Chapter 2572

Schiller, Sivana, Raven, and Dick sat at the dining table. Schiller was explaining the magic world's real-name registration plan to Raven, his tone remarkably relaxed.

"Because we're currently short on manpower, the investigation is adopting a 'familiarity' strategy. For non-human beings, it's basically handled by whoever is most familiar with them."

"Constantine must be swamped, then," Dick said.

"He's no good for this," Schiller shook his head. "He certainly knows everyone, but they aren't exactly keen on knowing him. Besides, having a grilled fish try to count the whiskers on a cat is a bit too advanced."

Dick thought of something funny and chuckled, but Raven didn't understand. She said, "Well, since coming here, I've learned that many people know about angels and demons, so I'm not particularly special. But Trigon... he is my father, he..."

"But he hasn't done anything bad to you yet," Schiller said. "He hasn't hurt you, hasn't invaded your homeland, and hasn't invaded Earth yet. So, it's safe for you to go find him now."

"Do we really have to go find him?" Dick asked. "Can't we just set up some kind of summoning circle to bring him here, or use some kind of token?"

Everyone looked at Raven. She shook her head and said, "Actually, other than seeing him in dreams, I've never met him, and he didn't leave me any tokens... Wait, my mother might have..."

Raven fell into thought. After a pause of a few seconds, she said, "There might be clues among my mother's belongings, but even if I find something related to him, I wouldn't know how to summon him."

"You just need to find the token; others will figure out the summoning circle."

"I need to make a trip back to Azarath," Raven said as she stood up. "Professor Zatara once asked if I wanted the children of Azarath to come here to study, so I need to go ask the High Priestess."

"Can I go with you?" Dick looked up at her and asked.

Raven suddenly blushed. Seeing this, Schiller and Sivana stood up and said, "You two discuss it. Call us when you have news. We're going to check out the Headmaster's office."

As the two walked out of the restaurant, Sivana said, "I think there's a high chance those two will end up together. What do you think?"

"Dick has a good personality," Schiller said. "His personality is the most stable among everyone in the Wayne family. He's a rare 'normal' person in Cat Getan, which is a huge temptation for someone who has almost never been in contact with normal people."

"I guess that's his charm," Sivana said. "And he looks exactly like the type of guy a naive young girl like Raven would like."

"Have you ever been in love?" Schiller asked.

"Quite a few people pursued me during my studies and work, but I didn't have the heart for romance; it's too time-consuming. How about you?"

"It couldn't be called love," Schiller said.

For some reason, Sivana thought of the pictures he had seen—that Christmas tree that looked like it had been air-freighted from a Mexican Day of the Dead party.

He shivered and decided to end the topic.

"Regarding that Officer Clay..." Sivana's tone revealed deep helplessness. "I can't imagine days surrounded by people like that. How much longer do they have to appear around my house?"

"I will resolve this, Headmaster. We've arrived at the office."

Sivana pushed open the office door. It was a rather grand room, still maintaining a luxurious brownish-red tone. In the center of the room floated a giant, glowing Earth. The walls on the first floor were lined with bookshelves, and only after stepping onto the floating stairs could one reach the desk and reception area.

Unlike the bright and spacious public lounge of the Theory Academy, most of the windows here were high up, arranged in dense, long strips. Light fell from above with a distinct Tyndall effect, keeping the interior from being too bright—even a bit dim—but Sivana liked it very much.

"If I didn't know I hadn't been in contact with you people before, I'd think you had been eyeing me for a long time and that this office was custom-made for me," Sivana said. "I've always thought overly bright spaces aren't conducive to thinking. This is just right."

"Everyone says sunlight is good, but bright light can easily cause irritation. Such principles are often used in modern interrogations."

Sivana asked with some confusion, "Professor, I mean no offense, but I must say, you have a very deep understanding of those law enforcement agencies—not the kind that comes from hearsay. Have you worked for them?"

"That was a long time ago." Schiller sat in the single-seater armchair and said, "Because of a small mistake—to be precise, a slip-up that led to a series of malicious events. To me, they were malicious events; to them, it was probably like manna from heaven."

"You chose to cooperate with them?"

Schiller nodded, appearing indifferent. "If you truly understood the content of their work, you would realize that helping them work is not helping this country become better. It has never been the same thing, or rather, quite the opposite."

"I agree with that point, but I find it hard to imagine," Sivana said. "I don't think they could threaten you, and you have countless reasons not to compromise."

Schiller rarely showed a hint of hesitation. He said, "If you knew what I had done, you might not think so."

Schiller ignored Sivana's probing gaze and said, "I'll handle the law enforcement side. I'm more worried about whether you can handle the work of being a headmaster for two schools."

"Cat Getan University is more troublesome at the moment," Sivana said. "Because the economic situation is poor, I will focus my work there. As for the Magic Academy, after I complete the initial coordination work, I will let it run for a while to identify problems."

Schiller nodded. The reason he wanted Sivana to take on the management of both academies wasn't entirely because he believed in 'the capable doing more,' but because Sivana was a relatively cautious and conservative person.

Such people might be criticized in the Golden Age for lacking initiative or decisiveness, but in this era of the Great Depression, they were the most suitable candidates. Schiller didn't want to pick a hothead who would drag everyone down with him while testing his theories. Given the current historical background, no one had the luxury of making so many mistakes; therefore, an attitude of 'better not to act than to act and fail' was not unreasonable.

Schiller left the Inner World quickly, as a mountain of trouble awaited him in the Surface World.

Upon returning to reality, he discovered the trouble was even bigger than he had imagined. He had just returned to his house when he heard the doorbell. When he opened the door, Clay was standing outside.

"Hello, sir. I'm the newly appointed community officer. May I ask your name and age? We need to do some statistics."

Schiller glanced at the police badge hanging around Clay's neck. Clay immediately picked it up, took it off his neck, and handed it to Schiller. Schiller opened it—very good, the ink wasn't even dry yet. It was definitely Gordon's handiwork.

This cunning police chief didn't want to deal with these stupid clones himself, so he dumped them here for Schiller to perform AI optimization.

But that was fine, Schiller thought; it actually made his plan more convenient.

After sending Clay away, Schiller called Gordon and said, "Listen, I have a plan... regarding these damn clones, of course. You need to first..."

After hanging up, Schiller went to the backyard. He hadn't forgotten the pile of skinless limbs he had dumped in the big pit.

The soil used to fill the pit hadn't been enough, leaving only a shallow layer. There was already a smell, though fortunately, the weather was cold, so it hadn't fully rotted yet.

Just leaving it there or adding a bit more soil to bury it wouldn't work, because the pit was too shallow. Burying them that shallowly would still result in a stench. Putting aside the issue of whether others would discover it, Schiller himself couldn't stand the smell.

Schiller took the gardening tools he had bought, soaked the soil, packed the soil and limbs together into bags, tied them shut, put them in the trunk of his car, and drove to the vicinity of his late neighbor Pierrot's house.

He stood outside the yard, looked around, and seeing no one, climbed over the wall.

This neighbor was a motorcycle enthusiast. He had a large workshop in his backyard equipped with many vehicle repair tools and a very complete set of hardware tools.

Dismemberment was a major project. Schiller's bone-chopping knife was nearly worn out. Using a knife to go head-to-head with bone wasn't a good choice; besides a meat cleaver, the most useful tools were hammers heavy enough to smash the bone first before cutting.

Schiller scavenged many tools here: three precision axes, two hammers, several hacksaws, a jigsaw, a small grinder, many heavy metal parts, and a large pile of fishing line and rope.

The car took a detour to the side of the lawn behind Schiller's house. There was a small forest here, and behind the forest was a lake.

Schiller's backyard also overlooked this forest and lake, but walking over from the yard was quite far, and the path was very exposed. However, if he drove, he only needed to make a turn to get there.

The forest here was quite primitive; passing through it to reach the lake wouldn't be noticed by anyone.

After arriving at the lakeside, Schiller took out the limbs, put on gloves, and began the delicate work of binding them with fishing line.

Simply tying the line to the bags and sinking them to the bottom of the lake wouldn't work, because the bags would rot faster than the limbs. Eventually, the limbs would escape the bags and float to the surface, and might even be washed downstream.

Tying fishing line to every single piece was impossible—that would be too troublesome and a waste of material. Tying them all together wasn't feasible either; their decay rates differed. Once some dissolved in the water, it would cause the others to slip out and float to the surface all the same.

Therefore, he had to categorize them according to the decay rates of different parts. Schiller wasn't sure if clones were the same as humans, but he proceeded according to human classification.

He skillfully divided the meat chunks, which were already nearly unrecognizable, into several piles, and used the fishing line and rope to weave through them, securing them firmly.

Then, he attached heavy metal parts to the ends of the fishing line, adjusting the weight to ensure balance.

The sunset light penetrated the shimmering water surface, and countless aquatic creatures nurtured by the lush American water ecosystem darted through the faint light.

Until the heavy falling objects brought up dense bubbles all the way to the bottom of the lake. The joyful fish could not see the indifferent expression of the gloved man as he turned to leave the murky water's edge.