The Divine Hunter

He finished flipping through two hundred registration forms in fifteen minutes.
There were a few empty forms in between —  perhaps used by Cardell to motivate herself —  and he double and triple checked them.

After his third check, Roy heaved a sigh and stacked the forms before putting them back into the cabinet.
He had a complex look on his face.
He didn’t find anything on Vivien’s brother.
That made him think that his investigation was nearing its end.
He thought the conclusion was logical, but also hard to accept.
Is Vivien really going mad?

Some of the records held names Roy was familiar with, names that belonged to children who were still in the school.
Two of them left an impression.
One was Miguel, the child who got into a fight with ‘him,’ and the other was Helheim, the boy with a scar under his eyes —  the one Cardell had drawn a portrait of.

Roy looked at the clock.
There was still an hour until twelve.
He was planning on asking Miguel some questions after lunch to gather some final evidence.
Before he left, Roy hesitated and opened some other drawers out of curiosity. 

“Hm.
Books, quills, ink… “ Roy rummaged through the drawers.
“Huh? Makeup products? Didn’t expect the stern Miss Cardell to be someone who cares about her appearance.
Huh? This is… ?” Roy found a wrinkled pamphlet in the third drawer near the corner by accident.

“Vernon Ryan, the great leader of the Aldersberg revolutionists, was fighting for the people’s rights when Baron Tavik, in all his cruelty, incarcerated him for three months.
The just revolutionists who went to the protest march were defeated by the baron’s forces, but the revolution shall not wane.
A new team is assembling…”

Roy finally had the answer to one of his questions.
He finally realized who Helheim —  the valedictorian —  was.
The man with the scar was one of the revolutionists —  the one in the cape he’d bumped into when he and Letho were leaving Seville’s residence.

Cardell’s hiding this pamphlet in her drawer, but she said she sent the great students somewhere else to work.
But obviously, she has a lot to do with the revolutionists.
Roy made a daring presupposition and thought that Cardell was important for the revolution.
He thought she might’ve founded the school to raise new revolutionists.

And then, he was reminded of his first day, when he’d overheard her lessons.
Back then, he had a strange feeling that Miss Cardell was biased toward the revolutionists.
She criticized the nobles of Aldersberg, and even the whole of Aedirn.

Wait, this makes sense.
House of Cardell’s backers are the revolutionists.
If I keep this up and stay for a few more years, Cardell’s going to persuade me to join the revolution.

Roy took a deep breath, unsure of what to feel.
He was there to find out more about Vivien’s brother, but he didn’t expect to find Cardell’s skeleton in the closet.
So does she have anything to do with Vivien’s brother? Did she take him into the revolution, like how she did with Helheim?

Roy dismissed that idea quickly.
No matter how powerful Cardell was in the revolution, she was still human.
It was impossible for her to erase Vivien, her family, and her neighbors’ memories.
Even Helheim had a portrait, but Vivien’s brother didn’t.

Bob’s testimony and the missing form were enough evidence that Vivien’s brother did not exist.
If Miguel denied the boy’s existence too, then…