Chapter Twelve

12: Caroline Esta   

   BEING ONE OF the few assassins to successfully enter Crimson Tier, the second-highest rank in XYS, necessitates the deployment of a competent investigation team that can work in tandem with that assassin. A team capable of gathering sufficient and credible information in the shortest amount of time. And SIT fit the requirements to collaborate with Avyanna during missions.

Avyanna has been with the organization for many years and has successfully completed hundreds of missions with SIT. Their superb skills in gathering intellect surpass even those working for the government. She alone understands how capable these people are when it comes to searching for information and keeping up with her.

Previously, the three highest investigation teams of XYS wrote and compiled the gathered files that Mr. Black prepared and hand-picked personally for their practice mission.

The Scarlet Investigation Team, Azura, and the Flare Sequence, where SIT and Azura are competing for the top spot.

And when the team was selecting a mission, they chose a file that had been compiled by SIT. There's no longer a need to discuss how authentic the data would be. The fact that it was collected by them proves the quality of the information.

And with the gathered data, Avyanna arrived at the same conclusion. She also suspects that their target and the suspect in the case are the same people.

"Hm? Didn't you notice the info about her daughter in the file?"

While sitting on a bench, Lei scanned the sea of students walking around the campus. He sometimes smiled at some students who would occasionally stare at him, earning giggles from female students who found him charming with his strawberry brown hair.

He raised an eyebrow as he asked Jay back.

"Err... no. I didn't think there would be anything important written there..." Jay scratched the back of his head as he surveyed the school through his sniper scope. "What does that have to do with the case?"

Lei leaned forward as he rested both of his elbows over his thighs. His hands were holding a piece of the document he got from his backpack. He skimmed his eyes over the paper as he replied, "We've been with the organization for three years and are well aware of how stringent the standards and procedures are when accepting a mission. This mission, in particular, appeared to be much odder than the others since the investigation hasn't turned up much dirt on our target, except for a few hints that she's involved in the 7-year-old blonde disappearance student case."

Another voice came through their earpiece, "Right. Having a mission like this is kinda sus. It doesn't seem like the boss' character to approve a mission with little certainty about the target."

Is there another reason for this? In fact, this is supposed to be a practice mission for them, so why does it appear more complicated than usual?

Zeke went into deep thought.

"Aren't you guys overthinking?" asked Jay with a little uncertainty in his voice. "We chose this mission, didn't we? There's no use being suspicious now." He sighed, "I was just asking how certain you both are that the target is really the suspect behind the case."

"Exactly," Lei said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Huh?"

"Didn't you notice Raven wearing a blonde wig?"

As Jay tried to recall the get-up of Avyanna, he squinted his eyes and furrowed his eyebrows. His face then brightened in realization. "Oh yeah!"

Silence.

"...so, what about it?" Jay blinked cluelessly.

Lei was about to respond when his phone suddenly vibrated. He swiftly pulled it out of his pocket and read the message with an eyebrow raised.

He calmly continued his response to Jay as he shut his phone off. "She didn't really say anything about what she's planning to do, so these are just my assumptions. If you think about it, the suspect seems to have this obsession with blondes, and if we were to look back on the case, he would only kidnap one student per year at this very university. And if you read the whole file--"

The little guy holding a sniper subconsciously flinched.

"--you would know that the deceased daughter of our target is blonde. "

"Ehhh?!!"

Just like Avyanna, both Lei and Zeke found a few interesting pieces of information after reading the whole file.

First, the unsolved case involves the disappearance of, specifically, blonde students of Shwirlan University, hence why it was called the blonde student disappearance case.

Second, the death of the target's nine-year-old daughter 8 years ago. A year before the blonde student disappearance case began.

According to the investigation, Sol had a very bright and cheerful child with her ex-husband. Her name was Caroline Esta. It was said that they loved her deeply and even spoiled her rotten.

She has long lustrous, blonde hair which she got from her father's side, and bright green eyes she inherited from Sol herself. Caroline has been their only child since then, and Sol has never been able to have any more children after she gave birth to her.

Unfortunately, they lost their one and only precious daughter eight years ago and she was found dead. The cause was said to be drowning.

The six-year-old child first disappeared from the park when the three of them decided to have a picnic, and it was only after three years that they finally located her body, only to witness it drifting over the surface of the Reil river, cold and lifeless. The river was fifteen kilometers away from their place.

The case wasn't given too much attention by the police as they concluded that it was only an accident. Leaving out the fact that that child disappeared for three years before being discovered. It was not uncommon for citizens to know that the police in their area were too lax in their work.

Naturally, Sol was devastated and she was the only one who wanted to probe more about the case. However, she was stopped by her husband.

Not long after, he divorced her. Leaving her alone with no relatives, parents, or friends to lean on.

And so a few weeks later, she was admitted to Holy Saint Hospital for becoming mentally ill after the case of her daughter, which also got worse after her husband left.

However, after another few months of being admitted to the hospital, she was released and even became a teacher at the University College of Shwirlan. She even got promoted and traveled around the world. You could say that she got over the death of her child.

This whole situation made them extremely suspicious. She got depressed, was confined to a hospital, and was released after a few months.

So basically, she went from becoming mentally ill to becoming a successful professor for like, a year, real quickly. Not that it's impossible, but it's just so odd!

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A chuckle came from Lei, "Do remind yourself that she's Raven. Isn't that the very same name that the people from the underground feared so much?"

The two went stiff.