Chương 270: Chapter : 270

Whatever strange, unspoken language Ken and Ira had developed between them, it was real. And it worked. She walked back into the main laboratory, where Sayma and Iris were still deep in discussion over the journal. The others were returning from their search areas, empty-handed but observant.

"Well?" Naomi asked, nodding toward the journal.

"Carrion was working on an Eternal Youth potion," Iris said, her expression grim.

"He was close to completing it. And someone killed him before he could." She looked around the room at her team.

"This just became much bigger than a simple murder investigation." Risa and Luna returned from the side rooms. Risa was carrying a small, framed photograph. It showed Carrion standing in front of his laboratory, smiling, with a cup of tea in one hand and a pen in the other. He looked happy. He looked like someone who had no idea what was coming for him.

"He kept a cactus on his desk," Risa said softly, looking at the photograph.

"It was still alive. Someone has been watering it." The room went quiet. A cactus. A small, stubborn plant that refused to die in a room where everything else had been destroyed. It felt like a message from a man who could no longer speak. Ken emerged from the storage room with a small, dusty bottle in his hand.

"Hey, I found something." He held it up proudly.

"It is a bottle of really old hot sauce. Expiration date: three years ago. Can I keep it?" Iris stared at him.

"No."

"Worth a shot," Ken said, tossing the bottle over his shoulder. Ira caught it with a tiny stream of water before it hit the ground and set it on a nearby shelf. She gave Ken a look that somehow communicated disapproval without moving a single facial muscle. Ken winked at her. Ira turned away. And somewhere in the back of Naomi's mind, the bewilderment deepened. Iris gathered the team around the workbench. She placed the journal at the center, its pages open to the final entry.

The handwriting in the last few pages was shakier than the rest. Hurried. Like a man who knew he was running out of time.

"We take this back to the estate," Iris said.

"Sayma, I want a full analysis of every formula in this journal. Cross-reference it with the case files. Find the connection between Carrion's research and the people who wanted him dead." Sayma nodded, already carefully wrapping the journal in a protective cloth.

"I will need access to the Royal Archives for the botanical references. Some of these compounds use ingredients I do not recognize." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"You will have it," Iris confirmed. Ken leaned against the doorframe of the storage room, watching the team prepare to leave. His dark eyes were half-closed, his posture lazy, his expression bored. But behind the mask, his mind was already turning the puzzle over, fitting the pieces together in that quiet, annoying way of his. An Eternal Youth potion. A murdered scientist. A ransacked laboratory. A hidden journal. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure the world forgot about Carrion and his work.

But the 13th Unit had just remembered. And Ken had a feeling that this was only the beginning.

The estate was quiet. The kind of quiet that only comes after midnight, when the world outside has stopped moving and the world inside has stopped talking. The hallways were dark. The lamps were out. The only sound was the gentle creak of old wood settling into the night. One by one, the girls of the 13th Unit had drifted off to their rooms. Risa had fallen asleep with her botanical guide open on her chest, the pages rustling softly each time she breathed.

A small note she had been writing about Devil Flour lay crumpled under her cheek, the ink still wet. Luna had fallen asleep standing up in the hallway and had to be gently steered to her bed by a concerned Zinia. The muscular earth mage had simply picked the tiny lightning user up and carried her to her room, tucking her in with surprising tenderness for someone whose arms were the size of tree trunks. Naomi had stayed up reading the case files until her eyes refused to stay open.

She had been sitting cross-legged on her bed, the dossier spread out around her like a paper fortress, when sleep finally claimed her mid-sentence. Her head was resting on a photograph of Carrion's laboratory, and her red hair fanned across the pages like flames. She had drawn small red circles around three entries in the police report with a pen, each one marking an inconsistency that bothered her. Even in sleep, Naomi could not stop fighting. Iris had been the first to retire, which surprised no one.

The princess maintained a disciplined schedule even on the most chaotic days. But Ken had noticed that her lamp had stayed on longer than usual tonight. She was worried. They all were. Sayma was the last one awake besides Ken. She had been in the study, hunched over the journal with a magnifying glass and three reference books open on the desk. She had muttered formulas to herself for hours, her pen scratching notes in her precise, tiny handwriting.

Eventually, even Sayma's formidable intellect had surrendered to exhaustion. She had fallen asleep at the desk, her glasses askew, her cheek pressed against a page of alchemical equations that would have made her cringe if she could see the smudge she was leaving. Even Laxmi, who usually stayed up late practicing her fire tricks in the courtyard, had turned in early. She had stood in the garden for a long time after the others went inside, watching the flames dance between her fingertips.

The fire had been quieter than usual. Almost thoughtful. Then she had extinguished it and gone to bed without a word. The long, exhausting day and its grim discoveries had drained something vital from all of them. The weight of a murdered scientist and his stolen dream hung in the air like smoke. The kind of smoke that lingers in your clothes long after the fire is out. Ira had gone to her room without a word, as she always did. She had not spoken much since the facility.

But when she had passed Ken in the hallway, she had paused for just a moment. Her pale blue eyes had met his. Then she had nodded, once, and disappeared into her room. It was the closest thing to a conversation that Ira ever initiated. Ken had understood it perfectly. It said: thank you for today. And also: stop pushing boxes off shelves. Ira had patrolled the perimeter of the estate three times before going to bed.

She had checked every window, every door, every possible entry point with the quiet, methodical thoroughness of someone who took her role as the unit's shield very seriously.