Third Day

The next day...

A bright sunny day for the capital of the current federalist, constitutional monarchy of Lithnia Kingdom, Crotton City.

If Ayre is to recall the history of his Kingdom, he wouldn't want to, to be honest. History is a complicated contemporary art that is being produced from various color and paint labelled as "events" continually towards the end of time.

Art of today which was painted from events that transpired from at most the day before and this cycle will continue as long as the concept of time exists... and as long as observers are present.

It was vaguely mentioned in his history classes that Lithnia existed way before the "implosion" which occured ten thousand years ago.

Of course it wasn't "Lithnia Kingdom" back then but indeed, records became almost non-existent after that tragedy, if not for the few thousand human survivors who were the few sources for history of the latter generations, so its previous name was unknown.

Overtime, these knowledge got buried as civilization recovered taking them to where they are currently.

And Lithnia Kingdom which already had its foundation from its predecessor was one of the few countries and kingdoms to recover first, hence its long history.

In the midst of the different buildings of the main offices of different kingdom-wide departments of this history-rich kingdom, Ayre can be seen walking about, heading to Dan who was currently driving the carriage.

That's to be expected since Ayre already informed him before that they would be heading out after noon.

Though what one might not expect was Ayre actually finishing all of his work for the day by noon. I wish I had that kind of motivation tsk.

Dan met the humming Ayre at the area where employees are dropped off if they have private drivers like Ayre.

If the workers drive for themselves however, then they can directly go to the specified parking slots and go to the office from there.

***

Min was surprised to see Ayre walking towards the church.

He already had a vague idea of what the topic's gonna be about but to be visiting the church two days in a row?

If not for his vague idea and if he didn't knew what Ayre came for the day before, he would've think that Ayre was the most pious believer of the Goddess considering that he have a lot of work to do since he was secretary of the whole Department of Foreign Affairs.

Ayre arrived in the church's premises.

A few minutes later.

"No!"

A decisive "no" echoed throughout the church's premises.

Obviously, the topic was still about ambience. Ayre wanted to know more about it however, he was refused.

'Cardinal Eryl would probably kill me if I am to agree'. Min thought as a trickle of sweat dripped down from his face.

"Why? You told me a few things 'bout this thing right? Here, here, see, if I cut myself and let the blood drip down and touch the candle's fire, it will go whoosh and blow up like an aurora kind of phenomenon!"

Ayre was trying to provide a demonstration of exactly what he was saying by first, cutting himself but was stopped by Min. He had been wondering why Ayre had so many wounds. Alas, seek and an answer shall come.

Min was currently holding Ayre's hand with his eyes closed, lips a bit crumpled and face facing a bit away from Ayre.

"Sir Ayre." Said Min politely.

"Yes?"

"First of all, this knowledge is only taught to the high authorities of the church. Cardinal Eryl barely managed to get it even with his status as a cardinal. I do not know the system behind this but normal people like you... don't have that kind of qualification. Second, I am quite confident that my teaching skills are quite unexceptional. Even if I wanted to, I can't."

Min explained patiently. He also noticed that Ayre since earlier acted like a child.

"Tch. Clearance this, clearance that.." Ayre whispered in annoyance.

His merry expression returned to his cold apathetic one.

"Aight. That's all I came here for."

"Have a good day."

Both said their good-byes to each other.

'Hohh.. Blood reacting to the candle huhh...'

A random yet unexpected fact that Min almost forgot returned to him.

***

'...'

Ayre was at a loss.

He was wondering if he should just forget about the candle. Now that his time was freed unexpectedly, he had nothing to do. His work was finished for the day.

Well, not really definitively finished of course, he gave the honor of doing his work to his various department staff but it's still considered as done.

After careful consideration, he just decided to go back home and sleep. He didn't have any plans after it since he expected that he would spend some time in the church. Unfortunately, we all know how it turned out though.

"Ayre."

Just a bit of time passed in the carriage when Ayre heard Dan speak, in an informal way.

"What is it?" Of course Ayre didn't mind it.

"Road is blocked. Need to take a detour. Something like a commotion is going on up ahead and some police enforcers and carriages are blocking the way."

"What's the nearest alternative route? You know what, you take care of it. I don't care I'll just be sleeping anyways. Take it easy, take it easy." He replied lazily.

"Alright. I'm just reminding, just reminding, since the nearest alternative route will require going around the city." Said Dan while slightly smiling, clearly teasing Ayre about the long road ahead. Literally.

"Ah yes I was reminded of some rumors 'bout this from the office earlier. Someone got killed last night?"

Since one way roads were the norm and the two routes from his house to the office and from his office to the house greatly differ and are quite far away from each other, they didn't encountered this early in the morning on their way to the office.

"Yeah." Dan agreed and ended the conversation with his one word reply.

The duo soon arrived in the estate. A very curious and unfamiliar carriage was parked though in the lot.

The estate had a lot of space for carriages though so it's not an issue. What is however, was that this carriage had the same emblem embedded on it as the carriages they saw on the barricaded road from earlier.

"Oi."

"Yes. Did something happened here?"

Of course the two weren't dumb enough to not be able to connect the dots.

Something must have happened here that's connected to the incident on the main road they encountered earlier. Or at the very least, someone from the estate was somehow involved one way or another.

The difference was that the one had an idea why they were here while the other did not.

***

Ayre was informed that something was happening in the guest room so he directly headed there after going out of the carriage.

"Enson! Don't you dare do something like this again. We do not have enough lot space to have these carriages in the place y'know!"

The first sentences that came out of Ayre's mouth were naturally sarcastic remarks towards the

still-being-interviewed Enson which implied his non-existent involvement in the case.

"Bastard, don't lump me in with you!" Enson just gritted his teeth. He wasn't connected to the case at all but just the fact that he heard something out of Ayre's bitchy mouth, at least according to him, was already something to be annoyed about.

His interview did not last long and ended a few minutes later.

"All right that's it, thank you for answering my questions Enson. Now, let's switch people shall we?" A police enforcer, no, a detective to be exact, turned his head towards Ayre as he said these words.

Ayre didn't say anything. He just had his right hand point towards himself, confused.

"Yes. Your return is a bit unexpected but I want to ask some questions regarding some incident that happened a night ago. You encountered a blockade along the way right?" The detective's soft yet low voice was heard throughout the guest room.

"And what's my place got to do with any of those? Pretty sure nothing happened here....right?"

Well, well, we all know something did happen. But of course there's no way Ayre will tell shit to the detective. He did not want to be sent to a mental hospital or a drug rehabilitation center. But at the very least he will not lie.

"That's not for you to decide but mine. Name's Doyle. Arth Doyle." Arth stretched his arms hoping for a handshake with Ayre as he introduced himself.

"Ayre, Ayre Bushnell." Of course, Ayre did the same thing.