Zindra was seated at a small desk in the center building of the Ambrosia Village. She looked down at the small stack of papers, her eyes scanning through each one. As she worked, her gaze occasionally shifted out the window to the sky, where Morin was slowly ascending, casting its morning light onto the village. Despite the distractions, she remained focused on the task at hand, determined to complete her work before the end of the day.

As Zindra finished the last bit of paperwork, she rested her chin in her hand and gazed into the distance, watching Morin continue to rise.

"Little Erkden should be arriving soon," Zindra said with a smile and a small laugh.

It had been just over two centuries since she had seen him, the little boy who used to follow her around during her visits to Uncle Osman's house. She still remembered those days, the little games they would play, and the silly contests he would challenge her to in an attempt to prove himself. Just before he left the district to attend an academy, she brought him to the lab her master used; he was so excited to visit an Arch-Alchemist laboratory. After seeing it, he told her he would be an Ascended Alchemist one day and let her in his lab. He was so confident that he would surpass her at the time she had no doubts about him doing so since she had barely managed to reach the Apprentice level after two hundred years, and he was already an Aspire level at just a few decades old.

But everything changed after her accident. She lost touch with him and the rest of the world, and her life became a never-ending struggle to regain some sense of normalcy. It was only after a long time that she made her way out of that darkness that she saw a path forward, and now the mountain she thought she could never climb seemed so close to the top. Now, despite the long years that had passed, she still wondered what had become of him and whether he had ever thought of her as she had done of him. He was a cute little brother that she was excited to see after such a long time.

"Zindra, have you finished the handoff paperwork?" Arc asked as he walked into the room.

Zindra looked at the huge pile of papers scattered throughout the room. The investigation had been ongoing for a couple of weeks and had become quite a complicated mess with no leads. To make matters worse, a lot of paperwork needed to be sifted through from Pata's home and the central building to find any discrepancies, and they had only just started. At least, that was what it felt like, and not only did she have to do that, but also the work of a supply master since Arc was not going to help with it. He was too distracted by this mystery that had happened, leaving Carter in the orphanage with those children while he ran around during the night to investigate while doing minimum work during the day.

"I just finished what I could, but there is just so much; I might have to give everything directly to the council instead of filling out more papers," Zindra said as she sighed.

"This has become a mess," Arc complained.

Zindra couldn't agree more with the complaint. Eight hundred years of paperwork to sift through between just a handful of people was too much, and the work needed to be double and triple-checked to see if any discrepancies were in the documents. Only Arc could leave the offices to look around and check a few leads he had found on his own; Zindra and the others helping were too busy to leave and had stayed the days and nights working, trying to finish sooner.

"Right, and now I can't find Master Hermes. It's like he just vanished, and I still have questions to ask him."

"I'm surprised you have time to ask questions with all this mess."

"It's because of this mess that I have questions."

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"If that Divine Race Master has answers to these questions, then we have a problem."

"Why would Master Hermes know anything? No, I just don't know what to do with all this. I need direction since I have never had to do something like this before."

"If a mess like this was normal and you knew how to handle it, then I would question how the Seedling society functioned."

"Right, so what needs to be done today."

"The most important lead I have is this census report from a few months ago. It seems that the population that was reported versus the actual population is wrong." Arc said as he handed over a packet of papers

Zindra took the papers and glanced over them. "It seems fine to me, but I know controlling a population is not easy. It could be just a clerical error or something like that."

"No, it's more than that."

"What do you mean?"

"That child at the orphanage from the Snowtopped Race is not on this list, and there are others like that scattered around."

"They must be new then. You know how hard it is to track new entrants. Although the village is small, they can't track everyone."

"The child has been here for over three years, and the others have been here for variable amounts of time ranging from several years to several centuries."

"Strange, but I fail to see the significance."

"That's not the only strange thing. In the last two years, no new Seedlings except those with supplies like us have come to the village."

"That..." Zindra lost herself in thought, trying to think of why this was.

Arc stared in silence as he scratched his chin, "Bring those papers and have a walk with me."

Zindra looked at Arc with a mix of curiosity and apprehension, knowing that she still had work left and that leaving now would only delay it. His face was serious, suggesting that he had a good reason. Despite her reservations, Zindra decided that it would be fine. Any new information to give the council would be good and less work for little Erkden's people. She nodded, grabbing the packet of papers before leaving the office.

As they walked, Arc reached out with his hand to grab the papers that Zindra was looking through. He wasn't looking for anything, just some basic information from the census. They only held an address, the number of occupants, and the average stay in the village. It was a crude population count and control, something that Feyrish would laugh at, but this is to be expected; as Zindra had said, controlling a population of this size was challenging. Arc could only sigh at the skewed view that the Genisis Continent had on the population. A small city on this continent had the same population as the entirety of Feyrish.

"What are you looking for?" Zindra asked

"I don't remember this shop being on the list," Arc said, stopping on a page before gliding his finger down, "See, it ends with this address, but then this is next to it."

"Maybe it's new? I don't remember seeing it the last few times I was here. Let me ask someone?"

Zindra ran up and began talking to several Seedlings. At first, she smiled, but as she spoke to more Seedlings, her face began to take on a more serious tone.

"What did you find out?" Arc asked

"I don't understand. Apparently, this has been here for a couple of hundred years, and the owner is the third generation, but why was it not recorded?"

"interesting... Let us continue to see if there are more places like this."

Over the course of three days, Arc and Zindra ran ragged around the village, searching and following every lead they could grasp. They gradually discovered that the situation was more complicated than they had thought, and all the Alchemic residents of Ambrosia village were required to help with the investigation. As they delved deeper into the issue, they began to uncover strange occurrences that had been ignored, misreported, or silenced. Reports of missing Seedlings numbered in the thousands, yet Zindra had never heard such news. Shops selling goods that should not exist had been in operation for decades, if not longer. Conspiracies about the village and the Alchemic Race were like a plague, and the presence of suspicious individuals seemed to be everywhere. All of the clues pointed to three locations: the central building where the village's politics were conducted, Pata and Mata's residence, the political and spiritual focal point of the Ambrosia Race, and finally, the orphanage that lay just outside of the village, the same that Carter now spent most of his days at.