“Name.” The officer asked.

“Michael Garren.” Michael answered.

“Age.”

“19.”

“Gender.”

“I’m a male that identifies as a hermaphrodite.”

The officer ignored the last part. “Male, then. Occupation.”

“Well, I guess you can say I’m a professional gambler.” Michael replied.

“And where were you on the 4th day of the 4th month?” The officer asked.

“I don’t know. Two months ago? Probably gambling online?” Michael said, showing nothing to suggest suspicion, but inside, Michael realized that this was probably about the mugger he killed that day. Michael made a mental note to change his appearance the next time he had to do business where he might be targeted for something.

The officer took out a photo of the post office. “Do you recognize this place.” He asked.

“Yes, I get my mail there sometimes.” Michael said trying to sound nonchalant.

“You know this is not a place for regular mail, right?” The officer asked, watching the changes on Michael's face.

Slight surprise was shown on Michael's face. “Oh, you guys know about that?” He asked.

“Yes, it’s our job to know. How do you know about this place? It’s not common that a regular person would know about this.” The officer continued to inquire.

“I heard about it through my girlfriend.” Michael replied.

“What’s your girlfriend's name?”

“Lisa.” Michael lied shamelessly.

“Last name?”

Michael laughed awkwardly. “Haha, we’re not on a last name basis quite yet.”

The officer stared blankly at Michael’s face, wondering if he was serious. “Which network did you access to receive mail at this place?”

Michael scratched his head in embarrassment. “Is there something like a magic lawyer I can get? I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say about this subject.” He said with slight worry.

“Rest assured, we’re already aware of all the organizations that make use of this post office, and there’s no way you or anyone else can get in trouble simply by telling us the name of the network you used.” The officer coaxed. Although what he said was true, some of the organizations mentioned were worthy of more suspicion than others when considering the crime involved.

“Ah, alright, if you say so. It was the Wandering Mage Network.” Michael said with a look of reluctance.

“And who gave you the access card for this network?”

“My girlfriend's master, Sheona.” He said.

Surprise was briefly displayed on the officer's face.

“And what did you buy on this network?” The officer asked.

“That's kind of an invasive question. I don’t know what you guys are suspecting me of buy I’m innocent, okay? All I bought were a few books and the materials to make a few low level potions.” Michael replied, showing discomfort.

“Why did you buy these things?” The officer asked.

“I thought it would be profitable if I learned to make potions, okay? There's nothing wrong with that!” Michael answered.

The officer had a blank face, but felt disdain inside, as there was no way a mortal could make the potions they were talking about.

“Okay, let's take a break. Do you want anything to eat or drink? You might be here for a while.” The officer asked.

“I’m actually really craving some lobster right now. And a bottle of whiskey please. You might not know, but this is a very stressful situation to be in.” Michael said.

The officer stared once again. How come your words don’t match your attitude, he thought to himself. “I’ll try to get that for you right away.”

The officer left to verify the information he just received.

As Michael received his lobster and drank his whiskey, the officer was hard at work. Although they couldn’t find much information from the Wandering Mage Network because confidentiality was their policy, they could find out a lot about everything else.

They investigated Michael's his history, his family members, the people related to him, and had even searched his house house. Unfortunately they didn’t find much, as Nathan had told Michael's parents early enough and Michael's parents knew what they had to do. If they hadn't randomly seen Michael at the party, the search would have been more efficient but luck played a role in keeping Michael's life low key. Michael made a mental note to be more prepared against these modern world investigations in the future. In fact there were many aspects of this modern world that Michael needed to think about. He realized that he shouldn’t treat this world as a normal wizard world.

The only thing noteworthy they discovered was Michael’s relation to Sheona, but that didn’t have any relevance to the case. And even if it did have something to do with it, Sheona wasn't an existence they could touch.

They could only let Michael go as there was no point investigating him.

Michael's main focus when he went home several days later was to thoroughly understand the level of this world's technology and make a plan to defend against it.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

…

….

…

This event had set off warning bells within Michael, and he decided that he needed to upgrade the amount of information he understood. The different organizations at play, the big families, the ability of the World Police Force, and basically anything that would help him navigate this world. Luckily, this task was made easier by the upgrade of Michael’s access card to the Wandering Mage Network, as with his new access card, much more information or items were made accessible. Michael had provided the Wandering Mage Network with a lot of business with his potions, so they upgraded his priveleges.

Michael spent several months gathering information, and adjusting his strategy in this world. When there was information he couldn’t access, he bought it, and when he discovered any new threats to the peace in his life, he defended against it, either by buying technology, learning new skills, or using magic.

Several things happened during this time. Michael's mom advanced to a rank 1 wizard with Michael's help. They used a blood magic ritual to advance Melinda and it was quite gruesome, as they used a live troll as a source of vitality. The scene was quite unpleasant but Melinda pushed through it and successfully advanced. Karina had also successfully advanced, as she progressed at quite a fast rate once school was over. Michael also heard that Lisa had successfully advanced sometime before Melinda.

Paul finally got his guns. Michael received his driver's license and bought a new car. Nathan was finally enrolled in the police academy. As for Nicholas, he was still learning his father’s trade.

Michael also thought about finding the person who ordered the investigation, but decided against it. There was little to no suspicion with Michael and also, Michael understood how conflict could escalate. Michael killing one person would lead to having to kill another person if he wasn’t careful with the first killing, then he would have to kill someone else. It worked out pretty well with murder number 1, so Michael decided to take a step back and actively stop the cycle of death.

Also, Michael wasn’t invincible, and it didn’t hurt to be careful.

…

…….

…..

“Have you reached out to the Wandering Mage Network?” Layla Walt asked after the waiter had delivered her food. Eating in public restaurants was Layla’s habit. She enjoyed the liveliness in the background noise and she found it soothing to be in the same place as regular people, who lived happily, separated from the hidden world of knights and wizards. If she was born a couple generations later, she might be just like them. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case, and if she couldn’t find a solution to her problem, it would become a problem just to produce the next generation.

“They don’t want to get involved. They aren’t as united as other organizations, so it would be difficult to ignore the three families behind the decree. And the few powerful enough to ignore the decree, don’t want to waste their time on us. In their eyes, although we have a solid foundation in the mortal world, we are still a small and declining family with no value.” The Walt family steward answered.

“What about the people in conflict with the three families? Surely they’ve reached out.” Layla continued to ask with furrowed brows.

“A few people have reached out, but the prices for their services are outside the range we can afford, especially if we intend to produce a new generation of knights.” The steward replied before hesitating to continue.

“What is it? Spit it out.” Layla ordered.

“As you know the Fraet family are not on friendly terms with the those three families, and the price they offered to help was within an acceptable range. But…” The steward struggled to explain as he knew the personality of the young miss.

“What?” Layla asked, although she already suspected the answer.

“But they're insisting on a marriage alliance.” The steward finally said.

Layla sighed. “With Ronald, right? That bastard can never conceal his greed when he's around me. And I’m sure it’s the same with many other women…” Layla mumbled, before contemplating the situation. “Leave me.” She ordered with a heavy mood, watching as the steward left.

She had already made the decision she knew she would regret, and all she wanted now was to have a peaceful meal. But before she could begin to enjoy her meal, a ruckus was heard from across the room. A grouo of girls were being harassed by a couple of cocky and alcohol-influenced boys.

Hmm, I recognize that girl. Layla thought as she looked at Karina who was standing up to the two boys. It’s that guy's younger sister!

Layla had Michael's identity investigated after her birthday party as she felt he wasn’t as simple as he seemed, so naturally she found out about his family members. Should I help her out? Layla asked herself.

Karina and her friends had gone out for dinner to enjoy the last week of August before having to worry about school, but they became the targets of these two boys. Karina was currently very annoyed, and was about to lose her temper. Michael had told her to watch out for changes in her personality and to keep it in control as wizards who specialized in the fire element were known to have a very short fuse, but she herself has not yet noticed the new limitation on her patience. This was why she ignored Michael when he told her of a short mantra that could keep her calm in times like this.

“Come on, baby. Just come home with me, and I promise you won’t regret it.” One of the young men, said, moving his hand onto Karina’s shoulder.

“I’ve already said, don’t touch me!” Karina yelled as she pushed her palm towards the man's chest. A muffled boom was heard and the young man was propelled three meters back, landing heavily onto the ground.

The other young man was shocked as he heard his friend moaning in pain and looked at Karina with slight fear.

“You want some of this too, bro?” Karina said with an intimidating glare, awkwardly trying to imitate the delinquents in her school with her ironically sweet and feminine voice. “If you don’t want to throw down, then leave!”

The guy reacted quickly and picked up his friend to leave.

“Wow, Karina, you’re so gangster.” One of her friends said with a giggle.

Layla was shocked. She would have suspected that Karina was just a strangely strong girl, if it wasn’t that her spell detector sensed the slight ripples of a small spell. She's a wizard! Layla thought.

Other than that small reaction from her spell detector, there was nothing to indicate that Karina was a wizard. All Layla could see with her senses was a normal girl, but the timing of her push and the reaction from the spell detector couldn’t be denied. Karina at least had a small understanding of magic.

This wasn’t a bit of information that Layla could ignore, especially in her predicament, and she needed to fully investigate the situation. It was possible that Karina’s brother was also a wizard.

Layla compared the two men who got taken away by the police on her birthday. One was possessive and had a sexually aggressive attitude, while the other seemed like a shameless philanderer. They didn’t seem too different, but one of them didn’t view her as an item, and although she didn’t like it, she would prefer to get help from the latter.

“Manager.” Layla called out in a rather loud voice, gathering attention from the crowd.

The manager hurriedly came over as he was already present because of the commotion. “Yes, Miss Walt.” He said in a humble manner.

“Make sure to ban those two boys, and put everything on those girls' bill on my tab. Also bring my meal over to their table.” She instructed before going over to greet the group of young ladies.

Seeing that the lady who spoke up for them was walking in their direction, Karina got up and greeted her. “Thank you very much for helping out. I feared that we would also be kicked out of the restaurant.” She said in a friendly manner.

“It's nothing. In fact I didn’t do that without reason.” Layla replied.

“Oh?” Karina said with slight suspicion. Although she just used a small spell, it shouldn’t have been detected by anyone here. It was simply a small amount of fire element particles that were compressed in an instant to produce an explosion effect, and it was even possible for this spell to go unnoticed by rank 1 wizards.

“Yes, actually I’m an acquaintance of your brother. We had met at my birthday party.” Layla explained, trying to sound amiable. This could be the solution to escaping an unwanted marriage, so she had to make a good impression. “May I sit with you? I wish to ask you about your brother. He had left so abruptly that day that I didn’t get a chance to speak to him for very long.”

“Please, feel free to join us. There’s more than enough room.” One of Karina’s friends replied before she could answer. This lady seemed quite influential from how she spoke to the manager so the group of girls wanted to get acquainted with her.