Levi nearly crushed the armrest of his chair, “Teagan Peyton!!” He had already warned this vulgar mutt clearly, yet he still didn’t know what was good for him! Daring to smear his baby’s name!
He had thought that Peyton’s father would properly discipline him after the trade agreement between their cities fell through, but, apparently, he overestimated city lord Teagan!
Levi’s blue eyes turned stormy and dark. ‘You want to go against me till the end? Very good!’
To the right, one Astar Levi was fuming, while to the left, one Noah revealed a rather peculiar expression. ‘…So the guy came to cause trouble and made one of his bodyguards check in for him?’
Feeling Levi’s growing agitation, Noah gently nudged the other’s head on his shoulder with his own soft cheek, “This guy… isn’t he a bit… too incompetent?”
Levi tilted his head to both express his inner confusion and to grant his precious darling easier access to his own cheek.
After glancing upon Levi’s questioning look, baby Noah elaborated. “After all that time plotting his revenge, the best he could come up with was to pay your own hotel to send you strippers and have the media publish a few articles? And he even left his photo, so we know who to blame? What kind of a third-rate cannon fodder is this? I want a refund! Send this protagonist a proper cannon fodder, yo!”
And just like that, the fury corroding Levi’s insides came out in a puff of laughter.
How could his baby be so cute?! Ah, ah! With such a cute and lovable baby by his side, he couldn’t even stay mad!
Peyton, ‘What do you mean third-rate?!? (ꐦ °Д°) I even booked the room under someone else’s name and made sure to stand away from the reception to avoid being seen!! How was I supposed to know there were hidden cameras everywhere?!?’ (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ ┻━┻
While Levi was completely enchanted by the raw power of his baby’s cuteness, Fynn was not. Amused, yes, but his brain could still focus on the key points here, which were… "His revenge? What grudges are between you? Also, this Peyton’s time of arrival…"
Now that he brought it up, Noah suddenly noticed an issue with this point as well, “Isn't Peyton’s information network too good? We barely arrived, and he already knew where we were?”
Fynn tapped on the light screen interface in front of him, searching for news articles that had leaked the location of the bachelor party to the public. Checking the time stamp on the articles… “Indeed.” Fynn’s eyes narrowed, “Peyton had arrived here before our location had been leaked to the media.”
Noah and Fynn exchanged a look, “Could it be that it was him who leaked it to the media in the first place?”
“Regardless of whether it was him or not, the question remains – how did he find out your location before the media?” Fynn typed some notes out through his light screen, “This Peyton is indeed very suspicious. I'll have to look into him.”
Fynn finished adding this new task to his already massive to-do list and then turned to Noah, “What revenge? When I asked you whether you had any enemies, how come you didn't bring up this Peyton guy?”
Noah revealed a rather helpless look, “I didn't even know who he was a few days ago. Levi and I ran into him at the aquarium resort. The guy has a few screws loose, started spewing vulgarities at us for no reason. When he realized who Levi was, he suddenly turned tail and ran, promising to take revenge for… uh… I don’t know what exactly? Us not knowing who he was?”
Fynn pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long exhale of fatigue. What was this? A crazy anti-fan? Urgh… crazies were the hardest to deal with! How were normal people, like them, supposed to understand and predict the motives of someone whose brain worked in a totally different way??
Their investigation relied on logic, so how could they deduce the culprit if there was no logic in their actions?
Blackie, ‘Uh, sorry, but, who are you including among “normal” people here? My delusional host? Or his braindead husband? 🤔
‘Yeeeah, buddy, I hate to break it to you, but… you are the only normal one here…’ ╮(╯∀╰)╭
***
With their business in the mountain resort finished, Noah, Levi, and Fynn took a private ride back home to the city of Concordia.
On the way, Fynn submitted a warrant request for searching Druxa’s headquarters and received approval before they even arrived at Concordia. Thus, after safely locking Swiftrain in Concordia’s maximum-security jail, the first thing Fynn did was to take his team to turn Druxa upside down.
As the appointed supervisors of this case, Noah and Levi oversaw this raid remotely from the peacekeeper station.
Since the time of day was rather late, there were not many people left in the Druxa headquarters. It was mostly just security personnel and a couple of pitiful white-collar workers forced to work late hours. After kicking the white-collar workers out in the name of the official investigation, and forcing the security personnel to comply, the rest of the raid proceeded smoothly. Without a crowd of people in the way, their search was sped up significantly.
Fynn’s people used the mental power remnants left on the bullet case to trace it to a high-security lab.
Unfortunately, that’s where they were forced to stop because not even the security personnel had the clearance for entry into that specific area. However, peacekeepers’ IT specialists managed to access Druxa’s system to determine which personnel had clearance for entry and retrieve the entry logs for that particular lab.
Those entry logs were especially telling. Unsurprisingly, the person who had entered the lab most frequently was the owner of the traced mental power – the S-ranked Fluxer of Druxa. Fynn immediately retrieved his address from the personnel records and sent his men to bring him in.
Other than the obvious, the entry logs showed an unexpected, yet pleasant surprise. Among the logs, there were two unidentified communicator numbers that had no personnel ID attached to them. And one of those was a number Fynn had on file for this peculiar case.
After the second terrorist attack, a person whom they suspected to be a member of the terrorists had hired a Soother to reverse-soothe the rampaging Fluxer in attempts of orchestrating a devastating power explosion. The terrorist had hired the Soother from his company website, and Fynn had managed to get his hands on the communicator number used to access the website. Since the number was unregistered, they couldn’t find out its owner at the time. However, now, one of the two communicator numbers from the lab access log was exactly that number.
Upon further inquiry, Fynn found out that there were two ways to gain access to certain restricted areas of Druxa. Employees of Druxa had their employee IDs and communicator numbers on record so that they could easily be granted access to certain areas. However, there was another way to gain access to restricted areas. The method was usually used to give guests temporary access to certain areas, such as for inspections or demonstrations. When granting this temporary clearance, one just had to register their communicator number on the “allowed entry” list; there was no need to go through the entire registration process.
Therefore, they couldn’t get the names of the owners of those two communicators from Druxa’s computers because that information had never been registered. However, they did get the security footage of the hallway leading to this lab. They would have to go through it overnight to identify the two people.
Just when Fynn thought that this was it for today, CEO of Druxa showed up with her stiff face covered in a layer of frosty gloom. “What is the meaning of this?!” were the first words that left her mouth upon arriving at the scene.
Fynn had responded to her snappy tone with a genial smile, “Good timing. Come this way, madam. We need your communicator to open a locked door for us.”
Asan’s mother ground her teeth for a while as she inspected every word of the warrant. When she could not stall any longer, for she would be wasting her own time, she finally opened the door to the locked lab with her highest clearance. And thus, Fynn confiscated all the lab equipment, including computers with records of the experiments and a small freezer filled with mental power bullets. He then happily sealed off the area for further investigation. How would he not be happy, yo? One look at those black bullets, and he could already tell that they had hit the jackpot! Not just that, if their conjecture was right and those bullets could only be made by S-ranked Fluxers, that meant that if they kept an eye on those few S-ranked Fluxers, with their production of bullets cut off, the terrorists would no longer be able to cause power rampages! One very gleeful Fynn also attempted to question one very furious CEO lady, but all he got was, “Terrorists? What nonsen
Cordia daddy’s face shriveled up so much it looked like a prune. Then he forced a smile on, that looked so ugly it would have been better to just cry instead, “That’s… that’s great… that you two…” Cordia daddy swallowed hard, “…get along so well …but since that’s the case… I think it would be better if the two of you slept separately until the wedding.” Noah’s eyebrows shot up. His dad seemed to have misunderstood the relationship between Levi and him? Ai, but that wasn’t the main issue here! (っ °Д °;)っ “Dad, without my soothing–“ Noah hurried to explain, but his objection was interrupted by Cordia daddy’s firm declaration, “You are not the only Soother in Concordia. If he needs soothing, then I’ll just hire another Soother for him.” Noah’s protest abruptly died in his throat, and he suddenly felt enlightened. Oh! So there was this solution too! Why didn’t he think of it before?! Blackie, ‘Gee, I, too, wonder why… (¬‿¬) Ai, it’s a
“At least we tried…” Noah considerately patted Levi on the shoulder, “How about I come over to soothe you before bed tonight?” Seeing the hopeful gleam in the other’s eyes, Noah proudly added, “That’s right! My soothing is back to 100%! I am as good as new!” Levi’s tightly pressed lips relaxed into a smile, sweeping away the grumpiness in favor of blissful expectation. ‘See that? Baby sending himself to my door! Hmph! I’m dying to see how you’ll prevent your son from sleeping in my bed tonight, father-in-law!’ Cordia daddy, ‘…Challenge accepted!’ (≖_≖) And thus, the two soon-to-be-newlyweds had their breakfast in a merry mood and then, together with their bodyguard entourage, made their way to the peacekeeper station. *** Fynn had dark circles comparable to a panda, a clear testament to how little sleep he had gotten last night. However, unlike most sleep-deprived people, he was in an excellent mood. They had picked up Druxa’
“No wonder Asan’s mother was so uncooperative,” Noah rubbed his chin deep in thought, sitting comfortably in his exclusive, premium-quality Levi-seat. “Even if she can avoid being implicated personally, those illegal drug trials will still be causing her a massive headache for quite a while. Also…” Noah’s amber eyes squinted, much like a cat enjoying a petting, which was exactly what his fluffy head was currently receiving from his human chair, “She must have entrusted this project to her son, and now that things went south, she is protecting him in her own way.” Pleased by how well-behaved his human was today, kitty Noah rewarded the other by leaning back into his warm and comfortable chest. “Even if one of them is clean, the other certainly can’t be. Someone with high enough authority had to grant those unknown communicators access to the lab, and the only two who could have done that were the two of them. What else can she do but remain tight-lipped and threaten us with l
The “well-behaved” and “obedient” husband, Astar Levi, noticed his darling’s worry, thus he immediately jumped to console him. His hand flew to gently rub his baby’s waist, and his voice softened, “It could also be that Asan is avoiding the peacekeepers because he has something to hide. He might be holed up somewhere right now, perfectly fine.” The light touch left Noah feeling ticklish. His cheeks flushed pink, and he quickly covered the naughty hand with his to prevent it from further movement. The sight of all this made Fynn’s teeth ache, hence, he abruptly interrupted the lovey-dovey scene with “Aris, how about you two go back home, and we talk about the rest through a video call?” Baby Noah didn’t have mind-reading powers, thus, he turned to Fynn to blankly stare with his head tilted to the side, “…why???” Seeing a confused ginger kitty with wide amber eyes, Fynn almost blurted out, ‘Why??? Because even if I close my eyes, your sugary intents
Fynn nodded with a triumphant smile, “And that’s exactly why they have been just hoarding bullets instead of using them this entire time! They were putting off the full execution of their plans until Swiftrain sent you to the other side!” Noah, “…” ‘I appreciate your enthusiasm, and I don’t want to rain on your parade, but… As a bro that came from the other side, I can confirm that their plan was 100% effective…’ 〒▽〒 Blackie, “Too bad it didn’t occur to them that sending goes both ways, ah! If they can send people to the other side, the other side can send people over right back!” (☞゚∀゚)☞ Noah, “…” (◞‸ლ) ‘I appreciate your attempts of lifting the mood, but that just sounds really creepy… like… rise-of-the-undead level of creepy…’ Fynn’s declaration still echoed in the room, yet Noah remained silent, his expression unreadable. There was nothing wrong with Fynn feeling a sense of achievement and victory due to this big breakthr
Noah had a thin face and hugging in public was embarrassing enough; he really couldn’t handle anything more! And on top of it all, with every minute that passed, the harder it became for him to distinguish the act from reality. He didn’t like this, he didn’t like it at all! Even if it was all an act, his feelings weren’t an act! Everything happening felt real to him, so once the act was over, how would he be able to just pretend like nothing had happened?! Being kissed so gently like this, only a block of wood wouldn’t feel their heartstrings quivering! Levi, whose eyes never left his baby’s face, noticed Noah’s momentary flash of regret and, like a seasoned general, seized this opening to strike. Looking very remorseful, he dropped another gentle kiss on Noah’s supple cheek, “I’m sorry, baby, don’t be angry. Next time I kiss, I’ll make sure others can’t see.” Noah’s eyes widened, and he attempted to turn his head away to avoid further kisses, “Still acting?
Noah just couldn’t enter into this mental state of make-believe. Regardless of the intention behind it, it was still a hug! How could he view it as something other than what it was? But this inability to pretend was his own psychological issue… He shouldn’t make Levi suffer due to it. The right thing to do would be to grit his teeth and pull through these remaining couple of days. Noah let out a long and heavy sigh, but his arms that had been crossed defensively in front of him loosened. He skittishly eyed Levi’s torso, thinking about how to best go about returning the hug. ‘Noah, you can do it!’ He encouraged himself, ‘How come you didn’t feel shy hugging Levi a few days earlier? Why are you suddenly making such a big deal out of it?’ Before he could even finish that thought, Noah answered his own question, ‘How could it be the same?! A few days earlier, I was hugging my good and straight brother-in-law! And now I’m hugging my own not-e