154 A soloution?

Outside the second year building, several soldiers were both blocking the entrance into the building and its backside. At the same time, all of the second-year students were told to come outside and stay on the field while an investigation was taking place.

At first, the second-year teachers were called to the scene, but when they discovered that the incident involved a first-year student, they decided to call over the first-year teachers instead. Around the back, down the alleyway, Fay and Hayley were currently looking at the scene together.

It was a gruesome sight, yet both of them had seen similar things in the war battlefields that they witnessed in the past. Hayley was kneeling down on the floor, examining each of the body parts. She seemed to be unaffected by the whole thing as she picked up the parts with her gloves.

Then, it seemed that she spotted something that interested her. She went from one body part to the next and placed them down. She lined certain parts in a row and looked at them once again.

"Are you trying to rebuild him again or something?" Fay said, looking at what Hayley was doing.

"No, I was gathering certain parts that all have something in common," Hayley replied.

"What, the blood? Because I'm pretty sure that they all have blood. Well, what do you think it was? It looks like the work of some type of beast or something, or maybe a student with an unusual ability." Fay said as she gazed around, searching for different body parts in the scene of the crime.

Hayley proceeded to pick up one of the body parts off of the ground which looked like a part of the leg. "You see this here," Hayley said while pointing at two whole marks. "It looks like whatever did this mostly used some type of claw to dig into the individual's flesh, but once in a while, two puncture like teeth marks can be seen."

"Sometimes they rip the body out whole, and sometimes it looks like they bit into a piece. That probably wasn't just to taste the blood."

"Okay?" Fay said, confused. "I see what you're saying, but doesn't this only confirm our theory that it's a beast even more."

"Well, the thing is, this isn't the first time that I've seen these marks. Do you remember when we were in the portal and we discovered the True dream member?" Hayley explained. "Well, he wasn't the only one. I've seen the same marks on other students before."

"You're not saying those two students could have something to do with this, are you?"

"I'm not saying that they are the culprit, but whatever it is, it's clearly following them around, or linked to them in some way."

"Once this investigation is over, it looks like we will have to call the two of them for some more questioning."

****

Inside the first year building dorm room, the group had regathered. Vorden, Peter, and Quinn were there sitting down. On the other hand, Layla couldn't help but pace up and down the room.

Once Vorden had returned to the park, he also explained what had happened on the way there, such as how the news had already spread and regarding the investigation of the scene. After cleaning Peter up with a few bottles of water, and changing his clothes, they all went back to the dorm room together.

"Damn it!" Layla shouted. "Now that I've seen everything, I'll be called an accomplice. If they find out about this, we could be put inside the dungeon. What am I meant to tell my parents then?"

It was the first time the group had seen Layla so freaked out. Although she tended to overreact at things at times, it never really seemed to bother her, but this did worry her.

"Peter, I think you owe us an explanation," Vorden said. "Fair enough if you were hungry and needed to eat something, but why didn't you come to us? This is the second time that you've done something like this."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me," Peter said. "It was like my mind lost control, and the next thing I knew, Earl's body was in front of me."

Peter had displayed quite an impressive act. He looked frightened and worried, and everyone there bought it, even Vorden who was unsure at first. Although, there was one exception.

"He's lying." The system said.

"What do you mean?" Quinn asked.

"Remember how I said that he would be required to eat human flesh. The worst case scenario will be tomorrow. Even so, the process would have been slower than this. He would have gotten hunger pangs first, and later, it would become unstable. You would have also felt the connection between you two lessen as he got hungry. If you want my advice and want to find out the truth, this is what you need to do…."

Quinn then stepped forward, in front of the others, with a serious look on his face as he confronted Peter.

"You need to tell me the truth, Peter. Why did you kill him?" As Quinn asked this question, he bit down his thumb using his fang. He then lifted his hand, and like some type of magnet, Peter was attracted to it.

Peter immediately leapt up from where he was and started to suck on Quinn's thumb, absorbing the blood into his body. The energy between the two started to sync up again, and both of their eyes started to glow.

"Stop!" Quinn said, making Peter do as he was told and stood back.

"Now tell me, why did you kill that student?"

Peter's eyes lit up red and he felt like he was under a spell. The effect of the spell was one where he couldn't hide anything from his master, prompting him to tell the truth.

"Earl, if it was anyone that deserved to die, it was him. Any day, whenever I was on my own and when your backs were turned from me, he would come to torture me. If I didn't obey, he would snap my fingers. Then, they had a healer come by and heal it again, proceeding to repeat the process of hurting me." Peter articulated his reasoning, sighing before continuing.

He saw me as an easy target. If I wanted to get away from the pain, I had no choice but to follow. After my meeting with Duke, he wanted to take his anger out on me again. He took me to that alley with a plan to beat me. But Quinn, this time, I finally had the power to fight back, so should I have just taken the punishment again? No, people like him deserved everything that he got."

Hearing the truth come out of Peter's mouth made Quinn feel a lot better. If he had done it for pleasure, or because his mind had been overcome with the taste, it would have truly made Quinn fearful. However, the reason was just.

At the moment, the way the school and the whole world worked, anyone who suddenly got stronger with power would rise up and retaliate to their suppressors. It was just the way the system worked. It was nearly impossible for that to happen, but the same couldn't be said for Quinn and Peter who had other ways of getting stronger.

"Peter, what you did wasn't wrong, and I would have done the same thing but if you kill them you can;t change them and the cycle will only start again," Vorden said. "But here is where you and I are different. Your actions also put Quinn in danger. If you're caught, there's always a way it can lead back to him, and now, we're involved too. I plan to get my revenge on Duke and Momo in the second year, but if I'm doing so, I would do it carefully so no one else gets hurt."

When Vorden said this, he was also talking about himself too. What happened to Peter made him feel like it was a reflection of his own actions. It was only because Vorden chose to hang out with them, and then started to target the second years, that Duke seemed to have it out for him. And to get close to Vorden, he targeted his friends first.

It was the reason why he couldn't completely blame Peter for his actions as well.

With everything said and done, there was no more use talking about it. It was best if they never spoke of what happened again, but all of them knew that it would have to be brought up soon.

"System, is there any way for Peter to stop consuming meat. Any way at all?" Quinn asked.

"Of course there is, but you're not going to like the answer I'm about to give you." The system said. "Just like yourself when you consume blood, you grow stronger, for Peter, it's human flesh. Although there is a limit. Eventually, he will grow so strong that he will be able to evolve and will no longer require human flesh."

As the system said, Quinn didn't like his answer at all. The solution to Peter no longer requiring to eat human flesh was to eat more human flesh.

*****

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