Killian stopped walking and turned to look at her. He embraced Veronia and gently wiped her tear-stained cheeks. Then he softly hugged her slender, trembling shoulders and patted them reassuringly.

“It’s alright. I’m here beside you.”

“Huu……”

Veronia’s tears continued for a while longer. Even if they were monsters, enemies of humanity that needed to be exterminated, this kind of torture was too cruel.

Experiments inflicting seemingly endless pain without killing or letting live.

“What were they trying to gain by conducting such cruel experiments?”

Veronia said, her face buried in Killian’s chest.

“If the substance obtained through this helps humanity… then does that justify these cruel experiments?”

“……”

Gloomy questions followed one after another. After patting Veronia’s back for a while, Killian finally spoke slowly.

“Whether using monsters for experiments is right or wrong is debatable. Monsters are beings that harm humanity after all.”

“……”

“But using humans for experiments is a different matter. It’s clearly wrong. There’s no room for debate. Especially if the test subjects are children.”

At Killian’s words, Veronia looked up at him with wide eyes. The tears welling up in her eyes sparkled in the light of the luminous stones.

“Then the needle marks on the children’s bodies… Could it be?”

“I suspect they first used monsters as test subjects, and when they achieved a certain level of results, they moved on to experimenting on children’s bodies next.”

“Oh my…!”

The tears that had stopped started flowing again. Veronia clearly remembered the faces of each child she had met at the infirmary yesterday.

‘To put those small, thin bodies on a cold experiment table! To inject unproven substances into children’s bodies!’

A burning rage rose from deep within her. Her body trembled, unable to contain her anger.

Veronia wiped her tears. Now was not the time to be crying. She needed to secure evidence and bring the cruel perpetrators before the court of law. If the emperor was behind this, he too should be judged.

Veronia took out a recording orb from her bag and recorded the image of the monster trapped in the iron cage. It was then that the two of them reached the end of the corridor.

Clank-

One of the bricks Veronia stepped on creaked and made a strange sound.

“Huh?!”

And the very next moment, with a clang and a clatter, iron bars came down from the ceiling!

“Ah…!”

“Oh no!”

It happened so suddenly that they couldn’t even run away. Trapped inside the iron bars, Veronia and Killian stumbled back in bewilderment. But that wasn’t the end of it.

Beep, beep- Beeeep-

Suddenly, red warning lights began flashing throughout the basement, and a loud alarm started blaring.

“What do we do now? The director will be here soon.”

In response to Veronia’s tense question, Killian smiled gently and said,

“It would be nice if Windler arrived before the director.”

“What?”

“I told Windler to stand by in case of any unforeseen situations.”

“Ah……”

Watching Killian press the magic stone embedded in his bracelet to summon Windler, Veronia let out a sigh of relief. Despite calling it a covert investigation, Killian seemed impressive for having made thorough preparations behind the scenes.

“Don’t you have anything like that among your magical tools? Like a master key?”

Killian asked lightly with a slight smile. It seemed he was trying to ease Veronia’s tension. Thanks to that, Veronia shook her head with a relaxed smile.

“Unfortunately, no. I’ll make one when we return to the capital.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Having said that, Killian didn’t just stand still but examined various parts of the iron bars.

“This is an old building, and these bars probably haven’t been used for a long time. There might be some weak spots.”

As he expected, there were clear signs of rust in various places on the iron bars. Shing- Killian drew his sword and activated his aura. His aura-infused sword emitted a soft blue light.

‘That’s right. He was originally a sword master.’

Seeing him always buried in paperwork, she had forgotten that he was actually more skilled at wielding a sword than a pen.

“Step back.”

Veronia did as Killian said and moved far away from him. Gripping the sword tightly with both hands and taking a stance, Killian swung his sword at the iron bars.

Clang- Clang! Crash!

With one powerful strike, the iron bars crumbled. Veronia’s mouth fell open in surprise at the sight.

“Cutting through iron bars with a sword… I didn’t know this was possible.”

“It was my first time trying it too, but it worked. Now, let’s go!”

With a triumphant smile, Killian reached out his hand towards Veronia. She took his hand without hesitation.

Though it was late at night, Director Lars Cohen was not yet asleep. He sat at his desk, busily scribbling something. Following the emperor’s words expecting results, he had been devoting himself to research, cutting back on sleep.

For the past 10 years, he had been formulating hypotheses, combining drugs, experimenting with those drugs, observing and recording the changes in the test subjects.

Based on that, he revised his hypotheses, combined new drugs, and repeated the experiments. With the emperor’s expectations focused on him now, he believed without a doubt that if he just pushed a little harder and concentrated, he would soon achieve good results.

It was while he was deeply focused that it happened. Beep, beep- Beeeep- A strange sound came from the small alarm light installed on his desk as it began flashing red.

‘What’s this all of a sudden?’

Lars was momentarily dumbfounded by the unfamiliar situation. It was a natural reaction, given that this alarm had never gone off in the past 10 years.

‘Ah! The basement alarm!’

Finally realizing the meaning of the unfamiliar alarm, Lars stood up. Intruders had entered the underground laboratory.

“Damn it! Who could it be!”

Though his back was hunched, his movements were agile. He hurriedly but quickly ran out the door.

He needed to go down to the director’s office on the second floor and use the secret passage there.

He kept his footsteps as quiet as possible to avoid waking the sleeping teachers, as that would only make the situation bigger. It was while Lars was quickly descending the stairs that it happened.

Bang, bang, bang!

A violent knocking sound came from the building’s entrance.

‘What now? Who could it be at this late hour?’

Lars was bewildered by the series of unconnected events. But those outside the entrance didn’t seem inclined to wait patiently for him.

Bang, bang, bang!

Bang, bang, bang!

The late-night visitors kept pounding on the entrance door relentlessly. The air that had been still moments ago now vibrated noisily.

Awakened by the noise, some teachers came out into the hallway in their nightclothes. Seeing Lars standing on the stairs, they widened their eyes in surprise.

“Director, you’re awake.”

“Who could it be at this hour?”

The confused-looking teachers approached Lars. Lars took the lead and walked towards the entrance.

‘Well… this has become troublesome.’

More important than finding out who was at the entrance was checking the situation in the underground laboratory, but there were too many eyes watching now. For the moment, dealing with the situation at the entrance had to come first.

“We’ll know who it is when we open the door.”

Lars unlocked the bolt and pushed the door. The heavy door opened with a creaking sound.

Outside stood several soldiers. Not only Lars but also the teachers widened their eyes at the sight of soldiers appearing in the middle of the night. Judging by the sun emblem engraved on their armor, which was the symbol of the imperial family, they seemed to be from the Imperial Knights.

“What brings you here?”

Lars asked in a sharp voice. To this, Windler, who was standing at the front, replied in a businesslike, stiff tone.

“We received a report!”

“A report… about what?”

For a moment, Lars’s heart sank. Cold sweat formed in his tightly clenched fist. But he maintained a calm expression and slowly opened his mouth again.

“You’ll need to tell me exactly what kind of report you received and from whom.”

Lars looked up at Windler with narrowed eyes. Their gazes clashed sharply in midair.

Windler was just as tense. Although he had rushed out upon receiving the emergency signal, he didn’t know the details. The mission he had received from Killian was simply to knock on the orphanage door as soon as he received the emergency signal.

Windler took a deep breath, hoping that Killian would appear soon, and shouted in a loud voice.

“You!”

When you need to push forward recklessly, the key is to raise your voice first. If there’s nothing else to show, at least you should show your voice.

“What exactly are you hiding? If you don’t tell the truth right now, we’ll start an investigation immediately!”

“Hi-hiding? What do you mean? There’s n-nothing like that! Really!”

Perhaps the voice tactic had worked. Lars barely managed to reply in a trembling voice, intimidated by Windler’s force. As Windler was inwardly relieved at this sight, there was a brief commotion from behind, and then a voice of great authority sharply cut through the cold night air.

“How dare you utter such brazen lies.”

It was Killian. Arriving late, he pushed through the soldiers and strode forward.

He leisurely brushed back his hair, which had become disheveled from rushing here from the basement. In contrast, Lars tensed up, almost breathless at Killian’s sudden appearance.

“Director, you need to guide us to the basement right now. We’ve received information that illegal human experiments are being conducted there.”