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Who took Miss Seraphina’s materials? If you come forward now I’ll overlook it. But if I find out who it was
”
Chapter 1
“Who took Miss Seraphina’s materials? If you come forward now, I’ll overlook it. But if I find out who it was…”
I was five minutes late for class. As I reached the door, I heard Professor Pierce’s cold, hard voice.
“Then I will ensure that a student with such poor character is expelled from this academy.”
21:14
What was going on? Did Seraphina’s materials go missing after all? I glanced around. Seraphina looked unconcerned, Kira looked indifferent, and the rest of the class just looked confused.
The feed was scrolling frantically.
Check the security cams, hurry! Before Luna deletes the footage!]
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t steal anything, why would I delete the footage?
“Permission to enter,” I called out.
Professor Pierce narrowed his eyes at me, not letting me in. “Miss Seraphina’s materials are missing. Are you aware of this?”
I nodded. “I am now. You just said so.”
He let out a long, meaningful “Ohhh.” Then he asked, “And what are your thoughts on the matter?”
His tone and expression infuriated me. “She lost them, so she should find them. What other thoughts could I have? If you don’t know how, Profes-
sor, I’d be happy to help you pull the security footage.”
My attitude seemed to surprise him. His brow furrowed. “Whoever dared to steal them wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave the footage behind.”
“Speaking of which,” he said, his eyes locking onto mine, “why are you so late today? What were you doing?”
He might as well have just announced to the entire class that my tardiness was due to me tampering with the security system. As expected, his
words made every student in the room look at me with suspicion.
The scrolling feed was just as annoying.
[Pierce is in protective husband mode!]
ПYes, King! You deserve a wife like her!J
I ignored him, walked straight into the classroom, and went to my seat.
“What I do is my business, not yours,” I said coolly. “And as for the footage, even if it’s deleted, I can restore it. Just because you can’t, Professor, doesn’t mean I can’t. Don’t worry, I’ll get your precious Sera the justice she deserves.”
Then, right in front of everyone, I made a call. “Dad, a student in my class lost something. Could you have someone pull the security footage for
me?”
After I hung up, Seraphina turned to look at me, her expression dismissive. “Luna, there’s no need to go to all that trouble. The materials are gone,
so be it. I’ll just get another set and start over. I hope the professor can give me a little more time.”
So this time, she had lost all her materials.
She clasped her hands together, blinked playfully at Professor Pierce, and pouted. “Please?”
He chuckled, completely charmed. “You. You just don’t care about anything, do you? But this is about more than just some missing parts.”
I cut him off. “The components we build are collected by the factory. Not a single one can be missing.” The materials we used were supplied direc-
tly by a major mech corporation. The parts we made were sent directly back to them for use.
“At its simplest, this is a case of missing materials. At its worst, it affects the trust and partnership between this academy and the corporation! This must be investigated thoroughly!”
1
I had another reason for pushing this. My father was on the academy’s board of directors, and my mother owned the corporation. What was stol-
en was, essentially, my family’s property. Of course I wanted it found.
I wanted to shove the truth in the faces of every single person who doubted me.
With a directive from a board member, it took less than thirty minutes for the Dean of Students to arrive at Section 7 with security and the surveill-
ance footage.
Chapter 1
Halfway through the video, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Seraphina, is this what you call ‘missing‘?”
