Chapter 19: Vanilla City

Amphere Harrison

I suddenly got sick of my hot chocolate. In this early Sunday morning, a piece of paper made me lose my mood. That is because the newspaper had me in ridiculous shock. The headlines…There’s no way that it happened.

“Dragon Knight killed by the Black Phantom.”

According to this news, the dragon knight was Alder Windstrafe, who was assassinated by the infamous Black Phantom. Impossible.

Alder is the Black Phantom. Alder and the masquerade’s swordplay are identical. They share the very same dragonoid which is Emy. What the heck…What the heck is going on? Or maybe it’s just Alder’s gimmick to hide his true self away from us? Maybe that’s it. Now that we know that he’s the Black Phantom, he has to fake his death to hide and run away from us. That might be it.

“Sooooo, have you read it? Totally!?” Airi closed the dresser and revealed her outfit.

She’s wearing a slightly oversized pink and white striped sweatshirt and blue jeans shorts that exposes her flawless white legs. And what’s more is that she had her red hair tied in a ponytail. It’s rare to find her change her hairstyle, and her appearance right now is really making me captivated.

“Y-Yeah…something fishy is going on…” I said. But then a bolt of electricity came through my brain which made me glare. “Hey, where did you get that sweatshirt?”

“Um….Er…They say that what’s your property is mine too…so I spent a little of your credits…t-totally…” She scratched her head and looked away. Then she began whistling like what she has done is nothing.

There are sorts of merchandises sold in the small market here in the Dragon Knight Academy. I hate buying there because they are way more overpriced. That particular market only accepts payment using the Academy Card, which dragon knights have. Dragonoids are usually unable to buy anything in that small market because they are not provided with that card. And this idiot….spending some of my credits…

“…I’ll let you off this time because you’re c-c-cute in that outfit.” I looked away, trying to hide my facial expression. Darn, I’m stuttering!

“…T-Totally!?” Her face was red but she still managed to pull off a lot of energy. Then she made the most adorable smile in the planet. “Thanks Amphy!!!~”

She’s dressed like this because she will be attending a concert in Twilight City. It was a concert of the boyband Cherizart, which consists of puny red eyed handsome dragonoids. Even with their standing, they have appealed a lot of girls, dragonoids and humans alike. Their band is funded by Duchess Corasell, so it is certain that the duchess will be there. Aside from that, Airi invited Kyrie, Eva, and even our student council president Reina to watch the concert. Girls really get along, regardless of races.

As for me, I have a trivial matter to solve.

Thirty minutes riding the train, and I’m here. The Coastal Hangar. It consists of an old runway. There are three fighter jets that have been docked and is being repaired by a lot of mechanics. Even if their place is old, they repair all the aircrafts using a high tech laser technology.

As soon as I entered the office, the person I’m looking for stood in front of me.

She’s wearing a fedora over her short brown hair. Her leather jacket and long boots looks big for her, but she didn’t care. If there is one thing I could describe her, I would say that she’s an old fashioned detective.

“Hiya Amphere!” She smiled. She is Croft Mariannos, my personal mechanic. “Where’s my lovely Airelina!? Wait, you didn’t bring her!?”

Well she is a mechanic and a detective. I don’t know about the specifics, but she has pursued two of her dreams at the same time. Whenever Airi have problems on her wings, tail, or in her dragon form, I would send Airi to her to have some checkup. Mechanics have no problem coping and repairing parts of a Futuretech Dragon, as long as they stay in their dragon form.

Most of the time, I would come here looking for a mechanic. But this time, I’m looking for a detective.

“…Do you have the thing I asked you?” I said, straight to the point.

“Oh, here.” She reached her pockets and gave me a tablet showing words and abbreviations that I couldn’t get at all. All I can think is that it is some articles in the internet. “It’s really hard to investigate something that has been wiped out. This is the remaining encrypted data of the records of the Crimson Dragonfly.”

“How about investigating a man named Zac?” I followed up.

“You need to be a lot more specific, it’s like there’s ten thousands of men who are named Zac!” He scolded me like how my mother used to.

So this is it? All data has been corrupted, if not deleted? Is there no way to uncover some truth about Crimson Dragonfly at all? I am not sure, but the Crimson Dragonfly…or Airi… has something to do with the power boost I got in the elimination round. Just what is it? I need to know more!

“If you wanted to know something more, you should visit the site where this so called Crimson Dragonfly appeared a couple of years ago.”

Vanilla City.

We rode Croft’s jeep towards the place where I could find some answers.

When we arrived in that place, I was flabbergasted. I’ve seen this place a thousandth time in the news before, but I never knew that this is a lot worse. Vanilla City…or what it was supposed to be called five years ago is not what it is anymore.

There was a huge crater of about ten kilometer in diameter. On top of the gargantuan crater is rubble. Gigantic pieces of junk, wood, and plastic. There are a lot of buildings that has been partly reduced to dusts. Everyone who has seen this place would easily mistake it as a nuclear fallout site. There’s no sign of life. Fifty thousand used to live in this place. And now, it’s a ghost town.

We have to slide on the ledge in order to approach the remains of the so called “Friendly City”. We walked and scanned our surroundings. Croft has this metal detector device that has been producing weird beeping sound.

“According to my background check on your Airelina, I discovered that Vanilla City is her birthplace. That’s the only thing I discovered.” Croft broke the silence.

Vanilla City… Airi never told me anything about her story. If I ever asked regarding her past, she would suddenly change the topic. I know she’s hiding something. Something dark about her past that should’ve stayed hidden. I feel bad about it, but I have to do this.

Because right now, I don’t know whom to trust.

I have this crazy theory that one of the Arcadia killed Alder since Airi already knew his identity. Then they forged all the other evidences and made it appear like the “Black Phantom” the killer. But it’s just a theory, and doesn’t even have any evidence.

At the end, we never saw anything weird in the site. We wasted four hours for searching wreckage and ended up collecting junk parts for Croft’s hangar.

Vanilla City…

Just what happened there?