“I think I deserve to be there to watch. I was the one who caught it!”

 

“Lee Gahyeon.” The deep voice of the principal rings through the room. “You will do well to know your place. Your assistance in the capture is greatly appreciated but you are not authorized to be a part of the interrogation.”

 

Gahyeon wants to argue more but one stern look from the principal and the other high ranking heroes made her shut up. In the room were some of the most respected heroes ever to graduate from the academy. She begrudgingly dragged her feet out the door, slouching all the while. Who cares about decorum when she just caught some crazy thunder demon AND helped stop a rogue plane. Not her. Nope.

 

Though this did make her curious: why were there no heroes helping? She was on the roof so it definitely gave her a bird’s eye view of everything and she did not see any of those people in the room just now. Sure, there were plenty of injured heroes returning from a terrible mission but why was it that Yoohyeon (and by extension, her) the only ones to really do anything? If Bora and Siyeon hadn’t arrived in time, Yoohyeon might’ve ended up dead. Gahyeon shuddered at the thought.

 

She kept walking down the halls until she made it to her dorm room, shutting it behind her and locking it. The right wall was completely empty, a direct contrast to her messy bed on the left. With a bit of concentration, a huge ceiling to floor white board appears on the right wall. Technically, students weren’t allowed to make modifications to their rooms but Gahyeon quickly figured out a way around that. All she needed was to visualize a place to keep the board when it wasn’t in her room. Easy enough for a self-proclaimed genius like her. And in this case, it was her farmhouse back at home, approximately 152 km away.

 

The board served as her brain-to-paper medium. It’s how she came up with brilliant pranks that never fail to get her in trouble. Opening a black marker, the brunette began writing several bullet points:

 

Demon kill mission - bad, failed. Tons of injured people returning Rogue plane approaching. Coincidence with ^? Why & how did it approach so closely w/o detection????? Probs within 100 m before visible Someone with cloaking powers helping?? Human? Hero? Demon (human?) used electricity powers ---> not possible….until now Where were heroes/ students? Hardly any1 responded ----> planned attack????

 

With careful deliberation, Gahyeon grabs the red marker and draws in big letters the word ‘TARGET?’ and circles it three times over. She reads over the words she wrote following the flow of her consciousness but none of it made sense. She would need help with figuring this out. After all, Yoohyeon got hurt and Gahyeon had no explanation as to why. Thankfully Kim Jiu healed her right away so Yoohyeon would live.

 

For now, she was going to have to go solo. The site of the plane and the hospital were off limits due to the activity around there so Gahyeon would have no luck in finding clues there. Sitting down on her office chair, she leans back in her seat thinking about which line of investigation should she try to follow first.

 

“Something easy to investigate first.” The students returning from the mission were out of the question since they were in the hospital. Plus, a quick search in the mission directory told her that it was an ordinary demon extermination mission. Nothing about it was unusual and yet, the entire team got wiped out. She would definitely have a talk with one of the students about it later. Right now, the only thing she could investigate was where the plane came from.

 

It came in the general direction of the eastern city outskirts, where there were miles of forests until the next major city. She could ask Siyeon and Bora about it too since Bora told her that they were off campus when they saw it. With these goals in mind, Gahyeon sets out.

 

--

 

-Gahyeon’s POV-

 

A text message from Siyeon confirmed that she was currently in Yoohyeon’s dorm and that she saw the plane coming from the eastern outskirts as well. Good, seems like I’m on the right track. I head towards the empty classroom in the corner on the first floor, glancing around to make sure no one saw me. The school is on lockdown right now so I’ll have to improvise.

 

Closing the door behind me, I place my hand on the wall closest to the outside of the school. The wall disappears, or rather, I teleported it to the space next to me and crawled through. This classroom and this area in particular was great for sneaking out of school since it has a blind spot right outside this wall. Of course, no one expects the wall right under the camera outside to suddenly give way, making it the perfect loophole for me. Then I just put the wall back in place.

 

I pull one of the acorns from my pocket and toss it away from the fence, the laser vision of the camera following the movement. A quick teleportation trick on the fence and I’m outside. Too easy.

 

Been awhile since I’ve gone out to the city, thanks to all the detention I keep getting. But I can’t help it. School is boring and Yoohyeon enables me like no other partner in crime. I wish my parents had just let me decide for myself whether I wanted to attend this hero academy. It . Well, I met Yoohyeon and Siyeon so that’s cool, I guess. But I wanted to be able to walk the city freely like right now instead of sneaking around.

 

Some hero I am. Speaking of heroes, I spot rank 5 Dami and rank 4 transfer student Handong standing next to an academy police car. Smells like a big scoop.

 

“Detective!” Dami glances over to me, deadpanning when she realizes it’s me.

 

“Lee Gahyeon.” Handong’s eyes shift between us, probably wondering why Dami looks like she wants to be anywhere but here while I’m super smiley. “What brings you here?”

 

“The academy is on lockdown.” I say simply. Dami’s eyes narrow slightly at my flippant tone. “If you’d like to know why, detective, I’ll tell you...but only if you exchange some info with me.” Dami stares, completely unimpressed by my bargaining. As quick as she could, she grabs onto my shirt but I came pre