novelraw Chapter 71: Pesha's Farewell
Chapter 71: Pesha's Farewell
[Maya's POV]
"Who is he really?" I asked myself as I stared out of the window, watching as Bell practically was toying with the baron who was on the cliff of life.
One final push and he'd join the dead.
I thought of Bell as a criminal, then as a two-faced person who had secrets that I wanted to uncover. He was the person I hated because he ruined the greatest scoop of my life.
He was also the last person that I wanted to see today because I was here in the first place because of him.
But when he saved me, despite how rude I was to him earlier, I couldn't help but wonder which of the two masks he wore was the real one.
He's also extremely well-trained in the art of the sword and out of everyone at the academy our age, he's probably top five in technical abilities alone and perhaps was in the top three when it comes to being the strongest first-year student.
"How come he was in the Second Class?" I wondered, feeling as though if Bell didn't deserve to be First Class, no one did.
Seeing Bell place his foot down on the baron's chest, I felt like there was no way for the wrong person to come out on top so I turned around and entered the room.
Unlocking the safe with the keycard, I don't really know what I was expecting to be inside it.
Were there going to be documents? Or perhaps the severed limbs of deceased victims the baron kept as trophies that could be used to link him to those murders?
Sighing, I grabbed the handle and pulled it.
"What the..." I muttered as I saw a small item.
It was the only thing inside the safe.
"All this space just for this single thing," I said as I grabbed the flash drive.
Tucking it into my pocket, I returned to the window where I had been looking out earlier and saw Bell walking towards the front gate.
The baron's head was severed from his body, rolling down the slight slope of the grass.
I watched Bell jump over the gate and then a few seconds later, the gate was pried open and a wave of men began entering.
"Are those members of the church?" I asked, not completely sure because they were quite some distance away from me.
Whoever they were, before they could arrive, I needed to leave so as to not complicate the situation or compromise myself.
Turning invisible with the little bit of mana I had left in me, I quickly dashed out of the mansion, and reentered the streets that were busier than they should've been because the commission at the baron's manor had grabbed the citizen's attention.
In the middle of the crowd, I deactivated my ability and looked at the person who was my partner in crime.
He had just fought someone that I could've never imagined a person our age could survive against and yet, he won with only a few beads of sweat dripping down his forehead.
I didn't notice earlier because I was focused on investigating and survival but the katana he had in his hand was the family heirloom of a certain Eastern clan.
'How did that come into his possession?' I pondered.
Then I noticed the people who were tied together in a rope that prevented mana from being used and suppressed their physical prowess.
'Are those the baron's men that Pesha was talking about?' I wondered. 'How did Bell get the help of the church? Is he secretly a believer? No. That can't be.'
I wanted to investigate it but there was no use even if I did. It wasn't like I could reveal my findings to the world anyway.
Disappearing into the crowd, I made my way out and began heading back to the apartment where Pesha lived.
Knocking on the door, I could sense the mana of someone standing outside the door, looking through the peephole before opening the door.
"Good to see you're still alive," she said with a smile.
I could see by the sweat on her shirt, the cracked nails, and her overly relieved expression that she had been in her home either worrying about me or about the success of my mission.
"I'm back," I said.
"How... how did it go?" she asked.
'So it was about the mission.'
"It didn't go as planned..."
Her face darkened.
"...but I did what I was there for. Well, I don't really know. We'll have to see what's in it," I said as I pulled out the flash drive I had in my pocket.
She ran to her bedroom and grabbed her laptop.
"What if it's a trap and it... I don't know, explodes your laptop or something?" I asked as I sat down on the couch with her.
"That's a risk I'm willing to take," she responded as she carefully took it out of my hand and began to insert it into her laptop.
With determination all over her face, there was nothing more for me to say. It wasn't like I wanted to really convince her to back out anyway because I was also curious about the content of the flash drive and what was so important in it that it had to be kept in a safe.
Clicking on the folder that appeared, the two of us began to look over what was kept inside the flash drive and it wasn't an exaggeration to say that our eyes fell out of their sockets and our jaws dropped to the floor.
"How... vile," I commented.
Pesha was unable to speak because she must've been busy trying to see if her sister was listed.
What was essentially kept in the flash drive was a library of the baron's victims; he listed their faces, ages, races, genders, heights, weights, and finally for some, the flavor of their flesh, their blood, and their heart.
Pesha stopped when she reached the details of a woman who looked like her but younger and more feminine.
I didn't have to read the name to know that this was the little sister Pesha wanted to avenge.
I wanted to comfort her but was unable to because any word I said would go in one ear and out of the other.
Pesha placed the laptop down on the floor and she entered her bedroom, locking the door.
I continued going over the library and when I reached the end, over an hour had passed even though I had been skimming through it, not even stopping to read any specific entry.
As if it was planned, just as I closed the laptop and pulled out the flash drive, Pesha left her room. She had a dry face but I could tell by her eyes that she had been crying.
"How many people were listed?" she asked.
"Over twenty thousand, dating all the way back decades ago," I responded. "I believe the rumor of the baron looking like his father is because he is his father."
"Can you explain?" asked Pesha calmly as she sat back down.
"When I went to the basement of the baron's mansion, I saw signs of black magic. I believe he was using black magic and the lives of others to keep himself youthful," I answered.
That night, I tried my hardest to sleep but it was difficult because every so often, I could sense Pesha getting out of her bed and walking over to her window.
When I looked at her, she had this sorrowful expression and had her hand pressed against the glass as if there was a second person on the other side of the window reciprocating the act.
'It's a shame you've lost your sister but if you keep wallowing in your sorrows, you'll be consumed by the darkness and the light will become poisonous,' was the last thought I had before I drifted to sleep.
The next day, I was busy getting the article ready.
It was difficult going through all of the information but with the help of Pesha who wanted to help expose the truth about the baron who had become the bane of her existence, I was able to finish typing it all up by sunset.
I was preparing to upload it to the internet and spread it with the help of the club members when I saw Pesha return to the living room with a suitcase.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"I... I'm thinking about returning home. With my baby sister's killer dealt with, there's no more reason for me to live here where nothing but terrible memories surround me. I know that if she was here, she'd want for me to move on," she smiled as she looked out of the window once more.
"That's wonderful," I responded.
She looked at me as if I was her savior. She gave me a hug and said, "Thank you, Jessie."
I contemplated for a second before responding, "My name is Maya."
Her smile grew even larger and she said, "Thank you, Maya, for giving me a second chance at life. I'm going to start fresh back home and see if I can pursue my dreams once again. Who knows... maybe that college degree will finally be cleaned up and used for once."
It was a little bittersweet watching her leave in a taxi, vanishing off into the horizon but I also needed to return to my family and friends whom I had abandoned on Christmas to pursue a rumor I heard about.
With the article published and slowly gaining traction, I also called myself a ride and relaxed in the backseat as the long ride home began.
In the meantime, I was on my phone.
I was watching videos of Bell Agnus and his involvement in the takedown of the corrupted baron.
Most people didn't know the specifics of the baron's crimes because that was information I was releasing to the world but they did know by the number of people kept in cages that were freed by the church that he was in no way innocent.
Some people criticized Bell for taking justice into his own hands by killing the baron rather than allowing him to be arrested and dealt with in court.
Others praised him for his bravery for his age and the fact that he served justice to those deceased and those captured.
I couldn't help but think that because Bell was the focus of the news and that the baron's evil nature was already viral around the world, my article wouldn't be as viral but I didn't mind.
'When school restarts, I'll be sure to thank him for his assistance.'