Chapter 90: Rookie

Chapter NinetyRookie

North Borough, Alka Street.

Kapusti Reid sat blankly in the armchair inside his living room. To one side, charcoal burned in the fireplace.

As a senior instructor at a public school, his weekly salary was above four pounds. For a bachelor, that was enough to live quite well. Yet the clothes he wore at home were sewn with many patches, and the teacup on the table was also extremely plain.

When not removing his wig, Kapusti’s most striking features were his high cheekbones and slight pigeon chest—a deformity in which the sternum protruded forward.

Spread open on his knees was a collection of poems written in ancient Feysac, yet for a long time he had not turned a single page.

Kapusti stared without focus. Suddenly, he heard someone chuckle beside his ear.

“I am rather puzzled. You did not run away, but stayed at home. Are you not afraid the police will come knocking?”

The voice was low and hoarse, like a boy going through puberty.

Kapusti trembled all over and almost jumped out of his armchair.

He abruptly turned his head and saw, on the sofa only a few steps away, a figure seated there at some unknown time.

The figure wore a linen shirt and light trousers suited for summer. His face was hazy and indistinct, impossible to see clearly.

“Who—who are you? What are you here to do?” Kapusti gripped the arms of his chair and asked repeatedly.

Using his Illusion Creation ability, Klein leaned back, interlaced his fingers, and spoke leisurely.

“Last night—heh, technically, this morning—I saved all of you.”

“Saved us?”

Seeing that the other party did not seem particularly malicious, Kapusti relaxed slightly.

“You—you are the person in the forest? You dealt with the corpse we awakened?”

As he spoke, he moved uneasily, showing obvious fear.

He could slip in without my noticing while I was awake. I definitely cannot resist him…

Such thoughts flashed rapidly through Kapusti’s mind.

“You were fortunate enough. I happened to pass by. Otherwise, that place would have been covered in corpses—corpses torn and bitten into pieces,” Klein said with a smile. “Let us return to the question from earlier. I am very curious. You actually dared remain at home. Do you understand what crimes you committed?”

From Kapusti’s behavior before and after carrying out the “resurrection ritual,” Klein had confirmed that this man was a rookie. He could not possibly have techniques for concealing the true colors of his emotions. Therefore, Klein planned to understand the cause and course of the matter using only questioning and spirit vision, at most verifying things afterward with divination.

“I—I know. Privately buying corpses and digging up other people’s graves are crimes that can put me in prison for more than ten years. And—and I will certainly also be punished by the Church.”

Kapusti, who looked not yet thirty, inhaled and smiled bitterly.

“But as long as nothing too serious comes of it, those children and their parents will not report me, because they did the same thing. Even with reduced sentences for merit or surrendering themselves, they would still end up in prison for a while.”

“Heh.”

Kapusti laughed self-mockingly.

“Some children have already told their parents who I am. Their families found gang members to warn me, telling me to resign within a week and stay far away from the school. I agreed.”

Klein nodded lightly.

“A change of environment is a good thing. Of course, do not do anything similar again. Bewitching ignorant children into committing crimes is an enormous evil.”

“I will not. Never again. I did not actually think it would be so dangerous. I only saw that they had the same interest as me and thought to teach them, to lead them in searching for the secret of immortality. As for digging graves—many doctors did that in the past,” Kapusti said, sighing with lingering fear.

His emotional colors match his current state… Listening to him, he does not seem like a member of the Numinous…