Lyra stood at attention behind Kaan Swacc, hiding in an amorphous bubble of noise that Kaan had created so that they could remain undetected. There was a slight opaqueness to the bubble, but it was all but invisible from the inside. Based on what Lyra had gathered during its creation, Kaan’s powerful image had generated such a disturbance along the edge of the bubble that it essentially destroyed the air in the surrounding area.

Which meant that they could stand on the sandy slope above the entrance to the Dungeon without worrying about Randidly Ghosthound detecting them, no matter how powerful his evolved Perception was. The combination of illusion and spatial moat seemed to be enough for Kaan.

Lyra’s heart trembled with nostalgia as she looked down toward the entrance to the Dungeon. It was the same one that she had arranged for Randidly to enter all that time ago at Yystrix’s direction, so he would run into the Fate left by Chulroon. She wasn’t sure that Randidly would choose this Dungeon to use as his training space, especially because he had already largely stripped it bare of natural resources during his previous visit, but it was the one that Lyra had suggested when Kaan asked if she had any ideas where he would go.

Not that they needed to be there, Kaan assured her. He just wanted to be there to savor the moment. So if she was wrong… it wouldn’t end up mattering.

It was about five in the evening, with the sun just starting to sink toward the horizon. The light of the day shifted gradually from yellow to orange. Kaan grimaced and squinted upward at the declining star. His eyes reflected white light that made it difficult for Lyra to look directly at him. “Is this truly the location you think is the most likely? Are you sure he won’t waste our time?”

“Yes,” Lyra sighed. As much as she wished he wouldn’t, she didn’t doubt that Randidly would run toward this confrontation. So the two settled down to wait. Occasionally, Lyra could feel people from Donnyton accessing her abilities as a Village Spirit in order to obtain a Class. Even from this distance, she could approve the decision while functioning remotely. Although she wasn’t there to offer any advice to the foolish youths or new arrivals, her role as Village Spirit continued despite the fact that Kaan had all but kidnapped her.

Another hour passed with nothing happening. The sun sank closer to the horizon. Red began to bleed into the color palette.

During that time, Lyra began to get worried. Not that Kaan was a man who became agitated about being deceived or disappointed. If anything, Lyra was unnerved by how completely unaffected Kaan seemed to be during their dozen or so interactions over the past week. Aside from that hint of coldness when Kaan spoke about all people being puppeted in the Nexus and leaving Lyra stuck there for a few hours, he had been constantly amicable.

To a disturbing degree.

No, what worried Lyra was that Kaan would begin to investigate Lyra a little too closely following her assurance that ended up being incorrect. Lyra wasn’t exactly sure what the man would see inside of her, because she was both a Village Spirit and possessed a Class, but wanted to keep that duality a secret for as long as possible. Even she wasn’t sure what it meant. But she had known that if there was a possibility to escape from the confines of being a Village Spirit, she needed to begin before the situation on Earth finalized itself.

Kaan sighed. Yet at that exact moment, the air split open next to the entrance to the Dungeon. Randidly Ghosthound stepped out of the abrupt space and it closed behind him without a sound.

Randidly’s brow furrowed as he glanced left and right across the sandy expanse. Lyra felt herself straighten almost instinctively as Randidly’s gaze flicked in the direction where the two were standing. Even from this distance, his emerald eyes were distinct and bright.

Behind her, Kaan chuckled. “I told you. This Ghosthound displays a lot of potential… but he’s still pretty fresh to his power. And not used to enemies of this caliber. This sort of trick is definitely something that he hasn’t seen before. Now… tell me whatever you think is relevant about the current Randidly Ghosthound.”

Lyra grimaced at the order but took a few seconds to scan Randidly’s person. He had trimmed his black hair so it was close to his head once more. He wore a rather tight leather top with more loose-fitting, linen pants. More than that, what Lyra immediately noticed is that Randidly had come here unarmed.

“He doesn’t have Acri or Sulfur on him,” Lyra said slowly. “Those are his living spear and armor respectively. Both very powerful. It’s honestly… strange that he didn’t bring them if he planned on spending a significant amount of time training.”

“Why?” Kaan pressed in a perfectly on tune hum.

Shrugging, Lyra magnified her own worry and confusion that Randidly would come here so ill-prepared after her warning. “I’m… not sure. The only explanation that I can come up with is that he really plans on developing that image to fight you.”

“Ha! Does he think that he can buy some time by slowly feeding himself to that self-destructive image…?” Kaan shook his bronze, gleaming head. “Well, it matters not. Since he came all the way here, all we need to do is wait and watch to see-”

Kaan stopped speaking as Randidly walked up to the Dungeon and pressed his hand against the threshold. After a split second, Randidly was gone, isolated from Earth by the strange constructs of the System. The casual ease that Randidly walked up and entered into the Dungeon made Lyra’s stomach drop out of her chest. Even after her warning, he really just proceeded directly to the Dungeon?!?

Lyra’s years of working as an actress kept it so none of her emotions showed on her face, but her heart was twisting itself with worry. ...is it possible that my status in his eyes is so low that he didn’t take my warning seriously? Or that he really didn’t notice anything off about what I said? If so and he just walked into a trap that I was the bait for-

“Heh, to think it would be this easy… wait...dammit.” Kaan whispered. He whistled and the barrier around them dissipated like it had never existed. He took a step and seemed to pass directly through the distance to appear in front of the Dungeon entrance. When he arrived, he waved his hand and Lyra could feel the Special Investigator examining the Aether constructs around the Dungeon with his bright silver eyes.

Lyra quickly proceeded to stand next to Kaan Swacc, feeling slightly nonplussed. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To trap him within a Dungeon?”

Kaan cast Lyra an irritated glance but seeing the expression on her face forced a small smirk across his bronze features. “Where did you get that impression? Am I the type to avoid a fight?”

And it was times like this that Lyra detested the influence that the authority sigil held over her. “You tricked me into believing you were bringing him here to trap him within a Dungeon. But you are right, you really aren’t the type to avoid a fight… you want to fight Randidly. So then what you are trying to do here-”

“-is give yourself justification to act as a Special Investigator. Isn’t that right?”

Even Kaan was shocked when Randidly once again stepped out of a rip in the air and stood behind the duo. His emerald eyes were bright and sharp. And this time, Lyra noticed, he was holding the lance form of Acri and wore the slate-grey Sulfur.

Always one to respond quickly, Kaan grinned at Randidly and made no attempt to hide the way that he scanned Randidly from head to toe. He even released a fistful of concentrated Aether to cover Randidly, although Randidly just as quickly conjured a flow of his own Aether that knocked the more in-depth scan away. “Well, well, well… so you are Randidly Ghosthound. Was the other one a decoy…? An effective one, if I fell for it. But I really only have one question you need to answer: Did you kill Ileot Swacc?”

The last question that was spoken in a completely different tone of the other. Kaan’s musicality seemed to reverberate outward from his toothless mouth with a ringing harshness. Resonance rippled outward and applied pressure to Randidly. Just as easily as Randidly had dealt with the prod with Aether, Randidly disposed of this sound by conjuring his new image into existence. After a shuddering moment, a black egg appeared above Randidly’s head.

The surrounding space seemed to freeze.

It was almost strange, Lyra reflected, that she immediately thought egg as she looked toward the image. But the longer her eyes stayed on the black orb, the more she felt like something terrible was growing in its depths.

The inky black egg devoured Kaan’s musical voice without comment.

Kaan’s toothless smile stretched even wider. “Do you think that I don’t have ways to force you to answer me?”

“I think you don’t,” Randidly replied, quite confident. “That’s exactly why you used Lyra to try and apply pressure so I would go into a Dungeon ahead of time. Although I was worried for a bit, Octavius was right; you won’t move until I give you justification. You need proof that I’m an unstable element.”

All the glee vanished from Kaan’s face. “So you choose to delay? I don’t know how you fooled everyone on the frontlines, but I know that you are a Nether spy. I’m ready for your Nether tricks-”

Suddenly, Kaan’s words stopped as he saw a flash of shock and panic across Randidly’s face. For a split second, Lyra entertained the possibility that Kaan was right; that Randidly was truly a Nether spy and that was the reason he was so powerful.

Kaan began to laugh maniacally. “Oh, I didn’t think you would reveal yourself so easily! No worries, I’ll still wait for proof, but I really just need to wait until the Epic Danger Zone is revealed… then I’ll be able to conduct a more… thorough investigation of this planet to root out unstable elements.

“Believe me when I say… you will give me an answer for the death of Ileot Swacc on that day, Randidly Ghosthound.”