Beneath The Surface

Act 23 - Astaroth had suffered enough.

Normal text
Thinking
Onomatopoeia

Caitlyn's POV
"Aight. Fess up. Whose business are you meddling in now, cupcake?" Vi snorted while lounging lazily on the couch.

I'm currently meeting up with Vi back at Astaroth's mansion. And yes, I have more or less concluded that my employer was her. It has to be. The transaction records wrote that the Kinkou's successor and Astaroth were the only ones close to that wolf vastaya. And it's highly unlikely to be Akali since she's actually attending the academy right now. What were the chances that both of them were role playing at the same time? So the only suspect left was the Nightingale's missing daughter. She's wearing the skin of the dead Luna. For exactly what reason, I'm still unsure.

"Luna isn't Luna."

Vi frowned, "What?"

I cut to the chase and handed her the documents I've gathered.

Flipping to the page with the actual Luna's profile, I pointed to the latest transaction, "The real one's already dead. Her mana core was gouged out."

She squinted apprehensively at the messy scribbles, "And where exactly did you get all these?"

"At Luna's 'orphanage' in Ionia. It's actually a black market for selling children."

"You went digging for Lunatic's background???" Vi asked incredulously.

"That's not important now—"

"'Course it is!" she sat up straight, looking somewhat peeved, "Cait, have you forgotten that girl's style of handling nosy parkers??? You're digging your own grave!"

"No, I'm not," I retorted.

She sighed tiredly, rubbing her temples, "Then who the hell's our employer?"

I turned over the page, pointing to Astaroth.

"She... Isn't she the nut that mutilated her own parents???"

The moment I confirmed her suspicions, she flopped back down on the sofa with an exasperated expression, "Great. And now that you've ruffled the feathers of ANOTHER deranged mofo, we're all going to die."

"We're not going to die," I corrected her.

"Oh yeah??? Even her own damn parents didn't escape their fate of being stuffed! What does that say about us poor wage earners???"

"First of all, no. We are not poor. Our salary is probably double that of most nobles. And second, I don't think she's actually demented enough to kill her parents for nothing. She isn't a serial killer."

Vi only gave me a dubious look but I insisted, "If she's really one, she wouldn't have stopped at maiming her parents and house servants. The entire neighbourhood would have been turned into a graveyard."

She shrugged nonchalantly, "Who knows? Maybe she got bored. Maybe it's too pleasant a sunny day for her to commit mass homicide. Or maybe she grew tired of dolls. Point is, you know how batshit crazy she is. There's a screw loose in her noggin. Her ideas always change on a whim. You can't use common sense on her."

I rolled my eyes and smacked the top of her head with a file, "Not everyone starts off as a psychopath from birth. Well, there are some rare cases... but not all of them! And especially not her."

"And how would you know?" Vi retorted.

My mind drifted to the memory of our first disturbing encounter with the unhinged Astaroth. How her eyes were undeniably submerged in depression. The look of devastation... It's not an expression you would typically see from someone who had the entire Council at their beck and call. Normally, they'd be relishing the power and authority. But Astaroth didn't. She just seemed like a person who had lost all hope and purpose. A soulless puppet.