"Bye-bye!"

In his left hand, Zio had a pouch of candy. Meanwhile, his other hand waved at Shannon, who had just boarded the departing Skyliner, off to the sky. When he noticed her expression, smiling but hollow eyes, he couldn't help but feel something was wrong.

Despite the bad feeling, he couldn't do anything to solve it. Not until he could find a clue about Zio Varrez, whose information and history were erased everywhere as if they wanted people to forget about him or.. protect him from danger.

Feeling overwhelmed by the uneasiness, he unwrapped a candy and shove it into his mouth, savoring its fresh mint taste that spread inside his mouth. As soon as that, he finally relaxed.

'Now.. where do I start my investigation?'

Bump—!

When he was in his thought, someone bumped into him from behind, interrupting him from his mind.

"Oh, sorry."

The man said in a slightly hoarse voice. His features were hidden under the thick fur coat on top of a black hoodie covering his face, an obvious disguise.

Curious, Zio kept on staring at him until he caught a glimpse of the man's grin as he turned his face sideways.

'I've got a bad feeling about him.'

As the uncertainty hit him, he tried to use Clairvoyance on the man. Unlucky, the man had already blended with the crowd as his Clairvoyance started to get activated. As a result of a broken concentration, unnecessary information screens flooded his vision.

He quickly closed his eyes and threw his face away from the crowd.

'Fvck! That's hurting my eyes!' he said inwardly, massaging his eyelids.

Although he failed to inspect the man, he had no intention to chase him. He probably grinned because he felt like it and Zio thought he was too paranoid and worried because the new year's night when the demon would announce themselves to the world was a few days away.

Turning around, he left the station and went back to Octagram Academy, to his dorm as fast as he could because the gate would be closed past 11 PM. Whilst running, he occasionally checked the clock on his Nova Watch, it said '10:31 PM' on the screen.

'Haa.. I guess I should use the mana coating technique.'

..

The next afternoon.

As Euclios Niveus, or White Demon.

"So, you want to know more about who your target is?"

"Yes."

In the afternoon, the warehouse was usually empty because everyone was busy with their lives. The only one who cooped up in the warehouse was Zoe and another person who never left her room upstairs.

This warehouse in particular served as a second base camp or precisely a hidden base camp for the chosen individuals from the combat division. That explained why Niveus never saw other members other than the six people here.

They sat across from each other. Just like usual, Valka on the sofa, and Niveus on the table.

"Okay.. what do you want to know about him?" Valka said as she adjusted her position on the sofa.

"Who is he to you? And why do you want to bring him back?"

Leaning leisurely on the sofa, Valka answered the question.

"He was like a little brother to me. But, that's not a reason why I want him back. The reason I want him back is because of his blessing which allows him to see the future."

'She thought my EX skill is a blessing?'

The way Valka referred to his Clairvoyance as a blessing was what made him shocked after the initial shock when knowing what Zio's relationship with Valka looked like. He was like a little brother to her, she said.

If that were true, then Zio Varrez might actually be someone from the villain side rather than the hero side. But, there was no way Niveus could accept this as a fact. After all, Valka was a villain, she might be lying.. but no. If she was lying, his Lie Detection would have reacted as soon as it detected a lie in Valka's words.

"Can you tell me more about it?"

Noticing that Valka didn't seem to be interested in continuing the story, Niveus tried to persuade her but failed.

"That's all I can say," she said coldly.

'Shit..'

Not getting any more information from Valka, he decided to start looking for a clue on his own.

First thing first, he visited the burned warehouse he found on the Internet about the location of where Ember's hottest topic had taken place. It was the warehouse where he saw his younger self through a flashing memory.

But, everything was already burned down, turning to ashes.

Standing on the burned debris, Niveus closed his eyes and relaxed his body.

'Let's focus.. I only need to see the event from three years ago..'

"[Retrocognition]"

Niveus had already grasped how all of his skills worked by now. Among them, [Retrocognition] was the hardest to learn the control of. Even so, he persisted until the end and ended up learning the basic control of how he could use Retrocognition.

At first, he didn't know he could choose a period of time he wanted to see from their target. So, whenever he used Retrocognition on somebody or some objects, he was only able to see or was transported back a few hours or days ago from the current time.

But, after learning he could choose a period of time of the target. Retrocognition immediately became his favorite skill. If only the drawbacks weren't so severe for him, he would have been abusing the skill to gain information about the past.

Right now, he was concentrating his mind so his Retrocogntion would play the memory of three years ago, precisely the event of Ember's abduction according to the media. He wanted to know about what had happened after the abrupt cut-off of the flashing memory.

His eyebrow furrowed as he tried harder to pinpoint the exact time and date of the event. The news about the event was released on May 5 in the morning, so the event probably was happening on May 4.

'Found it!'

The world around him distorted. At that moment, he felt as if he was transported back in time or to another dimension. The view around him changed.

In his vision, he saw a younger version of Zio Varrez talking to a younger version of Ember. He listened carefully to the conversation they had made. After sometime later, the vision started to glitch and his head was throbbing in pain. It was at that moment when the memory showed a new person in a black robe with silver hair that Retrocognition ended abruptly because Niveus couldn't maintain the mana consumption.

If he was to force it, he might have to experience the mana depletion again.

He paused for a moment to take a mana potion before attempting to explore the past again. Niveus dived into the past once again, continuing from where he left off. When the memory began to blur, he canceled his skill and drank the potion. He did those procedures several times until finally, he completed seeing the event sequences from this place three years ago.

The result of the exploration into the past was exhilarating yet exhausting for his mental state. After drinking another bottle of mana potion, he swept the sweat spread on his forehead with his coat sleeve.

'So, that's what happened back then..'

..

After the memory exploration in the burned warehouse was done, Niveus canceled his transformation and returned to Zio's form. Why must he do so? It was because the next place he going to visit was Octagram City, his house.

Ding—!

The door to his house opened after he scanned his fingerprint onto the device beside the doorway.

Once he stepped inside the house, he was surprised to find that the interior was clean from dust or cobweb despite being unoccupied and neglected for six months. It was so clean to the point Zio was getting a suspicion there might be some maid ghost living in there and doing the chores.

Of course, that wasn't the case.

The truth was Shannon had commissioned a wizard to cast a preservation spell so it would stay clean for a year even if it was being neglected.

historical

What a convenient job for a wizard! Easy money!

Walking upstairs, Zio found himself standing in his room. The computer setup was still preserved on the desk, untouched. Smiling, he sat on the chair and put his elbows on the desk.

No. He wasn't going to play a game on his PC. But, he wanted to use Retrocognition in this place. The very place where he had his consciousness alive in this world.

Closing his eyes, he began to concentrate, traveling back to six months ago when he first came in conscious of this world. June 8, was the date when he came into this world. So, the set date for Retrocognition would be June 7 and the earlier date.

But, when he thought he would get something fruitful in this exploration. Something unbearable and unhealthy for his mental occurred when the first scene of the memory had just been played.

Error!

Error!

ErRoR!!

ErrOR!!!

ERrOR!!!

ERROR!!!!

Beep—!