Chapter 29: Discussion [2]
"Think about the intruder who entered the Underground Artifact Chamber." Alden spoke, the room stayed quiet.
"The route to that chamber isn’t something an ordinary person would know. Whoever broke in had to understand the academy’s layout well enough to bypass every layer of security and reach the deepest vault." Alden kept his voice level. "That kind of access points to someone with specific knowledge of this place."
Nathan’s expression didn’t change. He was listening, but his eyes weren’t getting warmer.
"At first, that makes Claire the obvious suspect." Alden continued. "She’s the Headmaster’s granddaughter. She has access to areas most students aren’t allowed near. If someone found her as the Core’s bearer after everything, the conclusion would write itself."
He paused.
"But that’s exactly what makes it suspicious."
"What do you mean?" someone asked from near the back wall.
"The intruder didn’t just steal the Helion Core." He looked around the room. "They created a suspect."
Silence fell over the room.
"Claire was the perfect person to frame. Who would question the Headmaster’s own granddaughter having access to the Underground Chamber? It’s too convenient. You plant the Core’s influence on her, walk away, and let the academy chase the wrong person while you’re already gone."
Murmurs moved through the room.
Nicholas’s frown had been building for a while. "So you’re saying the intruder deliberately used her as a scapegoat."
"Yes."
"That’s a convenient theory." Nathan leaned forward. His tone didn’t have anything friendly in it. "Where’s your proof?"
Another student from the side: "Yeah. What do you actually have? You can’t just say she’s innocent."
Alden didn’t move back.
"The Helion Core wasn’t with Claire."
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. "So?"
"But Claire was the one who came out of it," someone else said. "We all saw that."
"Yes." Alden looked at them. "She was. But you’re missing how the Core actually works."
The room went quieter.
"The Core activates on physical contact. Someone with enough mana can resist it and use it — control the beasts through it deliberately. But if the person who touches it isn’t strong enough to hold against it—"
He let that sit for a second.
"The Core takes control of them instead. They become its medium. Not its user."
Nathan’s jaw tightened. "Fine. How does that prove she didn’t steal it herself?"
"When Claire woke up I asked her what she remembered." Alden folded his arms. "She said she was evacuating students when she noticed someone suspicious. She followed them. After that—" He paused. "Nothing. She woke up after it was all over."
Roselle’s eyes moved slightly.
"So the intruder forced her to make contact with the Core," she said, and processing to herself.
"That’s what I think. They didn’t need to control her directly. They just needed the Core to touch her. Once it took hold, Claire became the distraction — every beast in the academy appeared to come from her, and the real thief walked away with the Core while everyone focused on the wrong person."
Nicholas was quiet for a moment. His frown hadn’t left. "Then while we were fighting..."
"The real intruder was still somewhere in the academy when the core was active," Alden said.
The room erupted.
"WHAT?!"
"Still here?"
"The thief never left?!"
"Not necessarily still here now." Alden raised his voice slightly over the noise. "Once Claire was separated from the Core, the effects stopped and that’s when the core can be taken away in long distance since its deactivated. The intruder had no reason to stay."
He looked at the room.
"Which means if we keep sitting here arguing about Claire, we’re giving them more time to disappear."
Nathan had stood up slightly. "They could already be outside."
"Exactly." Alden turned to everyone. "We need to move now. Split up, check every exit, every hidden passage, every route out. Before they’re completely gone."
Chairs shifted. People started standing.
"Before that." Roselle’s voice stopped the room.
Everyone looked at her.
Alden turned too.
She wasn’t moving toward the door with the others. She was looking directly at him, and something in her expression had gone still in a way that wasn’t confusion or relief, it was the face of someone who has just assembled several pieces and doesn’t like where they’re pointing.
"What is it?" Alden asked.
"I have a question." She held his gaze. "How do you know all of this?"
He blinked. "What?"
"I’m serious." She took one step forward. "Think about everything since this started. You were the first person to identify the Core’s bearer when nobody else had any idea where they were. You found Claire in the underground tunnels within minutes. And now, after the Core was removed, you immediately explain exactly how its power works and why Claire wasn’t the one who stole it."
She took another step.
"And on top of all that, you’re telling us the real culprit deliberately framed her and is probably escaping the academy right now."
Her eyes stayed on his face.
"How do you know all of this when the Headmaster himself didn’t have these answers?"
Alden’s expression stiffened.
She wasn’t yelling. She wasn’t accusing him with heat behind it. That somehow made it worse.
"I’m not saying you’re guilty." She glanced around the room briefly, then back to him. "But you have to understand how this looks. You’re the only person here with an answer for everything. Every single thing that’s happened today."
Her voice stayed even.
"So how do we know you’re not the one behind this? I mean you can be the one who did it and play innocent by manipulating us."
The room held still for exactly one second.
Then it didn’t.
"She’s right. How did he even find the Core bearer in the first place?"
"Nobody else could locate them. And he knows exactly how the Core works? Even Headmaster Thorne didn’t know what was happening."
"Could Alden actually be involved in this?"
"Maybe he’s been pretending to help us. Think about it, he knows way too much."
The voices layered over each other. Nicholas said nothing, but he was watching Alden with an expression that was doing exactly what Roselle’s was doing.
Alden clenched his teeth.
’Damn it.’
His eyes moved across the room. The students turning suspicious. Nathan’s flat stare that had never warmed up and wasn’t warming up now. Roselle still standing there with that look on her face.
’So now all of you are turning on me?’