, and big...*Ahem* great body. Only her eyes are unique. The rest of those descriptions are common things. So, those details are useless.
"Wait a second…" Azzy suddenly remembered an important detail. "Alder was seen entering the bar together with this woman, making the staff misunderstand that she is his girlfriend. When they left together, everyone thought they would go to a love hotel nearby.
Who knows… Alder probably thought the same and didn't expect to be ambushed on the way.
Now, the biggest question that remains is what side she is on. I need to find out whether she is an accomplice to the criminal or whether she is also a victim.
Perhaps, she might be a staff member? If I ask around, maybe, I could find out about this woman with golden-colored pupils.
Hmm… let's analyze with what details we have."
Azzy went through the notes once again and fell into thought, "There were about 20 minutes between the time he left the bar with our mystery woman and when he fell into a disadvantage in a battle.
If a battle goes on for that long, there would be commotion and there would be witnesses. But, at the very least, so far, the part-timers working in nearby stores didn't see anything strange on that night.
Anyways, putting this woman aside, Aaron appeared to be the most suspicious person in this case.
A theory can be developed like Alder wanted to join Aaron's organization, which is probably the one that is targeting the children of 10-A for a reason I wasn't informed. Hence, it must be a large secret.
Aaron somehow finds out that Alder is a spy and gets rid of him by using a woman.
Now, there was no dead body. Hence, I can assume he might be alive. If he is imprisoned, the culprits probably wanted to get some kind of info. His connection with WAMO? Or maybe, to find out how much he has gathered so far?
What if it is done by a different gang to frame Aaron and his mysterious organization? Ugh… incomplete information will always have too many variables to draw conclusions. If only I have assistance…"
Azzy doesn't have a partner but he sure does joint missions mostly with teams from the elite forces division. With a simple command from him, they will gather the information to make it easier for him.
He was missing them a bit, particularly team hawk, a group he worked with, a lot of times during the past three years.
It was at that moment, his counselor or the special advisor, the Reaper voiced his suggestion to show him the way. Words of the reaper echoed in his head, "Azrael, you can directly go to the scene and watch it by yourself."
"What do you mean?" Azzy asked with a frown.
"Time travel." A simple answer came from the Reaper.
"Eh?" Azzy was surprised. "But, you always say that I'm not strong enough; I'm not mature enough to travel to the past."
"That was when you are in the 7-star realm," replied the Reaper. He further added, "Now that you are in the legendary realm, I can use the Hourglass' eighth ability, Temporary Reload to save the timeline and reset it back in the rise of an unexpected event.
However, I should warn you that you cannot… will not intervene in anything you see. As long as you are a spectator, your future self might not intervene either.
Not only you should worry about the supreme realm experts, but there are also a couple of celestial-grade beasts hiding among the humans, living a quiet life. And you are certainly not strong enough to face them if they target you unless you use all of your trump cards.
There will be commotion and there might even be unnecessary casualties. We certainly don't want that to happen.
Hence, I'm going to use a sealing technique to let you go undetected as long as you suppress your soul energy within your body. Understood?"
Azzy firmly nodded in understanding. He summoned the Hourglass without wasting any time and went on to unleash the hidden soul skill.
"Hidden skill: Time Travel"
As the hourglass turned upside down, a blinding flash of light enveloped Azzy, teleporting him to the time corridor.
Infinite versions of Azrael were passing through his body and going to their destination.
Azzy looked around, hoping to find his future self to guide him. However, there was none. And to his dismay, his connection to the Reaper was also temporarily cut off. Hence, he could only depend on himself.
"Okay, don't panic, Azzy. Let's look around. It is just simple. You just have to walk through the right door." As he walked in the corridor, passing through his versions like a ghost, he observed the doors on his left. Each of them has a date and a certain time engraved on top of them.
"5th Feb, let's choose a time between 12:00 A.M-3:00 A.M. Yeah, found it. There were two doors for this day. One is at 1:52 A.M. and the other is 11:23 A.M.
Huh? The time is quite specific, unlike what I have imagined. But, why there are only two times? Are these related to certain events? It would really be helpful if I have a certain guide. Anyways, no use in thinking about what we have no idea about. Let's just get this job done."
Azzy opened a door. He couldn't see anything on the other side. It was completely black. But, he trusted his decision and stepped inside, hoping that he doesn't float into the space.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l