Alex lay flat on the ground, handcuffed.
He didn't speak a word from beginning to end, not even a grunt of pain.
Vanessa stood at his side, looking down at him.
"You sure keep your mouth tightly shut, eh?" she said.
She then bent down and reached for his mask.
"Now, let's see who's behind the mask." Her excitement was almost slipping through her voice.
For her, this was the culmination of forty-something days of hunt, and it had been the most fulfilling yet.
She took the mask off, and when she saw the face behind it, she smiled, pleasantly surprised.
"Well, well, it seems you're a box full of surprises, Alex. Painter, alchemist, and now vigilante. How do you even manage the time?" she asked playfully.
Marina appeared next to her and looked at Alex.
"Oh, how nice it is to see you, buddy. The handcuffs suit you well," she said mockingly.
Yet Alex's expression didn't budge; he remained stoic, looking almost bored with the situation.
"You were so talkative before. Where is all that speech now?" Marina kept poking.
"Okay, Marina, take him to the palace's prison. We'll talk more there. Perhaps after a cold and humid night, he'll consider speaking with me." Vanessa was amused that Alex had managed to make a centuries-old grandmaster resentful using nothing but words.
"Okay," Marina replied. She grabbed Alex by the clothing and dragged him along the ground.
Although Vanessa was truly happy to have finally caught him, the realization that she now had to return to the palace dampened her mood a little.
Marina raised her hand and slashed open the void, connecting them with the teleportation hall.
From there, they went straight to the Morningstar Palace.
Marina then teleported herself and Alex to a cell, threw him inside, and shut the door behind her.
"Enjoy your stay," she said as she left, happiness radiating through her voice.
Vanessa walked through the maze-like palace and approached the study where her mother worked.
She knocked. "Mom, it's me."
"Come on in," replied a voice similar to hers from inside.
Vanessa stepped in and saw her mother, Alicia. But next to her stood another lady who resembled her mom almost perfectly.
"Oh! Such a fine lady you are," said the woman. She was none other than Sylvana.
"Are we family? You look remarkably like my mom," Vanessa replied.
"That's right. She is your aunt Sylvana," Alicia said.
"What!? Isn't she supposed to be in cryostasis on that island?" Vanessa asked.
"Yes, but it seems someone healed her. We're coordinating a plan to look for him now," Alicia replied coolly.
"You don't even know who he is?" Vanessa asked, curiosity rising.
"Not really. Even though I could see and hear him, he never spoke about himself. He only chatted about random things. When I woke up, he was already long gone," Sylvana replied.
"How did he even manage to heal you? Mom told me they searched the whole continent, and nobody knew of a way," Vanessa said, now even more intrigued.
"Well, that's one of the things I want to ask him. He seemed to know an awful lot about what I was afflicted with, despite being a youngster. I was left quite curious," Sylvana said.
Vanessa now understood where she'd inherited her curiosity.
"A youngster? And how much did he know about your condition?" Vanessa asked.
"He told me exactly which poisons I was afflicted with—starting with Widow's Crown, a legendary poison, and Stormblight Reed, a lightning-reactive aggravant, an ancient-class poison," Sylvana explained.
"Holy shit—how did he even heal you?" Vanessa blurted out, forgetting her manners.
"Manners, Vanessa," Alicia warned sharply.
"Haha. Well, in his words, I was 'pretty fucked,' so he spent a month on a deserted island to find the only thing that could cure someone as damaged as me—a legendary healing ingredient. Then he ransacked a legendary alchemist's secret stash and stole three ancient-class ingredients," Sylvana said, amused.
"Was he one of your past lovers or something?" Vanessa asked. She couldn't fathom someone going that far for a stranger.
"No. And you seem to forget he was a youngster, not much older than twenty. As for why he helped me, that's what your mom and I were discussing. We agreed we need to find him to ask for more details—what he said was far too vague," Sylvana replied.
"And how do you plan to find him if you don't know who he was?" Vanessa asked.
"Well, we were hoping you would help with that," Alicia said. "Sylvana told me that while unconscious, the man said he met you."
"I met him? I've met a lot of people. Any other clue?" Vanessa asked.
"He's an alchemist and lives in the capital, from what I gathered," Sylvana added.
"Great. Now we've narrowed it down to a few hundred. We're totally on the right track," Vanessa said sarcastically.
Her mom gave her a deadpan stare, while Sylvana laughed.
"You know, he was just as amusing as you," Sylvana added. Then she paused. "Ah—he also told me your guard almost killed his sister. Ring a bell?"
Vanessa froze.
"So you do know him," Alicia said, catching on immediately.
"Well… Mom, that was something I came to talk about. Remember when I left to help the royal guards?" Vanessa said.
"Yes."
"I don't," Sylvana added.
Vanessa spent the next five minutes recounting what had happened over the past month and a half.
"So what does that vigilante have to do with this?" Sylvana asked.
"Well… the person you described and the culprit of the murders are the same person. I came back to inform you that I already captured him, and he's currently in the palace cell…" Vanessa said.
Her curiosity toward Alex skyrocketed. He hated nobles, yet saved one's life; rejected working with them, yet healed someone beyond saving.
"Really?!" Sylvana asked.
"Yes."
"I was going to speak with him tomorrow, after leaving him for a while in the humid cold," Vanessa added.
"Well then, we're speaking with him now," Sylvana said, already walking toward the prison.
In the prison…
Alex sat in a depressive silence. He knew that after tonight, he would be crippled.
He had spent too much mana during the invasion and his fight with Vanessa, leaving him unable to endure the night with the little mana left in his core.
When his illness drained the last of it, it would start overdrawing from the core itself, cracking it until it destroyed it.
As he lamented, he heard two sets of footsteps approaching.