Hugh saw the letter in his hands and he stopped in his tracks. The contents of the letter were hard to believe, but passing it off as a bluff may lead to his life being forfeited to the CDA.

This little piece of letter threatened his whole life. He did not even know if this was genuine or not, but he had to take it seriously.

He had to stop Aric? What did that even mean?

Hugh held the letter in his hands with trembling hands. He reread every word and every letter to give himself more clue to go on.

The letter was from Veer, but it did not have the usual flair that Veer posed in his reports. There were no rhymes nor greetings, just plain blackmail.

Hugh crumpled the letter in his hands and ate it. He frowned at being blackmailed like this, but he had no choice but to comply.

First, he had to look for Aric. There had been something wrong with Aric the moment that he had stepped foot onto the classroom.

Everyone could tell the difference from a mile away and it was easy to guess that something had happened to him. Hugh would have ignored Aric and went on his busy day, but now he had to go look for Aric.

The first thing he thought about was to go to his friends and ask for his whereabouts. He quickly scrapped this idea when he remembered that he had beat the living crap out of them wary in the morning.

He was not sure if they would answer his questions. Hugh did not know what Aric did in his daily life, so he had no clue to go on.

Then, he thought back to the days that they were in high school. Back in those days, Hugh was the subject of mockery and bullying. He had no power to resist them, so he had to endure the beatings.

The bullying mostly happened after school. They would force him to go to a clubhouse and be their lackeys. He would have to serve them drinks and food. If Hugh made a single mistake, they would beat him up.

One thing was for sure, Aric would be loitering around in the Central Area. That was the only place that students could go and enjoy themselves.

Hugh had also met Aric before in The Prestige Club. Hugh decided to first search there.

Hugh walked along the streets while keeping his eyes open. He would occasionally use his eagle eyes to see things clearer until it was on cooldown.

He would see students going in and out of the Central Area, but there was no sign of Aric. In the sea of students loitering about, it was improbable that he would meet Aric in the streets.

Even though it felt like it was useless to search the streets for Aric, he still kept looking. He looked around the buildings until his eagle eyes were on cooldown.

Just as he closed his eyes, he suddenly felt a cold touch on his shoulders. Hugh was caught off guard and he flinched away from the touch.

He backed away a few steps and assumed a defensive position with his armored hands. He did not think that someone would ambush him in the middle of the streets.

Once he gathered his composure, he saw a strange-looking man in front of him. This guy had a bowl cut that hid his eyes. The man had a big smile as he looked at Hugh. It was Balen.

“Ahh, Hugh! I was looking all over for you.”

Balen opened his arms in a friendly and approachable manner as if he was close with Hugh. This created an opposite effect on Hugh as it only made him warier of Balen.

“Who are you?”

Balen titled his head and answered.

“It’s me Balen! Don’t you know me? I’m a good friend of Dempsy.”

Hugh squinted his eyes and focused on his memory. He seemed to recall a man that entered the classroom at the same time as Dempsy. It was clear that Balen was telling the truth.

“What do you want?”

Hugh lowered his hands and retracted his armor, but he still kept a distance over Balen. He did not know why Balen approached him in this time and this manner.

“Don’t be so cold brrrrr! I just want to give you a heads up.”

Hugh did not trust Balen, but he opened his ears to hear what he had to say.

“Well, what is it?”

Balen suddenly stepped forward, which alerted Hugh. He stepped back further away from Balen in caution. He activated his armor and assumed another defensive position. He would have liked to use his eagle eyes, but it was still on cooldown.

“Now, now, I can’t tell you if you keep on walking away from me.”

Balen slowly walked forward, but Hugh kept a wary eye on him. He suppressed every urge to run away and just let him approach.

Balen walked forward until he was only a meter away from Hugh. Hugh raised his hands and stopped Balen from advancing any further.

“That’s enough.”

Balen shrugged his shoulders and relented on Hugh’s wishes.

“Fine. No wonder you don’t have any friends, you’re so cold! Well, that’s not true, you do have some friends, but whatever.”

Hugh furrowed his eyebrows as he let Balen talk to himself.

“Getting back to the matter at hand. I just wanted to warn you about a certain incident that will occur.”

Hugh’s heart skipped a beat as he heard the information from Balen. A thought passed by him and he guessed that it was somehow related to Aric’s incident.

Balen observed Hugh’s face and saw that Hugh had a serious expression. There was no surprise nor disbelief, just a serious expression.

“Hmmm...I expected more of a reaction from you.”

Hugh was becoming impatient with Balen, so he had to just ask directly.

“Just tell me what it is.”

Balen squinted his eyes as if he observed Hugh’s body expression. Then, he spoke to Hugh.

“Stop Aric or else your secret will be found out.”