Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 42: Eyes In The Shadows

Entering through the dark fog, Leon’s eyes caught sight of something moving in the clouds above them.

At that instant, he gritted his teeth as his eyes caught faces reeling above the clouds: the face of the lizard lady, the four sentinels, and lastly, the faceless being.

With a mind-blowing and unstable heart, he shook his head. Then, when he tilted his head upward again, they were gone. Not even a single trace remained.

’What am I?’ he whispered in his thoughts, but the reaction that followed shocked his soul.

Around his right arm, tiny sparks of gold light moved in sync with the lightning strike reeling above in the sky.

Smoke, leaves, and a loud screeching sound burst out, causing the black fog to part sideways like the sea as the MRAP came to a halt.

At the front of the MRAP, the gate of Alchemania remained etched against the night sky.

Through the glass at his front, Leon didn’t see a school.

Instead, he saw the site of his next battlefield, and the fragile first line of defense against the storm he himself would one day unleash.

...

"Leon," Hayes’s voice echoed like a needle, pulling Leon back to reality.

"You can go." A smile tore on Hayes’s face the moment Leon bowed in gratitude and then alighted from the truck.

"Leon, your new room," Hayes called out the moment he saw and picked up the black key with the initials LS inscribed on it.

He threw the key at the boy and smiled when he saw the boy grab it mid-air.

The headlight of the truck stretched forward like a guide when Leon moved past it and stood by the side of the large gate.

Inside the truck, Hayes’s smile faltered as he locked his eyes on the boy until he entered through the pedestrian walkway on the left side of the main entrance.

His eyes narrowed the moment the boy vanished into the walls of the academy.

Hayes’s body remained static for a couple of minutes until his right arm loosened its grip from the steer and grabbed the AN/PRC-148D IMBITR.

It felt heavier than it should have when he moved it to his mouth. A static hiss echoed softly when he placed it at the side of his right ear.

With a steady intake of breath, he pressed the transmit key. A low click answered him, followed by a slow, measured breath on the other end.

Hayes didn’t waste it, even as his eyes naturally closed and opened.

"Lord Luo Fang," he said in a voice that echoed in a tone that sounded as if the warmth in it had been stripped away by something devilish.

"This is Lieutenant Hayes." He paused, letting the static whisper like a distant rain.

"I have delivered the asset to the Academy." His grip tightened around the AN/PRC-148D IMBITR almost as if wanting to crush it under his palm.

With a slow heartbeat, Hayes released the transmit key, straightened his head toward the front, and smiled. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The engine of the MRAP hummed in the air, followed by two blinks of the bright headlight.

Hayes’s smile faded and turned into a grin the moment he drove off the ground of the academy and set out into the street, where the dark fog was.

...

A silent screeching echoed from the side of the first building, the very one closer to the wall.

Bright light shot up when two of the windows spun open. Inside the open window, four faces leaned on the window.

"Huh!" Leon gasped heavily as he pulled the hood over his head and doubled his steps.

At every building or window he moved past, light flickered on, followed by a swing of the window itself.

Inside the open windows, countless young people, both male and female, stood with pale faces, staring at the boy in a hoodie walking in the large courtyard.

Their eyes glowed with joy, almost as if they knew something, or someone, would arrive at that designated time.

Shadows stretched long toward the door Leon stopped at.

"What do they want?" Dissatisfaction swallowed Leon’s voice as he grabbed the handle of the door and swung it open.

Though his walk in the courtyard was not satisfying, inside was like hell.

Eyes turned to him like the holes in a fishing net, while the bulbs hanging on the ceilings glowed harshly, promising to blind him.

Cold fingers traced across his shoulder as he lowered his head and made the hood cover his entire face, and began walking in a fast motion.

At the side right hallway, where the elevator was, Leon gasped, seeing no shadow on the way.

But his face tensed when he saw the elevator already crowded as he approached and pressed the door button.

Whispers clung around him like his own skin.

"...Is he the boy who passed out in the arena seven months ago?"

"...Naa, I’m not sure, he wasn’t this tall."

"...It’s him. Check his boots."

"...What are you saying? Was he the only person wearing a boot of that color?"

"...If he’s not that boy, who is he? And what happened to that boy?"

A soft metallic clunk echoed, swallowing the whispers as the elevator halted at the third floor of the building.

HHHHHhew!

After taking two steps away from the elevator, Leon sighed, then tilted slightly toward the boys and girls he’d left behind.

Though he didn’t hear their last statement, the manner in which their faces turned extra pale gave him only one meaning: They had seen him.

Thudding sound echoed in the hallway as Leon walked, his head bowed, his hands shoved in the pockets of the hood.

Numbers flashed in his eyes, yet he never stopped.

"Oh shit!" Leon pulled out the key from his pocket and scanned the number 7 written boldly on the metallic handle on which the actual key hung.

His mouth curled inward as he turned and walked back from the seventeenth door to the seventh in a flash.

He waited for two minutes, then removed the hood from his head. The door opened after he inserted the key and tilted it with two clicks on the right.