"Clack!"
The metal cell door opened with a sharp, sudden sound, breaking the suffocating silence I had begun to grow accustomed to.
It wasn't the two large soldiers who had brought me here before.
This time, it was her.
With her silver hair shining unsettlingly under the cold white light of the cell, and her sapphire eyes staring at me with intense focus—as if I were a complex puzzle she intended to dismantle piece by piece.
Aurora Phoenix.
She wasn't wearing her usual black training uniform. Instead, she wore a dark formal suit belonging to the UTA, which somehow gave her an even greater aura of authority and severity—if that was even possible.
"Stand up, Lester," she said in her calm, cold voice that carried no trace of emotion.
"You're coming with me."
It wasn't a question. It was an order.
I stood up slowly, trying not to show any sign of tension or surprise (even though my heart was beating a little faster now).
'What an honor,' I thought.
I was escorted through the same corridors I had passed through earlier, but this time there was only Aurora Phoenix's silence and the echo of our footsteps on the metal floor.
I felt that everyone we passed—staff or soldiers alike—either avoided looking at us or cast brief glances filled with curiosity.
We entered a different interrogation room from the one I had seen before. It was slightly larger, more formal.
A polished metal table stood in the center with two chairs facing each other. This time, however, one wall of the room was a large dark mirror—a one-way mirror, without a doubt.
'Another stage, another hidden audience,' I thought, feeling a sarcastic smile trying to slip onto my lips again.
"Sit," Aurora said, gesturing toward one of the chairs.
Without resistance, I obediently sat down.
She sat across from me, the cold metal table separating us.
There was no visible recording device this time, but I was certain every word, every movement, every blink was being recorded.
"…"
A long, tense silence filled the room for several moments, broken only by the sound of my breathing.
Aurora Phoenix studied me without blinking, trying to pierce through every mental and psychological defense I had.
I felt like a lab rat, and a mad scientist was about to begin her experiments.
"Adam Lester," she finally said. Her voice was still calm, but it carried that icy tone.
"We have listened carefully to the testimonies of your companions—Student Hawthorne, Student Barnes, and even Student Ko, although his memory is still confused. And they paint a… very troubling picture of you, and of what happened inside that horror."
'Let's hope they didn't say anything too ridiculous,' I thought.
"I'll be frank with you, Lester," she continued, leaning forward slightly, her eyes fixed on mine like two nails.
"Your story makes no sense."
She said it plainly.
"Your recorded statistics as a novice student do not match what you did—or what you are claimed to have done. An F-rank gate does not randomly turn into an A-rank threat. And novice students do not 'play' with entities of that level and walk away alive."
She paused, as if waiting for me to confess something—to collapse under the weight of her gaze.
When I didn't, she continued in the same sharp tone.
"Your classmate Barnes believes you are mentally unstable and that you enjoyed putting them in danger. Student Hawthorne believes you are a master manipulator and that everything you did—even your crying—was part of a plan."
She paused again, then mentioned the most important point.
"And both of them stated that the 'Master of Masks' described you as 'a great gambler who gambles with the lives of his companions'… and that he offered you a job. Is that true, Lester?"
She watched him closely.
Despite the calm expression on Adam's face, his thoughts were the complete opposite.
Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! If I had just let that damned clown devour you all, things would have been easier for me!
But what the hell was this?
Their misunderstanding had crossed the limits of reason.
Damn you, classmates!
I swallowed, trying to look somewhat confused.
"Professor, with all due respect, Maya and Rex were under tremendous pressure. You can't blame them if their memories are muddled or if they interpreted things incorrectly."
"As for what that clown said… should we really believe a single word from a mad entity trying to steal people's faces? He was rambling most of the time."
"So you deny that he offered you a job?" Aurora pressed, her eyes narrowing slightly.
I sighed theatrically.
"He said a lot of strange things, Professor. Honestly, I wasn't paying much attention to the details of his hallucinations… I was busy trying not to become a new mask in his collection."
"But you played with him, Lester… a card game, as I understand it. How do you explain that?"
This was the trap.
I had to be extremely careful.
"A card game?" I raised my eyebrows in feigned surprise.
"It wasn't really a game. He was… forcing me to pick ridiculous cards, and he interpreted them in his own twisted way. I was just trying to go along with it—to buy some time, hoping something might happen…"
"Your classmates say the opposite," Aurora said, her tone sharpening.
"They claim that in the end, somehow, you forced him to stop."
I gave a faint, exhausted smile.
"Professor, I was terrified. As for forcing him to stop… I think he simply got bored of me. I was a dull and pathetic opponent. Maybe he decided tormenting me was no longer entertaining."
"A dull and pathetic opponent… yet he offered you a job?" Aurora asked with cold sarcasm, as though she had caught an obvious contradiction.
Damn it, I thought. I walked straight into that one.
"As I said, Professor," I quickly tried to recover, "he was rambling. Maybe it was part of his psychological game—trying to confuse me or sow doubt among us. Who knows how those entities think?"
Aurora Phoenix suddenly stood and began pacing slowly back and forth across the small room like a wolf circling its prey.
"You are impressively evasive, Lester. You have an answer for every question and an explanation—unconvincing as it may be—for every action. But there is one thing you cannot explain so easily."
She stopped directly in front of me and looked down.
"Your statistics. Strength: F-. Agility: F. Endurance: F-. These are the statistics of someone who can barely finish a simple training course without collapsing."
She struck the sensitive point.
"So how can someone like you survive an encounter with an A-rank entity, let alone 'manipulate' it or 'bore it into surrender'?"
I shrugged with feigned indifference.
"Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky, Professor. Or maybe… maybe I'm better at non-physical games."
I added the last sentence with a hint of hesitation, just to see if she would take the bait.
Her expression didn't change, but I saw a flicker of something like… growing interest? Or perhaps simply confirmation of her deep suspicions in those sapphire eyes.
"Whatever the truth is, Lester," she said after another moment of silence, her voice returning to its usual coldness,
"we are not finished with you. This academy—and this alliance—cannot tolerate unknown or unstable elements within its ranks. Especially those that might have the ability to influence high-level gates."
She returned to her chair.
"I will ask you one final question for today. And I want an honest answer. If you do not possess any special skill, were not previously trained, and had no hidden knowledge about that gate or that entity… then how, in the name of hell, did you survive?"
She looked directly at me and asked plainly.
So how should I answer?
Should I explain the nature of narrative manipulation… or my skill?
Heh… impossible.
"Professor," I said quietly.
"Honestly… I don't know. All I remember is that I was very afraid… and I was just trying not to die."
Aurora Phoenix sighed.
This time it was a genuine sigh of frustration she could no longer hide.
"You are a complicated case, Adam Lester… and a frustrating one."
She stood, signaling that this round of interrogation was over—at least for now.
"You will be returned to your unit. We will decide the next steps soon. But be certain of one thing… lies never last forever."
Oh, don't say that, Professor, I thought as I stood as well, ready to be escorted out again.
Masks are the only thing keeping me sane in this insane world.
And honestly, I think I'm starting to enjoy this game of hide-and-seek.
As I was led out of the interrogation room, I couldn't stop a very faint smile—almost invisible—from slipping onto my lips.
It had been an exhausting interrogation, an immense psychological pressure, but I had survived it… for now.
And Aurora Phoenix—clearly, I had caught her interest.
I only hoped that wouldn't negatively affect my academic life.
I wondered how deep this newly formed misunderstanding could grow.
---
After my "pleasant conversation" with Professor Aurora Phoenix—which felt like a mental wrestling match with a world champion chess player—
I was escorted back to my small metal box they called a temporary cell.
Nothing had changed in the miserable décor.
The same gray walls. The same hard metal bed. The same cold white light.
'What a perfect place to contemplate my chronic bad luck,' I thought as I threw myself onto the bed that felt like a slab of ice covered with sandpaper.
'I wonder if they offer room service here… I really want some coffee this time.'
---
Meanwhile, somewhere far more comfortable inside the mobile command center, a closed meeting was taking place between several high-ranking figures.
Professor Aurora Phoenix, Dean Hargrove, and a few other officials who had been quickly summoned to deal with this unexpected incident.
They sat around a holographic display table projecting data, files, and images of four individuals—the victims of the Carnival of Stolen Faces.
"The situation is exceptionally complicated," Dean Hargrove began, his voice carrying a tone of exhaustion and worry he was no longer trying to hide.
"We have an F-rank training gate that inexplicably turns into an A-rank threat… and four novice students—most with rather mediocre statistics—surviving that threat in a way that is… highly unconventional."
"Unconventional is an understatement, Dean," Aurora Phoenix said, her eyes fixed on Adam's file flashing on the screen before her.
"Student Samuel Ko, who was subjected to direct control by an entity of that level, appears to be recovering far faster than he should—and without any obvious severe side effects so far. That is extremely rare and requires further study."
After a short pause, she moved to the next file.
"Student Hawthorne and Student Barnes are psychologically shaken, but their testimonies—despite conflicting interpretations of Lester's motives—agree that he was the central element in what happened, displaying abilities far beyond what should be expected from a student of his level."
"His recorded statistics," added a UTA envoy while examining his tablet screen,
"do not match the performance described by his classmates—or even his composure and evasiveness during Phoenix's interrogation."
He then began analyzing based on the evidence.
"There is a possibility the system made an error in its initial evaluation. But he is definitely hiding something."
A brief silence filled the room as everyone considered the possibilities.
"Could he be… previously trained?" Dean Hargrove asked quietly, as if he feared the answer.
"A covert agent sent to the academy by some organization for unknown reasons?"
The UTA envoy shook his head.
"A very unlikely possibility, Dean—but we cannot completely rule it out at this stage. His background before enrolling at the academy shows nothing unusual."
He glanced briefly at the file.
"An orphan. Average academic record. No signs of special training. But that means nothing if he is dealing with an organization capable of high-level concealment and data manipulation."
"Or," Aurora Phoenix said, her eyes glinting, "he could simply be undiscovered raw talent—a genius in analysis and adaptation under pressure… and perhaps unbelievably lucky, as he claimed."
"Regardless of the explanation," Dean Hargrove said firmly, "we cannot ignore what happened. These students somehow succeeded in ending a threat that could have been catastrophic if it had escaped the gate. But we also cannot ignore the suspicions surrounding student Lester."
After a long discussion, examining every possibility and scenario, they reached a temporary decision.
"Due to the lack of conclusive evidence that student Lester committed any crime," Dean Hargrove announced,
"and due to his… unusual success in ending an A-rank horror threat, we cannot charge or punish him at this time."
"But… because of the significant doubts surrounding his true abilities and motives, we also cannot simply release him to resume a normal student life."
"The decision is as follows," Aurora Phoenix continued, her tone still carrying that unyielding firmness.
"Student Hawthorne, Student Barnes, and Student Ko will undergo further medical examinations and close psychological monitoring, but they will be returned to the student dormitories under indirect surveillance."
"As for student Adam Lester…"
She declared decisively:
"He will be detained separately in a secure facility within the academy for further investigation and continuous observation. We cannot allow him to roam freely until we understand his nature, what he is hiding, what exactly he did… and whether he represents a danger… or perhaps an extremely valuable asset."