"Ah, uhm, sorry." The blonde girl retracted her hand with an uneasy face. She was used to having her friends around the academy and thus, subconsciously made herself comfortable.

Famin gave her a single glance, then slightly nodded his head. What else could he say? Let him slap her thigh in exchange? No, that would be too inappropriate.

"It's not a big deal."

The blonde girl blinked her eyes and showed a smile with multiple emotions overlapping in her eyes. "It's just that… I got too excited when he praised Rewen as… you get the point right!" By the end of her sentence, her 'energy' was restored and she seemed full of zeal again.

'There are all kinds of people in this world.' Famin secretly thought. "My condolences. Are you someone close to Rewen?"

The blonde-haired girl's eyes brightened when she heard the question. "Of course! I'm his cousin! You can even think of me like his best buddy!"

"Cousin? As in Denny…" Famin was about to complete his sentence when he was interrupted by her.

"No, I'm Zelic. From his maternal side. Denny is from his paternal side." The blonde-haired girl proudly revealed her identity. After angrily separating from her group of friends, she took some time to cool off her mind and played with her smartphone. Within five minutes, her mood recovered and planned to reunite with her group but just then, she heard the announcement.

Initially, she didn't have any hope of getting her cousin (Rewen) recognized for what he did. She was very well aware of the fact that her cousin tremendously helped the entire nation of the Eastern Dream by exposing the REAL WAIFUS CORPORATIONS LIMITED to the public eye. Before yesterday, less than a fraction of a percentage of the population knew about it, and even if those selected few did know about their existence, they couldn't specifically pinpoint their location, how they function, and how widespread the group was.

That's why she wanted her cousin's death to not go in vain and desperately searched for recognition and validation on behalf of her cousin. Now that the Branch Director finally shed some light on the issue, she couldn't contain herself and got overexcited.

"Nice to meet you, um, I'm Famin." Seeing that the other side had introduced herself, Famin felt that it would be rude if he didn't do the same.

"Famin, hmm." Zelic gave a small nod, then turned to the stage.

Famin did the same.

On the stage.

The Branch Director took a small sip from the bottle near him and turned to the microphone. "Cough. It's with great sorrow that I'm standing before everyone today having to spew out negativity out of my mouth. I don't bear any sort of malice or grudge against any of the people working in the national news media. I understand the fact that it's easy for me to criticize something which is reflected at face value instead of delving deep into the difficulties of the bearer of the criticisms.

"With that being said, it'd be massively hypocritical of me to not acknowledge the fact that I'm indeed blaming the national news media. However, my blame is more towards the establishment and not towards the people themselves. There's also a lot of inter-state politics involved. You see, our province of Nat isn't particularly 'hard' on policies ranging outside the borders of the state. This is not a recent discovery or anything of that sort. It has been prevalent for centuries all due to the submissive nature of the politicians. Due to cheap personal benefits, our province was robbed of its land time and time again.

"Even though our current Provincial Government is somehow stable, it is still one of the weakest states – be it economically, militarily, or social influence. This led to the formation of deep inferiority complexes within the minds of youth living in this province and also, retrospectively, it also created superiority complexes with the youth in the neighboring provinces. Taking this into the factor, it's not far-fetched to imagine the thoughts of the politicians.

"This is but a hypothesis but would it be worrisome to claim that one of the reasons the national news media didn't bother to spare some time to reveal important details from the report is because they didn't want the Province of Nat to feel good about themselves?"

He paused and took a good look at the audience.

Predictably and understandably, he didn't get a good response.

With regards to this, he chuckled lightly. "Right. I'll ask the question again once I tell you about the report. Let's talk about the report now. Enough politics."

The Branch Director took a brief pause. He went to the side of the stage and picked up some papers.

By this time, almost everyone was sitting on the edge of their seats.

The hype he had built up regarding the "report" was far too great.

It was natural to be curious.

Below the stage, Assistant Instructor Xovin turned his head around and found the atmosphere quite exhilarating. "The crowd is heated up, wouldn't you say?" He asked the person sitting nearest to him, Instructor Venitt.

"Well, of course, I am no exception." She gave an honest reply while looking at the stage waiting for the Branch Director to speak.

Assistant Instructor Xovin smiled. For some reason, he took out his smartphone and started recording, pointing the camera towards the stage.

On the stage.

The Branch Director gave a single glance at the anticipating crowd and opened his mouth. "Before starting with the reports, I'd like to comment upon a few things that should be taken into mind while I speak about it in the next few minutes. The report is much more complicated than one would expect. It tries to tell the events in chronological order but that makes it even more confusing.

"The reason for this is – ambiguity. Most of the actions behind the events that took place have evidence-based conclusions. However, a tiny portion of the actions is unexplainable by all measures. I'll make it clear when I speak about those instances. To understand it better, I'll divide the report, i.e., the events that led to the death of Rewen Klofar, into three portions – Cause, Course, and Conclusion. I'll briefly explain them.

"The cause, that is, the event that triggered every event leading to the death of Rewen Klofar is possibly something none of you can't even begin to imagine. 31st March, 4027. Night. 11:25 p.m. Rewen Klofar refused to engage in sexual activities with a helpless woman who happened to be drugged. This is the point that started everything. Try to understand. Obviously, this is an overly simplistic way of looking at it but it wouldn't be wrong for me to say that Rewen Klofar would still be alive and kicking had he not met the drugged woman."

As soon as he said that, clamors started all around the training ground.

"Is the Branch Director serious?"

"Surely, it would be beneath the Branch Director to joke about a matter as serious as this."

"Yes… let's give him the benefit of doubt for the time being."

Francesca was simply bewildered by the words of the Branch Director. For a while, she didn't know what to think. On one hand, she believes that a high-standing man like the Branch Director wouldn't joke about the matter, and on the other hand, she is very skeptical about the fact that such a thing happened.

Kesha happened to notice her shock and couldn't help but smile. "He isn't lying. This is what happene--- no wait. This… this wasn't mentioned by Denny…" She wasn't initially aware of what the Branch Director spoke as she expected herself to know everything about the matter and had paid very little attention to it.

She immediately turned to Bianca and the others who had a similar confused look.

"It shouldn't be surprising that there's a deeper reason behind why Rewen would suddenly take a leave and go to the slums…" Gill said in a serious tone.

Junar agreed with him. "I would agree with you but the problem is… the reason itself is too out of the ordinary. It's difficult for people to not doubt and question…"

Francesca silently heard the discussion happening beside her and increasingly got confused. 'Never mind. It's a bad idea to get abstract ideas and try to somehow connect them. It's better to just wait for the Branch Director to explain clearly."

At another corner, Famin sucked in a mouthful of air and exhaled. 'This has got to be the most interesting thing I have heard in a while.' He turned his head to take a look at the expression of the person sitting beside him.

Zelic seemed to be taken aback. "D…did this really happen?"

Famin frowned and found her expression a little funny. "Were you not aware of this?"

Without turning her head to look at him, Zelic answered while swallowing air. "I wasn't."