Chapter 130: Victor’s worry

Two days later, during a class period at Amstral High, the students were waiting to receive their remaining tests. The atmosphere inside the classroom was noticeably more relaxed than it had been during the earlier examinations.

Some students sat at their desks, revising their notes in preparation for the next test, while others took advantage of the free time to chat with their classmates. A few had already put their books away, convinced that they had studied enough and deserved a little rest before the next round of academic pressure began.

The sound of conversations filled the room, occasionally interrupted by laughter or the scraping of chairs against the tiled floor. Students exchanged answers to questions from their previous tests, argued about the correct solutions, and complained about the difficulty of certain subjects. For most of them, it was an ordinary school day, and the temporary break offered a welcome opportunity to relax.

However, Victor was not participating in any of it.

He sat alone at his desk, separated from the usual groups of students who would normally have gathered around him. His arms rested on the tabletop, and his gaze remained fixed on a spot in front of him without appearing to focus on anything in particular.

He had barely moved for several minutes, and the expression on his face suggested that his thoughts were occupied by something far more troubling than an upcoming test.

A student sitting a few desks away noticed his unusual behaviour. Victor was not exactly known for keeping to himself, especially when his friends were around.

Even when he was not participating directly in a conversation, he usually had something to say or some way of making his presence known. Seeing him sitting alone and looking so distant was unusual enough to attract attention.

The student tilted his head slightly, wondering whether Victor had quarrelled with his friends or received some bad news. He considered asking what was wrong, but the seriousness of Victor’s expression made him hesitate.

Perhaps Victor simply wanted to be left alone.

After watching him for another moment, the student returned to his own business. Whatever was troubling Victor was clearly not something he intended to discuss with just anyone.

Meanwhile, Victor remained silent, almost as though he had been trapped inside his own thoughts and had forgotten about the world around him. The noise of the classroom reached his ears, but he barely registered it. His attention kept returning to the same questions, each one leading to another without providing any satisfying answer.

Where was Jack?

And what had happened to Mia?

Jack’s prolonged absence had been bothering him for days. At first, Victor had assumed that his friend had simply decided to skip school for a while. Jack was not exactly the most dependable student, and his history of getting into trouble made it easy to imagine him finding another reason to avoid classes.

However, as the days passed without any reliable news, Victor’s initial assumptions had begun to lose their comfort.

Jack had not contacted him, and nobody seemed to know where he was. His usual presence had disappeared from their daily routine, leaving behind a gap that Victor could no longer ignore. Even the students who normally complained about Jack’s behaviour had started asking questions.

Then Mia had disappeared as well.

That was what made the situation so much worse.

Mia was not the kind of person who would simply vanish without a reason. She had her own routines, her own concerns, and a strong personality that rarely allowed other people to dictate what she should do. If she had intended to stay away from school for a few days, Victor would have expected her to say something, even if her explanation had been brief or irritatingly vague.

Instead, she had disappeared without giving him any warning.

The last time Victor had spoken with Mia, she had told him about her encounter with Carlo. According to her account, she had crossed paths with the man and discovered information that had changed her understanding of Mark’s true identity.

The revelation had clearly left an impression on her, and Victor remembered how seriously she had treated the matter.

At the time, he had been more concerned about Jack than anything related to Mark. He had listened to Mia’s explanation, but he had not fully considered how the information might influence her next actions.

Now, looking back, he wondered whether he should have paid closer attention.

Because of Jack’s continued absence, Victor had eventually decided to tell Mia about Jack’s relationship with Sofia. He had hoped that the information might help her understand what had happened or give her another direction to investigate. He had not expected that revealing it would make the situation even more complicated.

Mia had always been quick to act when she believed she had discovered something important. Once she fixed her attention on a particular problem, it was difficult to convince her to leave it alone.

Victor knew that much about her personality, and the thought that she might have gone looking for Sofia made his stomach tighten.

Had she confronted the freshman?

Had the conversation turned into an argument?

Or had Mia discovered something that made her decide to investigate further without telling him?

He had no answers, and the uncertainty was beginning to wear him down.

Victor rubbed his forehead and released a quiet breath. He had spent so much time thinking about the possibilities that he was starting to confuse his suspicions with facts. He needed information, something concrete enough to help him understand what had happened rather than another theory that would leave him with even more questions.

That was why he had tried to find Sofia.

Unfortunately, the freshman had also been nowhere to be found.

He had asked a few students who knew her, hoping someone might have seen her around the school or heard anything about her recent activities. Their answers had been unhelpful. Some had not seen her for days, while others could not remember the last time they had spoken to her.

The more Victor searched, the more uneasy he became.

He had begun to suspect that Mia might have confronted Sofia and that something had gone wrong during their meeting. It was only a possibility, but it was difficult for him to dismiss when neither girl had returned to school or provided any explanation for her absence.

Mia’s disappearance was particularly troubling because she had been the one who told him about Carlo. If she had discovered something significant during that encounter, she might have gone looking for answers without telling anyone else. That would have been typical of her, especially if she believed that involving other people would slow her down.

But where would that leave Sofia?

Victor leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling for a moment.

He did not want to believe that Mia had deliberately harmed the freshman. Although Mia could be aggressive and intimidating when she wanted something, Victor had known her long enough to recognize that she did not always act without a reason. Still, her determination could sometimes push her into situations she had not fully considered.

And if Sofia had resisted her, the confrontation might have become more serious than either girl had intended.

The thought made him clench his fists.

“Where are you two?” he muttered under his breath.

A student nearby glanced in his direction, but Victor ignored the attention.

Jack’s situation remained the worst part of the mystery. He had been absent for longer, and there was still no reliable explanation for what had happened to him. The fact that Sofia had spent time with him before his disappearance made her an important person to question, whether she was responsible for anything or not.

Yet the freshman had become almost as difficult to find as Jack himself.

Victor recalled the reports he had gathered from some of Sofia’s fellow freshmen. None of them had offered a clear explanation for her behaviour, but several had described feeling uncomfortable around her. They struggled to explain why. Some said that her presence made them uneasy, while others admitted that they preferred to keep their distance even though she had never directly threatened them.

The reports were vague, and Victor understood that uneasiness alone did not prove anything. Still, the consistency of their reactions had caught his attention.

Sofia was undeniably striking, with a mesmerising appearance that naturally attracted notice. Yet her beauty did not seem to make people more comfortable around her. If anything, it made the contrast between her outward appearance and the strange impression she left on others even more noticeable.

There was something about her that Victor could not understand.

She seemed mysterious and unpredictable, and people who barely knew her often found themselves avoiding her without being able to explain their reasons. Victor had initially dismissed those reactions as ordinary gossip, but after Jack’s disappearance, he could no longer keep himself from wondering whether they were connected to something more significant.

Perhaps Sofia had a secret.

Perhaps she knew more about Jack’s disappearance than she had admitted.

Or perhaps she was simply another person caught in a situation she did not understand.

Victor pressed his lips together.

He had to stop treating every possibility as a conclusion. Until he found evidence, he could not fairly accuse Sofia of being responsible for anything. But neither could he ignore the fact that she might hold information that would help him locate Jack and Mia.

At this point, there was only one person he could think of approaching.

Carlo.

The name came back to him with unexpected clarity. Carlo had once taught their class in place of Olivia for a short period, and Mia had mentioned him during their last conversation. The man had been involved in a discussion that revealed something about Mark’s identity, and Victor wondered whether his encounter with Mia had included information about the other disappearances.

Perhaps Carlo knew something.

Perhaps he had noticed something unusual about Mia after their conversation.

Or perhaps he had nothing to do with any of it.

Victor recognised that the last possibility was just as reasonable as the others. Carlo was a member of the school staff, and there was no evidence that he had been involved in Jack’s disappearance or anything that had happened to Mia. Going to confront him based on a vague suspicion might only create another problem.

But Victor was running out of options.

His worry had begun to affect his judgment, and he knew it. Every hour that passed without news made him more impatient, and his mind kept pushing him toward the quickest possible explanation. He wanted to find someone who could give him answers, even if he had to take a chance on the wrong person to do so.

He straightened in his chair and glanced toward the classroom door.

Once the break began, he would look for Carlo.

He would ask his questions, observe the man’s reactions, and determine whether there was anything worth investigating. If Carlo knew nothing, Victor would have to accept it and search elsewhere. But if he noticed something suspicious, he would not ignore it.

For now, that was the only plan he had.

On the other side of the classroom, Mark was dealing with a problem that seemed considerably less serious than the one occupying Victor’s thoughts.

He leaned slightly toward Hermione’s desk, trying to catch a glimpse of her assignment. He was not attempting to copy the entire thing, at least not in his own mind. He simply wanted to confirm whether one of his answers matched hers, especially because he had been uncertain about the correct method for solving the question.

Hermione noticed his efforts almost immediately.

She had been writing in her notebook when she caught sight of Mark leaning closer. At first, she ignored him and continued reviewing her work, hoping that he would eventually give up. However, when his head shifted a little farther toward her page, she finally stopped writing and turned to face him.

“You know that it’s against the rules to cheat, right?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I can’t just let you copy my answers because you don’t feel confident about yours.”

Mark slowly straightened.

“Cheat? That’s a rather harsh word for what I’m doing.”

“What would you call it, then?”

“Checking my work.”

“By looking at my answers?”

“Exactly. I’m checking whether my work is correct.”

Hermione gave him a long, unimpressed look.

“Mark, if you want to check your work, you should use your own answers and the material you’ve studied. You can’t learn properly if you keep looking at someone else’s paper whenever you get stuck.”

Mark sighed and leaned back in his chair.

“You always have to surround yourself with these heavy policies. There’s nothing wrong with helping a classmate learn. I could use a little of that myself.”

Hermione’s expression softened slightly, although she maintained the confident look she usually wore when discussing academics.

“Helping you learn isn’t the problem. Letting you copy my answers without understanding them is.”

“Then explain them to me.”

She blinked.

Mark gave her a hopeful smile.

“See? Problem solved. You explain the questions, I understand them, and we both get on with our lives.”

Hermione considered his suggestion for a moment.

“Actually, that might work.”

Mark’s eyes brightened.

“Really?”

“Yes, but only if you’re willing to put in the effort. I’m not going to spend an hour explaining something to you if you’re going to forget everything the moment I finish.”

“I can be a very attentive student.”

“That’s what you said the last time.”

“And I was attentive.”

“You fell asleep over your notes.”

“I was resting my eyes.”

Hermione laughed quietly, shaking her head.

“You’re impossible.”

Mark grinned. “Yet you continue to help me.”

“Perhaps I’m simply too kind.”

“Perhaps.”

She gave him a playful nudge with her elbow before returning to her notebook. Then, after a moment of thought, she looked back at him.

“Coming to think of it, there’s another way we could approach this. Have you ever considered joining a club?”

Mark’s expression became uncertain.

“A club?”

“Yes. A school club. It could give us a reason to study together more regularly, and we could work on activities that would help us improve outside ordinary lessons.”

Mark scratched the side of his head.

“Not really. I never bothered to join one during my freshman year.”

Hermione’s smile faded slightly as she waited for him to explain.

Mark glanced toward the other students before continuing.

“Back then, I was still a mundane human. Most of the students treated me differently because I didn’t have the abilities they expected from a summoner. I was isolated and discriminated against, and joining school activities wasn’t exactly something I felt comfortable doing.”

His tone remained casual, but there was a quiet bitterness beneath his words.

“I wasn’t exactly welcomed into the groups that already existed. Even when I wanted to participate, I usually felt as though I was intruding on something that wasn’t meant for me. Eventually, I stopped trying.”

Hermione listened without interrupting. She knew that Mark had faced difficulties before his transformation, but hearing him explain how those experiences had affected his school life made her more aware of what he had endured.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t have been treated that way just because you were different.”

Mark shrugged, trying to make light of it.

“Well, it’s in the past now. I can’t change what happened, and I have more important things to worry about these days.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t matter.”

He looked at her.

Hermione held his gaze, her expression sincere.

“Being excluded from things you wanted to participate in isn’t something you should have had to accept. You deserved the same opportunities as everyone else.”

For a moment, Mark did not know what to say. He had grown accustomed to brushing off the unpleasant parts of his past, partly because dwelling on them would not change anything and partly because he preferred to focus on the abilities he had gained. Still, hearing Hermione acknowledge his experience without treating him as someone who needed pity made him feel more comfortable discussing it.

He eventually gave her a small smile.

“Thanks. But I think I’m doing better now.”

“You are,” Hermione replied. “And you could do even better if you gave yourself more opportunities.”

She tapped the edge of her notebook thoughtfully.

“That’s why I think we should consider creating a club of our own.”

Mark blinked.

“Creating one ourselves? Isn’t that going against the school’s policies about existing clubs?”

“Not necessarily.”

Hermione leaned forward, becoming more animated as she explained her idea.

“The school has rules for establishing new clubs. If an existing club already provides the same activities, we might have trouble getting approval, but that doesn’t mean every possible club is forbidden. We would need a clear purpose, a suitable proposal, and the required number of members. We’d also need a trusted junior student to help us with the application and serve as a member or representative if the rules require it.”

Mark listened carefully, considering the practical difficulties.

“So we’d have to convince the school that our club offers something useful?”

“Exactly. We could focus on academic support, summoning theory, practical training discussions, or other activities that help students improve their abilities. We wouldn’t need to compete with the existing clubs. We would simply need to show why our idea deserves approval.”

Mark rubbed his chin.

“That actually sounds pretty good. We could help students who struggle with certain subjects, and we could learn from one another. It might even help people who don’t feel comfortable joining the more established groups.”

Hermione nodded.

“That’s what I was thinking. A club should give students a place where they can improve and feel welcome. It doesn’t have to be about being the strongest or the most talented person in the room.”

Mark’s expression became more thoughtful.

“Still, the student council won’t simply approve anything we submit. They’ll probably ask a lot of questions, and if they think our idea is pointless, they’ll reject it.”

“Which is why we’d need to prepare properly,” Hermione replied. “We should make a plan, decide what the club would do, and explain how it would benefit students. If we can show that we’ve thought it through, we’d have a better chance.”

Mark considered the suggestion again.

When he thought about who they could approach as a trustworthy junior student, Derek immediately came to mind. His upperclassman roommate was practical, experienced, and familiar with the way the school operated. If they needed someone to guide them through the process, Derek would be a reasonable person to ask.

Of course, Mark could not be certain that Derek would agree. The older student already had his own responsibilities, and Mark did not want to involve him in another project without discussing it first.

“Maybe we could ask someone from the junior year to help us,” Mark said. “I know someone who might be willing to listen to the idea.”

Hermione smiled.

“See? You’re already thinking about it.”

“Don’t get too excited. It’s only a suggestion, and we haven’t even decided what the club would be called.”

“One step at a time.”

Mark chuckled.

“All right, but I’m not promising anything yet.”

“That’s fine. I’m not asking you to sign a contract.”

She paused, then added with a playful smile, “Besides, weren’t you the one who was against my joining their